Gentle George - Toll The Bell For Henry Hollaway!/ Encore

 

Peculiar and somewhat sombre orchestrated psych-pop - was Scott Walker listening?

Label: RCA

Year of Release: 1967

This one has been doing the rounds on auction sites recently as "fab undiscovered popsike!!!", which apparently "won't disappoint" and if the auctioneer is particularly specific, "comes from a smoke free home" (Question: If you're an aficionado of all things sixties psych, would you trust the critical judgement of a seller more or less if the disc came from a smoke filled home?)

When a copy popped up at a reasonable price recently, of course I wasn't going to look away. The strange, explosive nature of the mundane title, the fact the artist was called Gentle George and the absolute bullseye of it being released in late 1967 intrigued me enormously. 

Normally in these situations, the record arrives and it turns out to be the noise of a bar-room entertainer doing his best to croon along to some faintly way-out lyrics backed with a very conservative arrangement. In this case, though, "Henry Hollaway" is strange disc indeed, starting off with "Twilight Zone" styled orchestral arrangements, ticking rhythms, a miserable, deathly piano chord, before the twee none-more-1967 vocals kick in, urging us, almost through gritted teeth, to celebrate the everyman in the song's title. 

Henry Hollaway, it seems, has never achieved anything unusual or done anything exciting, except actually grow a pair of wings and fly, at which point his mother yelled at him crossly to come down, which he immediately did. So fascinatingly, while this song doesn't come close to the ambition or lyrical or musical complexity of Scott Walker's "Plastic Palace People", it's occupying a strangely similar terrain, right down to the odd phased orchestral elements towards the end - except the "burlesque" elements, which are closer to "Jean The Machine". Was Scott listening? It's unlikely, I'd suggest; there's a million miles between a balloon tied to someone's underwear and a man who simply grows wings like Icarus.

Reupload - The Wanted - In The Midnight Hour

 

Storming, urgent garage rock burst of the Pickett classic

Label: A&M

Year of Release: 1967

"In The Midnight Hour" is one of those songs which has has always been buzzing somewhere in the background all my life - on the radio, at parties, in the set of that well-meaning sixth form college covers band who played 'all the classics' their teenage abilities could cope with, on a relative's Atlantic soul compilation in the car... and there is probably nobody reading this right now who hasn't heard it.

However, in the sixties its simplicity made it an attractive set choice for the numerous young garage bands popping up all over the USA, meaning that besides Pickett's powerful and popular original rendition, there are a number of others which sound like a bunch of speedy spotty herberts thrashing around as if the 'midnight hour' in question couldn't come quickly enough. 

The Wanted's rendition is probably my favourite of that set. Sacrificing groove and soul for thrash and fury, it picks the song up, grabs it by the arms and swings around their cramped quarters, bashing it against the walls and ceiling and leaving it in a heap after less than two minutes. Like the best garage tracks, it translates the energy and attitude of a strong but chaotic live show to vinyl with effectiveness, making you feel as if you can taste the cheap, fizzy beer on tap and smell the armpits of the fat bald man in front of you (so maybe it's not all good, then). 

The group were from Grosse Pointe in Michigan. They consisted of Arnie DeClark on rhythm guitar, Dave Fermstrum on organ, Bill Montgomery on bass, Tim Shea on lead guitar and Chip Steiner on drums. According to the Garage Hangover website, the owner of the Detroit Sound label they began releasing records on was the drummer's father Irv Steiner, a mightily convenient connection that presumably enabled them to put out rockers like this one on a label usually reserved for proper soul releases. Sometimes nepotism can work out well for all of us.

Saft - People In Motion/ Albertine Hall

Norwegian folk/prog rockers with their one UK 45 release

Label: Polydor

Year of Release: 1971

The Eurovision Song Contest is huge fun but if there's one horrible way it blighted European society, it was the manner in which Norwegians were stereotyped as musical ignoramuses (in the UK media at least). For years the Norwegians slogged away at the contest valiantly, admittedly putting some ropey entries forward in the process, frequently finishing last and never bettering their record third place (in 1963) until they finally won in 1985, the same year A-Ha broke through into the global mainstream. 

