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Success in the music business is, and always has surely
been, something of a lottery. Sometimes luck and timing play as
much, if not more, of a part as talent and hard work. The sixties
was a time of incredible creativity and diversity in music and associated
culture on both sides of the Atlantic. Tamla, R&B, Beat, Psychedelia,
Folk/rock, Surf music and the west coast, Mod, Freakbeat and many
other styles all vied for attention and for an audience. Amongst
the numerous British bands that emerged out of this dynamic atmosphere
were four who built-up fine local reputations and the admiration
of their peers as well as excellent bodies of work but yet failed
to achieve even moderate success at the time. With the benefit of
hindsight, all four have been re-discovered by enthusiastic collectors
and it has been revealed that some very famous names were highly
influenced by some of these bands. Here, Digger examines the careers
and work of The Action, The Creation, The Idle Race and The Timebox
and encourages you to sample their work (as he has only recently
done himself within the last few years). It seems to him that, although
vastly different in musical styles and material these four bands
were united by a common theme - they were all ahead of their time
and extraordinary innovators.
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and cannot be reproduced without express permission.
(photographs from author's personal collection)
The Action
This north London outfit was formed in 1963, the line-up consisting
of Reg King, Alan King, Mike Evans, Roger Powell and Pete Watson.
Listen to Reg King's vocals and the arrangement on Since I Lost
My Baby and it could be Smokey Robinson And The Miracles. The band
were the epitome of mod in image and choice of material and heavily
Tamla influenced, recording Holland/Dozier/Holland and Curtis Mayfield
numbers as well as Goffin/King material. They only released five
singles but what classics. My favourites are Twenty Fourth Hour
and the pure sixties pop Shadows and Reflections. What a soulful
voice Reg has. But don't underestimate the rest of the band - there
is some tight and sophisticated instrumentation, backing vocals
and harmonies. With production by George Martin it seems incredible,
no criminal, that they weren't up there with The Small Faces and
The Who.
These days such luminaries as Paul Weller and Phil Collins admit
to having been very heavily influenced by The Action. I can't think
of any British group who were as soulful as The Action - Reg King
'out Marriot's' Steve Marriot and 'out Winwood's' Steve Winwood.
Get yourself a piece of The Action. Action Packed is a great album
for the uninitiated. Edsel EDCD699
Visit
The Action's website
See an interview with drummer Roger Powell in our Special
Features section
The Creation
The Creation came out of north London, Middlesex & Hertfordshire
& are now considered one of the most influential & progressive
groups of the era, being popular in Europe despite little chart
success in their home UK. Painter Man, (later covered by Boney M!),
Making Time, Through My Eyes and How Does It Feel To Feel are really
powerful and evocative beat tracks in The Who or Small Faces mould.
Not surprising really, as they shared The Who's producer Shel Talmy.
Their minimal popular success was in no way reflective of their
importance in terms of influence on other bands or of the quality
of their work. Their music was a fusion of beat & psychedilia
and is now finally, thankfully, recognised as significant.
Pre-Pink Floyd their act was augmented by light shows and impromptu
painting on huge canvasses. It was lead guitarist Eddie Phillips
who originated the use of the bow on his guitar (having abandoned
the use of a saw!) which was soon to be taken-up by Jimmy Page.
Pete Townshend was so impressed with Eddie that he wanted him to
join The Who.The band recently appeared at New York's Cavestomp
venue and wowed the audience with their original set some thirty-five
years on. Sample their work on the album Our Music Is Red With Purple
Flashes (Demon DIAB 857) and look out for a new web site from Eddie
Phillips with exciting new and previously unreleased or unrecorded
material available.
See an interview with Eddie in our Special Features section
The Idle Race
Dave Pritchard, Greg Masters & Roger Spencer were backing group
to Birmingham's Mike Sheridan, The Nightriders. He went solo in
1966 and they then joined-up with fellow Brummie Jeff Lynne who
became the leading player in the band, contributing all of the new
material and giving the band direction. There followed some brilliant
pop compositions on single and album, The Birthday Party and Follow
Me Follow amongst them. The Idle Race, as with Kinks' Ray Davies
and Lennon & McCartney, drew heavily on their heritage and roots
for material and lyrics. Music hall, show-biz, Birmingham brogue
and word-play abound as do production tricks. Although it was not
originally anticipated by the band that people would listen to their
material on anything but a basic mono or stereo record player, hearing
their tunes through a modern sound system via headphones reveals
some very clever use of multi-tracking, over-dubbing and output
to the left and right speaker channels (as in The Skeleton &
The Roundabout).
What is also fascinating is to be be able to hear the development
of the band into what would eventually form the nucleus of The Electric
Light Orchestra. This is clear on tracks such as Come With Me, Going
Home and Days Of The Broken Arrows (so reminiscent of Turn To Stone).
At least with that enterprise Jeff Lynne enjoyed more recognition.
The Idle Race were met without enthusiasm outside of the West Midlands
and eventually Jeff Lynne gave in to pressures to join the successful
rival and leading Birmingham band, The Move, whose tune Blackberry
Way he had consciously or subconsciously mimicked in an Idle Race
tune. He soon left though and pioneered The ELO.The Idle Race struggled
on for a while but eventually evolved into the Steve Gibbons Band.
What is clear now is that a great band was sadly overlooked. A compilation
of their best work, Back To The Story, was available in the mid-90s.
The Timebox
The Timebox reached the dizzy heights of number 38 for 4 weeks with
their single 'Beggin' in 1968. What an injustice! If any single
deserved to have reached number one on merit and strength then this
excellent Four Seasons cover was it. With a reputation as a bad
boy live performance band, The Timebox, along with Mike Vickers
of Manfred Mann, had managed to craft a wonderfully soulful single,
with a subtle double-bassline, tempered strings, vibraphone characteristic
of the band and the times and an excellent background bongo beat
rounded-off with Mike Patto's accomplished vocal.
The year of The Herd, Love Affair and Marmalade saw Timebox punctuate
the huge success of these other bands all but too briefly and follow-up
singles such as Girl Don't Make Me Wait failed to make chart inroads.
Despite a lot of positive press hype, and some excellent numbers
written by band members Patto and Ollie Halsall, the band succumbed
to indifference in the seventies and the members went their various
ways leaving us, and music history, the poorer as a result. The
Timebox are available on Deram 844 807-2.
Many thanks to Dan Hollombe for his invaluable assistance regarding
The Idle Race.
Many thanks to Eddie Phillips of The Creation and Roger Powell
of The Action for the interviews.
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