Listen: Peace In The End / Fotheringay
Peace

Turning October Island pink in support of curing breast cancer, I’m reposting Fotheringay from April 6, 2009:

Remember in the very early 70′s Warner Brothers did those $1 and $2 samplers you could send off for from the back pages of ROLLING STONE? Well A&M did one too, and only one if memory serves me well. Titled FRIENDS, it was nicely full of UK bands like Blodwyn Pig, Free, The Move and Spooky Tooth to name a few. Fotheringay were on there, this song in fact. ‘Peace In The End’ was my first taste of the band, which I was well anxious to hear.

I’d loved Fairport Convention, and when Sandy Denny left to join up with Trevor Lucas in Fotheringay, well there was more of them all to love basically. Unlike most fans, my most memorable Fairport Convention period followed her departure. FULL HOUSE, ANGEL DELIGHT and BABBACOMBE LEE were and are hands down favorites. The lineups with Dave Swarbrick and Simon Nicol are just perfect for me.

I didn’t fall in love with the Fotheringay album, but I sure did fall in love with it’s only single, ‘Peace In The End’. I must have played this hundreds of times.

Years later, during that first London trip Corinne and I made together in ’77, Howard Thompson brought us round to the Island offices, where he did A&R at the time. In the back, there was an up and running company canteen which did hot food all day for staff and whoever was in the studio at the time. It was still operational ten years later when I joined the label.

What an experience that was. Just envision, growing up and living in upstate New York, and to then be suddenly transported to London for a two week vacation, meeting someone in Howard who would unknowingly change our lives forever, well we literally died and went to heaven.

Rico and his band were there rehearsing downstairs, Simon Kirke from Free eating with Jess Roden, various members of Eddie & The Hot Rods and Ultravox. Over in a corner were Trevor Lucas and Sandy Denny. She was very quiet, but extremely sweet when I approached her for a hopeful talk. Her voice as angelic when speaking as in song. ‘Peace In The End’ will forever remind me of her aura on that day.

Listen: Alice Long / Tommy Boyce & Bobby Hart
Alice

Specific probably to me alone, ‘Alice Long’ was right up there with the most named checked California songs of all time. This just reeked of an endless summer. Well that’s how I remember it anyway.

During the 60′s, bunches of records got Top 40 play made by guys a little too old to wear fringed haircuts and Carnaby Street fashions, but did regardless. It was even more noticeable once all the hip kids started to sleep in their clothes instead of iron them. Blame San Fransisco. I seem to remember The Association being in that old guys with squeaky clean threads space, Spanky & Our Gang, and yes Tommy Boyce & Bobby Hart too. Despite great records, without Top 40 play, these acts were never going to have ROLLING STONE on their side and therefore basically doomed.

Luckily a few by Boyce & Hart did get heard, like ‘Alice Long’. Occasional singles would come on the air and instantly hit the refresh button, decades before a refresh button existed, like this one for me. We’d be riding around after school, wasting our parent’s gas, radio on, windows down and ‘Alice Long’ blaring out of the dash, all compressed up tight via a mono AM signal. Vivid as yesterday.

Why can’t Sirius do an oldies channel that plays mono singles mixes this way, from vinyl?