Granny’s three partners eventually sold the shop to their manager, Freddie Hornik, who, with his own partners, was able to revive the business for a few years. Hapshash dissolved around this time and Nigel became a fine art painter. Pearse, after rebranding himself as a film director in the seventies, went back to tailoring, and cultivated a celebrity clientele. Shelia became a spiritualist in Cornwall.
Though well designed, Granny’s clothes were made for the moment, often from fabric unsuitable for garments. The shop’s velvet trousers often split because they were stitched to accommodate the snug fit of the period. As a result, surviving garments with original Granny Takes a Trip labels are scarce and highly collectible, and go for thousands of dollars. Granny Takes a Trip apparel may be seen in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of New York and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. In 2012, Britain’s Royal Mail reproduced George Harrison’s jacket on a postage stamp, crediting Granny Takes a Trip. Clothes designers Tommy Hilfiger and Anna Sui both referenced Granny Takes a Trip as an inspiration for their 2015 summer collections. Hapshash’s posters found their way decades later into the Victoria and Albert Museum permanent collections. In October 2000 the museum exhibited Waymouth and English’s work as Cosmic Visions—Psychedelic Posters from the 1960s. Eight of their posters—as well as a wealth of sixties music—were included in the museum’s You Say You Want a Revolution? Records and Rebels 1966–70, which closed just prior to the publication of this book.
The Zombies Resurrected
With the success of The Beatles came countless other English rock groups. Among the best were The Zombies, who can be thought of as the Rodney Dangerfield of the British Invasion. Over five years they released nineteen singles, most of them stellar, but only managed three hits in America and one in Britain. Their acclaimed Odessey and Oracle LP even failed to make the charts in the UK. This underrated band, like Rodney Dangerfield’s character, clearly “got no respect.”
The band was composed of schoolmates from two schools in St. Albans, a suburb twenty miles north of London: Rod Argent, keyboards; Colin Blunstone, lead vocals; Chris White, bass; Paul Atkinson, guitar; Hugh Grundy, drums. Low budget horror movies were the rage with teens in the early sixties, so it was no surprise that original bassist Paul Arnold suggested “The Zombies” when the group became aware of other combos also called the Mustangs. Only decades later can one appreciate how prescient the naming was.
They had been performing in the area—mostly colleges and rugby clubs—for over a year when they realized that they weren’t making enough money to sustain an adult lifestyle. In the spring of 1964, with most of the members eyeing college, they were on the verge of breaking up when they were encouraged to enter a newspaper-sponsored battle of the bands, the Herts Beat Music Contest. (Herts was short for Hertfordshire, the county name.) They won, collecting £250, and were offered a recording contract with Decca Records. Chris was twenty-one; the others eighteen and nineteen.
The group was considering recording their version of George Gershwin’s “Summertime” (composed in 1934 for Porgy and Bess) when producer Ken Jones heard Rod’s new composition, “She’s Not There,” and selected that for their debut. Rod took inspiration from the title of John Lee Hooker’s “No One Told Me” and the chord sequence of Brian Hyland’s “Sealed With a Kiss.” It was only the third song he had written. On “She’s Not There,” as well as their next few singles, The Zombies presented a distinct sound characterized by Colin’s crystalline, breathy vocals, the group’s choirboy harmonies, and Rod’s jazzy keyboard. Rod’s preference for minor chords conveyed an undercurrent of sadness and melancholy, matched by lyrics of missed romantic connections. Some songs evoked a haunting quality, best exemplified on “I Remember When I Loved Her,” a B-side recorded in November. Emotionally subdued, Colin sounds like he’s singing about a loved one who has died. Rod’s organ solo is eerie.
In their early years, the band played rock ’n’ roll by Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis and Gene Vincent, as well as blues and R&B. Somehow, these musical roots that were so apparent with other acts weren’t noticeable when The Zombies performed their own compositions. Fortunately, when they focused on Rod’s and Chris’ compositions, only the influence of The Beatles, by way of harmony vocals and strong melodies, was apparent. The Zombies were too nice. They didn’t have the grit to evoke the black experience. As a result, the band developed an appealing English sound.
