The Pattersons - I Can Fly/ An Cailin Deas

Pretty, bewitching and wonderful popsike from unlikely Irish folk source

Label: CBS

Year of Release: 1970

It's probably surprising to nobody, but songs about flying were everywhere during the generally accepted(*) 1967-1970 peak of popsike, from George Harrison's attempt for The Beatles, to Windmill's "I Can Fly", to the Portebello Explosion's "We Can Fly", and on the list goes... as we well know, when reaching for the rhyming dictionary "fly" is very close to "high" indeed, and that was a sensation groups were keen to communicate at that time.

This single from Irish folkies The Pattersons has no relation to Windmill's single, though, and is actually a genuinely beautiful, intricate creation, brimming over with subtle wah-wah guitars, saxophones, strings and close harmonies across a blissful three minutes. Lyrically, it's disappointing and doesn't stray far from fairly standard Hallmark greetings card waffle about "peace on earth" and tranquility, but the song itself weaves its spell magnificently, sounding more like the work of the Mamas and the Papas at their finest. It's sumptuous, readers, and I'm really shocked its sat under the radar for so long - weren't we supposed to have picked this particular barrel dry long ago?

The Pattersons were a family group (initially Billy, Christine, Dorothy and Ronnie, until Christine bailed in 1969) from Letterkenny in County Donegal, who were big news in Ireland at that time having their own TV series in 1969, and even appeared on the "Morecambe and Wise" show in the UK. While their records sold well in Ireland, with their first single "I Don't Want To Be A Memory" climbing to number two in the Eire charts, their efforts are less commonly chanced upon in the UK - their label CBS released most of them there, but the British public weren't keen purchasers of most of their output.

Thor Baldursson - Arlene Chatreaux/ The Tin Soldier Painter

Gentle Icelandic popsike of the folky kind

Label: Decca

Year of Release: 1967

While Iceland is arguably one of the most culturally engaged nations in Europe (possibly even on Earth?) with its absurdly high literacy levels, enviable number of writers and artists, and thousands of all-round general everyday dabblers, their music hasn't always exported well. Prior to Bjork and The Sugarcubes in 1987, and bands and artists like Bellatrix, Sigur Ros, GusGus and Mum who rushed through once they pushed through the bracken, there was... not much that sold outside the country's borders, actually. Thor's Hammer went through a period of producing some fantastic mod-pop barnstormers in the mid-to-late sixties which really should have sold well in the UK, but the fact they were never officially released here put paid to that.

That wasn't true of all Iceland's performers, though. Thor Baldursson couldn't have been less like those Nordic purveyors of Freakbeat, and had a much more subtle, threadbare, contemplative folky take on the world. Perhaps this gentleness made him seem like a safer proposition for Decca, who issued this, his solitary British 45.

The flipside has started to generate a bit of interest among psychedelic collectors for its "popsike" subject matter and qualities. Sure enough, "The Tin Soldier Painter" ticks most of the toytown bingo boxes, lyrically referencing childish hobbies, organ grinders, and strange men with bric-a-brac shops. The fey, gentle, cheery melody is also undercut with a faint sense of mournful doubt as well, which is another definite plus. Overall, though, Thor's delivery is too deep, gravelly and sincere to completely place it in the middle of a technicolour village fete or fayre.

I actually prefer the rather more ignored A-side "Arlene Chatreaux" which is a pretty, well-arranged ballad Thor handles with the right degree of subtlety and charm. Far too threadbare and seriously folky to chart, its lain neglected for a bit too long. At some moments, the orchestration lends the track a feel not entirely dissimilar to early Nick Drake, which is a serious plus point.

Adam Mike and Tim - Flowers On The Wall/ Give That Girl A Break

For those about to self-isolate, we salute you

Label: Columbia

Year of Release: 1966

The unimaginatively named Adam, Mike and Tim - who, for a period, were actually Tim-less, having a man called Peter on entirely fraudulent Timothy duties instead - began their recording careers by taking a beat pop direction with their debut 45 "Little Baby" in 1964 before taking a folk rock tack.

Perhaps they knew they were playing to their strengths. With their impeccable vocal harmonies and homespun rustic charm, the trio managed to be both vaguely hip and earthy but also ideal slick, professional filler on TV and radio. Blessed with a large number of "Thank Your Lucky Stars" appearances and some airplay in the UK, they must have seemed likely to have a hit through their continual media presence alone.