Of course, the Eurovision Song Contest was no more a fair barometer of what was going on in Norwegian music than it was British music. If here in the UK we had more to offer than Black Lace, Cliff Richard and Brotherhood Of Man, it figures that somewhere beneath Norway's highest profile musical moments had to lie a raft of other, better stuff drifting somewhere beneath the televisual radar. 

Saft are a prime example of an inventive and constantly surprising rock band who put out plenty of material which found huge appreciation in Norway at the time, and has since managed to gain a small audience in the UK too. Formed in Bergen in 1969 by Ove Thue (lead vocals and guitar), Trygve Thue (guitars, piano, flute, vocals), Tom Harry (keyboards), Magne Lunde (drums) and Rolf Skogstrand (bass), the group were masterful prog musicians who nonetheless did not eschew melody in their search for impressive fretwork and arrangements. A live performance over on YouTube shows a group who were closer to jazzy or bluesy excursions than flashy freakouts or Stockhausen-esque experimentation. 

There were also folk elements to their music, and they were the first group in Norway to record in the rural Nynorsk language, which set them apart from their contemporaries.  

Len Marten - Champion Red Rum/ Little Soldier

 

Future Coronation Street actor delivers triumphant song-poem about a lovely horse

Label: Jet

Year of Release: 1975

As I already mentioned on our last blog entry about Red Rum, there have been quite a number of songs dedicated to his equine greatness. If the idea of people entering recording studios to sing songs about horses seems odd from a twenty-first century perspective, it's worth noting that Mr Rum was a beacon of cheer during the bleakness of the mid-seventies. Winning endless races and returning money on housewife's bets (and indeed those of vicars, plumbers, retired people and anyone willing to take a punt) he was afforded a celebrity status usually bestowed on top footballers or athletes. The fact he was a horse, and therefore incapable of saying or doing anything daft in interviews, probably helped keep him popular.

Len Marten, on the other hand, was a long-time jobbing actor who had served in the theatre and on the TV series "The Charlie Chester Show". He also dabbled in DJ'ing, songwriting, and television production. The media renaissance man also somehow managed to put this single out as one of the earliest releases on Don Arden's Jet Records label. 

Don Arden was a notoriously unsentimental chap known for dangling business rivals out of high windows, but he certainly knew the marketplace. He could doubtless smell the money in a quick release celebrating Red Rum, but - like so many others who gambled on the equine in music form - he couldn't have been more wrong. "Champion Red Rum" sold terribly, but while it's an absurd use of vinyl, it's not a truly awful affair. Len narrates dreamily about the horse's "guts and heart" while his backing band jangle away in the background, and the chorus turns the ditty into a groovy pub swingalong (I'd be interested to know whether any of the backing group are Wizzard - those horns and the Don Arden connection suggest it's a possibility).

Art Nouveaux - Extra Terrestrial Visitations/ The Way To Play It

 

New Christy Minstrels chap scans the skies for flying saucers

Label: Fontana

Year of Release: 1967

You know what, dear readers, the mid-summer months are always a tough time for this blog. Most eBay sellers are on holiday, and the ones who aren't don't want to risk putting their precious things up for auction at a point when fewer people are around to bid on them. Second hand record stores, meanwhile, seem to hang on to their old tat right until the end of August before putting fresh stock out. 

Records released in 1967 which I've never heard in my damn life before with titles like "Extra Terrestrial Visitations" are therefore catnip to me during this period. What? You expect me to walk past?

