English Freakbeat, Volume 2 is a compilation album in the English Freakbeat series that has been issued in both LP and CD format. (More from Wikipedia)
As with past UARB the Sons of Fred, I learned about this month’s Under-Appreciated Rock Band, the Soul Agents through the albums in the English Freakbeat Series. The English Freakbeat, Volume 2 CD includes a song made famous by Muddy Waters, “I Just Wanna Make Love to You” plus the flip side of a later single, the organ-driven instrumental “Gospel Train”. The English Freakbeat, Volume 4 CD has three more songs, “Don’t Break it Up”, “Mean Woman Blues” and “I Just Wanna Make Love to You” again. Apparently the intention was to include “Let’s Make it Pretty Baby” on the earlier CD (it was included on the English Freakbeat, Volume 2 LP); Greg Shaw says that it was his favorite among their songs in the liner notes for the English Freakbeat, Volume 2 CD.
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The Soul Agents released their second single on October 15, 1964, also on Pye Records; the band picked two other traditional songs for this 45, “The Seventh Son” b/w “Let’s Make it Pretty Baby”. Of the “B” side, Greg Shaw said in his liner notes for English Freakbeat, Volume 2: “‘Let’s Make it Pretty Baby’ is my favourite, a John Lee Hooker number but with an urgency that was wholly their own.”
(May 2014)
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As recounted in Greg Shaw’s liner notes for the English Freakbeat, Volume 2 CD, Kim Fowley connected with another American expatriate, P. J. Proby. After several failed singles in this country, Proby had a series of UK Top 20 hits that included his cover of a Lennon/McCartney song, “That Means a Lot” that the Beatles were never able to record to their own satisfaction.
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Greg Shaw included both sides of a December 1964 single by a band called the Lancasters on the English Freakbeat, Volume 2 CD, “Earthshaker” and “Satan’s Holiday”; both songs were co-written by Kim Fowley. One of the members of the band was a young Ritchie Blackmore shortly after being in the backing band for Screaming Lord Sutch called the Savages and several years before he became one of the original bandmembers in Deep Purple.
(January 2015/1)
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Billy J. Kramer with the Dakotas had numerous hit songs, including several Lennon/McCartney songs in Britain (Billy J. Kramer was also managed by Brian Epstein) and a major U.S. hit, “Little Children” in March 1964. They used “with” rather than “and” so as to keep separate identities for the singer and the band. The Dakotas by themselves had a hit instrumental in the U.K. with “The Cruel Sea”; for its U.S. release, it was retitled “The Cruel Surf” and was later covered by the Ventures. A curious song by the Dakotas called “7 Pounds of Potatoes” – “ . . . come between me and my love”, according to the lyrics – is included on English Freakbeat, Volume 2 (both the LP and the CD).
(May 2015)
