One
of the most creative and initially successful of the Scottish beat crews
during the 1960s, The Poets began life at the dawn of the beat group boom,
around the end of 1962. George Gallacher (vocals) joined forces with Hume
Paton (lead & 12-string guitar), Tony Myles (rhythm guitar), John
Dawson (bass) and Alan Weir (drums). They took
A
quite unique range of sounds were to be heard on the single, not least
Hume’s acoustic 12-string shimmer, and George’s heartfelt, nasal
sneer, which sat atop a dense and startling production, courtesy of the
Loog. When an advance copy of the record was played to John Lennon, he
commented that it was “weird”. Hitting the lower rungs of the Top
Thirty in late autumn 1964 the group took to the road playing a zig-zag
tour of never ending one-nighters, fitting in a few television appearances
on the way, including Ready Steady Go, Stramash and Top Of The Pops. In
In
early 1965 Decca issued their shattering second single ‘That’s The Way
It’s Got To Be’ / ‘I’ll Cry With The Moon’ (F12074). With a
rumbling six-string bass intro that echoed the future hit ‘Keep On
Running’ by the Spencer Davis Group, and a furious maraca-shakin’ end
coda, The Poets totally excelled on this stomping killer slab of
hard-edged beat, or what is now forever (almost) globally termed, freak
beat! That it didn’t cement the group’s fortunes says less about the
quality of the work in question and more about the tastes of the majority
of the Great British record buying public at the time; perhaps ‘I’ll
Cry With The Moon’ the mournful B side ballad would’ve worked better
as a chart-hopping plug side? George Gallacher has said in interviews over
the years that Decca, having flung all their promotional might behind
‘Now We’re Thru’ gave virtually nothing to any of the subsequent
singles. By
the middle of 1965 internal problems within the group came to a head with
drummer Alan Weir being replaced by Jim Breakey. Then Tony Myles - closer
to Alan than anyone else in the group, and part of the songwriting
triumvirate - jumped ship, supposedly to run off and get married, but the
group didn’t hear from him again. His replacement was Fraser Watson, a
mod-looking teen who joined from while
the flip is another mid-tempo groover, and, to these ears anyway, somehow
redolent of some of the moves made by mid-60s Dutch beat combos such as
the Outsiders, Motions etc; unusual descending chord patterns; melodic
12-string twang, and forlorn vocal delivery. I feel that this too
would’ve made a great A side, but by now Decca didn’t care, and the
group followed Andrew Loog Oldham as he switched his organisation from
Decca to begin a new life at his independently-run Immediate label. The
group’s Immediate debut was with ‘Call Again’ / ‘Some Things I
Can’t Forget’ (IM006). This marked the debut of guitarist Fraser
Watson in the studio. Again the group are in subdued mode, but they
must’ve inhaled some of the vibes wafting over from
Around
this time there was talk in fan club newsletters of a full-length LP by
The Poets, which was at least half-finished, and it was hoped that it
would be finished and in the shops by Christmas 1965. Of course, this
never happened. More internal strife within The Poets camp resulted in one
of the biggest upheavals of the group’s career, lead vocalist and chief
melody / lyric writer George Gallacher announces he will leave the group
at the beginning of the new year, 1966. He cites management problems and
lack of support as being the biggest factor in his decision to withdraw
from the group he helped to create. Meanwhile,
Immediate issue the group’s next single, Marvin Gaye’s ‘Baby Don’t
You Do It’ / ‘I’ll Come Home’ (IM024). It’s the first time the
group had recorded a cover version, offering for their fifth disc outing a
rollicking, mod-i-fied take on this popular soul raver, adding in some
restrained fuzztone, menacing bass and drums, and other reverberations all
fighting for space in the murky mix, behind George’s pleading wail.
‘I’ll Come Home’ was yet another quiet original, pleasing to the
ear, but not as impressive as their previous contributions. The single was
produced by Paul Raven, aka the future Gary Glitter. He certainly messed
up the sonic balance with everything sounding clangy and tinny and
somewhat distorted. However, in trying to do a Joe Meek but failing,
it’s still a momentous record. Although according to the group it
would’ve sounded a much more propulsive and aggressive driving beat
number had the production been nailed. Although he was about to leave,
George Gallacher stuck around and encouraged group rehearsals with Fraser
Watson’s choice of singer to replace George, Andi Mulvey, of
With
the 12-strings now gone, not to mention the group’s original songwriting
team, Fraser’s harder-edged sound was becoming more central to the
group’s new approach. Norie MacLean was the group’s new bass player
and Ian McMillan was brought in on rhythm guitar. Confusion was rife
everywhere as The Poets sought to get a deal for their new material,
having hooked up with
Some early and unissued at the time demo tracks which The Poets recorded, supposedly as far back as 1963-64, including ‘With You By Me’, the autumnal majesty of ‘Love Is Fading Away’, the truly haunting ‘I’ll Keep My Pride’ and the primal-sounding savage R&B raver ‘Miss Queen Bee’ have subsequently been released on the CD ‘The Poets - Scotland’s No. 1 Group’, issued on the American independent label DynoVox.
The Pathfinders track ‘Pumpkin Lantern’ first surfaced on Dig The Fuzz’s ‘Incredible Sound Show Stories’ series of LPs -Volume 10 - ‘A Hidden Secret Garden Found’.
‘Pumpkin Lantern’ surfaced again, intact with it’s counterpart ‘To Love Somebody’ on the more recent ‘Alphabeat’ compilation LP/CD, issued on the Topsounds label.
Lenny Helsing
A
huge spoonful of Marmalade Skies thanks goes to Lenny for sparing the time
to write this article.
The cool pic of The Poets in rehearsal is taken from "Urban Spacemen & Wayfaring Strangers" by Richie Unterberger, which includes an excellent chapter on The Poets as well as including "Some Things I Can't Forget" on a free CD!
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