Reupload - Paul Conway - Come A Little Bit Closer/ Be Lonely Little Girl

 

Lovely bit of Orbison-influenced beat from a performer who went AWOL

Label: Piccadilly

Year of Release: 1964

Over the years, "Left and to the Back" has paid host to the work of a number of recording artists who  have just disappeared into the shadows. This is odder than it sounds - most performers, however obscure, are known as the "bloke who was nearly a pop star" or "the woman who still does a turn at the local club" to their local communities at least. Some, on the other hand, just evaporate to the extent that their ex-band members are reduced to starting webpages trying to trace them. 

Paul Conway (real name Roger Newell) had also worked under the name Vern Rogers, and issued four singles on Oriole under that name  from 1962-64 ("Be Everything To Anyone You Love", "He's New To You", "I Will" and "Anna (Go To Him)". All these records failed to chart, and he clearly decided to change his name to Paul Conway to ensure he was no longer saddled with the "flop artist" tag. 

A new contract with the Pye subsidiary Piccadilly delivered two additional records, "Don't Make Fun of Me" and this effort. The former release is a fairly slow paced pop stroller which doesn't advance significantly from his twee teen pop beginnings, but this is a lovely piece of old-school beat drama about a likely lady, filled with quivering vocals, dramatic brass lines and a neat, pounding chorus. The track had previously been recorded by Jay and The Americans who had issued it as a successful 45 in the USA a few months before - this version has a bit more darkness about it, though, and may end up becoming your favourite.

The Truth - Walk Away Renee/ Fly Away Bird

 

Sixties one-hit wonders almost score for a second time

Label: Decca

Year of Release: 1967

The duo The Truth, who consisted of Frank Aiello and Steve Gold, are probably most known for having a minor hit with their cover of The Beatles "Girl" in 1966. While it only climbed to the modest heights of number 27 on the hit parade, they nonetheless achieved something most acts on this blog could barely dream of - chart action, and no doubt a few weeks of red carpet treatment as reward. 

Once that modest breakthrough occurred, the rest of their singles career tended to also be focused on cover versions, from their bold and brilliant take on Donovan's "Hey Gyp" to the sought-after modish take on "Sueno". 

This one possibly came the closest to putting them back in the charts, though. It's a faithful if sparse reading of The Left Banke's hit, a song which has been interpreted and adapted by so many people since its original success that listing all the versions would be a fool's errand. Suffice to say, The Four Tops version was not only a huge seller but also arguably the strongest take, though for people seeking out deeper cuts, The Adventures somewhat buried reading (thrown away on a free EP given with an issue of Record Mirror) is also well worth three minutes of your time.

The Truth take no liberties here and handle the track like fragile wounded romantics. The guitar break, however, is an unexpected moment amidst the folksy despair.

Over on the flip lies a group original, "Fly Away Bird", which has been compiled on Piccadilly Sunshine and remains commercially available, or is also available to listen to on YouTube if you're that way inclined.

Emi Bonilla - Beatlemania Flamenco (EP)

 

The Fabs Take the Costa Brava Plane

Label: Parlophone
Year of Release: 1964

The sheer variety and quantity of Beatles cover versions out there never fails to astound me, and when I see a Beatles tribute record sitting on a shelf, I'm one of those suckers who just can't walk past. It's not that I'm expecting the efforts to usurp the originals, I just want to hear what new avenues have been explored, and any prospect at all of their recordings being bashed into weird and unusual shapes or thrust into unlikely contexts and cultures gets my heart racing.

Some of my purchases have been dire. The Band of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst issued an entire LP of Beatles covers on the Hallmark label. This feels like an experiment in stuffing the Lennon and McCartney songbook into a beaker of water and boiling it with a bunsen burner until all that's left is a fine, tasteless grey powder. Sandhurst's square marching men remove all swing, emotion, mood and groove from the Fabs and reduce their songs to perfunctory marches, managing to make their output sound formulaic and drab. Still, some might call that a statement. 

Emi Bonilla, on the other hand, was (is) a wild, impassioned flamenco peformer who stuffs so much energy and loud vocalisations into the Beatles ouevre that at points here, it sounds almost unrecognisable. There's no questioning its authenticity either - this isn't polished, slickly produced tourist shop flamenco (if such a thing existed in 1964) - this is a dusty, stomping lo-fi racket which despite lacking a beat actually sounds more raucous and uncontrolled than The Beatles were at this stage of their careers. It's not as if any of it was going to get teenagers screaming, but it's rough and raw and probably gave George Martin panic attacks rather than provoking fainting fits among the youthful hordes. 