This one starts off promisingly enough, with squeaks, beeps and bloops indicating a distinctly 1967 idea of the kinds of sounds a sophisticated spacecraft might make. The song then progresses into a kind of Donovan-esque chugging strum-along down Delusion Lane. "Are you just hallucinations?" the singer asks of the spacecraft. "Altogether just too many sightings/ and a number of informative writings", they continue, proving that Art Nouveaux were doubtless keen visitors to the "Occult" section of the local library, or had been keenly munching on some special tablets, or perhaps both.

The main man behind this track was Art Podell, a folkie with an extraordinarily long history, serving as one of the cast of thousands in the New Christy Minstrels with Randy Sparks. Besides spending time with those leviathans of US folk, he also snuck out a number of recordings of his own, some as part of the duo Art & Paul (Potash). It looks as if this one is an Art & Paul 45 in all but name, with Potash getting a co-writing credit, and the Art Nouveaux name being used to give the impression of a happening group behind the record's grooves.

Reupload - The Zebra - Miss Anne (Ain't That Kind Of Man)/ Groovy Personality

 

Lovely piece of vaguely psychedelic sixties pop with soul B-side

Label: Philips

Year of Release: 1968

A bit of a mystery disc this, but a lovely one nonetheless. On the A-side, the intriguingly titled "Miss Anne (Ain't That Kind Of Man)" is - perhaps disappointingly - a lyrical tale of a haughty lady after a wealthy suitor, and not an "Arnold Layne" styled story. Giddy orchestral arrangements, chirpy fairground organs and strummed acoustic guitars give the whole thing a late sixties hippy pop vibe, and it has a chorus with such a heavy hook that it nudges the track slightly towards the bubblegum side of the street as well.

Confusingly, the flip sounds so different that it could easily be the work of a different band, and I wouldn't be amazed to find out that it was. "Groovy Personality" is closer to soul-pop, with much more impassioned vocals and a less frivolous feel.

The fact that Paul Leka appears to be up to his neck in this work only adds to my suspicions that this is a studio group. Leka has also worked as a producer and arranger with The Lemon Pipers, Steam, Peppermint Rainbow, The Left Banke and The Palace Guard, and for a time seemed to be everyone's go-to guy for luxurious, paisley pop arrangements. Famously, he also penned "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye" and "Green Tambourine", both huge hits of the era. Later on, he also worked with REO Speedwagon, which fits the general story less well but is a interesting fact to throw out nonetheless.

The Sundowners - Where Am I/ Gotta Make Their Future Bright

Shel Talmy produces and Peter Lee Stirling writes this Kent group's final 45

Label: Parlophone

Year of Release: 1965

Oh, this is so confusing. For reasons presumably known only to bad admin and poor communication across the British gig scene, there were three groups called The Sundowners active in the sixties - one was from Scotland, the other were London based, the third were from Folkestone in Kent. In the past, I've managed to land my foot straight into a large clump of research cowpat by confusing the Scottish group with the London one. This, I am 99% sure, is the Kent bunch, although if you want to nip into Ladbrokes and bet against that, be my guest.

This lot were a busy bunch locally right through until the mid-nineties, and on a national level are perhaps best known - among those who really care about this stuff - as the first British group to cover "House of The Rising Sun" on the flipside of their debut single "Baby, Baby". While that version has none of the abrasiveness of The Animals smash rendition, it marked the group out as a tasteful and knowing bunch in a manner the beaty pop of the A-side probably didn't.

The group followed it up with a second single on Piccadilly in January 1964 ("Come On In"), then backed Linda Doll for a final Piccadilly 45 in February 1964 ("He Don't Want Your Love Anymore") before jumping to Parlophone in 1965 for this final outing.

"Where Am I" is notable for having been produced by Shel Talmy, although unlike his work with The Kinks, The Creation and The Who during the same period, this is gentle, subtle stuff, an eerie ballad backed with echoing female vocals, pattering drumming and atmospheric, tingling guitar work. Heard without knowing the producer responsible, you might even incorrectly guess that Joe Meek was responsible for this; it has the same faintly paranoid and boxed-in claustrophobic feel and has perhaps been rather unfairly overlooked. Talmy might not have been creating his usual noise and mayhem here, but it's still the sound of a man who knew exactly how to manipulate the studio.

