One-off curio from Immigration Officers and would-be pop stars
Label: Decca
Year of Release: 1967
Some records sold so poorly and received so little press attention that there are virtually no facts out there about the groups that recorded them. Sometimes, and more unusually, there's a little scrap of information sitting on the Internet confirming some basic details, but not the full picture, and certainly not any verifiable sources.
So, this is where I nervously announce that's where I stand with The Inquisitive People. So far as I'm aware, two of this four man group - namely Robbie Dunlop and Colin Birt - were HM Immigration Officers with a penchant for live performance in their spare time. Beyond the apparent existence of a signed copy of the record also offering the names "Jayce" and "Colin", I've no idea who the other two members were.
"Big White Chief" is a strange little record, wherein the group perform a minimal Hammond and Hazelwood number about racial equality. "He ain't gonna buckle to the big white chief/ no, he ain't gonna buckle anymore" they gently inform us as an orchestra builds and swells around them, and some bongos tap persuasively in the background. It's a gentle statement rather than a thundering lecture and sounds a bit naive from this distance, but it was undoubtedly well-meaning, and having made its point it finishes surprisingly quickly, shuffling over the hills and out of sight.
