Sunshine Psych/Sunshine Pop

Margo Guryan - Take a Picture
Wendy & Bonnie - Genesis
The Feminine Complex Livin' Love

Unfortunately, Sunshine Days is about all I'm aware of. It's good, but would it have killed them to put more than 14 songs on a disc? I'm not sure why there aren't more such comps. Perhaps because so many of the radio hits are already available on general pop compilations?

*Good multi-artists comps, I'm saying. Plenty of good "Best ofs" are out there.

Features Gary Usher, co-writer of Beach Boys songs, producer of Byrds albums and Curt Boettcher

email me if you do

www.revola.co.uk

really, on this site, is all that you can order and read about sunshine pop.

I've also enjoyed a couple of 2-CD sets I never would have thought were warranted...
5th Dimension - Up Up & Away: The Definitive Collection
Grass Roots - Anthology: 1965-1975

...and one that is long overdue...
Mamas & the Papas - All the Leaves Are Brown: The Golden Era Collection

All three have incredible sound compared to what was on CD before for these groups.

the free design creeps me out like the stepford wives or if you were eight and your next door neighbour babysitter in a miniskirt started talking about jesus or acid or something while she was fixing you a grilled cheeze sandwich. if you were out in a boat on a lake and your dad started to rock it to freak you out and then he got carried away and it actually capsized, the sound you'd hear as you sunk like a stone would be the free design. raymond pettibon should do their album covers. i really can't listen to them.

There used to be some good, informed discussions of The Association and related artists on a Free Design message board, with lots of potentially great-sounding recommendations. But the moderator's just taken the board down and started a new forum in its place. I'll ask him if the archives still exist.

LPs
Jeffrey Comanor: Sure Hope You Like It
OST "Midnight Cowboy"
Stu Phillips: OST "Follow Me" (esp. 'Thru spray colored glasses' by Dino, Desi & Billy)
Stu Phillips: OST "Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls"
Margo Guryan: Take A Picture
Wendy & Bonnie: Genesis
5th Dimension: Magic Garden
The Millennium: Begin
Sagittarius: Present Tense; Blue Marble
Claudine Longet: Colors
Spanky & Our Gang: Like To Get To Know You
The Cowsills: We Can Fly
Eternity's Children: s/t
Chad & Jeremy: Distant Shores
Paul Williams: Someday Man

other artists
Alan Copeland Singers (esp. a surreal arrangement of 'Norwegian Wood' to a backing track of the 'Mission Impossible' theme)
The Lettermen
Roger Nichols & the Small Circle of Friends
Singers' Unlimited
The Carnivals
The Real Group
Electric Prunes / David Axelrod

The Love Generation - including "Groovy Summertime"

http://franklarosa.com/ThumbnailServlet?image=/vinyl/BigImg/lovegeneration.jpg&width=350&smooth=1

In addition to those mentioned by others: The Smoke LP on Tower (a Michael Lloyd (WCPAExpBand) side project); Heaven Bound with Tony Scotti; Fifth Dimension's The Magic Garden; Harmony Grass-This Is Us; The Cyrkle-Neon; Chad & Jeremy-The Ark & 3 In The Attic soundtrack; The Groop-well, anything really.

Another vote for: Paul Williams's 1st, Roger Nichols SCOFriends, Eternity's Children's 1st, Millennium's Begin (tho most of the demos CDs can be passed over), Free Design Sing For Very Important People, The Association-Birthday & Greatest Hits.

Greatest 45 of the whole genre: Tell Someone You Love Them by Dino, Desi & Billy.

Tracklist:

1. Critters - Mr. Dieingly Sad
2. Cyrkle - How Can I Leave Her
3. Sunrays - A Little Dog and His Boy
4. Match - Don't Take Your Time
5. Love Generation - Not Be Found
6. Elephant Candy - Close to Carmel
7. Cowsills - A Time for Remembrance
8. Sugar Shoppe - Privilege
9. Tokens - It's a Happening World
10. Fifth Dimension - Pattern People
11. American Breed - Before and After
12. Happenings - I Believe in Nothing
13. Brooklyn Bridge - Minstral Sunday
14. Bergen White - Look at Me
15. Peppermint Rainbow - I'll Be There
16. Association - Everything That Touches You
17. Hardtimes - Under the Sunlight
18. Blades of Grass - Happy
19. Orpheus - I've Never Seen a Love Like This
20. Harper's Bizarre - Come Love
21. First Edition - If I Could Change
22. Jay and the American - Something in My Eye
23. Thee Prophets - They Call Her Sorrow
24. Love Generation - Hey Look Around
25. Cowsills - Thinking 'Bout the Other Side
26. Association - The Time It Is Today
27. Match - Spray Colored Glasses

and there is a competition to win sunshine pop albums on www.revola.co.uk!

i heart revola.

