The Soul Agents

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UNDER-APPRECIATED ROCK BANDS OF THE MONTH FOR MAY 2014:  THE SOUL AGENTS

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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Every once in a while, I see something on the Internet that makes me just step back and marvel.  As usual, I went on the Internet to see what I could find about the Soul Agents.  I immediately uncovered a blog called The British Sound that is run by an Italian rock historian named Bruno Ceriotti.  His most recent creation was what he called “The Soul Agents Day-by-Day Story”.  He describes the Soul Agents as “undoubtedly one of the best British rhythm ’n’ blues bands of the early 60’s” and thanks 30 people who assisted him over the 20 years of research required to put this information together, among them Eric Clapton and Keith Emerson.  This truly amazing history of the band can be found at:  thebritishsound.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-soul-agents-day-by-day-story.html . 

Running down something like this for a major rock band like the Beatles or Led Zeppelin would be difficult enough; but I can’t imagine where he even looked, a half-century later, to find out about every gig of the Soul Agents (18 in the month of August 1964 alone, to pick one month basically at random).  Bruno Ceriotti noted that one club where the band performed regularly, the Marquee in Soho did not normally list the supporting acts in their monthly program listings, making it that much more difficult.  

Bruno Ceriotti also uncovered the eight (!) line-up changes of the predecessor band the Lonely Ones (with photographs of two of them) and the personnel changes in the Soul Agents as well. 

This is an example of the level of detail that Bruno Ceriotti put into his descriptions:  “The Lonely Ones added a rhythm guitarist called Jim Sach (b. James Victor George Raphael Sach, Saturday, May 13, 1944, George, South Africa) known to friends as ‘Jimmy’ or ‘Jimbo’.  Jim started to play guitar in the spring of 1961 with an unnamed High School band that included singer Kevin Finn (aka Danny Finn of The New Seekers’ fame).  They only performed once, at the school concert.  Jim left school in the summer of 1961 and formed a band called The Avengers with friends from school and the youth clubs, but gigs were few and far between so he jumped at the opportunity of joining The Lonely Ones in early 1962 changing his day job to accommodate the heavy schedule of gigs that The Lonely Ones were enjoying.”  

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In 1960, four young men from southwest Hampshire assembled themselves as an R&B band, first taking the name the Stallions and then settling on the name the Lonely Ones in January 1962.  The initial line-up was Jerry Bromley (bass guitar), Tony Good (guitar), Johnny Keeping (vocals), and Chris Warman (drums).  As noted above, Jim Sach joined as rhythm guitar, and Ray Taylor helped out as a second vocalist and roadie.  Gene Anthony was added as a permanent second vocalist in the summer of 1962.  The band went through several drummers between the summer of 1962 and August 1963 and made an appearance on June 17, 1963 on a local TV show called Home Grown. 

In August 1963, the Lonely Ones “went pro”, losing Jerry Bromley in the process, so Jim Sach switched to bass guitar; otherwise, through the beginning of 1964, the Lonely Ones were back almost to its original line-up:  Tony Good (guitar), Johnny Keeping (vocals), Gene Anthony (vocals), Chris Warman (drums), and Jim Sach (bass guitar). 

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For the month of December 1963, the Lonely Ones performed seven days a week at a club called Storyville in Cologne (Köln), Germany (almost exactly one year after the last of the Beatles’ several residencies in Hamburg, Germany took place).  British singer Paul Hanford was a sometime “guest vocalist” over this period; he previously had a hit in the U.K. with “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini” (Brian Hyland had the original hit in 1960 with “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini”).  At this point, the band still had more of a pop sound but would transition to a harder R&B band the following year. 

Gene Anthony and Chris Warman left the band in January 1964; and in March 1964, Don Shinn was added on organ.  His strong keyboard work was essential to the band’s sound from then on.  The Lonely Ones officially changed its name to the Soul Agents on April 2, 1964.  The bandmembers were Tony Good (guitar and harmonica), Johnny Keeping (vocals), Jim Sach (bass guitar). Don Shinn (organ), and Roger Pope (drums).  

