WALK AWAY RENEE
"Walk Away Renée" is a song recorded by the band The Left Banke in 1966, written by the group's then 16-year-old keyboard player Michael Brown (real name Michael Lookofsky), Tony Sansone and Bob Calilli. Steve Martin Caro is featured on lead vocals. The song was also a chart hit for the Motown group the Four Tops in 1968. (More from Wikipedia)
The Skywalkers learned about the 1960's music scene through early Pink Floyd albums and the Soft Machine, and no doubt the rich musical heritage in their home country. Their musical vision was to fuse garage and psychedelic music together, but always with a pop sensibility; as they put it in the interview: "We like psychedelic music but it has to have a pop character as well. Think of bands like the Electric Prunes, Love and Strawberry Alarm Clock, Tomorrow. Our favorite years in music are 1966 and 1967, where garage and psychedelic music just came together. Our favourite subgenre is Baroque Pop with artists like Billy Nicholls, Sagittarius, the Millennium and of course the Zombies." I would add to that list a rather under-appreciated American band called the Left Banke, who had a lovely hit song in 1967, "Walk Away Renee".
(January 2013)