As it turns out, the public were broadly indifferent to their records, and even when they recorded an extraordinarily prescient and sitar-drenched cover of the Paul Simon track "A Most Peculiar Man" in April 1966, they remained sidelined. That would prove to be their final recorded effort.

Their fourth single, however, was an utterly ace cover of the Statler Brothers track "Flowers On The Wall" which imitated the harmonies of the original with pin-point accuracy, but also added a certain frantic and sardonic rush, making this for me by far the better version. Gone are the finger-pluckin' hoe-down vibes, and in place is a stomping piece of sardonic Brit-folk.

Numerous people have pointed out that lying behind the chirpiness of "Flowers On The Wall" is clearly the tale of one individual driven to isolation, madness and denial by the world around them. The line "Playing solitaire with a deck of 51" is probably the ultimate give-away - the insinuation that someone is playing without a full deck doesn't need to be spelt out. Perhaps in these times of Coronavirus and self-isolation, though, a new meaning could be brought to the song, though I doubt we'll be so desperate that we'll be watching "Captain Kangeroo" to pass the time.

Wendy Peters - Morning Dew/ I Don't Understand

Another top notch cover of the apocalyptic folk song

Label: Saga Opp

Year of Release: 1968

For a song that has - to the best of my knowledge - never actually been a hit in the UK, Bonnie Dobson's "Morning Dew" has seriously done the recording session rounds over the years. Covered by the likes of the Grateful Dead, Lulu, Jeff Beck, Tim Rose, Nazareth, Clannad, Devo, Robert Plant, Lee Hazlewood and Episode Six (and no, that's not a complete list either) the eerie, sinister, non-specific apocalypse outlined in the song has captured the imagination of many musicians. The foreboding line "What they were saying all these years has come true" is a fantastic, skewering lyrical hook which sums up humanity's tendency to assume things will sort themselves out in the end, until the very moment that they don't, and the situation is too late to resolve.

It can't hurt that the song is almost impossible to mess up, either. Simple, direct and powerful, all it needs is an expressive vocalist and a reasonable arrangement to work. Most listeners regard Tim Rose's version as the definitive one, but for my taste Episode Six's take is an undersung piece of brilliance, being filled to the brim with melodrama and mystery.  

Wendy Peter's version here is probably one of the more obscure efforts, but doesn't mess with the palette too much. Her voice rings loud, sharp and clear and the arrangement takes its cues from Rose's. The fact that it was released on Saga, a small budget label, inevitably means that the production sounds a little bit brittle at times, but at no point does that subtract from the song's power.

The B-side "I Don't Understand" shows a punchy girl-pop side to Peters' abilities too, kicking and stomping its way through two minutes of a relationship tantrum. 

The Majamood - 200 Million Red Ants/ Faces Amassed

Lo-fi fuzz-guitar ridden folky protest about Chinese communism

Label: WIRL

Year of Release: 1966

All record collectors come across vinyl that bothers them in the wee small hours of the morning, not just with the questions "Who did this?" but "Who enabled them?" The music business may be many things, but it's seldom generous with its money - it knows its markets, and few releases are ever done as favours or frivolous gestures. Everyone, from the band to the record label owner, usually expects some kind of dividend to emerge from a release, whether it's an increase in credibility or proper sales.

On those standard levels, then, this release makes no sense at all. The WIRL label, which stands for West Indies Records Limited, dealt in the kind of regional fare you'd expect. Anyone anticipating a reggae or ska release in this instance, however, would be surprised by what they hear when the needle hits the grooves - this is fuzz guitar infested folk with the kind of production values you'd expect from a group recording in a community hall after-hours. 

The A-side "200 Million Red Ants" worked its way on to the "Circus Days" series of compilations, which is how I first became aware of it. It's a doomy, sombre meditation on the rise of communism in China and how a serious watch needed to be kept on such things - well, it's either that or a literal protest song about red ants on the lawn (my garden got colonised by the little bastards last year, and let me tell you, they do destroy the lawn. It also counts as the only time I've ever had this single as an earworm). The flip is yet more of the same, leaving you with the impression that the group had an obsessive focus on this particular topic. 

