The 60s (and earlier): Lost Tracks

[vastar iner]

Only fair, given we've got the past decades on there. And it gives me an excuse for a track I heard for the first time when researching something else.



She was born Barbara Chalk, Babbity was a nickname apparently aimed at the French market, and there's something Francoise Hardy about this charmingly innocent track.

Basically she entered open auditions, was spotted by Decca, and at the audition was introduced to the Tremeloes who were to give her the backing for her singles. Problem was she was just 17 so couldn't tour intensively, and after two singles her career was over. The only singing she does now is for a community choir.

[thehitparade]

I hadn't actually realised there wasn't already a 60s thread.

But now there is, I feel like I should drop something in. This comes from a legendary act, but it's a properly lost song in that the author has vetoed any CD release of it. It briefly showed up on a compilation in America without his knowledge, and thanks to the invention of YouTube, it's out there now:

[Whitneyfan]

There are at least a dozen I could post from this band, but how about this haunting Peter Green ballad that I recently discovered.

Fleetwood Mac - Before the beginning

[thehitparade]

I suppose in the light of recent news this title might seem slightly unfortunate, but it's intended in a spirit of tribute. Anyway, Glen Campbell cropped up in the 70s albums thread, which reminded of how he could have been a Beach Boy. And even though he said no, Brian Wilson gave him a hand anyway.

[vastar iner]

Sometimes - well, most of the time - I simply don't understand the record industry's refusal to make money when it's wide open for them to take. Lulu is one heck of a singer at the best of times, The Mindbenders featured some of music's finest songwriters and interpreters, put them together with Don Black's songwriting skills (Oscar winner for "Born Free"), and a film soundtrack, and a hit is guaranteed. As proved by "To Sir, With Love" being the biggest single in America in 1967. Five weeks at number one.

Yet for some inane reason it was never released as a single in Britain. It had to make do with being a b-side. Four years later.

Surely this would have been the Christmas number one had it been given the seven inch treatment...instead Lulu had to rely on a bunch of fame-hungry personality-deficient dancers and hormonal schoolgirls for her first number one.

[vastar iner]

I am fairly critical of manufactured bands, yet adore the sixties girl group sound. Hypocritical? Hardly. They pretty much had to nail their records in one take, such was the pace of recording, and had to have the ability to sell a song in an incredibly crowded field without the mass propaganda fielded in favour of the likes of Dollyrockers.

And just take a listen to these one and imagine some talentless bimbettes like Girls Aloud trying to do them.



Nobody, NOBODY, could do teen melodrama like the two pairs of sisters that made up The Shangri-Las. Still at school when they were signed up to Red Bird, many people remember them as a trio as their youngest member, Mary Weiss, didn't tour until she hit 19 near the end of the sixties. Their first hit - "Remember Walkin' In The Sand" - was about a lost love; their second, their only US number one, was the immortal death disc "Leader Of The Pack" (and a UK hit; producer Shadow Morton, who vroomed the bike on the recording, said it was one of only two records he produced he KNEW would be number one, the other being the Dixie Cups' "Chapel Of Love"). And most of their other hits were about losses of one sort or another, in the same vein of LOTP usually good girl falling for unattainable bad boy; the twists were as seen as this one -



- where the girl made the sacrifice to make her love happier, and this one -



-where the girl was forbidden to see her waiting boyf.

As their hits dried up, though, their producers tried to go back to the format that had served them so well in the US charts, i.e. death, and killed off both boyfriend and girlfriend.



But their manslaughter masterpiece was a spoken word classic that was a US top ten hit, yet missed the chart here.



You can FEEL the tears in Mary's voice...

Their last US hit was this one. Another spoken word one, another one suffused with melancholy:



And a record Pete Townshend nominated as one of his all-time favourites.

It hit the charts in 1966. Red Bird then went bust, the group signed up to Mercury, but never hit the US charts again. Tragically touring had taken its toll on Mary-Ann Ganser; the image of good girls gone bad was true to life, after all they had grown up in one of the rougher areas of New York, and a drug overdose killed her in 1970, aged just 22. Her sister Marge died of breast cancer in 1996. Mary Weiss still records - a superb solo album came out last year - while Betty runs a furniture store on Long Island.

[vastar iner]

OK. It's not often I'm staggered by a record, but I've just heard a track from 1963 for the first time...and it's outstanding.



The video - from the comic Judy - sets out their story, but the song itself is perhaps the closest any British act got to the Spector sound. Sadly it wasn't a hit, and three singles into their career the 15 year olds were dropped.

