Side 1:

Listen: Keep On Running / The Spencer Davis Group
Keep

Listen: You Make It Move / Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich
You

Side 2:

Listen: A Groovy Kind Of Love / The Mindbenders
A

Listen: Midnight To Six Man / The Pretty Things
Midnight

And so with the UK EP, given a possible restrictive higher price to the customer, often labels would package recent chart hits together making a purchase seemingly more attractive, musically convenient or both. Unlike Decca, Fontana weren’t regulars in the various artists EP game. But on this occasion, April 1966, THE BIG 4 hit the market to seemingly little response, given it’s absence from the RECORD RETAILER EP Chart.

Given the EP contained a recent #1 ‘Keep On Running’ and three current Top 50′s: #2 ‘A Groovy Kind Of Love’, #26 ‘You Make It Move’ and #46 ‘Midnight To Six Man’, one would have expected a different result. Most likely the label did too.

Ultimately it’s hard to guess how many might have sold. I really would love to know. This one surfaces occasionally on eBay and doesn’t sell for much. Despite that, it still has value for the money as the pressing is superb, mastered loudly with great high and low end. Plus all the songs make for a great listen together.

Listen: Beggin’ / Timebox TimeboxBeggin.mp3

If only ‘Beggin’ had been a hit for Timebox instead of The Four Seasons. If only any of Mike Patto’s seminal bands, of which Timebox was one, had gotten a break. It’s one of the great shames in the history of music. Now comfortably collectable, I’m sure every member of the band wishes they’d kept a box of ‘Beggin’- as if they’d managed one free copy.

It’s lack of success is indeed baffling, having gotten solid airplay even in the States. I heard it several times before the stations changed over to the now more known Four Seasons version. Hey, The Four Seasons had loads of great singles – no question – it just would have been nice to share a little.

In the UK, it struggled solidly on the lower reaches of the RECORD RETAILER charts (see below) during the summer of ’68, but sadly ended up being at best, a turntable hit.

Above: Record Retailer Top 50 / August 14, 1968

Listen: Birds And Bees / Warm Sounds WarmSoundsBirds.mp3

In May ’67, my Mom went off to Ireland to visit her sister for a few weeks, armed with my 45 want list. She came back with some life-changers (see my post from October 7th, 2008 titled: The Move / The Who / The Small Faces / The Cream). An added unexpected bonus were two pull-out Top 50 charts from RECORD RETAILER, the UK equivalent of BILLBOARD. If I could scan them for you, I would. They’re too large, purposely made to hang on your shop’s wall so kids can easily identify their purchases. Sliding gently back from a #26 peak (to #27, then #28) was ‘Birds And Bees’ by Warm Sounds. It was on Deram. It had to be good.

The psychedelic summer of ’67 was just about to happen, and the great music that would define it was in full tsunami mode. Every week handfuls of ‘must hears’ were arriving in stores, at the radio stations and in trade magazine listings.

Before I could even worry about it, one of my local Top 40′s, WNDR, was playing ‘Birds And Bees’ (see chart below). Occasionally, they or the more loosely programmed, UK and garage band leaning WOLF, would add a gem that never went on to national success. Unlike WOLF, WNDR wouldn’t stick with them too long, but at least we’d have a chance to get a taste – and usually one of the local shops (Walt’s Records in particular) would stock 5 or 10 copies. You had to move quick to secure one though, there was fierce competition amongst us sickos.

Despite it’s rather mainstream pop leanings, it was undeniably English on first listen, the string breakdowns were perfectly LSD’d out, and the lyrics, so blatant (“don’t be afraid, come with me please, that’s all there is to the birds and the bees”).

I was in. Yet how did the program director not notice those lyrics?