A Band Of Angels - Cheat And Lie (1970)

A Band Of Angels were a mid-1960's pop group, featuring Mike d'Abo (vocals, various instruments), John Edward Baker (lead guitar), John Christian Gaydon (vocals, rhythm guitar), Andrew Charles Petre (drums), and David Robert Wilkinson (bass guitar). The members all met while at Harrow School, and the band even had their own comic strip in a UK pop music weekly Fab 208. They were signed to United Artists in the early 60's and released two singles in 1964, which were later combined into a four-track EP later that year. In 1965 they signed to Piccadilly Records and released the singles 'Leave It To Me' in 1965 and 'Invitation' in 1966, before splitting up. d'Abo later reflected on what had gone wrong for them, saying that they never really gelled as a group, and their image was already old-fashioned when they started. In July 1966, after leaving A Band of Angels, d’Abo joined Manfred Mann as a replacement for vocalist Paul Jones, who was leaving to start a solo career. His first big hit with Manfred Mann was 'Semi-Detached Suburban Mr James', which was nearly recorded with 'Mr Jones' in the title before it occurred to the group that it might be seen as an implied criticism of the recently-departed Paul Jones. While he was with the band they had many other hit singles, including 'Ha Ha Said The Clown', 'My Name Is Jack' and the Dylan-penned number one 'Quinn The Eskimo (The Mighty Quinn)', before the group disbanded in 1969. In December 1968, d'Abo played the lead in the stage show Gulliver Travels (not 'Gulliver's Travels', for copyright reasons?) at the Mermaid Theatre in London, and he also featured on the 1969 'soundtrack' album on the Immediate subsidiary label Instant, which must be one of the strangest records ever released. It's basically a sound collage, with snippets of songs from The Small Faces and The Lovin' Spoonful interspersed with weird sound effects, but it did feature the d'Abo original 'See The Little People', which was also released as a single (and you can get an idea of what the album sounded like from its b-side). In 1970 he released his first real solo single 'Miss Me In The Morning', and followed that with his debut solo release 'd'Abo', which included the now classic song 'Handbags And Gladrags'. Although this started out as a retrospective of the work of A Band Of Angels, you can't really separate them from the career of Mike d'Abo as he had a hand in writing a lot of their songs, and so enjoy this trawl through the back catalogue of an undeservedly under-rated UK singer/songwriter. 

   
Track listing

01 Me (single 1964)
02 Not True As Yet (b-side of 'Me')
03 She'll Never Be You (single 1964)
04 Gonna Make A Woman Of You (b-side of 'She'll Never Ne You')
05 Hide 'n' Seek (from the film 'Just For You' 1964)
06 Leave It To Me (single 1965)
07 Too Late My Love (b-side of 'Leave It To Me')
08 Invitation (single 1966)
09 Cheat And Lie (b-side of 'Invitation')
10 See The Little People (single 1969)
11 An Anthology Of Gulliver's Travels (Part Two) (b-side of 'See The Little People')

12 In The Beginning (previously unreleased 1969)
13 Miss Me In The Morning (single 1970)
14 Cinderella Arabella (b-side of 'Miss Me In The Morning')
15 Because Of You (previously unreleased 1970)