▶︎ Bigger in Oz (21): Sounds Incorporated - The Spartans (1964) and 7 others

Bigger in Oz: tracks that were more popular in Australia than in their countries of origin.

See also: Only in Melbourne.

21. Sounds Incorporated - The Spartans (Trevor Stanford [known as Russ Conway])

Composition also known as Spartacus or Spartacus (The Spartans) 

Columbia single (UK) #DB7239 April 1964
Columbia single (Australia) #DO4447 June 1964

British charts: #30

Australian charts: #3 Melbourne, #10 Brisbane | #5 Australia

 

Also released in USA and Canada

NME 27 March 1964

 

 

 

Footage of Sounds Incorporated opening for The Beatles in Australia on their 1964 world tour makes it clear why they got the gig. This rocking, mainly instrumental, six-piece band from Kent are still a joy to watch, even if the video quality isn't terrific.

 

They expertly played saxophones, flutes, guitars, keyboards and drums, with an act full of energetic, often comical, physical moves. They knew how to put on a show, and their stage experience came from backing pre-Merseybeat American stars touring Britain, including Eddy Cochran with whom they also recorded.

 

Apart from the quality of their work, Sounds Incorporated were the ideal band to open specifically for The Beatles. Audiences of Beatlemaniacs might have fidgeted through a lesser vocal-and-guitar group, while they waited impatiently for the biggest vocal-and-guitar group ever. Sounds Incorporated were something altogether different, and so entertaining that I'm guessing nobody even thought of yelling out, "We want the Beatles!"

 

Both bands were managed by Brian Epstein. Sounds Incorporated supported The Beatles again in 1965 in the US and Canada, and members of Sounds Incorporated formed the brass section on the Beatles track Good Morning, Good Morning on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967).  

 

The Spartans was the first Sounds Incorporated record to chart, in Britain and in Australia. In Britain it was followed by one other, but in Australia it set off a series of charting singles that lasted into 1965. 

 

Here are all the charting singles (Top 75) by Sounds Incorporated in Britain and Australia. 

Britain
April 1964 The Spartans #30
July 1964 Spanish Harlem #35

Australia
July 1964 The Spartans #5
Aug 1964 Spanish Harlem #22
Aug 1964 Rinky Dink #22
Sept 1964 William Tell Overture #2
Sept 1964 Maria #2
Jan 1965 Light Cavalry #71
March 1965 Cast Your Fate To The Wind #20
March 1965 Hall Of The Mountain King #58 

 

I have written before about Australians' fondness for an instrumental track. It helps to explain why Sounds Incorporated records did so well in Australia. It is also fair to assume that the impression they made on the trendsetters at the Australian Beatles shows would have played a role.

The Spartans was written by Russ Conway (b. Trevor Stanford 1925-2000), a star British pianist and composer who had nineteen Top 40 hits 1957-1963 including Side Saddle (1957 #1 UK) and Roulette (1959 #1).

Sounds Incorporated rearranged The Spartans to feature the alto flute as lead instrument after listening to a demo recording. Saxophonist-keyboardist Barrie Cameron told Disc magazine in 1964 that they were emulating a sound developed on stage while backing Brenda Lee on tour in the UK.

Composer Russ Conway performed The Spartans himself on stage in April 1964 in a benefit concert for the son of recently deceased singing star Michael Holliday, a longtime friend since their days together in the Navy. It was released in July 1964 on an album, Tribute To Michael Holliday. The YouTube post of the track includes the full liner notes.

Conway's performance offers a contrast to the Sounds Incorporated version. It has a majestic feel, not unlike a theme for an epic historical film (it reminds me a little of piano duo Ferrante & Teicher). It is still stirring, but in a different way.

NME 27 March 1964

The composition's US copyright registration adds an alternative title, Spartacus. The title Spartacus (The Spartans) is seen on a more guitar-based German single by Liverpool band Ian & The Zodiacs (1965) and on German issues of their album Star-Club Show 7 (1965). A re-orchestrated track by Les Reed And His Orchestra on their album Love Is All (1969) is also Spartacus (The Spartans).

 ____________________  

An Australian footnote: Essex-born Trevor White was a member of Sounds Incorporated when the band broke up in Australia in 1971. He stayed on to become a permanent Australian resident, first becoming known here for his starring role in the original Australian production of Jesus Christ Superstar (1972).  

White was not in Sounds Incorporated for their Beatles tours, or for their charting singles 1964-65, as he did not join the band until 1968 upon Barrie Cameron's departure.

 ____________________  

Chart positions
• Britain: from The Guinness book of British hit singles (1983)
• Melbourne and Brisbane: as calculated retrospectively by Gavin Ryan
• Australia: from Grant Dawe's Top 100 Singles site.  

Selected sources:
• "No vocals for us, say Sounds Inc.", Disc, 9 May 1964 (Barrie Cameron on recording The Spartans)
• "Sounds Incorporated", Record Mirror, 9 March 1968 (Sounds Incorporated's new organist Trevor White will be joining the group when Barry Cameron leaves in mid-March ...)
(Links are to digitised copies at WorldRadioHistory.com) 

 

  

Sounds Incorporated - The Spartans (released April 1964, recorded in January) 

 Sounds Incorporated - The Spartans live on Beatles tour, Australia (July 1964)

Russ Conway - The Spartans, live in concert (June 1964)

 

Ian & The Zodiacs - Spartacus (The Spartans) (1965)

  

Les Reed And His Orchestra With The Eddie Lester Singers - Spartacus (The Spartans) (1969)

▶︎ "How To Dance Properly" by Ze Frank

American humorist Ze Frank posted How To Dance Properly at his website in 2002. 