The Slade Brothers - Love and Comfort/ Clearly I See

Canadian ex-pats with contemplative debut single

Label: Pye
Year of Release: 1965

The Slade Brothers are probably best known to record collectors for their hypnotic, fuzz-guitar driven third single "Peace In My Mind". That really was a complete anomaly in their catalogue, though, with its vaguely hippy-ish undertones acting as a red herring against what was a rather 'straight' folk and pop orientated career.

The pair Jack Klaeysen and Ralph Murphy (not real brothers, you'll note) hooked up in Wallaceburg, Ontario in the early sixties, and began composing songs together. After hearing The Beatles for the first time, they decided that the North American continent clearly wasn't where it was at anymore, and in winter 1965 took a ship to Liverpool to try their fortune over here.

On board, they had the good fortune to meet Joe Collins, Joan Collins' father, who saw them entertaining passengers and asked them to consider inking a deal with his talent agency. The fact that they seemingly thought he was a chancer on a wind-up meant that the boys didn't sign on the dotted line until some weeks later, but not long after seeking him out they began to get major support slots with acts such as The Pretty Things and The Byrds, and a deal with Pye.

"Love and Comfort" was their debut single on the label in 1965, released a mere four months after their voyage - most groups, then and now, would gasp at breaks emerging so rapidly - and shows a pair of already slick performers producing minimal, pretty folk ballads. It's a little naive, and really doesn't sound anything like a hit, but acted as a strong springboard for future releases.

Reupload - The Household - 21st Summer/ Winter's Coming On

Folksy harmony pop from Blackpool which sounds particularly beautiful on the wintery flipside. 

Label: United Artists
Year of Release: 1968

Another one of those records dealers everywhere are prone to telling fibs about. Oft labelled as a "psychedelic rarity", this actually sits more in folk/ sunshine pop territory, straddling the divide between the Mamas and the Papas and rather more rootsy music.

"21st Summer" is a cute, rustic little tune which has been enjoyed by a few sixties aficionados over the years, but doesn't sound like a hit single at all, which would go a long way towards explaining why it wasn't one. The B-side "Winter's Coming On", on the other hand, is a lot busier and sprightlier and also more appropriate to the present time of year (unless you're reading this in the Southern hemisphere). It has the same combination of pleasingly tight vocal harmonies and kick and bounce of a lot of the best folk-rock of the period, and deserves a bit more attention than it's actually had.

As for The Household, they're something of an enigma - there's very little information available about them, although apparently they were one of the first acts United Artists picked for their new release schedule as a fully fledged "proper" label in Britain (rather than a subsidiary) so clearly somebody in the organisation had high hopes for them.

Reupload - The Charades - Hammers and Sickles/ Left Wing Bird

Bizarre and faintly hysterical anti-Communist and anti-Socialist folk.  

Label: Monument

Year of Release: 1966

The Cold War is responsible for producing some very interesting pop music. The eighties thrived on it, and even if it wasn't often explicitly mentioned in songs and videos, its looming shadow could be felt within the chilly production and bombastic arrangements. And similarly, back in the sixties the folk movement would have been less abrasive and packed less of an urgent, defiant punch had it not been for two giant opposing countries with piles of idealism (the romanticism of common ownership versus the powerful idea of capitalism being a conduit for meritocracy and enabling Freedom). Expressed in such simplistic terms, it was pure propaganda on both sides, of course - left without the right checks and balances and existing in a pure, unchallenged form, any system will eventually go to rot.

This single turned up in a job lot auction recently, and is odd to say the least. Divorced of its original context, it sounds like a faintly futile gesture. The A-side "Hammers and Sickles" sounds bizarrely hysterical, like the last ever Capitalist campfire singalong in defiance of the advancing Red Army. The lyrics seem to be suggesting that Communists were encouraging children to play with the Little Red Book rather than "crayons". "I like walking through fields of flowers knowing that I can own it all" the band also declare haughtily, which if you want to interpret it literally seems to suggest that a slice of American soil can eventually be anyone's if they earn it - something which still doesn't apply to any public land so far as I'm aware. You can walk back and forth across Yellowstone Park on some sort of sponsored anti-Commiethon until you collapse, The Charades, you're still not going to win the opportunity to buy it one day.