Sherman - If You Could Read My Mind/ Find My Way Back Home

 

Bizarre and overblown Gordon Lightfoot cover backed with organ-drenched rocker

Label: Pye

Year of Release: 1972

Gordon Lightfoot's "If You Could Read My Mind" has been subjected to many cover versions over the years, most (if not all) of them barely registering with the public. Gordie's original is both impossible to improve upon and too subtly intricate to allow much room for wild interpretations. Those lyrics, focussed on the crumbling state of his marriage, require a gentle touch - you can't just pack them up and move them to Rockville or the dancefloor without sounding like a very peculiar performer indeed.

Perhaps that's why Hull singer Dev Douglas - aka Sherman - took a pair of giant scissors to them in this rendition, which hacks out some of the more despairing imagery and leaves us with... well, patent nonsense to be truthful. That unsteady editing does, however, allow a bombastic seventies production to work its way in, with wah wah pedals, orchestral swells, soulful hollering, a choir of female backing vocals and the entire damn kitchen sink thrown in. 

I still can't make up my mind what I actually think of it. On the one hand it's an audacious cover version, the kind of thing you can imagine Jarvis Cocker nodding approvingly at, but on the other there's a very fine line between audacious and ridiculous. Fantastically arranged this might be, but it sounds like the noise of a breakdown (somebody losing the plot, making out they're OK when they're not?) rather than the gentle acoustic contemplation of life's tragic twists and turns Lightfoot intended this to be. It's one man howling on the floor, bare chested but for a medallion, while the noise of his partner's wheelie suitcase thumps down the hallway stairs. 

The flipside is a pretty mean little rocker penned by Barry Blue (here operating under his "Green" alias) which I feel less ambivalent about. Blue also produced and co-arranged the A-side, proving that he was largely responsible for the concept.

The Cheetahs - Whole Lotta Love/ The Party

Fantastic group-penned single by Brum wonders

Label: Philips

Year of Release: 1965

Time has been unkind to The Cheetahs. In the early to mid-sixties they were a big hit on the Midlands gig circuit, cutting a starry (if gimmicky) dash in their leopard print clothes and delivering a thumping beat group noise. Their discography also boasts two minor hit singles (1964's "Mecca", which got to number 36, and 1965's slightly messy "Soldier Boy" which managed number 39) and yet... and yet....

Well, when's the last time you heard anyone say anything about them? Acres of wordage have been spun and gallons of froth spewed over other Midlands acts whose careers never amounted to a bean, and yet despite their hits, The Cheetahs are unlikely to get a retrospective in Record Collector anytime soon.

The group penned effort "Whole Lotta Love" is rock solid evidence that they had what it took, though. While the sound may resemble The Everly Brothers at their most thundering, the song itself is a delicious slice of beat bickering, with the two vocalists in the band trading insults over their chances with a lady (who, we learn in the pay-off final moments, is already spoken for anyway). Snappy, catchy and pounding, and with an irresistible false ending, this is a record you would have thought somebody would have stuck on a sixties rarities compilation by now, but apparently not - though even their hits, small though they may have been, have been given scant regard in that respect. 

The group began life as The Ekos in 1961, and after a number of line-up changes amended their name to Carl Baron and The Cheetahs in 1963. At this point, Carl Baron was on vocals (logically enough), with Euan Rose on drums, and brothers Nigel Wright on guitar and Rodney Wright on bass.  

Baron packed up for South Africa after one single on Columbia (the somewhat unfortunately titled "This Is Only The Beginning") and the group were left to find another vocalist in Ray Bridger, who stayed with them for the rest of the sixties and a further five singles on Philips (the aforementioned "Mecca" and "Soldier Boy", and "Goodbye Baby (Baby Goodbye)", this one and the final hurrah "Russian Boat Song").