The Smoke - Jack's Back (1972)

The Smoke were formed in York, where bassist Zeke Lund and lead guitarist Mal Luker began

 playing together in a band called Tony Adams & the Viceroys, whose line-up eventually came to include drummer Geoff Gill. Though the band was successful locally, enjoying a decent fan base with a solid, basic rock & roll sound, they could hear the changes going on around them in music, with the rise of Merseybeat and the blues, R&B, and soul-based music coming out of London. They eventually decided to strike out on their own, playing a more ambitious repertory, and so linked up late in 1964 with singer Mick Rowley and rhythm guitarist Phil Peacock, refugees from a band called the Moonshots. The resulting band, the Shots, played a hard brand of R&B, similar to contemporaries The Small Faces, and they were taken on by London agents Jack Segal and Alan Brush, who fronted them money for rehearsals and equipment. They signed with independent producer and music publisher Monty Babson, who cut four sides with the group, two of which were issued as a single under license to EMI-Columbia in 1965, with 'Keep A Hold Of What You've Got' being backed with 'She's A Liar'. Around this time Peacock left the band, as he wasn't comfortable with the more complex sounds the rest of the group were interested in generating, and so the rest of the band decided to carry on as a quartet, with an edgier single-guitar configuration. 

After losing their financing, they were offered a rescue by a pair of twin London-based entrepreneurs, Ron and Reg Kray, renowned today the world over as notorious gangsters, but at the time they were also trying to engender a facade of respectability, and as they already had an interest in a few clubs, they thought that a more direct participation in the entertainment business might prove lucrative. They therefore signed the group and became The Shots' managers, but as they were never able to do anything with them in terms of bookings, the band decided to abandon the contract, and when they were served with an injunction, they were left unable to perform. As luck would have it, however, they still had a publishing and recording contract with Babson, and access to his studio, and so they took advantage of their ban on performing by writing and making records, and it was at this time that decided to change their name, dropping The Shots in favour of The Smoke. One of the songs they came up with was 'My Friend Jack', a mod-flavoured psychedelic number written by Rowley and Gill, although its drug references were so potent that the song had to be rewritten before EMI would touch it. EMI/Columbia did release it in February 1967, but almost immediately it was banned by the BBC due to its drug references, although this didn't stop it from becoming a massive hit in Europe, particularly in Germany, where the group performed on the German television show Beat Club, alongside Jimi Hendrix and The Who. 

The single charted high in Switzerland, France, and Austria as well, and suddenly there was demand for a Smoke LP in Germany, so they delivered this in the form of 'It's Smoke Time', comprised of the best of the year-old tracks recorded for Babson during 1966. The band actually relocated to Germany, while continuing to release records in England, and they cut some fine psychedelia, crossing paths with the members of Traffic in the studio during this period. After five years of work they were summoned back to the UK by their new manager Chris Blackwell, but they ignored his request, and so that was effectively the end of the band. Mick Rowley remained in Germany, where, as the voice and frontman for the band, he had a natural following, while Luker, Gill, and Lund did finally return home and went to work for Babson's Morgan Studios, working in various bands within Babson's orbit, including Blue Mink, Orange Bicycle, and Fickle Pickle. A latter-day version of The Smoke surfaced in a distinctly mid-70s mode, but made no great impression on anyone, although the reputation of 'My Friend Jack' continued to grow, being featured on any half-decent compilation of 60's psychedelia. Not everything that the band recorded in 1966 found its way onto 'It's Smoke Time', and so there is enough leftover material from then, plus a few tracks from their early 70's incarnation, to produce a passable follow-up to their 1967 debut.  

Track listing

01 Playing With Magic
02 That's What I Want

03 It Could Be Wonderful
04 Ring Me
05 Jack Is Back
06 Victor Henry's Cool Book

07 Have Some More Tea
08 Sweet Wilfred

09 Utterly Simple
10 Blown Away
11 Sydney Gill
12 My Lullaby
13 The Girl In The Park
14 Ride Ride Ride (Dick Turpin)