Telephone Bill & The Smooth Operators - Cruisin'/ Pinball Wizard

Bluegrass cover of The Who classic. There's something you don't hear everyday.

Label: Weekend

Year of Release: 1977

I'm sure I've mentioned it on here before - good God almighty, I've written over a thousand blog entries on here in the last ten years, you can't expect me to be Captain Originality all the time - but the mid-seventies were a weird gold-rush period for musicians on the light entertainment circuit. Any musical act whose innovative or thoughtful routines regularly featured on shows like "Pebble Mill" or "New Faces" tended to get a record contract, even if only for a few singles. Very few managed hits, but the seven inch single boxes of charity shops the length and breadth of the land are filled with the kind of acts who appeared on programmes like "Hi Summer" or were frequent interlude acts on mid-table chat shows.

Labels like York, run by Yorkshire Television, and Weekend, owned by LWT, tended to showcase these people as well, and while neither are great labels for prog, psychedelia or proto-punk, they do showcase some reasonably unusual things. Telephone Bill & The Smooth Operators are, it's fair to say, not a completely run-of-the-mill act. Performing a blend of folk, country and swing, their songs could whoosh past in the blink of the eye and the blurring of fingers on the fretboard. Such family-friendly energy caused them to be frequent guests on television and radio as well as tireless workhorses of the national folk circuit.

Arthur's Mother - On The Dole/ Butterfly

Joyous folk-rock A-side backed by slightly psychedelic flip

Label: Polydor

Year of Release: 1971

John Bryant has featured on this blog a number of times, and perhaps unsurprisingly so. Despite his rather hitless career from the mid-sixties onwards, he nonetheless released a constant stream of singles throughout that decade and the seventies. None of these records really improved his fortunes any, and his resilience is certainly something to be admired.

This track was given not one but two releases by Polydor, this being the first outing under the group name of Arthur's Mother. While it seems doubtful that this was much of a proper, touring band, the line-up apparently consisted of Bryant on vocals and guitar with Arthur Kitchener on keyboards, Graham Deakin on drums, and Mike Wedgewood on brace. On its second issue, the group name was dropped and the single was credited to Bryant alone.

Edward - Yr Arwerthwr (EP)

Welsh folk with a glint in its eye

Label: Sain

Year of Release: 1970

Well, here's a thing. Sain is a rather collectible and sought-after indie label, and has found its tracks compiled by many keen students of vinyl esoterica. Edward, though - or Edward M Jones to give him his full title - has always been strangely absent from modern Welsh language tracklistings everywhere.

That's perhaps understandable in one sense, as the music he created was frequently jaunty rather than deep and maudlin, and had a spring in its step without being particularly psychedelic or hippified. You could call his work a bit "square", even. Yet at the time, Edward was actually quite a significant figure in Welsh music, actually releasing a joint EP with the sixties Welsh superstar Mary Hopkin, with the pair even holding hands on the sleeve. Perhaps even more importantly than that, depending on your point of view, he also recorded children's Welsh language albums with Dafydd Iwan, then the president of Plaid Cymru.

So far as I can discern from the sleeve here,  he was - and presumably still is - also a Welsh nationalist and keen promoter of the Welsh language, which was also a large part of his dayjob with his young pupils as a teacher at Yshgol Cymraeg Bryntaf school in Cardiff.

Marc Reid - For No One/ Lonely City Blue

Faithful but slightly baroque styled cover of The Beatles track

Label: CBS

Year of Release: 1966

I've often wondered why there hasn't been a volume of Rubble - or a similar series - dedicated entirely to obscure Beatles covers. God knows there are enough of them to pick from, and despite the record label or the artist's manager's best hopes, the vast majority seemed to be complete flops.

Perhaps one reason such a project has never seen the light of day is the fact that very few of these releases messed with the original template much. For every track like The Score's "Please Please Me" (better than the original, in my controversial yet humble opinion) there are dozens if not hundreds of carbon copies of Fabs tunes - especially their album tracks, which record labels loved to take a punt on, hoping to repeat the success of Marmalade's "Ob La Di Ob La Da" or St Louis Union's "Girl".

