The Bystanders formed in 1962, when two local Merthyr Tydfil groups, The Rebels and The Crescendos, merged together, with a line-up of Mickey Jones on guitar, Ray Williams on bass, Lynn Mittell on vocals, Clive John on organ, and Jeff Jones on drums, and while they looked for a name they called themselves The Mystery Men. The group became successful locally and did gigs with Unit Four Plus Two, Sounds Incorporated and Bert Weedon, but balancing work and gigs became too strenuous and the group decided to go professional, giving up their day-jobs. Now called The Bystanders, they fashioned themselves musically along the lines of US harmony pop groups such as The Beach Boys, The Four Seasons and The Tokens, and when the group played in Swansea, local hairdresser Wynn David, who had a successful business there, became their financial backer due to his love of music. In 1965, with David's financing, the band travelled to ITC Studios in London to record a debut single, and 'That's The End' b/w 'This Time' was released on the Pylot label, which was created by David. The disc only sold in local shops, and without major distribution it received no airplay and consequently did not sell well. After Mittell left the group, Vic Oakley became the new vocalist, and their manager George Cooper took them to Pye Records, who signed them to their subsidiary Piccadilly label. The group moved to London and played gigs in the area to re-establish themselves, and their first Piccadilly release was a cover of '(You're Gonna) Hurt Yourself', which featured on Frankie Valli's first solo album.
Their next release was 1966's 'My Love - Come Home', but this too failed to gather significant sales, which could have been because these two singles were quite middle of the road fare, due the fact Cooper was booking the group into cabaret clubs, and he felt these tracks would appeal to this audience. Their fourth single was a cover of Keith's '98.6', which was released in 1967, and although it was an improvement musically, it still failed to chart, and so they filled their time by recording demos at R.G.Jones Studios for songwriters signed to the George Cooper Organisation. Ronnie Scott wrote the group's next release 'Royal Blue Summer Sunshine Day', and this was followed by a cover of Jimmy Webb's 'Pattern People', and so their song choices did seem to taking a paisley pop turn . The Piccadilly imprint folded after the release of this single and the band moved to the parent Pye label, which released 1968's 'When Jezamine Goes', which was written by Marty Wilde and Ronnie Scott under the pseudonym of Maston and Gellar, but it was a dismal failure, even though The Casuals version soared to number two on the UK charts just three months later. Hidden on the flip side of 'When Jezamine Goes' was the brilliant 'Cave Of Clear Light', which is now considered a psych classic, but even that was not enough to make it a hit, and so they had one last stab at success with the recording of Albert Hammond's 'This World Is My World'. When this went the same way as the others, the band continued to gig on the cabaret circuit as The Bystanders, but eight months after the release of their last single, 'Sudden Life' was issued on Pye under the new group name of Man, following the recruitment of Deke Leonard on guitar and vocals. Martin Ace then came in to replace bassist Ray Williams and Terry Williams took over the drums following the departure of Jeff Jones, and this completed the transformation of The Bystanders to the newly-formed progressive rock artists Man. Even though some of The Bystander's singles were a bit pop-orientated, they did also produce some great psyche and rock tracks, and so as the band never managed to record an album in their lifetime, this is what one released around 1968 could have sounded like.
Track listing
01 Make Up Your Mind
02 My Love - Come Home
03 98.6
04 Royal Blue Summer Sunshine Day
05 Cave Of Clear Light
06 Stay A Little While
07 (You're Gonna) Hurt Yourself
08 Pattern People
09 My Way Of Thinking
10 This World Is My World
11 Have I Offended The Girl
12 Green Grass
13 When Jessamine Goes
14 Painting The Time
No comments:
Post a Comment