Psychedelic tinged pop bemoaning news broadcast bummers
Label: RCA
Year of Release: 1969
The In-Keepers are a tiny bit of an enigma. What we know for certain is that ex-Swingin' Six member Stephen Ramsey Burnett was a pivotal part of the group, penning and singing on all their releases - what's less clear is who accompanied him on his mission.
More baffling still, their second single "That Was Just His Thing" is an unusual slice of what appears to be Christian psychedelia, although none of their other tracks show any particular religious leanings and it's not clear how sincere they were (in that sense it occupies a similar territory to The Blinkers "Original Sin").
What I can seemingly ascertain with a fair degree of accuracy is that they were from the New England area and aside from this debut single and the aforementioned follow-up, there was to be no further recorded material. That's a pity, because both records are fascinating in different ways. This one is a faintly folkish maudlin jaunt around one man's despair at the grave nature of daily news broadcasts. "I don't wanna know... for today everything's going so wrong" the group wail, their close vocal harmonies putting a sugary coating on a very sour world outlook. Still, it's not as if things have got any cheerier in the interim, so you can only sympathise with them.
Burnett later went on to write "Shake A Hand" for Jose Feliciano, which was eventually covered in a reggae style by Jimmy London on Trojan Records. Beyond that though, there's little evidence of any further recorded activity.
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