Marc Reid's version of "For No One", then, isn't an especially radical reworking, but it does feature a thrumming harpsichord, woodwind arrangements and Reid's polite, rounded, considered vocals. As such, it's astonishing it hasn't featured on a "Fading Yellow" or "Piccadilly Sunshine" compilation yet, where it would be completely at home. It's a very pleasant listen indeed. If the data I have on its release date is correct, it was issued on exactly the same day (5th August 1966) as The Beatles "Revolver" LP, which would suggest that someone at CBS or his management heard an advance demo of the album and whisked him into the studio as quickly as possible to record a cover - such opportunism sometimes paid dividends for artists in the sixties, but it didn't work in this instance. 

Deena Webster - Your Heart Is Free Just Like The Wind/ Queen Merka And Me

Label: Parlophone

Year of Release: 1968

Deena Webster has become something of a cult figure in folk circles in recent years. Her solitary LP "Deena Webster Is Tuesday's Child", recorded when she was a mere eighteen years old, was released in 1968 and sank without trace. Fans of the record are keen to point out her rich, appealing and innocent vocal delivery and interesting interpretations of established classics.

A number of singles were also issued throughout the period, of which the most popular among collectors is her version of "Scarborough Fair". This, her second release, is also worthy of some attention too, though, not least for her cover of Janis Ian's "Queen Merka and Me" on the flip, which combines rich orchestral arrangements with (towards the end) some absurd studio effects. Webster's voice is in fine form and the song gets increasingly giddy as it progresses.

Despite a small degree of media attention and a promising start, Deena Webster appears to have disappeared without trace not long after her last single "Things Men Do" was issued in 1970. However, her LP was recently reissued by Record Collector magazine. 

John Bryant - Tell Me What You See/ Poor Unfortunate Me

Label: Fontana

Year of Release: 1965

We've touched on the work of John Bryant on this blog before, examining the ultra-obscure (£162 to you, squire) single "A Million Miles Away/ It's Dark", which was handed down to me from my parent's record collection. 

That particular single is a likeable and folky piece of work, with (as one reader pointed out to me) a flip that's very reminiscent of Cat Stevens. This single, however, was Bryant's Fontana debut and is an entirely different affair, being a distorted, snarling piece of folk-rock with distinctly Dylan leanings. Taking a very basic garage riff and piling surrealist lyrics on top ("clouds that move beneath the sea/ preachers dressed in leather") it's so beatnik it hurts - and is actually quite forward thinking for a British solo artist in 1965. Donovan might already have been around doing his best Bobby impressions, but he was seldom as rough and ready as this.

This may have been his (flop) debut single, but John Bryant actually enjoyed a long career in music after this, issuing further 45s for MCA, Polydor and Private Stock (the MCA single "I Bring The Sun" is a favourite of many collectors) only really ceasing recorded activities in 1978. He also wrote "Dear Old Mrs Bell" for The Shadows in 1968, and Cliff Richard recorded his track "She's a Gypsy".

These days he owns Abbeywood Films and the graphic design, animation and soundtrack firm Bryant Whittle, from where he's still penning music for commercial use.

Jon Isherwood - Old Time Movies/ Apple Pie

Label: Parlophone

Year of Release: 1969

You may remember that way back in those heady, summery, olde worlde days of August 2016 I uploaded Mike Quinn's version of "Apple Pie" to this blog. It's worth a read if it passed you by at the time, purely and simply because "Apple Pie" strikes me as representing something of a turning point in the general perception of The Beatles among their showbiz peers. In the early sixties, the group were lionised by other musicians, but by the end of the decade the piss-taking had set in as some dared to suggest that they were rather silly boys with highfalutin ideas. 

As I state on that blog entry, the emergence of the Apple boutique was a heavenly gift not just to hippy thieves, but also satirists: "Opened up as a boutique-come-talent-funding-facility-come-technological-research-lab-come-record-label-come-hippy-commune-come-whatever-the-hell-was-in-the-Fabs-heads-that-given-day, the business gullibility of Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Starr became grimly apparent now Epstein was no longer around to keep watch. While many clothes and valuable items were stolen from the boutique by anarchic hippies, the Fabs apparently also funded some "interesting" artistic research schemes which went nowhere. The person responsible for most of this work gets highly litigious when they're mentioned anywhere, so for the sake of a quiet and uncomplicated life, let's just say that nobody can really remember whether The Beatles were promised a large quantity of Electric Paint from somebody working for them or not, or a Special Invisible Security Force Field - what we do know is that many rumours have cropped up over the years insisting that they did. And even if those rumours aren't true, they paint a very interesting picture of other's perceptions of the organisation at that time. There's no question that Apple leaked money from seemingly every department and squandered a large part of the fortune The Beatles had built up. Apple had always sounded like a tremendously utopian idea, and unfortunately it's these businesses - in the media, technology, the arts or elsewhere - which tend to hit Earth at a very rapid velocity, whatever the wealth or good intentions of their original owners."

