Accent Records was a United States record label formed in 1954. Scott Seely was the president. Nick Lucas signed to the label in 1955, and made his final recordings for them in 1980. Previously releasing only singles, Accent’s first LP record was released in 1956, an album by Drew Page. (More from Wikipedia)
This month’s Under Appreciated Rock Band of the month is the Human Zoo, a band having numerous connections to a truly legendary band called the Human Expression, one of the garage rock and psychedelic rock bands where I wrote up the Wikipedia article many years back. The Human Expression was from Orange County, California and formed in 1966. The father of one of the bandmembers (who was also one of their songwriters), Jim Foster served as the band’s manager. They released only three singles on Accent Records in 1966 and 1967, with “Optical Sound” being a regional hit. The band had the opportunity to record “Born to be Wild” before Steppenwolf when they were presented with two demos from songwriter Mars Bonfire; bandleader Jim Quarles selected “Sweet Child of Nothingness” as the “A” side of their third single over the future 1968 hit song (and he has a point if you ask me).
Their sole album, The Human Zoo came out in 1970 on Accent Records, the same label as the Human Expression. Only a small number of copies were produced, with limited sales. Accent might have anticipated that a major record company would pick up the album, but that didn’t happen. Over the years, the album began to attract attention from psych fans, with the website popsike.com reporting that the original 1970 album sold several times in the early 2000’s for more than $300; one sealed copy of the album brought $900.
(July 2015)