There's been a ton of new compilations and reissues in the 2-1/2 years since this thread left off, especially in the Sunshine Pop/Soft Pop vein. Anybody who goes weak-kneed for Boettcher and Nichols should get the Bergen White and Mark Eric reissues on Rev Ola. I've been disappointed by much of the Soft Sounds for Gentle People series, but about half of Vol. 2 is fairly breathtaking.

How about any of these comps, anybody:
Piccadilly Sunshine
Spinning Wheel
Colour Me Pop
Pop In

www.poptones.co.uk/webcast.htm

john carter's lost '69/'70 masterpieces. rueful anti-war sunset psych with vox pop interviews in between tracks. like if the beach boys had done an explicit anti-vietnam record (as opposed to "student demonstration time").

Or is it "let's re-live the nineties" day, because lord knows the nineties weren't awful enough the first time around.

*e.g. the "Come To The Sunshine" one has been retitled "A Whole Lot of Rainbows" - seems to be the exact same track list tho'.

Do you like the Michele album? its a bit folkier/hippier than the softpop i like, but song to magic frog is nice

should i pick up the love generation's montage LP?

vol 1:

Dalton And Montgomery - All At Once
The Brothers - The Girl’s Alright
The Clique - Soul Mates
Liz Damon’s Orient Express - You’re Falling In Love
Dalton And Montgomery - Tomorrow’s Women
Nino And April - You’ll Be Needin’ Me Baby
Lyme And Cybelle - Song #7/ Lyme And Cybelle - Write If You Get Work
The Everpesent Fullness - Darlin' You Can Count On Me
Laughing Gravy - Vegetables
Triste Janero - Rene De Marie
Triste Janero - In The Garden
The Committee - If It Weren’t For You
Sugar And Spice - Not To Return
Bittersweet - The Shadow Of You Love
The Dillards - One Too Many Mornings
Nino And April - The Habit Of Lovin’ You Baby
The Brothers - Love Story
Keith Colley - Enamorado
Dobie Gray - Do You Really Have A Heart
Horses - Freight Train
Matthew Moore Plus 4 Codyne
Matthew Moore Plus 4 You've Never Loved Before
Freddie Allen - We’ve Only Just Begun
The Hangtown Fry - The Quiet Side Of Love

vol.2

“Little Girl, Little Boy” - The Odyssey
“I’ll Be In” – The Answer
“Blackmail” - Dalton and Montgomery
“Superman (45 mix)” - The Clique
“Fine and Dandy (45 mix)” - Everpresent Fullness
“Why Do You Smile” - The Answer
“Goin' It Alone” - The Bears
“Work It Out That Way” - The Bears
“(It'll All Wash Away) With The Rain” - The Brothers
“Today Is Today” - The Brothers
“Out Of Nowhere” - Nino and April
“Break OF Dawn” - JK and Co.
“Little Children” - JK and Co.
“Make Me Laugh” - The Rainy Daze
“Space Walker” - The Space Walkers
“Just You Wait” - Walter Scott
“Honey, You Can Take It back” - Dobie Gray
“What A Way To Go” - Dobie Gray
“Beautiful People” - Kenny O'Dell
“Groovy Relationship” - Kenny O'Dell
“Cheyenne” – Horses
“Two Of Us” – Shake
“Christmas Is my Time Of Year” - The Christmas Spirit
“Will You Still Believe In Me?” - The Christmas Spirit
“The Room” - The New FBI Band

I know no band which counted Buddy Miles, Michael Bloomfield and Nick Gravenites as members should even REMOTELY be considered sunshine pop, but this track sounds like a hamfisted attempt at shooting for Spanky & Our Gang's crowd. The drums are heavier and the vocals sound a little too cynical, but otherwise, you can tell that the sunshine market is what they had in mind. Bloomfield even implicitly admitted, in Rolling Stone, that he was going for the flower-pop thing with this one (he said that since "groovin'" seemed to be the Top 40 catchword at the time it was recorded, in late '67 or early '68, he figured it would be a natural for the AM airwaves). It's on their A LONG TIME COMING album, and was the first single.

