STAR - Children Of The Sun/ Your Time Will Come

Label: Bradleys

Year of Release: 1973

A strange one, this. Bradleys were the recorded music arm of Associated Television (ATV), but unlike BBC Records and Tapes didn't solely specialise in output related to their programmes. The formation of this sister company was largely due to the creation of ATV Music, which began as a publishing house for TV themes but quickly wriggled its tentacles into all kinds of profitable directions, including buying up The Beatles Northern Songs catalogue. 

Bradleys should have been a serious contender in the record charts with such financial muscle behind them, but the vast majority of their output consisted of pop flops - bright, shiny 45s which clearly had their eyes on success but could never quite make it over the line. As a result, the label came and went within three-and-a-half years leaving very little impression on popular culture at all, unlike its parent television company which gave the world The Muppet Show, Family Fortunes, The Golden Shot, and Pipkins. 

The unfortunately named Star were among their many hopefuls, but this was their only recorded effort, and in common with most of their label mates, it achieved nish. Both sides have a pretty and harmonious bright seventies pop feel to them - the early part of the decade was utterly riddled with warm, hopeful songs offering optimistic viewpoints. "Children Of The Sun" opens with slide guitar and a bluesy message, before moving towards a giant hug of a chorus for all the kids everywhere. At the time, serious critics would probably have dismissed this as mere froth, but it's got a richness and bouyancy a lot of the cast-off rock records of the same era frankly didn't have. Why live off cold second-hand blues riffs when you can also let the sunshine in through the curtains occasionally? 

 

Reupload - Tiger Tim - Merry Christmas, Mr. Christmas/ Moving On

 

Label: President

Year of Release: 1975

Given that singles released by radio DJs are normally either super-whacky novelty items or embarrassing attempts by fading names to gain a future on the cabaret circuit, I expected the worst here. Shockingly though, "Merry Christmas Mr. Christmas" is a bit of a festive corker released in a decade that wasn't short of them. 

Pleasingly arranged with an unobtrusive and not at all sickly orchestra, an incredibly sticky chorus and subtle melodic changes, it sounds full of warmth and goodwill, and very much like a hit. If the Bay City Rollers had put it out, you can guarantee it would have been enormous, but in the hands of a local radio star who had little presence outside Scotland, it disappeared from view. 

"Tiger" Tim Stevens began working as a radio DJ in the West of Scotland in 1973, spending most of his career on Radio Clyde where he remained until 2010. 1975 saw him going off-air to attempt a career in music, of which this single and "Stargirl" on the GTO label were the only results. Despite the fact that "Stargirl" used a slightly more voguish glam sound, it also failed to generate sales.

Cleveland People - Looky Looky/ Sands Of Time

 

Label: Philips

Year of Release: 1971

Giorgio Moroder's "Looky Looky" was a million-seller in Europe in 1969, an unashamedly bubblegum smash overloaded with Beach Boys-esque harmonies and that unusual braying and mooing the stripy topped surfing lads loved to do. For whatever reason, British audiences really didn't take to it, though, and it remains largely unplayed and unloved on UK airwaves.

Understandably, some individuals obviously saw an opening a couple of years later. This record seems to be a somewhat cynical, calculated answer to the riddle "What if 'Looky Looky' could have been a hit in the UK, but MCA just screwed up the plugging and marketing?" The Easybeats manager Mike Vaughan stepped up to answer the riddle with his best shot, assembled what I'm 99% sure was a session group in the form of The Cleveland People, and sat back and waited for Philips to do a better job of things.

We all know what happened, of course - it flopped all over again and everyone was presumably forced to conclude that the Brits possibly just weren't into something so intensely sugary after all. Nonetheless, it's a well-produced version, though perhaps would have performed better with a few scuffs around the edges and bigger, bolder driving rhythms.

Of more interest to most readers will probably be "Sands Of Time" on the flip, penned by Carolin Gunston and Peter James Wilson (aka Dove). Soulful, faintly progressive and whiffing of mods trying to find a new direction in the new decade, it may fade far too early, but it's got a mellow maturity which is utterly at odds with the A-side. 

Glory - Anabella/ It's The Way That You Feel It

 

Label: Bumble

Year of Release: 1972

Bumble was a short-lived and rather strange label in the seventies, issuing all manner of styles and genres, from bubblegum to middle-of-the-road pop to - most bafflingly - a live album by the Flying Burrito Brothers. Its incoherent identity was pronounced enough that it was even gently criticised in the trade press, and may have been one small reason the label limped to its death after an uneventful and hitless few years.

