Cherokees - It's Gonna Work out Fine 7" USA Gary GA 1001, 1965

I thought I'd closed the book on overseas Cherokees 7"s with their New Zealand 45. However it is pleasing that a year after I started this, obscure foreign issues are still popping up.

Prior to their run of seven singles on Go!!, The Cherokees had two 7"s and an LP on W&G label. This was their second release (W&G WG-S-2377).  It's Gonna Work Out Fine is a ballad, so we go to the B side for kicks. I've Got Something To Tell You is a decent beat track with good guitar flourishes, but the lyrics are lamesville, unfortunately. This one is written by Bill Martin and Tommy Scott. I can't figure out the vector by which it got to Melbourne but there seems to be another 1965 version by a Scottish Band, the Boston Dexters.

Oddly the songwriting credit for the A side on both the Australian issue and this one is to Senecel-Lee. Senecel should be Joe Seneca.

Ben Ghazi -  Saturn Music gives no clues either. We'll have to record an open verdict on this one.

M.P.D. Ltd EP NZL Salem XE3012, 1965

Previously we looked at the Cherokees 7" on the Salem label from New Zealand. M.P.D. Ltd also had two 7"s and this rare EP released on Salem.

The EP was originally issued in Australia as Go!! GEP1004 and contains the tracks Little Boy Sad / You Might As Well Forget Him // Lonely Boy / Lonesome Traveller. The Go!! version has a full colour version of this cover pic but I kind of like this black and blue design.

Lonesome Traveller only ever appeared at the time on these EPs, but, that's not really a reason to track it down, it's not much of a song. You Might As Well Forget Him did turn up on the flipside of their last single from 1967, Paper Doll.

Little Boy Sad and Lonely Boy were of course the band's first two singles and were huge hits. These were the two 7"s also released on Salem in NZ.

Tommy Adderley - I Just Don't Understand 7" CAN Chess, M-314 1964

Tommy Adderley was a baller. A merchant seaman from Birmingham (UK) who lobbed up in Wellington (NZ) in 1959 and proceeded to shag his way through both islands for the next 35 years.

One of his early 45s is this very cool, brooding, beat number, backed by Max Merritt & the Meteors. It came out in New Zealand and Australia on Viking 156.

Normie Rowe also did a pretty cool version of this track. I'm not sure which I prefer but I dig Brummie Tommy hamming up a Liverpool accent.

I also really dig this Canadian Chess black and silver label - very classy. The song was apparently a small hit in  both the USA and Canada, so much so that it got released on two different labels in Canada (see below).

You can hear it here. And if you'd like to read more about Tommy Adderley's antics browse pages from an oddly endearing book written by an admirer here, or buy it here.

Here's the other releases - on Mar Mar 314 from the USA (this label was a Chess subsidiary), and the other Canadian issue on Quality 1672.

Blue Stars - I Can Take It 7" UK Decca F.12303, 1965

The UK release of kiwi band the Blue Stars revved up beater I Can Take It came out three months prior to its NZ release (NZ Decca DEC-361).


The first modern article written about the Blue Stars was by John Baker in The Livin' End 7. He states that the Please Be A Little Kind / I Can Take It 7" was "also released in Europe and Japan!!" A few years later in the excellent article by Andrew Schmidt in Social End Product this was extended to "the single was also released in Australia, Japan and the United States, where Billboard reviewed it favourably." Then sergent.com.au goes the whole hog: "the single was released in Britain and the Continent, as well as the US, Japan and Australia."

Now Baker and Schmidt are no slouches when it comes to research but I have to make the challenge - label scans or it never happened!!!

Here's what I've found:

• US Billboard is completely searchable on Google books. The only mention of the Blue Stars (or Bluestars) is that Social End Product was a hit in an NZ report from the Dec 31 1966 issue;
• Here's the Australian Decca discography. No Blue Stars. There's a few gaps there, but none between Y7242 (corresponding to about the UK F12180s in early '65), to Y7336 (mid-late '66 around the UK F12500s);
• I looked through the Japanese record porn books that I and a friend own - no Blue Stars Japanese issue pictured.

OK, nothing conclusive, and continental Europe is a black hole from where, 45 years later, we're all still finding odd releases. And while I haven't collected sixties records as fervently as my main genre I ain't never seen hide nor hair of the claimed releases. So - please be a little kind and send me hard evidence. I can take it!

Ian Crawford - So Much In Love With You 7" USA Interphon IN-7718, 1965

The question for today is - Is this even Australian?

Let's look at both sides of the argument:

Pro: There was an Ian Crawford recording in Australia. He released four singles on HMV and Leedon in 1960-61, and one on Astor in 1969 (which Dean Mittelhauser described as "Rare!!" in a late 80s auction list). He might have even been the Ian Crawford from Crawford Productions (Homicide et al).

Con: These tracks were never released in Australia, unlike...

Pro: ...the other Australian and Kiwi records on Interphon: April Byron, John Chester & The Chessmen, Dinah Lee and ahem, Peter Posa. Interphon, you see, was a label for non-US artists, with a rich antipodean connection.

Con: The flipside - She Goes With Someone New, about a girl spreading it all around town, is written by John Walsh and Murray Wecht, songwriters who worked across the road from the Brill building, and So Much In Love With You has a production credit to John Walsh. So is it a New York production? Mind you, all sorts of songwriting and other credit scams occurred at the time (remind me to tell you about the Notables 7" sometime).

I think I know the answer, but I'll let you ponder it for a while - check back next week. Oh the song? It's beaty pop; an early Nanker-Phelge effort; nothing too special - I can see why they gave it away, first to the Mighty Avengers, from whence this version was presumably prompted.

Cicadas - That's What I Want 7" GER RCA Victor, 47-8339, 1964

Our first foreign picture sleeve, and it's Sydney's Cicadas who scored a German release of their first 7" in a sleeve. It was also released sleeveless in the USA (same catalogue no.) and Canada (57-3314).

A much covered song - this version is nice and beaty, with a strange, almost dub, intro. There's two other Australian versions. The best is a good, wyld reading by the Henchmen that wasn't released at the time and made it on to the Ugly Things CD. Tasmania's Kravats also did a slightly more subdued version.

The Cicadas had three more 7"s before moving to the UK and becoming the Gibsons.

Released in Australia on RCA 101552.

Merv Benton - Yield Not To Temptation 7" USA Marvel GHGA 401, 1965

Here's the American issue of Merv Benton's seventh single, and the only one to be released outside Australia. I suppose many find Merv to be a bit of a suited square - I don't mind some of his mid period gear and he did cover some unusual songs.

Backed by the Tamlas, this is a good, gutsy version of a Bobby Blue Bland track. On the plus side is the big sound, good vocals from Merv, cool organ, and handclaps. The jury is out, however, on the dollybird chorus providing backing vocals. As a device this can work: see for example some of Mike Furber's Kommotion stuff; or it can distract from an otherwise cool track - I'm thinking of Tony Barber's Wait By The Water. I'll give it a pass on this one, it's a little shrill for my ears.

Issued in Australia in a picture sleeve by W&G (WG-S-2432).