for Sunday 12th March 1967

This was the last Fab Forty presented by Kenny Everett

Last week's Fab was full of songs about leaving. Seven days later, everyone's Goin' Where The Lovin' Is and returning to home and family with: Ain't Nobody Home, #26, Darling Be Home Soon #33, I'm Coming Home, #34 and Album of the Week, Green Green Grass Of Home.

The extended 'Fab Forty Family' live at 'Feeling Groovy' in Penny Lane, Detroit City and they command James to Drive On in a Ford Mustang. The very large Lovin' Spoonful I'm Coming Home contains the Mamas & Papas, Daddy Lindberg, the twins Baby Get Your Head Screwed On and Ciao Baby, as well as Fragile Child, Tell The Boys, Georgy Girl, Cousin Jane, the Nashville Teens, and their pet Turtles. We're sure they are all Happy Together!

Robert Wyatt (b Robert Wyatt Ellidge), Mike Ratledge and Hugh Hopper were schoolmates from Canterbury. Hopper and Wyatt formed Wilde Flowers, with Hopper's brother Brian on saxes, Richard Sinclair on guitar and Kevin Ayers on vocals.

Ayers, Wyatt and Australian Daevid Allen teamed up with Ratledge and in 1966 became the Soft Machine. Allen chose their name from the title of a William Burroughs novel; he knew Burroughs and asked his permission to use it.

Soft Machine was discovered by Kim Fowley who produced their first single (mint value around £100) Love Makes Sweet Music/Feelin' Reelin' Squeelin'. Although Kevin Ayers is usually credited with penning both sides, there is some dispute over this. Feelin' Reelin' Squeelin' was published by Radio London-associated company Pall Mall Music, and according to Brian Long's The London Sound, (and the original record label) the songwriter is credited as Ellidge - i.e. Robert Wyatt.

The group was based in London during 1966/7 and gigged regularly at the UFO club. On April 29th they appeared alongside Pink Floyd at the 14-Hour Technicolor Dream, staged at Alexandra Palace. Described as a 'Giant benefit against Fuzz action' the event was in aid of IT underground magazine, which had suffered a police raid on its premises. It was somewhat ironic that such an anti-establishment event should take place at Ally Pally, once the respectable home to BBC-TV studios and the venue of the first TV broadcast in 1936. Soft Machine entertained, or at any rate attempted to entertain, thousands of stoned hippies.

At the end of 1967 the Soft Machine embarked on a gruelling six-months tour of the States with Jimi Hendrix. On their return, the band recorded an eponymous first album, but it remained unreleased till the Seventies. Kevin Ayers left and was replaced by Hugh Hopper. Ayers released solo albums in the late Sixties and early Seventies, but sadly died in 2013. Wyatt formed Matching Mole. The name was a play on words, machine moll being the French translation of 'soft machine'. After an accident left him paralysed from the waist down, Robert was no longer able to drum, but he continued to make good use of his vocal chords.

The official Robert Wyatt website is here.

Both Love Makes Sweet Music and Feelin' Reelin' Squeelin' were written by Kevin Ayers.

After two weeks as a climber, Chances Are suddenly find themselves in the Fab, only to have to share their glory with the song's authors John and Tom Fogerty, in the guise of the Golliwogs. The Golliwogs were John, gtr, vcls, Tom, gtr, vcls, hrmnca, Stu Cook, bs and Doug Clifford, drms. From El Cerrito, near San Francisco, the band had issued one single in 1964 as Tommy and The Blue Velvets on a local record label, before being signed to Fantasy and involuntarily acquiring the Golliwogs moniker. Fragile Child was issued a couple of singles before they changed their name to the rather more PC Creedence Clearwater Revival. Pristine copies of the Golliwogs' version of the song, can fetch £35.

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30

Drive On James

King George

RCA 1573

A UK tour, mainly of Big L venues, was arranged by the Philip Birch Agency (run by Radio London's MD) for Virginia's King George, (George Clemons) and the Harlem Kiddies, with the intention of promoting Drive on James. The last tour date was April 30th,at the Upper Cut Club. Unfortunately, unlike his old friend from New York, Jimi Hendrix, King George failed to achieve Royal acclaim by the British public. That didn't deter him from becoming successful elsewhere, and we are pleased to report that King George is now based in Gothenburg, Sweden and still gigs regularly. See an interesting interview with 'his majesty' here.

A second appearance in the Fab for the Chanters, whose first single had been in the Top Twenty in Nov '66.

Not connected to the US doo-wop group of the same name, the Chanters was origially a four-piece band from Fulham, London. The band consisted of four of nine Chanter siblings, brothers Alex and Charlie and sisters Doreen and Irene. The sisters went on the record as duo Birds Of A Feather and then as The Chanter Sisters, in addition to establishing themselves as top backing singers for artists such as Brian Ferry, Elton John and Van Morrison. Elton, in turn, played on their Birds of a Feather album.

Thank you to Katie-Anne Chanter, for supplying the correct information about the Chanters line-up.

Further information is here

Ashore this week

Besides climbers that were played at the time of the broadcast of the Sunday Fab Forty, Alan kept a note of others he heard later in the week and incorporated them into his list.

The Spellbinders had previously peaked at #32 in the Fab for Dec 11th 1966, with Help Me (Get Myself Back Together Again), which had just scraped into the US Hot Hundred at #100.

Bob Shivers, Jimmy Wright, Ben Grant, McArthur Munford and Elouise Pennington were a soul band from Jersey City, USA, discovered by Van McCoy. However, I prefer the wording of an Internet computer translation from German, which describes them poetically as 'a group of vowels from jersey town center, the USA'!

The group was popular on the Northern Soul circuit and played Manchester's Twisted Wheel Club (with Jimi Hendrix allegedly watching from the audience). Their singles can be found on various Northern compilations.

Although Chain Reaction was being promoted as the A-side, the B-side, For You, (a Van McCoy ballad) had already charted in the Hot Hundred in 1965, peaking at #93.

Daddy Lindberg was the new recording name for the Fingers (see Fab 22nd January). The songwriting team of Carter/Lewis penned Shirl and former Finger (would that be index or little?) John Bobin (#367), (see Fingers feature) co-wrote the Pall Mall-published B-side Wade in the Shade with some other 'digits' – Ricky Mills and Peter Ducky.

Tune in next week for another Field's Fab Forty