In 1963, 17 year-old Graham Gouldman was a member of Manchester band The Whirlwinds, who released one single on His Masters Voice Records, called 'Look At Me', the following year. Later in 1964, following the breakup of The Whirlwinds, Gouldman met Kevin Godley, formerly of another recently disbanded Manchester group The Sabres, at the Jewish Lads' Brigade in Crumpsall, Manchester, and they formed The Mockingbirds. Bringing in former Whirlwinds members Stephen Jacobson on guitar and Bernard Basso on bass, they soon became the warm-up band for a new show called Top of the Pops, which was filmed at the BBC in Manchester. They secured a record deal with Columbia Records, and for Gouldman the band was a vehicle to perform his own songs, so he wrote 'For Your Love' for The Mockingbirds, but Columbia rejected the song, which is how and why it ended up as The Yardbirds' smash hit, selling over 2 million copies. Columbia instead released another Gouldman composition 'That’s How (It’s Gonna Stay)' which bombed, and their second single 'I Can Feel We're Parting' fared no better. In 1965 they moved to Andrew Loog Oldham's Immediate Records, where they released 'You Stole My Love', backed with the instrumental 'Skit Skat', but the move didn't help, and once again the single was unsuccessful. In 1966 the band left Immediate and signed with Decca Records, releasing two further singles, 'One By One' and 'How To Find A Lover', but with neither of these songs finding success, Gouldman decided to wrap it up and called time on the band. He later said of his time in The Mockingbirds, that "The ones I gave away were hits, the ones we kept were misses. I'd always wanted to play guitar in a band, but I was resigned to the idea of being a writer". Gouldman and Godley later found fame and success with 10cc, where Gouldman was able to fulfil his ambitions of becoming one of the UK's best song-writers, and this post enables us to hear some early examples of his work.
Track listing
01 Look At Me (single as The Whirlwinds 1964)
02 Baby Not Like You (b-side of 'Look At Me')
03 That's How (It's Gonna Stay) (single 1965)
04 I Never Should've Kissed You (b-side of 'That's How (It's Gonna Stay')
05 I Can Feel We're Parting (single 1965)
06 The Flight Of The Mockingbird (b-side of 'I Can Feel We're Parting')
07 You Stole My Love (single 1965)
08 Skit Skat (b-side of 'You Stole My Love')
09 How To Find A Lover (single 1966)
10 My Story (b-side of 'How To Find A Lover')
11 One By One (single 1966)
12 Lovingly Yours (b-side of 'One By One')
Track 2 written by Lol Creme
Tracks 3, 4, 7, 8 and 10 written by Graham Gouldman
Track 5 written by Gouldman/Silverman
Track 6 written by Gouldman/Basso/Jacobson/Godley
