M. B. Music Website

60's U.K. psych

 

Scroll down or click on the names to browse.  I will add more in the future.

APPLE   BLOSSOM TOES   CREATION   DRISCOLL, AUGER & TRINITY   JULY

     

      

APPLE

Line-up:  Denis Regan (vc), Rob Ingram (gtr), Charlie Barber (pn), Jeffrey Harrod (bs), David Brassington (drm).

   

Official album discography:

  1. AN APPLE A DAY  [Page One POLS016, 1969]

   

Notes:

This psych band put out only an album and a few singles, now extremely rare.  The album is good, well balanced between psych gems like The Otherside, Buffalo Billycan and Mr.Jones, more conventional tracks like Let's Take a Trip Down The Rhine (with its folkish flavour) or Doctor Rock and a few covers from Yardbirds and Lovin' Spoonful.  Unless you're willing to pay big-$$, you'd better consider the recent CD reissues, which also include four 7" mono versions as bonuses.  A pretty good album by a pretty good band that would have deserved a better destiny.

   

BACK TO TOP

   

   

BLOSSOM TOES

Line-up:  Brian Godding (gtr, vc), Jim Cregan (gtr, vc), Brian Belshaw (bs), Kevin Westlake (drm on 1.), Barry Reeves (drm on 2.).

   

Official album discography:

  1. WE ARE EVER SO CLEAN  [Marmalade 607 001, 1967]

  2. IF ONLY FOR A MOMENT  [Marmalade 608 010, 1968]

   

Other releases:

   

Notes:

One of the best UK psych bands of their age, Blossom Toes released a couple of brilliant LPs for Giorgio Gomelsky's label, Marmalade.  Godding and Belshaw formed The Ingoes around 1964 with drummer Colin Martin, and later they added a second guitarist, Jim Cregan.  With this line-up they came to Italy, where they recorded an EP and a 7" (a cover of Beatles' Help, sung in Italian) that are both extremely rare now.  When they went back to England, Westlake replaced Martin and the group's name evolved into Blossom Toes.  They signed with Marmalade and put out their first album, We Are Ever So Clean, that was also released in Italy with the title The Psychedelic Sounds of Blossom Toes (not to be confused with the 80s boot mentioned in the discography).  With the help of session-men and an orchestra, they managed to create an unique sound in a psych-pop vein; the best tracks are probably Love Is, I'll Be Late For Me and Look At Me I'm You, but the whole album is well above par.  Westlake left the band at the end of 1967, being replaced first by Poli Palmer (later in Family) and then by Barry Reeves.  This line-up recorded If Only For A Moment, another good album - though not as good as its predecessor, that includes a great version of Richie Havens' Up Above My Hobby Horse's Head and other interesting tracks like Love Bomb.  Unfortunately, these album failed to chart and the group disbanded in 1969.  Later, Godding and Belshaw reunited with Westlake to form B.B.Blunder for a now sought-after one-off album, released with the help of many friends including Julie Driscoll (Worker's Playtime).  Later, Godding would have joined Magma and then released some solo albums, the most interesting of which is probably Slaughter On Shaftesbury Avenue (1988).  Cregan went on to play in Stud, Family and Cockney Rebel before joining Rod Stewart's band around 1976.  Westlake also released a couple of singles and an album.

   

BACK TO TOP

   

   

CREATION

Line-up:  Kenny Pickett (vc), Eddie Phillips (gtr), Bob Garner (bs,vc), Jack Jones (drm).

   

Official album discography:

  1. WE ARE PAINTERMEN  [Germany-only, Hit On 340 047, 1967]

  2. LAY THE GHOST  [Cohesion COCRE1, 1995, CD only]  live, from their 1993 reunion gig

   

Other releases:

   

Notes:

If you think Jimmy Page was the first rock guitarist to use a violin bow on a guitar, you're wrong: it was Creation's Eddie Phillips.  He, Pickett and Jones were together from the beginning, along with John Dalton, in 1963, when they were known as The Blue Jacks. Changed their name in Mark Four, they released four singles in 1964-65, but when Dalton left to join The Kinks, they recruited Bob Garner from Tony Sheridan's group and changed their name into Creation.  They also changed their musical direction, leaving the R&R/R&B-influenced Mark Four melodies in favour of a harder sound, near to the "mod sound" typical of The Who and The Kinks.  Makin' Time was Creation's first single, released for the small Planet label: it's here that Phillips uses the violin bow for the first time.  This single charted, as its follow-up, Painter Men, but when they signed for Polydor the subsequent singles failed and the group hadn't the chance of releasing an album.  This happened in Germany, where they had more success.  Phillips and Garner left the band at the end of 1968 and the group continued briefly with Tony Ashton (later in Ashton Gardner & Dyke) and Ron Wood, who will later be very famous with Faces and Rolling Stones, before splitting up in 1969.