“She’s Not There,” recorded on June 12, was released the following month and became a hit on both sides of the Atlantic: number two in the US, twelve in the UK. Academic plans were forgotten. With The Zombies’ debut 45 racing up the charts, Decca Records concocted an image for these shy, awkward teenagers. In an effort to distinguish them from the rash of other beat groups, they were presented as brainy high school students “with fifty A & O levels among them.” Had Larry Page managed them, in their press photos he might have posed them in lab coats holding smoking beakers. Instead, in their matching suits, much like other bands in 1964, they looked like erudite schoolboys. Two even wore glasses.
As “She’s Not There” made its way into America’s top five, The Zombies were hastily added to Murray the K’s Christmas Show at the Brooklyn Fox Theater. In star fashion, they were met at the airport by two limousines to be whisked to New York. The next day they were dismayed to find out that they were the ones paying even though they hadn’t ordered the expensive rides. The other performers included Chuck Jackson, Ben E. King & the Drifters, The Shirelles, Dick and Dee Dee, The Shangri-Las, Patti LaBelle & The Bluebells, The Vibrations, Dionne Warwick, The Nashville Teens, and The Hullabaloos. Most acts performed only a few songs, with shows scheduled five times a day. The Zombies performed “She’s Not There” and usually one other song.
The Zombies normally traveled to the Brooklyn Fox by subway, but around the theater they experienced the same fanaticism The Beatles had. In one harrowing episode, girls mobbed Paul, pulled off his shirt and jacket, and pressed him up against a glass door that was about to shatter until police freed him. Other times they were chased by girls bearing scissors determined to cut locks off their hair.
America’s reputation as a violent place was confirmed as Hugh and Chris were enjoying a New Year’s Day morning stroll in Times Square with members of The Nashville Teens. They were shocked to observe an actual shoot out right before their eyes. A man wearing a stocking mask, who shot a cook at a restaurant moments before, fled into the street as two policemen were dismounting from their horses. He fired at them. They returned fire, striking him in the neck.
A few days later The Zombies played their new single, “Tell Her No,” on Hullabaloo and Shindig!, propelling it to number six. Additional tracks had been recorded in November and December to flesh out an LP, and, with their two American hits, The Zombies was released in February. It’s hard to imagine now, but The Zombies were a big influence on America’s post-Beatles’ bands. The Byrds, Left Banke, Love, and Vanilla Fudge all performed Zombies’ songs live. Howard Kaylan admitted copying Colin’s “soft, innocent” delivery when he sang the verses of “It Ain’t Me Babe,” The Turtles’ first hit.
In the UK, they joined a twelve-date spring tour headlined by Dusty Springfield and The Searchers. The tour booklet described them as “Five educated Zombies with more than 50 G .C. E. [General Certificate of Education] passes between them.” They missed two days on the tour to appear in Bunny Lake Is Missing, an Otto Preminger directed film starring Laurence Olivier and Carol Lynley. The Zombies had three songs on the soundtrack.
In April they made it back to the States for a grueling Dick Clark Caravan of Stars thirty-three-date tour, joining Del Shannon, Tommy Roe, The Shangri-Las, and ten other acts. There were additional non-Caravan dates, and all the exposure propelled The Zombies to number thirty-nine. After which the soaring Zombies took a prolonged commercial dive. While musically they were producing singles that were good enough
to make the Top 10, it seemed like their career was managed by one of the hapless zombies in Dawn of the Dead. Why weren’t they having big hits? Recording albums? And where was the money from their extensive touring? The short-changing became more apparent when The Zombies played the Philippines, where they were even more popular than The Beatles. The Beatles had a harrowing experience when they performed in the Philippines in July 1966. Maybe the news never got to The Zombies.