The Moonstones - Violets of Dawn/ Power of Decision

 

Folkie family trio with their second 45

Label: Parlophone
Year of Release: 1966

Sometimes family connections will rocket you to stardom in the biz. Sometimes, on the other hand, they provide a limited push which might get your records on to the shelves, but won't necessarily set you up with a career for life.

The Moonstones were a family group consisting of Bill, Bob and Ruth Hussey, who got their first big break through their cousin, Mike Leslie, one of Joe Brown's Bruvvers. When he needed backing vocals for a track he was working on, he decided to utilise the folky harmonies of his family rather than hiring further afield. Delighted with the results, he persuaded them to give a music career a serious go, and while the precise details of their efforts, trials and tribulations are lost to history, they had signed to Parlophone by 1965 and put out their first single "Heaven Fell Last Night".

That release was sweet, simple and showed off the trio's smooth vocal harmonies. What it didn't sound like, sadly, was an obvious mid-sixties hit, being far too rustic and old-school, the kind of gentle noise which was being released in 1962 rather than straight into the heart of the sixties. 

Conversely, their follow-up was a cover of Eric Andersen's "Violets of Dawn", and seems to understand both the source material and the era it's landed in. The vocal harmonies are still exquisite, but the overall atmosphere moves away from coy cutesiness and nudges itself ever-so-slightly towards a more West Coast sound. The Mamas and Papas could easily have put this out, but they'd probably have reserved it for an LP than pushed it front and centre as an A-side (though The Blues Project also had a crack at it Stateside). 

Reupload - Colorfull Seasons - Out Of The Blue/ It's Gonna Break My Back

 

Super-obscure but likeable cover of the Tommy James & Shondells track

Label: MGM

Year of Release: 1968

Like most record collectors, I have a regularly updated 'wants list' of scarce records I'm keeping an eye open for. This one sat on it for years on end... so long, in fact, that by the time a copy actually turned up a couple of weeks ago, I couldn't remember why I'd started looking for it in the first place. Doh! What am I like, eh?

The trouble is, I still can't remember. My best guess is that some years ago I was tipped off about this being a good record by a trusted fellow music lover, and took a note of it without giving it an awful lot of further thought. It's a very pleasant and very well performed cover of Tommy James & The Shondells "Out Of The Blue", given a slightly West Coast harmony pop arrangement. Problematically, though, I doubt that the group are actually from the USA, despite its presence on the MGM label or the style of the record (or indeed the use of the word 'color'). This didn't appear to get released over there, and the production team behind this (Harry Robinson and Finito) are UK based, with the former in particular having his fingerprints all over the British sessions of the day.

Who is responsible, then? Well, all the likely evidence points towards the involvement of vocalists Jackie Lee and Barbara Moore, both moonlighting under a group name. Curious stuff. 

The Great Homebrew Compilation Revival

When I first launched this blog over fifteen years ago, there was a trend across the Internet for pulling what I described as "homebrew compilations" together.

These were usually about 80 minutes long (enough to fit on a single CD should the reader decide to "burn" them to one) came with some slightly scrappy cover art you could download if you wanted, and a lot of sleeve notes. They were a great way of giving people an immediate impression of the music your blog would focus on in one giant gulp.

For a whole bunch of reasons these became less common as the noughties turned into whatever the hell we want to call the second decade of the 21st Century, but of course, it's a bandwagon I jumped on, leaving a series of compilations live on here for a few months before the download links evaporated. After that, I was always bothered by the fact that there were whole chunks of very popular pages of this blog lying redundant and unused, shopfronts and billboards for beautiful trinkets nobody could actually hold and admire anymore. 

While skimming around Spotify a few weeks back, I couldn't help but notice that most of the tracks on these compilations were now largely covered by the Spotify database, and obviously couldn't resist creating the appropriate playlists there. And YouTube was like shooting extraordinarily large dolphins in a bathtub - almost all of the tunes were present and correct. 

With that in mind, consider these compilations back (partially, admittedly) on Spotify for your love and attention again:

Wallpaper - the very first one I pulled together in 2008, full details archived here.

Lysergic Diversions - original webpage here

Turnoffs To Nowhere - original webpage here

pop - original webpage here

And if you find Spotify's catalogue gaps aggravating, the above and more are available as YouTube playlists at the following links:

Wallpaper

Lysergic Diversions

Turnoffs To Nowhere

pop

Pictures of Marshmallow Men - original webpage here

Music Soothes The Savage Breast - original webpage here

Deadwood - Me And My Friends/ Little Joe

Sitar and string drenched summer anthem from "Black Is Black" songwriters

Label: Decca

Year of Release: 1971

Despite being released in the seventies, the Deadwood track "That Don't Help Me None", the flipside to their previous single "The Turning Of Them All", has been picked up by three psychedelic sixties compilations now. One of them, "Psychamania", mentions this follow-up disc in its sleeve notes and argues that it doesn't "carry the same weight". 