The original line-up reformed first in 1987 (and put out a single), and then in 1993, when they put out a live CD from their reunion concert in London.  They planned the release of an album, but this project felt through when charismatic vocalist Pickett died in the January of 1997.

   

BACK TO TOP

   

   

Julie DRISCOLL, Brian AUGER & The TRINITY

Line-up:  Julie Driscoll (vc), Brian Auger (kb), Gary Boyle (kb), Dave Ambrose (bs), Clive Thacker (drm).

   

Official album discography:

  1. OPEN  [Marmalade 607 002 (m) / 608 002 (s), 1967]  released in the U.S. by Atco (SD33-258)

  2. STREETNOISE  [Marmalade 608 005/6, 2LPs, 1969]  released in the U.S. by Atco (SD2-701)

   

Julie Driscoll:

  1. JULIE DRISCOLL 1969  [Polydor 2480 074, 1971]

  2. SUNSET GLOW  [Utopia UTS601, 1976, as Julie Tippetts]

  3. ENCORE  [Polydor, 1977, with her husband, jazzist Keith Tippetts]

   

Brian Auger & The Trinity:

  1. DEFINITELY MAYBE  [Marmalade 607 003 (m) / 608 003 (s), 1968]  released in the U.S. by Atco (SD33-273)

  2. DON'T SEND ME NO FLOWERS  [Marmalade 608 004, 1969]

  3. BEFOUR  [RCA SF8101, 1970]

  4. OBLIVION EXPRESS  [RCA SF8170, 1971]

  5. BETTER LAND  [Polydor 2383 062, 1971]

  6. SECOND WIND  [Polydor 2383 104, 1972]

             ...  then Auger pursued a solo career and released many other albums throughout 70s and 80s.

      

Other releases:

   

Notes:

After having released a bunch of singles in the mid-60s, Julie Driscoll (b. 1947) joined Brian Auger (b. 1939) for a short-lived but excellent group.  The two albums they released together are excellent, especially the double set Streetnoise, and feature great organ-driven pop-psych (Czechoslowakia, Road To Cairo, The Band's This Wheel's on Fire and Donovan's Season Of The Witch), in which her great voice fits in perfectly.  Despite the good response, they split in 1969; Auger continued with The Trinity until 1972 and then went solo, while Driscoll, who married jazzist Keith Tippetts, appeared only now and then during the 70s.

   

BACK TO TOP

   

   

JULY

Line-up:  Tom Newman (vc), Tony Duhig (gtr), John Flute (kb, flt), Alan James (bs), Chris Jackson (drm).

   

Official album discography:

  1. JULY  [Major Minor MMLP29 (m) / SMLP29 (s), 1969]  also released in the US by Epic (BN26416)

   

Other releases:

   

Notes:

This group's beginnings lie back to the early 60s, in the skiffle band The Playboys.  Changed name into The Tomcats, they were converted to R&B and spent two years in Spain, where they released four EPs, now rare as hell (one of them is also sung in Spanish!).  This was the same line-up that, returned to UK in 1967, signed with Major Minor and released one of the most important UK psych albums of the era.  Its finest moments, IMHO, are Friendly Man, Crying Is For Writers, A Bird Lived, and the two songs who made it to 45 (My Clown and Dandelion Seeds).  They later released another single (Hello Who's There/The Way) which is included in most of the album's reissues.

The group disbanded in 1969 and most of its members continued playing:  Duhig and Field in Jade Warrior, James with Cat Stevens and others, while Newman became a well known sound engineer and now and then released a bunch of solo albums - the first of which was the strange Fine Old Tom (Virgin, 1975).

   

BACK TO TOP

   

   

   

Do you wish to see your favourite group here?  Contact me!