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On June 2, 1964, the Soul Agents released their first single on Pye Records, “I Just Wanna Make Love to You” b/w “Mean Woman Blues”.  Later in the year, the single was released in the U.S. and in Canada.  The band made a few lyric changes to the Willie Dixon song (and in the title as well – the actual title is “I Just Want To Make Love To You”), and they inserted some nice instrumental fills into their rendition of this blues standard.  “Mean Woman Blues” is also an oft recorded song; Elvis Presley included “Mean Woman Blues” in the soundtrack for his 1957 film, Loving You (his first starring role in a movie), and “Mean Woman Blues” was the flip side of Roy Orbison’s immortal “Blue Bayou” when the song was originally released in 1963.  In the U.K., Cliff Richard and the Shadows had released “Mean Woman Blues” in 1959.  As with the other singles by the Soul Agents, this recording failed to make the British charts. 

Undaunted, the Soul Agents continued their near constant series of gigs in British clubs and also made an occasional appearance on television and radio.  On September 18, 1964 and again on September 21, the Soul Agents backed blues legend Little Walter, a fearsome blues harmonica (“blues harp”) player who was once a part of Muddy Waters’ band.  Wikipedia notes that his “revolutionary approach to the harmonica earned him comparisons to Charlie Parker and Jimi Hendrix, for innovation and impact on succeeding generations”.  Harmonica is mostly absent from rock music these days, but nearly every 1960’s band had someone who could handle the harmonica.  Playing some of his early sides convinced me that Little Walter is likely the reason for this.  Little Walter is the first and only musician to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame solely as a harmonica player.  

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The Soul Agents released their second single on October 15, 1964, also on Pye Records; and in 1965, this single also came out in America.  The band picked two other traditional songs for this 45, “The Seventh Son” b/w “Let’s Make it Pretty Baby”.  “The Seventh Son” was a Top Ten hit song for Johnny Rivers in 1965, and “seventh son” is mentioned in numerous other songs as well, such as Roger Miller’s “Dang Me”:  “I’m the seventh out of seven sons / My pappy was a pistol, I’m a son of a gun”.  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.” 

The same night as their single was released, the Soul Agents appeared at Soho’s Marquee Club with Long John Baldry and the Hoochie Coochie Men.  Allmusic says of the 1964 album by this group:  “One of the unsung jewels of the British R&B scene, Long John’s Blues is, astonishingly, the sole surviving document of what was, at one point, among the most exciting live acts on the entire circuit.”  Rod Stewart appears on banjo on this album. 

The following month, a single by the Soul Agents was released in Denmark, consisting of the “A” sides of the two British 45’s.  Also, an EP was assembled of all four of their songs that was released in Spain; these were the only picture sleeves released by the Soul Agents up to that point in time. 

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Rod Stewart – then known as “Rod the Mod” – left Long John Baldry and the Hoochie Coochie Men in November 1964 to pursue a solo career.  After trying out with several bands, Rod settled on the Soul Agents as his backing band the following month.  No formal agreement was made, and they never could record together since they had separate recording contracts.  For individual gig contracts though, they were billed as “Rod Stewart and the Soul Agents”.  Without any rehearsals, their first performance together was at the Marquee Club on December 3, 1964, and they were regulars for months afterward at the club; Long John Baldry and the Hoochie Coochie Men was also on hand for that first show and several other times.   

On January 3, 1965, Rod Stewart and the Soul Agents filled the Mecca Ballroom in Hampshire to capacity; and on January 14, 1965, the Marquee Club featured the group as the headliner for the first time.  

February 19, 1965 marked the appearance of the third single (on Pye) by the Soul Agents, “Don’t Break it Up” b/w “Gospel Train”.  The British songwriting team of Ken Howard and Alan Blaikley wrote “Don’t Break it Up”; they are probably best known for the U.K. Number One hit (and U.S. #5) by the Honeycombs, “Have I the Right”.  “Gospel Train” is a terrific instrumental anchored by Don Shinn’s Hammond Organ; the song was written by the band, specifically, Tony Good, Jim Sach, Don Shinn, and Roger Pope. 

