Listen: Simon Smith And The Amazing Dancing Bear / Alan Price Set
Simon Smith And The Amazing Dancing Bear / Alan Price Set

His original band, The Alan Price Combo, morphed into The Animals once Eric Burdon joined up. A few years later though, he left forming The Alan Price Set, a six piece that included a few brass players. Weened as many of the Flamingo All-Nighter keyboardists were, on Jimmy Smith and Jimmy McGriff, he and the band’s live show was probably way more blues, rootsy and jazzy than the singles released. All but the first (‘I Put A Spell On You’) were polished up for the charts, but it worked. They had a string of hits, and like Manfred Mann during the period, chose really interesting material to cover. One example being this Randy Newman song. With a great voice like his, these singles just had magic. I remember seeing a B&W clip of this on AMERICAN BANDSTAND back then. God I wish it would turn up on youtube.