These things are relative, however. "That Don't Help Me None" is without question a frenzied piece of garage psychedelia which feels as if it fell through a timehole into 1971. Competing with such a furious, staggering monster was always going to be tough. "Me And My Friends" certainly isn't in the same ballpark sonically, but is a nice number - instead of gnashing their teeth and droning away, they opt for delicate sitar drones (themselves relatively unusual in pop by 1971) and country rock feels, all topped off with an anthemic summer chorus. 

You get a sense that Deadwood were slightly in thrall to an era that had passed over their shoulders a mere few years before, and their record company were gently nudging them along in a more contemporary direction. That tension doesn't create the wonders that it might, but does bring us a likeable bit of pop which shouldn't be completely filed away under "missed opportunities". The ambient beach sound effects on the record are also more Margate than Costa Del Sol, giving it a period charm we last heard on Starbreaker's "Sound of Summer", and you'll be humming along in no time.

The retro feels to this single become much more understandable when you realise who is behind the release. While information on the group is hard to come by, the credits to (Tony) Hayes and (Steve) Wadey on both their records suggest they at least were members. Both are probably best known for composing "Black Is Black", a huge hit for Los Bravos, as well as "Up And Down" for Eyes Of Blue. They also had their own beat 45 out in 1966 entitled "What Does She Want?" which failed to take off.

Cuddles - Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On/ Good Golly Miss Molly

Street cleaner invades London Palladium stage, gets one-single deal with Pye

Label: Pye

Year of Release: 1972

There's been a lot of talk in the press lately about the disgraceful behaviour of people at theatre musicals   - getting rat-arsed, singing over the top of the performers, cheering, hitting security staff and generally treating the West End stage as a pub karaoke session. We're not quite in "slash the seats" territory here, but it's close enough. Who knew "Mamma Mia" could get people so hot under the collar?

Jerry Lee Lewis, according to various sources (and my mother) had an even harder time of it in the fifties when he married his thirteen year old cousin. His shows became punctuated with cries of "Dirty old man" and heavy one penny coins being thrown. You have to wonder if he got off lightly - modern day audiences would probably have held a public lynching on the theatre steps. 

Despite his "misdemeanours", British audiences eventually forgave Lewis, and he remained a popular live draw here until his health made continued performances impossible. His earlier hostile reception might explain his unlikely tolerance of over-enthusiastic audience members getting rather too involved, such as the time a street cleaner from St Albans rushed the London Palladium stage in 1972 and started singing along with him. Security guards initially made attempts to control the situation, but Lewis waved them away and allowed the gentleman to continue duetting with him. 

That man eventually became known to the public as "Cuddles" Osborn and was promptly signed to a one-single Pye Records deal. This, I have to say, sounds so bizarrely convenient that a small part of me wonders if it was a fix. Was Cuddles' stage-rushing a very elaborate stunt to bring attention to him ahead of a rock and roll revival single being put out? For all my cynicism, it seems unlikely - I can see no proof that Cuddles was already active on the circuit at the time, and this does appear on the surface to have been a genuinely spontaneous event with a happy outcome.

The Adventurers - (Jane) Doesn't Love Me Anymore/ Cheryl's Song

 

Messy garage rock screamer from Catasauqua, Pennsylvania

Label: Reading

Year of Release: 1967

Collectors and appreciators of sixties garage rock can probably guess exactly what this one sounds like before they even click on the mp3. Droning organ mixed relatively low? Check. Uncertain guitar work bouyed up by enthusiasm and vim rather than technique? Yep. Basic lyrical references to a girl who just isn't paying the singer attention these days, and it's causing him pain? You're good at this, aren't you? Lots of screams, and shouts of "Yeah! Yeah! Weeeooowww!" Of course. It's not as loose, wild or ragged as some examples of the genre I've heard, but it's certainly shot through with energy and glee. 

The Adventurers (and not Adventures as suggested on the label) were from Catasauqua in Pennsylvania, a suburb of Allentown. They had two singles out in the sixties - this one, and "Baby Baby My Heart" in 1966. Neither did very much outside the local area and the band's history is rather sketchy as a result. 

We know that the members consisted of Armedeo Borsetti, Jim Smith, Dave Wagner and Denny Wagner, but in terms of their roles, we can only say with any degree of certainty that Dave Wagner was the bassist, given that he later moved on to the Allentown group The Dooley Invention to pick up four-stringed duties. That group didn't appear to issue any vinyl at the time, but their tracks "Crimson Afternoon" and "No Time" did emerge on the 2005 local CD compilation "Allentown Anglophile".