by STEVE SIMELS
THERE'LL ALWAYS BE AN ENGLAND
IT'S a strange time. The Andrews Sisters are a hit on Broadway. The late Jim Croce, a minor if engaging folk singer, is touted as the artist of the decade.
Rock-and-roll outsells any other form of music and yet strikes out at the Grammies, which are generally criticized for being awarded solely on the basis of sales. There's a new Singing Nun on the radio, Flying Saucer records are back, and a group called Blue Swede has a hit with a record. whose hook consists of a bunch of grown men huddled around the microphone chanting "ooga booga," or words to that effect. It's the silly season again, and the trend, as many have ob served, is no trend. Glitter is supposed to be all the rage, and yet the New York.
Dolls attract only five hundred paying, customers to a concert in New Jersey, David Bowie's albums steadfastly refuse to go gold, and John Denver has platinum hits that sing the praises of a life style that supposedly has been passé for years. Rock critic Richard Robinson, who has gotten so trendy as to be obsessive, declares that the major bummer of the new age is people still acting like it's 1968, but the fact of the matter is that it really is 1968.
Given all that, I suppose I really shouldn't be surprised that the two most exciting albums I've heard in months are reissues from classic English rock bands of the mid-Sixties. Actually, I'm more surprised that both packages (the Zombies' "Time of the Zombies" on Epic and the Move's "First Move" on A & M) are so well put together. Rock is still big business, despite the fact that so much of it is so boring these days (just look at the charts if you don't believe me), and consequently record companies aren't really into the kind of historical research that, say, jazz reissues are af forded. So mostly we get things like London's idiotically truncated Them repackage, or those Small Faces abominations on MGM. There have been exceptions, of course, such as United Artist's Legendary Masters, which were models of how these things should be done, but even so, they didn't sell all that well, and the projected follow-ups--the Shirelles and Ritchie Valens among them-have fallen victim to the vinyl shortage and will probably never be re leased. Like I said, though, both of these new ones are very well put together in deed, and since both of them are by groups who made major contributions that have been poorly documented in this country, they're especially welcome.
The Move. package is, to say the least, long overdue, and I envy anyone who feels as I do (that English rock's peak years were 1965-1968) and is still unfamiliar with this great band the experience of hearing all this stuff for the first time. It's still something of a puzzle why they never-made it in the United States, if only in the limited way the Who made it before "Tommy." They dominated the charts in England for several years (where for a time they were as idolized as the Beatles or the Stones), and all their efforts were filled with the same kind of good humor, commercial savvy, and melodic memorability that made any of your favorite British discs of the period such a joy (good reference points might be the Hollies' Stop –Stop-Stop or the Who's "Sell Out.") "First Move" includes their entire first English album, as well as every single 45 through Brontosaurus (many of which are extremely rare), so there's a pretty hefty slice of their history on view. Not all of it holds up as well as their later work, but it's all eminently listenable, and there are such absolute delights as Fire Brigade (which I think is one of the four or five classic singles ever), their cover of the Coasters' version of Zing Went the Strings of My Heart (sung by drummer Bev Bevan in a basso that makes Johnny Cash sound like Dennis Day), and my personal favorites, the hauntingly Beatle-ish Black berry Way and the manic, teddibly British Wild Tiger Woman. The album comes with a frighteningly detailed set of liner notes by Jim Bickhart, who provided a similar service for "The Best of Procol Harum" some months ago, and the whole affair is generally exemplary. The Move deserved nothing less.
THE Zombies set is, if possible, even more of a treat, probably because they are everyone's favorite rock-and-roll hard-luck story, a band that committed the classic commercial sin of being ahead of their time. Seemingly they had everything--superb writers (Rod Argent and Chris White had an extraordinary knack for coming up with fresh and un usual melodies in a harmonic idiom that was very advanced for the period), gorgeous vocals (Colin Blunstone possessed possibly the great rock adolescent voice of all time), a distinctive approach to rhythm, and an unusually fluid and imaginative keyboard man. For a while, after their initial success with She's Not There and Tell Her No, two of the finest singles of the British Invasion, they seemed to have it made, but though they continued to release a stream of exceptional records, they were met with increasing commercial indifference, and by 1969 they had disbanded in relative obscurity. Then, just when everyone had forgotten them, Columbia released a final single as an afterthought, and the track (Time of the Season) went on to become a monster hit. Typically, the group was in no position to capitalize on it.
The band made only two albums during their run, and I am glad to report that "Time of the Zombies" is the one to get whether you've ever bought any of their stuff before or not. Side one is an intelligent condensation of the best tracks from their first album (the early hits and Summertime) with such bonuses as the widely covered I Love You thrown in for good measure. Sides three and four are the "Odyssey and Oracle" album un abridged--the group's final statement, and no collection is complete without it. The band's attempt at a "Sgt. Pepper," it stands up much better than most such tries, and almost every song is a little gem.
Side two is the real treasure, however. Assembled for this release by Rod Argent himself, it amounts to one half of a "new" Zombies album. Some of it is made up of demos for the group that later became Argent, although still very much in the Zombies style, notably a magnificent song called Imagine the Swan, and the rest is never-released vault tracks by the original group dressed up here with some additional orchestration and remixed for stereo. It's all first-rate, and it's a legitimate joy to hear that unique and impossible--to duplicate sound again as applied to unfamiliar material. Now if only somebody will undertake a similar project with the Yardbirds. Dream on, kiddies.
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Also see:
MELCHIOR RETURNS TO THE MET--A little ceremony and a lot of sentiment. by WILLIAM LIVINGSTONE