I laughed almost to the point of injuring myself when I first saw it. That was about 20 years ago, going by my email archive, and I mentioned it in my 2008 blogpost Top 3 amusing go-go videos. 

Ze Frank's website is now defunct but the Internet Archive snapshots of the page still enable clicking on the panel of 10 dances. 

It is initially a bit slow to load but you can also sample it through Harsh Singh's YouTube video of a 35-second click-through of all the dances. 

▶︎ Obscure Originators (34) The London Knights [The Four Sights]

From my website's front page series about lesser known artists who performed the original versions of Australian or NZ records.

See also: the full collection of over 40 Obscure Originators features.

 ____________________

Go To Him by Ray Brown & The Whispers (1965) may be the B-side of their hit Fool, Fool, Fool (#3 Australia), but a B-side like this was a bonus for anyone who bought the single.

Retrospectively, Go to Him has taken on a life of its own. As the Milesago website puts it, Ray Brown & The Whispers’ track is 2m 30s of pure sonic adventure, one of those rare and extraordinary B-sides that almost eclipses the main event … Alec Palao included it on the Ace Records/Big Beat collection Hot Generation! 1960s Punk from Down Under (2002).

Tracing the original of Go To Him, I found a 1965 American release by The London Knights on minor New York label Mike, about three months before Ray Brown’s cover. 

I tried to find out more about The London Knights. They had released only this single and they left no traces of their history that I could find.

Web searches unexpectedly led me to the website of a British musician, Tim Airey. He had been in a 1960s Leicester band, The Four Sights, aka The Foursights. 

Tim recalled two Four Sights recording sessions for Decca in London in 1963. The band released one unsuccessful single, and there were songs for another single that was never released in the UK.  However, as Tim explained, … [the single] was supposed to have been released in the States under the name of The London Knights … 

The Four Sights then heard nothing more about any American release.

Well, not until some 40 years later when I emailed Tim in 2003 to point out that there was indeed a London Knights US single, from 1965, with a track called Go To Him that credited Bess Coleman as co-writer.  

Bess was a sister of Four Sights guitarist Bill Coleman, and she had written both sides of the Four Sights’ Decca release.

When I sent an mp3 of the London Knights recording to Tim he was adamant that it was one of the lost tracks from the Four Sights’ London sessions. He identified the distinctive voice of Four Sights drummer and lead singer David Lindsay, and David himself subsequently had no doubt at all that he was listening to his own voice on the London Knights track. David later sent me further evidence that supported this.

The case made by Tim and David was compelling, and I had no reason to doubt them, but I still could not explain some aspects of the "London Knights" single.

The writer credits on the label are to Bess Coleman with Artie Wayne, Bess's American collaborator whom she met in the US early in 1964. Bess is also credited as producer, for Artie’s production entity AWK.

When I asked Artie about it, he recalled recording Go To Him in New York as The London Knights with Bess and her brother Bill Coleman from the Four Sights, and I assume the label credits on the Mike single mistakenly reflect that session.

The mystery remains around the exact pathway of Go To Him from the Four Sights in London to Mike Records in New York, with an unreleased re-recording along the way. My best guess is that there were two recordings, one from London and one from New York, and they were somehow mixed up at the New York end.

You can read the rest of what I know by clicking on the link below. Or you could just mentally file it under O for Obsessive Fans of Obscurity and move on.

____________________

For more about the song and The London Knights [The Four Sights] see Ray Brown & The Whispers - Go To Him. 

▶︎ Obscure Originators (33) Bobbie & Dude

From my website's front page series about lesser known artists who performed the original versions of Australian or NZ records.

See also: the full collection of over 40 Obscure Originators features. 

____________________

Country and pop singer Maria Dallas was a star in New Zealand. Her first single Tumblin' Down (1966, #11 NZ) won the prestigious Loxene Golden Disc Award, but her most successful single in NZ was Pinocchio (1970, #1), her fifth to chart Top 30 there.

In Australia, though, Maria's biggest hit was with Ambush (1967, #16), recorded in Nashville where she went after working in Australia for a while. The song stood out for its unforgettable rhythmic line at the end of verse and chorus: Your kissin’ leavin’ good-time days are dead. It was later recorded by Teresa Brewer (1975) and by Australian country artist Craig Giles (1993), but Maria's was the original release.

Ambush had been copyrighted a few months earlier by its composers, two sisters from the small Texas town of Moody, near Waco. As it happens, Maria Dallas was also from a small town, Morrinsville in New Zealand.

Bobbie Jo and Elizabeth Ann Brown had been singing from an early age in The Brown Sisters, a solidly booked country-gospel trio with another sister, Bettie.

Montreal, 1967

By the time of Ambush they were a duo called Bobbie & Dude. The stage name Dude was adopted by Elizabeth because it seemed to go better with Bobbie. They toured widely, and performed during Expo ’67 in Montreal where their only single had some radio airplay. As far as I can see they did not record Ambush themselves.

For a long time I knew almost nothing about Bobbie & Dude apart from their writing credits for Ambush and a few other songs. I was puzzled by the addition of Elizabeth Ann Brown to co-writer Dude Brown's name in Ambush's copyright registration, but I had never thought of searching for "bobbie and dude" in quotes.

As I have often typed here, Eventually, someone emails. This time it was someone who knew Elizabeth Ann well, and their tantalisingly brief words gave me the clues I needed.

____________________

For more about the song and Bobbie & Dude see Maria Dallas - Ambush.