So "Apple Pie", later compiled on the "Circus Days" compilation series issued by Strange Things, and still commercially available on the usual sites, goes for the jugular, pointing out the sheer preposterousness of the Fabs and their hangers-on. I can't include it in full here due to the fact that you can nip over to your local friendly internet music store and get yourself a copy for less than a pound, but suffice to say Isherwood's original version is the definitive one for me, full of scorn and vinegar, and packed with music hall styled silly voices mirroring both the Fab's own media obsessions and the comedic nature of their own lives at this point. Isherwood apparently had strong feelings about Apple due to a short-lived association with them which bore no fruit (no pun intended). According to the "Pompey Pop" blog, he even kept a cheque signed by George Harrison rather than cashing it, purely because he figured out that the paltry sum in the total box was worth less than the man's signature.

While "Apple Pie" has probably become Isherwood's best known track to people who aren't folk music buffs, the man was in fact one of Portsmouth's top folk singers and songwriters, producing two LPs in the seventies ("A Laughing Cry" on Decca, and "A Bellyful Of Isherwood" for Sweet Folk And Country in 1974). Rather like Connolly and Carrott, Isherwood was a tall tale telling folk performer during this period, whose natural rapport with his audiences also lead to some attention on the comedy circuit, although not to the extent that those two stars managed.

The A-side here, a cover of Hammond and Hazlewood's "Old Time Movies", has also been neglected. It's a rinky-dink piece of sixties music hall mania which hasn't been compiled anywhere perhaps primarily because it doesn't cross the line from "Quite good" to "unquestionably worthy of your attention" - but still, fans of "Apple Pie" will want to know what it took second billing to, and it's certainly a likeable listen. The Beatles old label Parlophone clearly didn't warrant it good enough to give him a second try, however, and it remains his sole release for them.

As for what Isherwood is up to now, I'm sorry to report that he died at least twenty years ago, but towards the end of his life in the nineties he upped sticks from Pompey to move to Moate in Ireland where he became a regular folk performer and much-loved character in the town.

I've only included a brief excerpt of "Apple Pie" below - if you really want to hear it in full for nowt, YouTube is your friend.

Us Folk - Funny Old World/ Dives

Label: Eyemark

Year of Release: 1965

Eyemark was a peculiar and very small sixties label which appeared to have no coherent identity to speak of  - while initially they focused on the folk and Christian markets, they eventually took on beat pop, the psychedelic pop of the Purple Barrier (aka the Barrier) and, still more peculiarly, recorded highlights of steam train journeys. Perhaps their oddest and most celebrated release is the infamous Queens Park Rangers Supporters song "Supporters Support Us" which is just a psychedelic freakout with football chanting attached, as heard on Danny Baker's radio show.

There were no mindblowing surprises in store for this, their debut release, though. "Funny Old World" is essentially naive, socially conscious folk music - and certainly not a variation on "football's a funny old game" - with a heavy bathroom echo on the vocals. Acoustic, skeletal and with only the odd drum thump included as a slight concession to the folk-rock trends of the day, it's a sweet little single with a simple message, and it's delivered in a professional way. 

The flipside "Dives" apparently won the Christian Aid folk and beat competition in 1965, which would have made it top choice for the A-side, one would have thought... but Eyemark buried it. It's a more ambitious, jazzy arrangement, but it does sound exactly like you'd imagine a charity folk and beat contest winner to sound; it tries to swing, but it's as stiff as a church spire. 