They arrived at the airport on March 1, 1967. Thousands of screaming fans met them even though it was 2:00 a.m. Their label representative told them they had five records in the Top 10. They played a few shows at the Araneta Coliseum before ten thousand fans a night, but were only paid $300 a show for the whole band. (The group suspected their long-time agent made a side deal to collect more money for himself and soon made a change.) Their promoter confiscated their passports and surrounded them with machine gun-toting bodyguards supposedly for their own safety. Rod referred to it as “real James Bond-type stuff.” In order to make real money, later that month they played a few dates for a rival promoter, learning that two of the clubs had mysteriously burned down days following their shows. The Zombies were in fear of their lives until they were able to leave the country.
Around this time their three-year deal with Decca had lapsed. The previous year Derek Everett had moved from EMI to become head of A&R at CBS International. The Zombies convinced him to let them record an album that they would produce themselves. “In 1967 The Zombies, after only three professional years, had already decided to break up,” Rod told me in 1987. “Chris White and I, however, wanted to make a parting gesture. We wanted to make a very personal final album, controlling every step of the process from writing to final cut, from production of the music to production of the album cover. We knew the record would be released after the break-up of the group, so we didn’t attempt to bow to the pressures of the market place.”
“And we did say,” added Chris, “that if it was a huge success we would carry on.”
The Summer of Love was characterized by good vibes, feelin’ groovy, and love was in the air. Even though Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band provided a soundtrack for much of the summer, The Beatles were not in a loving mood. The album was an introspective and somber reflection of the drugs—pot and LSD—they had been taking. Close friend to The Beatles, Barry Miles, in his memoir In the Sixties, observed that quite often The Beatles were stoned during recording sessions although they abstained taking LSD while recording. He said of John, “By the time they started Sgt. Pepper he had taken so much acid that he felt burned out.” John later told him that during the recordings he was in “a real big depression.”
In contrast, The Zombies, who weren’t into drugs, entered EMI’s Abbey Road studio little more than a month after The Beatles had vacated, and recorded an album that was much more representative of the era. The Zombies made use of EMI’s collection of instruments, as well as John Lennon’s Mellotron, first used by The Beatles on “Strawberry Fields Forever.” The songs, many with romance as a theme, brim with optimism, joy, and celebration. The album was characterized by rich harmonies and warm melodies. If the album wasn’t as adventurous as Sgt. Pepper’s, it was close: “Care of Cell 44” was about a girl soon to come home from prison; “Butchers Tale (Western Front 1914)” about a butcher drafted into World War I who is traumatized at the butchery he sees on the battlefield.
“The songs were inspired by a variety of influences,” Rod said, “But they were songs which came from our hearts. They were not the result of a producer or record company imposing their views of what a hit single might be. Some of the songs were romantic. ‘Butchers Tale,’ ‘Brief Candles,’ and ‘A Rose for Emily’ were sparked by literature, the latter by a Faulkner short story. Chris reflected on his experience growing up near Beechwood Park [a girl’s boarding school] in his song of that name.” Chris pointed out that the events in “Butchers Tale” actually took place in 1916. The song title was transposed incorrectly. It was inspired by Alan Clark’s historical novel The Donkeys.
The group needed one more song to complete the album, so Rod hastily composed “Time of the Season.” The title came from the lyrics of a Miracles song the group used to perform live. Rod misheard the lyric in “Tracks of My Tears” as “It’s the close of the season” instead of “if you look closer it’s easy (to trace the tracks of my tears).” When he discovered he had been singing the incorrect words, he was abashed, but he liked the phrase and rewrote it as “time of the season.” Rod also incorporated a few words he liked from “Summertime.” The rhythmic bass line was inspired by Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me.” Colin didn’t like the song, and after numerous takes in trying to get the lead vocal right, he angrily gave up. Refusing to continue, he told Rod that he should sing his own song. Rod was able to convince him, bad mood and all, that he could do it. And he was happy that he did.
The Zombies played great, sang great, and they were so well rehearsed that they were able to bring in the album for $4,000 compared to the $75,000 The Beatles spent. If The Zombies’ creativity couldn’t quite rival The Beatles, I thought their songs were better.