A lot of the artists who recorded for it released one record and were never heard from again, and Glory in this case are no exception. Who are they? Sorry, I can't help you there, chief. 

What I can tell you for a fact is that the song "Annabella" is perhaps best known as the B-side of Cliff Richard's "Silvery Rain". Given that "Silvery Rain" climbed to number 27 in 1971, a distinctly underpowered performance by Cliff's usual standards, that's not really saying a great deal - but it's all I've got.

The song itself is a gentle, chiming ballad with lyrics which tilt towards the twee end of the songsmith's spectrum. Once the almost Christmassy intro slips to one side, the song reveals itself to be an attempt at yet another powerful but wistful ballad with an anthemic chorus. "Annabella, um-ber-rella!/ Standing on the corner when the rain comes down/ that's the way I'll always think of you... Annabella/ umbrella CHILD!" they sing, perhaps taking a few cues from The Hollies' "Bus Stop". 

The public were clearly not impressed by this attempt to fetishise rain and umbrellas in such a strident fashion - the songwriters might have got further with PVC raincoats, perhaps - and this single barely sold at all, proving to be one of the harder to trace aspects of the Bumble back catalogue. My copy has obviously been very well  loved as it suffers from some needle-wear, but it's the best you're going to get for now.

The Victors - Take This Old Hammer/ The Answer Is No

 

Label: Oriole

Year of Release: 1965

While other labels splashed slogans like "Where The Stars Are!" or "The Place The Hits Happen!" across their company sleeves, Oriole were arguably an early example of a label taking the outsider indie approach, opting instead for "Young - New - Exciting". With no exclamation marks, a daring surfeit of hyphens, and a simple statement of fact, Oriole's company bags were bright yellow, used modernist typography and pushed a hipper approach. "We're where it's at", they seemed to say, "whereas EMI, Decca and all those old showhorses are way back where it used to be".

It's a fascinating label, featuring material which was sometimes way ahead of the marketplace, albeit often licensed (they were the first UK label to press up records by Stevie Wonder, for example, thanks to an early deal with Motown) and quaint, clodhopping attempts to capture that fast-moving youth market, through Joe Meek produced novelty singles to under-produced beat based fare.

They actually scored a number of hits during the fifties and at the turn of the following decade, but by the mid-sixties were beginning to look neither young, new or exciting, but rather middle-aged, weary and distracted. Besides the main label itself, their Embassy subsidiary (providing Woolworth department stores with cheap, knock-off cover versions of the day's hits) was a good cash cow, and their pressing plant was often hired out to the likes of EMI for pressing over-runs of Beatles records and other major singles where their plant in Hayes was struggling to keep up with demand. With all this going on, it's perhaps inevitable that marketing of the main label began to seem half-hearted by comparison. 

Oriole's approach to master tapes was also unbelievably cavalier, with label bosses believing that they should be continually be wiped and reused, even for hit recordings, rather than waste money keeping a library of tracks to reissue or license to others. It's enough to make a pop music historian's ears bleed with shock.

So then, nestling somewhere in the "missing believed wiped" file is this 1964 beat single from the mysterious Victors. The A-side is a cover of the blues standard "Take This Old Hammer", which in the manner of a lot of Brit Blues of the period is drenched in harmonica and nasally lead vocals. It probably didn't put the fear of God into the Rolling Stones, but it's as good as many of the UK beat-blues efforts of the period.

Reupload - Ebenezer Moog - God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen/ Silent Night

 

Label: Rocket

Year of Release: 1975

Well, here's a bizarre old release. Consisting entirely of Moog and Theremin twiddling versions of two Christmas carol classics, it's hard to understand how anyone thought it would be in-demand. Analogue synths were deeply exciting and increasingly commercial news in the mid-seventies, but the leading proponents tended to be German groups such as Neu! and Kraftwerk, or the more ambitious art and prog rockers.

Alongside the hairier and more thoughtful synth wizards were, of course, lots of electronic stylings of Bach and Mozart and traditional songs on vinyl, and this little 45 seems to fall somewhere between the two stools. The A-side is cheap jollity - you can probably imagine how it sounds before you even press 'play' - but the B-side is very interesting, and if we flex our collective imaginative muscles, it slightly sounds like a precursor to the Ambient House records of the early nineties (and in fact, if I had to pick one example in particular, Jimmy Cauty out of the KLF's "Space" would be the most obvious). Filled with radio samples of astronauts, eerie rumblings and a simple, sweet warbling electronic take on "Silent Night", it's high on atmosphere. True, you get the vague sense that it might have taken all of half an hour to record, but it's one of the better festive Moog covers I've heard.

