THE FOOL ON THE HILL (Queen Anne’s Lace)
The only album by Queen Anne’s Lace was released in 1969 on Coral Records, a label already in severe decline and very much of the old school, where it was the song and not the singer that was important. Four of the five songs on Side 1 are covers, and familiar ones at that: “The Fool on the Hill” opens the album and is a fine if spare rendition of the Beatles song that was almost lost among the torrent of creativity that was the Magical Mystery Tour album of1967 – besides the songs from the ill-fated Beatles TV movie of the same name, Magical Mystery Tour, some of the band’s best singles were also included: “Strawberry Fields Forever”, “Hello Goodbye”, “All You Need is Love”, and others. It probably would have had a shot at being a successful single, except that “The Fool on the Hill” had already been a Top 5 hit in 1968 for Sergio Mendes and Brasil ’66 (a self-defeating band name that had already been renamed once from Brasil ’65).
(August 2010)