Interestingly, each album had a song about friendship. Where Ringo’s vocal was laid-back on “With a Little Help From My Friends,” The Zombies sang with verve on “Friends of Mine.” (Paul Atkinson told me that seven of the eight “so in love” couples whose names are chanted in the chorus had split, and that included him—the only Zombie mentioned—and his wife Molly Molloy, a dancer whom he had met on the Murray the K show on which The Zombies appeared.)
Chris and Rod had their flatmate, Terry Quirk, create an illustration for the cover. But neither they, nor anybody else who got an advance look at the painting, noticed that Quirk had misspelled “odyssey” as “odessey.”
“Friends of Mine” was released in October, and “Care of Cell 44” the next month. Both were stiffs. The group hadn’t had a hit in the UK in three years, and in almost that long in the US. Their successful markets—Japan, the Philippines, Scandinavia—weren’t enough to sustain a career. Colin, Paul, and Hugh were also envious of the extra money Rod and Chris made as songwriters. Colin groused that Rod and Chris had cars while he was still taking the Underground. With no momentum and little money coming in—Colin, Paul and Hugh needed to get jobs—it was an easy decision to dissolve the band. The Zombies fulfilled a handful of college dates in December and then broke up. Colin went to work at an insurance company, Hugh sold cars, and Paul trained to program a (mainframe) computer at a bank. Within two years they were all back in music: Colin as a solo artist, Hugh at CBS Records, first in the promotion department and then joining Paul in A&R. Note that ABBA was among Paul’s first signings.
Because the singles had flopped, and because he had heard that the band was no more, CBS Records president Clive Davis was inclined to pass on issuing the album for the US market. Al Kooper was a founding member of Blood, Sweat & Tears, but left after the first album. In April 1968, before starting a new job for CBS as an A&R staff producer in New York, he visited London for the first time. When he returned, he listened to the forty LPs he acquired, and thought Odessey and Oracle—which he bought at a King’s Road record store—“stuck out like a rose in a garden of weeds.” He was so knocked out, he convinced Davis to release it. Davis suggested Kooper write an endorsement on the back cover of the US edition.
Issued in June on the Date Records imprint, it was tough going. “This Will Be Our Year” stiffed. So did “Butchers Tale.” In January 1969 the label tried “Time of the Season,” even though it had failed the previous spring in the UK.
As a young teen, I bought The Zombies’ first two singles, but the era was so rich in great pop music that I scarcely wondered why I never heard another of their records on the radio. In March 1969, “Time of the Season” was getting played when I saw Odessey and Oracle displayed at Crane’s Records in Inglewood. Even though I had only heard tha
t one song, I bought it that day.
“Time of the Season” advanced to number three on Billboard by the end of March—eventually selling 1.4 million copies—but Odessey and Oracle barely broke into the Top 100. I knew the record was great. Al Kooper knew the record was great. Pete Townshend said it was “great” in Rolling Stone. And it did get good reviews, but it wasn’t universally considered exceptional. (In 1979, Dave Marsh, coeditor of The Rolling Stone Record Guide, slagged it off as “mediocre.”) I wondered, where were The Zombies?
In April the following year, Rod Argent and Chris White were in Los Angeles promoting their new band, Argent, with a few dates at the Whisky a Go-Go. Rod played keyboards; Russ Ballard, guitar; Jim Rodford, bass; and Robert Henrit, drums. Rod alternated lead vocals with Russ. Chris contributed songs and produced along with Rod. I interviewed them as they lounged around the rooftop pool of the Holiday Inn in Beverly Hills. Although my focus was on their new group, Rod and Chris were happy to answer my questions about The Zombies.
“We were always dissatisfied with the production of our records,” Rod said at the interview. “It would come out a lot differently than the sound we had in our heads. So, as an experiment, we wanted to produce an album before we broke up to satisfy ourselves. So we recorded it and then split. It was the first thing we ever produced ourselves and that knocked us out. We were very pleased with it.”
My British Invasion Page 30