Colours - Love Heals/ Bad Day At Black Rock Baby

Righteous Beatlesy psychedelic gospel. 

Label: Dot

Year of Release: 1968

It's often a bit lazy to claim that any act is inspired by The Beatles, of course. Most - knowingly or otherwise - are to some degree or another, but then there are others (like The Aerovons, for example) who were so in awe of the group that they obviously couldn't quite escape their gravitational pull and forge an identity of their own. The end results created some good music but left a bunch of talented musicians denied an opportunity to make a firmer impression on the public.

Suffice to say, the first thing you think when spinning the pretty spiffing "Love Heals" by Colours is "Ah, good to hear John Lennon spreading the word of peace and love so forcefully again." The vocals are pure Plastic Ono, the hippyish message is simple, undemanding but strident, and the only thing that sets the group apart is the extreme tidal wave of gospel backing vocals which are several leagues above the door thumping crowd in "Give Peace A Chance". 

That backing - despite the Anglicised spelling of the word "Colours" in the group's name - is the big giveaway that the group are American. They were formed by jobbing songwriters Jack Dalton and Gary Montgomery who had previously written and worked (relatively unsuccessfully) for Motown, and joined by bass player Carl Radle, guitarist David Marks, drummer Chuck Blackwell, and guitarist Rob Edwards in 1967. 

Their debut 45 was "Brother Lou's Love Colony" which utterly stiffed, but follow-up "Love Heals" showed more promise, climbing just outside the Billboard Hot 100 and inspiring several other labels around the world (including the UK) to release it as well. That's not terribly surprising - it's actually an uplifting screamer of a record which somehow manages to mesh the righteousness of the latter-day Lennon with the throttling forcefulness of some of the Beatles earlier records. Had it been issued a year earlier at the height of "flower power" there's a chance it may have connected with the public even more.

Dot Records released their debut LP "Colours" not long afterwards, but it made a fairly minimal impact and the band unravelled with only Dalton and Montgomery remaining in the line-up. Their line-up problems were not helped by the skintdom they were suffering, caused by the fact they were primarily a studio outfit making records that weren't selling enough copies. 1969's follow-up long player "Atmosphere" therefore sounds somewhat different and attracted considerably less acclaim and interest.

Most of the line-up would go on to much greater success, though, with Chuck Blackwell working with Joe Cocker, Freddie King and Sam Cooke, Carl Radle moving on to Derek & The Dominoes, David Marks sessioning for The Beach Boys, and Rob Edwards hooking up with The Challengers. Meanwhile, Montgomery focused most of his future efforts on advertising jingle writing, launching his own company in Detroit, and Dalton moved on to both vocal and harmonica session work for the likes of T-Bone Burnett and Kim Carnes. 

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