Wheatstone Bridge Band - Cloudy/ Little Petals

Paul Simon cover from mystery men

Label: Epic

Year of Release: 1968

"Hang on a minute," I expect you're thinking to yourselves, "Didn't Paul Simon's song 'Cloudy' get an outing on this blog very recently?" And yes, you're right. we looked at The Wedgwoods' version of it back in December. It's a fair cop.

But here's my case for the defence - for a non-hit Simon and Garfunkel track, it was picked up by an unusual number of artists. Liverpool Five, The Chicago Loop, The Sandals, Cecil McCartney, The Guild Light Gauge, Richard Anthony and The Factotums, for example. Even proper pop star Cliff bloody Richard had a go at covering it, so it's had a fair number of outings over the years; the odds of bumping into an obscurity with "Cloudy" on it are shorter than you'd suppose.

The mysterious Wheatstone Bridge Band do a very slick and slightly groovy version of it here, filled with fat basslines, pinging harpsichord notes, airy strings and harmonised vocals. It's rich, thick with melody and actually sounds like the kind of FM radio friendly work produced by artists in the early seventies rather than a sixties track. I approached this one with maximum scepticism but I like it a lot now. It's breezy without being insubstantial and is the perfect three minutes for an unsettled Spring day.

Perhaps appropriately given their preferred arrangement stylings, the group moved over to Bell in 1970 to release one more record "Give Me Some More Of Your Love" before disappearing to who-knows-where. However, a Wheatstone Bridge Band with no biography can be found over on YouTube which makes me wonder if they simply carried on as a covers band, entertaining their local populace. I can't imagine there are too many other acts with the same name around. "Citation needed" as always, though.

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