In Dan’s Garage…#93

Happy Thanksgiving!!!! I’ve been rather busy lately (as usual) and have slowly been packing away at this post for the last month, but I figure since I have all my leaves raked up (well..most of them anyway) and the snow blower at the ready, and a turkey in the oven, and nothing to do for the next few hours, I thought I’d at least start this post. We got a nice blast of snow here yesterday and it kinda feels more like January around here than late November, but I suspect that things will moderate somewhat over the next week or so. Anyway…I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season. I figure I’ll have at least one more post before Christmas, hopefully two or three, but as you dig into turkey, potatoes, pie, etc… enjoy this latest offering!

Adam Faith & The Roulettes – It’s All Right (1964) Adam Faith was a huge teen star in Britain and had a number of hits, mostly in the pop style. When Beatlemania hit he sort of had to catch up with the times and hired The Roulettes to back him up on this classic beat raver.

Bill & Will – Goin’ To The River / Let Me Tell You Baby (1964) A group from Albany, GA had this one release on Chicago’s Checker label. Real crude Blues/R&B sounds that are at least a year ahead of their time.

Gary & The Night lights – Sweet Little Sixteen / Take Me Back (1965) A while back I swore this was the last Seeburg 45 I had left in my collection to post. I WAS WRONG! This another one by Gary & The Nightlights who would later morph into The American Breed and had a huge hit with “Bend Me, Shape Me” as well as a great version of “Mindrocker” Not sure if there’s any more of these jukebox 45s left so I'm making no promises this time.

Sandals – 6 Pac / Theme From Endless Summer (1964) Late 60’s surf sounds from the same guys who recorded the fantastic “Tell Us Dylan”.

Pacers – You Got Me Bugged / Sassy Sue (1964) An interesting 45 because these same two songs were featured on an LP by a phony group called The Buggs that released an LP called “Beetle Beat” under completely different titles.

Illusions – The World Outside / I Don’t Believe It (1965) One of many Illusions lurking around during the 60s. I was going to save this one for a “pop” post but I figured I’d mix things up with this mélange of surf and soul. Probably one of the “Beach Music” groups from the south east.

Nashville Teens – Find My Way Back Home / Devil In Law (1965) So as I was perusing through this “handful” of 45s I discovered that five of them were on either London Records, or one of their subsidiaries. I love that label!!!!!! Whether it’s the blue “stock” label (lots of Stones 45s on that on in my collection) or that bright swirly orange thing that graces some of the finest records ever to be released in the 60s. London certainly had quite few cool labels under their distribution including Deram, Seville, Coliseum, Chapter One, Hi, M.O.C., and literally dozens of others. Here’s a sampling of a few starting with the Nashville Teens, a fantastic group that never really got it’s due outside of their colossal hit “Tobacco Road”. Much of their output was really good R&B or their unique interpretation of folk/blues.

Moody Blues – And My Baby’s Gone / From The Bottom Of My Heart (1966) One of the last to feature Denny Laine before he left and the Justin Hayward/John Lodge era began (which I love by the way...)

Ragamuffins – Parade Of Uncertainty / Hate To See A Good Thing Have To Go (1967) A group from Greenwich Village that released two 45s on Seville, both fantastic folk/rock efforts.

Truth – Sueno / Old Ma Brown (1967) A British freak beat group tackles a really good Rascals tune.

Us Too – I’ll Leave You Crying / The Girl With The Golden Hair (1967) A Cincinnati group that recorded two versions of this A side, this one being the latter. You can read an in depth story of Us Too right HERE.

Layng Martine Jr. – Surabian Lament / Pick All The Flowers That You Can (1967) We featured Layng in IDG #14 doing a somewhat fuzzy teen pop number. This time he goes raga with a cool eastern influenced psych/pop two sider. Layng continued on after this with a very successful career writing song in Nashville.

Whispers –Knowin’ / My Long And Sleepless Night  (1967) Good two sider of psych/pop on the A side and a very subdued yet tense garage tune on the B that has no electric guitars in in it. Produced by Warren Schatz who also worked on many projects in the 60s and 70s including Richie Dean’s fantastic “Time” on Tower.

Danish Lost & Found – The First Cut Is The Deepest (1969) A group from Copenhagen takes on the often covered Cat Stevens song and while it’s not as intense as The Koobas’ version, it’s pretty good. A helluva lot better than Cheryl Crow………..

Blue Cheer – West Coast Child Of Sunshine / When It All Gets Old (1969) Let’s end this Thanksgiving feast with one of the last 45s to be issued by Blue Cheer on Philips records. By now Leigh Stephens had left the band as was replaced by Burns Kellog on keyboards and Randy Holden on guitar, and with Stephens went the ultra heavy proto-metal sound that defined their first two LPs. This 45 is a complete departure from that with a much more mainstream psych/rock sound.

GET IT HERE