We're also extremely excited to be releasing the very first (and unreleased) solo outing from The Free Design frontman, Chris Dedrick titled, "Be Free". Chris's musical career began in the late '60s, at the age of 19, as a singer and principal songwriter in sibling vocal group The Free Design. In the midst of one of the most creative and competitive climates in pop music history, The Free Design produced seven albums (from 1967-1973) that stand among the most inventive and melodically seductive of their era. Of the group's hit debut single, "Kites Are Fun," New York Times critic Alec Wilder wrote: "...It was so fine that I literally wept when I heard it." Recorded just after his tenure in the seminal Enoch Light produced sunshine pop band, "Be Free" shows Dedrick extending himself into slightly more intimate and personal territory while staying true to the uniquely catchy melodic sense that he developed in his early days. A lost gem finally available after all these years.

yes, it's great.

do you own the chaemeleon church album, gareth?

i am not gareth, but i have this on mp3. it's ok, not essential.

Naw - only about 18 months off, by my calculations! ;)

Sounds good!

The Split Level's first untitled album has some stunning tracks. Absolutely worth tracking down for an awesome (almost dancey) number called "I'm on the right track" (or "there seems to be a way", maybe?) and the knock-out string-laden female ballad that follows it. The rest is interspersed with some odd interludes, one of which is a bizarre (and quite hilarious) vocal-only not-quite-choral piece that goes 'Shut up, Shut up, Shut up, Shut uhhhp!!!'.

And how about Corliss? Silverbird? Steam?

(just to add to the list of obscure bands on here that are without discussion)

And what about that Maypole album on Anopheles?

the newly-reissued In A Beautiful Place by Catherine Howe
Minor correction: this is called What A Beautiful Place.

other split level cut that i love dearly dearly: "Can't Complain."

Don't forget James Taylor's first LP. It's really good soft pop.

The Sundowners' "Always You" hasn't been mentioned yet. All sunshine pop, no psych; how it failed to be a hit is beyond me. Airy Association-ist arrangement, fab harmony vox, detailed and tight lyric - one of my favorites.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/515VPAu1uCL._SS400_.jpg

loving this.

got lured in by the presence of a few david axelrod productions, but to be honest, my fave is the cliche heavy vibes of 'i think i'll go out and find me a flower' by the moonpark intersection (great name !) and the left hand turn @ 15 seconds into this never ceases to give me a happy buzz :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hi-1NXEFSQc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToDZ_iFcCvA&feature=player_embedded

I would have to go with Sunshine Girl.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8Pz1_2sGMA

The Third Wave have a lot in common with Wendy & Bonnie, I think. each group was made up of teenage sisters from California who recorded a single pop album in 1969 with the backing of prominent jazz musicians (George Duke vs. Gabor Szabo) only to vanish shortly after its release. their vocal harmonies are very similar in spots.

the highlights on the Third Wave album tend to be its softer moments. they have an annoying habit on some tracks of harmonizing brashly at the top of their lungs, but when they get into a low-key groove in "Waves Lament" and "Stormy" and "Once There Was a Time", the result is an eerie, amateurish, almost old-timey beauty that doesn't have too many parallels from either then or now.

almost old-timey

"old-timey" in a '50s soft jazz vocal group sense, I mean. it's hard to tell whether the album was being targeted toward slightly conservative teens or slightly open-minded old people. maybe neither.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLa3X3IHXls

Wow, I am so into this stuff now!! Grooooveee!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=349NslZdJTM

haven't seen these guys mentioned here. sunny, upbeat goodness.

my waking-up music this saturday is sagittarius's present tense and joe byrd & the field hippies' the american metaphysical circus.

excellent albums. the millenium's begin goes really well with present tense