The Deep Six were a 6-piece (5m 1f) psychedelic folk band from San Diego, who achieved minor success in the mid-sixties with one single and their first and last, eponymous album:

Between late 1965 and early 1966 Deep Six were riding the crest of a wave and when their first single came out, “Rising Sun”, it was a huge hit - but it was a hit in Southern California and almost nowhere else. They toured relentlessly and got lots of good press and good crowds. But when their first (and only) album came out, it failed to show up anywhere on the charts and The Deep Six, badly bruised by the lack of enthusiasm, soldiered on a bit more before calling it a day and splintering into different careers.

Such is the fickle nature of pop, but listening to the album today, there are a few fab jewels tucked away in this album and some interesting things going on here, from the arrangements (some by David Gates), to the stellar list of session musicians (Glen Campbell, Carol Kaye, Mike Deasy, Al Casey, Larry Knechtel, Ray Pohlman, and Barney Kessel) that makes The Deep Six an album well worth re-visiting.

Opening with an amazing cover of The Rolling Stones’ “Paint It Black”, which sets a standard the album tries to maintain. While songs such as “When Morning Breaks”, and covers of “A Groovy Kind of Love” and “Solitary Man” make the mark, there are others, including the single “Rising Sun” - which isn’t as good as one would expect - and the cheesy “Somewhere My Love” (aka “Lara’s Theme” from Doctor Zhivago) that hint at why The Deep Six didn’t make it beyond 1967. A shame, for the potential was certainly there.

Here is the whole album as it was originally relased, upload EarpJohn, who has a damn fine channel on YouTube.
 

01.  “Paint it Black”  2:42
 
More from The Deep Six, after the jump…
 

More from Dr. Schluss:

It could be the two manhattans that I just drank speaking, but I find this one exceptionally groovy. Even more than the Millennium’s Begin, I feel like these cats are trying to induct me into some strange hippy cult. We’ll dance around like the Brady Bunch on the days that Greg got high, sugarcubes in hand. That said, this sunshine pop is not musically in the same league as Curt Boettcher’s productions (like the aforementioned Millennium), but I would go for this one before the 5th Dimension, and it’s far trippier than the Mamas and the Papas. The Allmusic Guide mentioned that this was a studio construct and mostly exploitative of the counterculture scene, but I’ll admit that I’m pretty well fooled.

It’s a pretty awesome album, actually. I listened to it on Venice Beach recently. Kind of perfect.

Link here.

From Dr. Schluss’ Garage of Psychedelic Obscurities:

I’m willing to say this obscure sitar-infused psychedelic jazz album is one of the absolute best I’ve heard from the legendary Impulse! jazz imprint. Why they haven’t reissued it yet is beyond me. Bill Plummer’s primary trade is in the string bass, which does provide the awesome backbone for all of these songs. But someone must have tossed Mr. Plummer in a vat of acid (almost like Jack Nicholson in the 1989 “Batman”) before the making of this album. With it’s layers of Eastern gauze, occasional blasts of spoken word and free jazz, and oddball covers, this is the most ear pleasingly far-out legitimate jazz album I’ve come across (the wild fury of John Coltrane’s Om, also on Impuse!, is probably the most far out, but it’s not easy to listen to).

The first track, “Journey to the East,” is far beyond awesome and deserves a place on every psych compilation. It’s got a rock-solid groove, crazy chanting, a wall of sitar, and a totally entertaining spoken word rambling. Practically every 60’s cliche is packed into the spoken word, but it’s all convincingly sold by the dispassionate reading and the phenomenal music backing it up. I think I’ve listened to it about 600 times in the past week; I can’t think of a better complement than that. For your own mind journey to the East, you need go no farther than “Arc 294,” which plays as Indo-psychedelic free jazz for about ten minutes. The covers here are of note as well. Seeing “The Look of Love” on a track listing typically makes me groan, but with sitar drones and a groovy beat accompanying the tune, it works out just fine. Even better is the similar treatment to the Byrds great, yet-neglected “Lady Friend.” I didn’t know that that song required a transcendental Indo-jazz reading, but apparently it did. To hear Mr. Plummer score at making more conventional jazz, head for “Pars Fortuna” and “Song Plum”

This album manages to fuse jazz, Indian music, and wacky psychedelia, while still ending up as more than the sum of its parts. You need to become part of the Cosmic Brotherhood as soon as possible.

(Link here.)

Recent discovery and obsession: The late sixties Vancouver, British Colombia band The Poppy Family. Imagine the Mamas and the Papas if they’d gone off their meds, they had sitars and tablas, and they’d been, you know, good. Apparently they had the biggest hit of all time (all Canadian time) in 1969 with “Which Way You Goin’ Billy?” off their album of the same name. I’ve had that album on constant iPhone repeat and it never, ever gets old. It’s classic West Coast pop, but from the opposite end of the coast from California. You can almost hear the gloom creeping in from the Rockies…

Apparently the CD still hasn’t been re-issued, and it’s impossible to find on vinyl?