I have no idea who Us Folk were, but they seem to have connections to (or possibly actually are) the West Eleven Seven, a Notting Hill based bunch of Christian folkies who also worked with the singer Sydney Carter. They apparently appeared on BBC Television during the religious programme "Seeing and Believing" in 1965. An EP of their tracks, "Notting Hill Born" seems to command some interestingly high prices online these days, whereas "Funny Old World" doesn't.

The Hallmarks - One Way Street/ Johnny's Gone For A Soldier

Label: Polydor

Year of Release: 1967

Before they really got a grip on the UK market, Polydor released a slurry of flop singles which were barely heard at the time, and have drifted into absolute obscurity since. These were often by artists who haven't even managed to gain an entry in the usually exhaustive "Tapestry of Delights" encyclopaedia of sixties pop. 

That's certainly the case with The Hallmarks here, who appear to have been a folk rock group based in Britain (though it's hard to say for sure). The A-side here, "One Way Street", is a rather underproduced but strident piece of work, with the vocals somewhat suffocated in the mix by a treacle of chiming guitars and thumping drums. No matter - the song itself is actually an enjoyable example of the folk rock genre, containing close Mama and Papas-esque vocal harmonies, wintery sleigh bells, and a jingle jangle morning air. With a more sympathetic mix, it's possible to imagine this having been a hit, however by January 1967 folk rock was beginning to seem a bit passe, and more ambitious songwriting and production was beginning to shape the pop landscape.

Whoever they were, The Hallmarks seemingly never issued another record, and naffed off after this without leaving behind any clues to their identity. The A-side was also recorded by the Irish group Brendan Bowyer and The Royal Showband, aka The Royal Showband Waterford, so it's possible that the group were actually Irish rather than British. Equally possibly, however, "One Way Street" might have been a Denmark Street composition bought up by both bands at different times. Who knows? Certainly not me, that's for sure.

If you can identify the mystery band, please do leave a comment.

Oo Bang Jiggly Jang - The Hanging Tree/ 1000 Leagues

Label: President

Year of Release: 1971

If you saw this record in the racks of your local second-hand record store, it's possible you'd look at the band's name, then casually dismiss it as some obscure bubblegum record and walk away. What a terrible error that would be, though - for, in a true lesson of never judging a book by its cover (or a band by their ridiculous name) "The Hanging Tree" is a actually a brilliant piece of atmospheric, epic folk rock. 

Taking the usual anthemic folk route - much beloved by the Fleet Foxes among many others - of describing a long-forgotten tragedy involving death and destruction and turning it into a howling, close harmony campfire sing-a-long, "The Hanging Tree" is a shocking omission from the list of late sixties and early seventies collectibles. Even the great bible on such matters, "The Tapestry of Delights", fails to list the band. Still, copies do appear to be relatively thin on the ground, and to make up for years of being ignored the track was recently compiled on to the "Mixed Up Minds" series of compilations. This means it's now commercially available on iTunes and Amazon and therefore outside our remit, but I've included a brief excerpt below for you to get a feel of the track - though the edit does no justice to the swelling, expanding arrangement. Go and buy it - it's worth your time and money, and sounds absurdly current for a flop track from 1971... although this may be indicative of how musical trends tend to cycle, rather than proving that Oo Bang Jiggly Jang were prophets without honour. 

The flipside "1000 Leagues" is less interesting, being a straightforward acoustic track, but still showcases a band who were far more able than a great deal of the folkies who had piles of low-selling vinyl released around this period. So who were they and what became of them? I'm guessing the songwriting credits for J. Roper and P. Bramall refer to members of the band - but searching for other work by those two isn't getting me any further. It seems as if this may have been their only vinyl outing. If anyone knows who they might be, please let me know. On the basis of this one single, it seems an enormous pity they weren't given other chances. 

Reupload - Randy Sparks - Hazy Sunshine/ And I Love You

Label: MGM
Year of Release: 1971

Randy Sparks is a man whose career has been better appreciated in the USA than it has on European shores.  Back there, he had enormous success with his folk ensemble The New Christy Minstrels, a cheery bunch of rootsy individuals who epitomise the more commercial, rustic, family friendly, feel good nature of American folk alongside such other contenders as the Serendipity Singers (though in fairness, The New Christy Minstrels were somewhat more earnest).  Such was their commercial breakthrough in the early sixties that they have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.  Top that, Nick Drake.

