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. 

It seems quite likely that a group called Hot Love, also produced by Jonathan Peel (not the radio DJ of a similar name, but a jobbing studio worker) and overseen by Mike Vaughan, are the same outfit. They too had a record out in 1971 which was a cover of "Hi Ho Silver Lining" with the Gunston/Dove original "Tapestry" on the flipside. Beyond that, I'm drawing no other facts or indeed even clues about the songwriting duo - in terms of commercially released output, those two B-sides seem to have been their lot, although Nick Decaro did record a version of "Tapestry" on his album "Italian Graffiti" in 1974. 

If anyone knows more, please do drop me a line.

And as always, if the previews below aren't working properly, please go right to the source.