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The same night that their third single was released (February 19, 1965), the Soul Agents (but without Rod Stewart) appeared on the storied British music television program, Ready Steady Go!.  They performed their new song “Don’t Break it Up” and then backed blues legend Buddy Guy on two songs.  Johnny Keeping left the band immediately after the taping to care for his ailing father and take over the family business. 

The Soul Agents and Buddy Guy had joint appearances at several British clubs in the coming weeks after the Ready Steady Go! show, often with Rod Stewart.  In April 1965, Jim Sach also exited the band and became an accountant, leaving the Soul Agents with just three members plus Rod Stewart.  

After Don Shinn contracted tuberculosis in July 1965, Rod Stewart left the Soul Agents and joined a “supergroup” called Steampacket that was formed by Long John Baldry with organist Brian Auger and vocalist Julie Driscoll, who had previously recorded together as part of Brian Auger and the Trinity.  

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The Soul Agents were essentially out of commission until Don Shinn recovered, and he then assembled a new band with David ‘Dave’ Glover (bass), Peter ‘Pete’ Hunt (drums), and Ian Duck (vocals, guitar, harp).  They were often billed as Don Shinn’s Soul Agents and Don Shinn and the Soul Agents. 

The band’s fourth and final single came out on Polydor Records in May 1966, “A-Minor Explosion” b/w “Pits of Darkness”, under the name Don Shinn and the Soul Agents.  Both sides were instrumentals that were composed by Don Shinn.  

On June 6, 1966, Keith Emerson – later a founding member of the Nice and Emerson, Lake and Palmer – told Bruno Ceriotti that he was in the audience for a performance by the Soul Agents at the Marquee Club.  As reported by Ceriotti on his blog:  “The not yet famous organ God Keith Emerson was in the audience during one of the band’s Marquee shows that summer, and was duly inspired by Don Shinn’s act that featuring hilarious stage antics such as a habit of disappearing around the back of his organ to draw out weird sounds with the aid of a screwdriver, and also ‘treated’ adaptations of classical pieces such as an arrangement of Edvard Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A Minor, one of the most popular of all piano concerti.  Seeing Don Shinn do that, made Keith Emerson realise that he’d like to compile an act from what Don did.”  

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In September 1966, the Soul Agents broke up; as reported by Bruno Ceriotti:  “Don Shinn went to form his own band The Shinn, Ian Duck joined The MeddyEvils, Pete Hunt joined The Quik, and Dave Glover went to form The Loot (that included another former Soul Agent, Roger Pope).” 

The Loot also had several connections with the Troggs; bandmember Dave Wright was one of the original members of that band, and “Baby Come Closer”, from their first single, was later recorded by the Troggs.  Also, their label, Page One Records was owned by Troggs manager Larry Page; and Ronnie Bond, the drummer for the Troggs produced many of the songs by the Loot.  Other bandmembers in the Loot were Chris Bates (vocals) and Bruce Turner (lead guitar).  The band released six singles between 1966 and 1969. 

In 1969, lead vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Caleb Quaye (vocals, guitar, keyboards) formed a band called Hookfoot with former Soul Agents Ian Duck (vocals, guitar, harmonica), Dave Glover (bass guitar) and Roger Pope (drums).  Quaye had previously been in one of the final incarnations of Long John Baldry’s band Bluesology (whose previous members included Elton John when he was still known as Reg Dwight – in fact, the “John” in his stage name is in tribute to Long John Baldry). 

The bandmembers met while working as house musicians at DJM Records, which had also signed Elton John in the same time period.  Caleb Quaye and Roger Pope were part of the backing band for Elton John on his debut album, Empty Sky (1969); and everyone in Hookfoot was on hand for his third album, Tumbleweed Junction (1970).  In 1972, Hookfoot released an album called Good Times A’ Comin’ on DJM Records (A&M Records in the States). 

In 1972, three previous members of the Soul Agents – Jerry Bromley, Jim Sach and Johnny Keeping – were in a new band called Tapestry.