M.U.5 - Rain-Dance/ Mrs. Watson

 

Label: Crystal

Year of Release: 1972

It's extremely rare to find an old record which is still accompanied by its original press release. While record company hype often means that they should be treated with a grain of salt as accurate sources - back in my old days of student journalism, I got tired of indie bands falsely claiming they'd "even managed to get in the Argentinian/Moroccan/Lebanese/Cypriot top ten with this one!!!" - they're usually at least reliable when it comes to band line-ups.

In this case, though, it's a big old slab of nothing we're offered. "M.U.5 give out with some real hypnotic sounds," the press sheet begins, "Heavy drumbeats, neat guitar chords, and chanting voices that conjure up a spooky atmosphere... Just right for you to get up and do your own thing to!

Look out discos - you could well have a new dance craze on your hands with 'Rain-Dance'".

And that's it. No band history, no line-up, nothing that's of any use to me here. All this leads me to conclude that M.U.5 were some kind of session group who were pulled together to create a possible hit.

Perhaps more interestingly, though, "Rain-Dance" is a bit of a bore it's difficult to imagine anyone dancing to. The flip-side "Mrs. Watson", on the other hand, hits that sweet spot between late sixties popsike and Northern Soul, and would surely have made for a better bet if only it had been released at least four years earlier. The anonymous lead singer rambles on about a haughty next-door neighbour who just won't give him the time of day while strings soar, rhythms pound and frustration seeps out of every rotation of this disc.

Ted Rogers - I Can't Stop Thinking Of You/ All I Need's The Baby

 

Label: Piccadilly
Year of Release: 1965

Only truly lucky famous people get to choose what they're famous for. Talent doesn't always help - even the very talented usually only have one breakthrough moment which resonates with the public and defines them forevermore.

Ted Rogers was a man of many light entertainment skills, performing on the Billy Cotton Band Show, hosting Sunday Night At The London Palladium, and touring and singing alongside Bing Crosby. To most British people, however, he's probably best known as the host of the mind-bendingly complicated quiz show "3-2-1", a programme filled with riddles so obtuse they even caused my father, a keen crossword solver, to throw his newspaper to the floor with exasperation. 

Was Ted then the host of one of the few intellectual quiz shows of the seventies and eighties, or the captain of a crooked ship with fixed prizes? Answering that question would involve an analysis of multiple episodes of "3-2-1", and if you've got the time to do that, be my guest and submit your dissertation to the usual email address by 5th January 2024. All essays which are more than 2,500 words long will not be accepted.

Naturally, Ted's days with Dusty Bin also overshadowed his talents as a singer which, to be blunt, were serviceable but never exceptional. He released three singles in the sixties, of which this was the first. It's exactly as you'd expect, except with a deep depressive streak - Ted closes his eyes and croons away to his ex, telling her that he's essentially obsessed with her and will cry to infinity and continue to keep "hurting himself". Put the razor blades away, Ted, she's bound to come back to you when you have your own hit show on Yorkshire TV.

The Paupers - Southdown Road/ Numbers

 

Label: Verve Forecast

Year of Release: 1969

The Paupers were not exactly a blessed Canadian band. Formed in Toronto in 1964, they prided themselves on a (possibly exaggerated) work ethic and heavily hyped "live tightness", offering audiences in the area a dependable experience for the price of their gig tickets. 

What they sadly lacked was a steady line-up. Between their debut single "Never Send You Flowers" emerging in 1965 and this final effort in 1969, they lost two key original players - vocalist and rhythm guitarist Dan Marion and bass player Denny Gerrard - and were sent on long American tours which didn't result in significant success across the border.

Despite internal HR struggles, their musical journey was surprisingly fast. The debut 45 is without question a naive, slightly ramshackle, spindly fawn of a record which sounds as if it may fall over at any moment. The follow-up "If I Told My Baby" is punchier but still clearly a product of the beat era. 

By 1967's "Simple Deed", however, the group were hairy, laidback and were finally settling into a much more progressive sound, which resulted in a number 21 Canadian hit.  The chart success didn't last, though, and the following album and accompanying single "Magic People" didn't create a huge impression despite a lot of record label backing and hype, managing only to climb to number 178 on the US charts. 

By the time "Southdown Road" emerged the band were on their last legs, skint and in a state of disarray, but it doesn't show in these grooves. While the A-side isn't as memorable as it might be, the flipside "Numbers" is mean, heavy slice of hippy rock which provides no hints to the band's imminent demise.