Two years later they replaced their school uniforms for mod gear, their voices had matured slightly, they started to write their own songs and changed their name to The Exceptions - and emerged sounding like The Shangri-Las:



Sadly the above song - a b-side, for some unearthly reason, it's easily good enough to be the main event - was their last release, and before they were 18 The Orchids had finished with the music industry, and moved into art and teaching...

[brianhankin]

Got to pull you up on this...To Sir With Love was on the B side of "Lets Pretend" in July 1967. So wasn't released in the UK, 4 years later.

[vastar iner]

Thanks Brian. Glad someone's paying attention! No idea how where I got the later date from...

[vastar iner]

Not a lost track, but a lost performance...



...to celebrate what should have been Charles Holley's 75th birthday.

[vastar iner]

Got to number 16 in the US in 1958; he never charted in Britain. For once we got it very wrong. If this were released today it would be considered a low down, dirty, louche blues rock boundary breaker. I can't imagine how it went down over 50 years ago. "Still sounds fresh" is a cliche, but with this one, jeez, it's still astounding.

[vastar iner]

Back in 1966 Decca decided to launch a new label for the more left-field acts. The very first release on their new Deram imprint was this one.



"Beverley" is Beverley Kutner, who married John Martyn a couple of years after this track. And it's one of the more remarkable ones I've heard; it's almost as if Lucy van Pelt turned emo, stomped on Schroeder's keyboard and poured out her bitterness at his indifference. It also had an all-star line-up; written by Randy Newman, sessionistas included Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones (making this song almost a Led Zep release), Andy "The REALLY Forgotten Beatle" White and Nicky "Rolling Stones' keyboardist" Hopkins pounding the ivories. Bit of a stunner.

[thehitparade]

Did you know Nicky Hopkins was the only session musician to have played with all four Beatles as solo artists and with the Beatles? Yeah, you probably did.

[vastar iner]

Britain's answer to Brenda Lee? The 17-year-old Davis - born Carol Hedges - had her career derailed by a car crash when her chauffeur lost control. Not simply having her jaw wired for three months, but that she was riding with Jet Harris at the time - the married Jet Harris...

This track was her comeback in 1964, but missed the charts. Indeed she didn't make the charts again until 1968, and has never made it back since.

[vastar iner]

Let's link the two posts above...Davis' track comes from the film "Pop Gear", which has a bunch of custom-made promos for various songs of 1964, and also features this track...



...from the band that supported The Beatles on their US tour, and also provided the brass section on the Fab Four's later albums.

[vastar iner]

How gorgeous is this? The harmonies are getting more elaborate, the song structure becoming more elaborate, the daring pause before the chorus. Brian Wilson was heading towards something very, very special.

But those pauses were its problem. US radio refused to play it because of the dead air - and idiotic DJs not knowing the song was still going. As a result it was not a major hit, peaking at 20, and Capitol, losing faith, rush-released "Barbara Ann" before LGIOK had even peaked - even worse, the UK release missed the chart completely. "Barbara Ann", featuring Dean Torrence of BB mates Jan & Dean, went to number 2 Stateside and 3 in the UK, and proved a step backwards; it had been knocked off quickly because the work on "Pet Sounds" was taking longer than expected. And, as a result, a public that was being eased via "California Girls" and LGIOK into the even more daring sound was expecting a party album.

Those pauses may have been the reason for the comparative flop of PS...

[vastar iner]

One of the jauntiest sixties tunes, and one of the greatest disjuncts between sound and lyric. Country Joe & The Fish was a group name, although the use of "Joe" led people to assume the lead singer was the Joe. However, although Joe McDonald used the name, the Joe in question was actually Stalin, and even that was a change from the original Country Mao & The Fish - the fish referring to an apothegm of Mao's that his followers were like a shoal of fish, all going in the same direction.

You might notice that this is an acoustic version from Woodstock. It was unscheduled - there was a gap between acts, someone spotted McDonald, asked him to go on stage and someone dug out an old guitar. And he then wowed tens of thousands of people with an impromptu performance of a three year old album track.

Beat that, Kylie.

[vastar iner]

This single reached number 82 in the States in 1966; I was going to give it a bit of a write-up, but frankly it goes beyond mere vocabulary.



A unique talent.

[madmurray]

I love this track from The Jeff Beck Group. Its called Rock My Plimsoul, which I believe is a cover of BB Kings Rock you baby.

[thehitparade]

Funny that Mrs Miller crops up - I've just acquired a copy of Kenny Everett's World's Worst Record Show LP, which includes her version of 'A Lover's Concerto'.