Sparks' solo career is spoken about less, but in fact some of the early seventies moments are rather hippy-ish in their feel and not at all unlikable.  "Hazy Sunshine" in particular sums up the mood of flower power a fair few years too late, but is still a pleasant and tranquil listen.  "Nothing is black, nothing is white... If you don't believe in grey, go away" he demands, before informing the listener that new times are a-dawning.  I seem to say this at least once a month on this blog, but had he issued this single a few years before its actual release date he might have been in with a shot at the Billboard Charts, but the fact remains that such references were beginning to seem a bit passé by the early seventies.  As it stands, what we're left with is a pleasant piece of memorabilia which does make the summer seem like an altogether better place to relax in.

I would like to apologise for the pops and clicks present in the mp3s below, but erasing them only had the effect of deadening the acoustic production of the songs on both sides - and on reflection, I decided that an undoctored version of the rather scuffed up single I had was the better option.

The Academy featuring Polly Perkins - Munching The Candy/ Rachel's Dream

Label: Morgan Blue Town

Year of Release: 1969

Life wasn't easy for independent labels in the sixties, and Morgan was no exception. Constantly dealing with shambolic distribution networks, very few of them scored hits. President Records broke the mould in the later part of the decade, but Joe Meek's struggles with Triumph and the financial struggles experienced by Strike Records spoke volumes about the hurdles many truly independent businesses had to deal with.

Far from being just an independent label, though, Morgan was also a large and well-respected recording studio in North London, with an in-house session team of musicians and songwriters who regularly bypassed the Morgan label and licensed their product to majors (The Smoke's "My Friend Jack" probably being the most famous example). The best Morgan recordings, such as those by The Smoke, Bobak Jons Malone and Fortes Mentum, were compiled on a superb Sanctuary Records release called "House of Many Windows" some years ago. This is now out-of-print, but copies are well worth tracking down - the team had developed a distinctive and actually incredibly agreeable sound by the late sixties, filled with tricksy and classical inspired arrangements, a low-end bass fuzz, and peculiar woozy but nonetheless poppy psychedelia. Whereas a lot of other psychedelic pop of the period sounded like the melodic equivalent of cheap Christmas cracker toys, Morgan took their mission seriously - in anyone else's hands, a track like Fortes Mentum's "Saga of a Wrinkled Man" would have possibly sounded cheap and nasty. Not for no reason did one prominent Morgan man Will Malone go on to become the arranger for The Verve in the nineties (and it is just about possible to hear the similarities if you really try).

Morgan Blue Town was an incredibly short-lived offshoot of the main label which attempted to reposition their product in a more progressive vain, appealing to the hippy and student markets. Any recordings on the label tend to be hopelessly scarce now, including this single by actress, Ready Steady Go compere and singer Polly Perkins.

This is actually a somewhat threadbare inclusion to their usually heavily produced catalogue. Polly Perkins had failed to score any hit singles in her music career, but was nonetheless a "known name" at this point who had already put out some commercial sounding grooves - so her sudden shift to progressive sounding music must have seemed bizarre at the time, a bit like Twinkle suddenly going a bit way-out and boarding the weed bus to rural Cambridgeshire. Nonetheless, "Munching The Candy" is a very folky, campfire effort which nods and winks in the direction of naughty drug-taking behaviour. "Rachel's Dream", on the other hand, is a rather more epic B-side which considers the plight of the Jewish people. No, really.

Like everything else on the label, it failed miserably. Polly only issued one other single in its wake, 1973's "Coochi Coo" on Chapter 21 Records, and seemed to focus more on her acting career afterwards. Perhaps that was the right decision. Between 2011-12 she scored a job on "Eastenders" as Dot Cotton's estranged sister Rose, and had numerous other jobs on the go in the run-up to that moment. While there's nothing wrong with her musical output, it certainly seems as if her strengths lay in theatre and screen work. For the rest of us, however, this single will always feel slightly like Dot Cotton's sister singing about a "hole in my head" where "the light's shining in" while a flute puffs in the background. And that's something that stays with you. Honestly, you'd have thought Dot had enough to deal with having Nick in the family.

The Academy and Polly Perkins also put out an album entitled "Pop-Lore According To The Academy" in 1969 which failed to do much business but was recently reissued to some fanfare.