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‘Looking For The Sun’: The Lost Productions of Curt Boettcher & Friends
09.20.2019
07:53 am
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High Moon Records’ upcoming Looking For The Sun is a compilation of rare singles and lost cuts from visionary “sunshine pop” producer Curt Boettcher and the first release to focus on Boettcher as a producer and arranger, not performer. Most of these songs were released only as singles and have remained out of print since their initial release. Every track was sourced from the original master tapes by Steve Stanley, founder and producer of the Now Sounds Records oldies label. Stanley trawled through the vaults of Sony Music, undertook meticulous research of Musician’s Union Contracts, and conducted interviews with the musicians who played on the sessions to create this lovingly curated package. I’ve only heard the CD version so far, but if the truly audiophile grade mastering and sound quality is anything to go by—my ears really perked up listening to it, I must say—then the vinyl must be amazing.

With the newly uncovered bounty of Looking For The Sun, at last a clearer portrait of Curt Boettcher’s radical work as a producer able to use the studio itself as an instrument emerges. You can see how the creation of these numbers served as the training grounds for Boettcher’s role as bandleader of The Millennium and producer of the Association’s smash hits.

Artists on Looking For The Sun include Cindy Malone, Sandy Salisbury, Gordon Alexander, Keith Colley, Summer’s Children, Jonathan Moore, Ray Whitley, Eddie Hodges, The Bootiques, Action Unlimited, and Sagittarius. Also featuring musical contributions by Glen Campbell, Bread’s David Gates, Gary Usher and Keith Olsen. Looking For The Sun will be released on October 25th.

Continues after the jump…

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Posted by Richard Metzger
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09.20.2019
07:53 am
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‘My World Fell Down’: The oddest song The Beach Boys never recorded


 
Yesterday I was listening to a Glen Campbell greatest hits collection (The Capitol Years 1965-77, the one compiled by Saint Etienne’s Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs, it’s excellent) and in the liner notes, it mentions that Campbell sang and played guitar on a Gary Usher-produced single called “My World Fell Down” by Sagittarius, that was included on Jac Holzman and Lenny Kaye’s Nuggets collection, which I have, so I checked it out. It’s odd that I had this song in my possession—I’ve played the Nuggets box set many, many times all the way through—but never took much note. How could I have missed it?
 

A be-quiffed Glen Campbell backstage at the Grammy awards with the Beach Boys
 
“My World Fell Down” is the closest thing we’ll ever get to “Good Vibrations”-era Beach Boys meets LSD-soaked psych rock. Sagittarius was basically a supergroup of session musicians under the direction of Gary Usher, a staff producer at Columbia who had also “discovered” The Firesign Theatre and produced The Byrds. Aside from Campbell, who was, of course, briefly in the Beach Boys himself, the secondary vocalist on the track is none other than Beach Boy Bruce Johnston. Also worth pointing out is that Usher had written several songs with Brian Wilson (”409” and “In My Room” among them) and included in the backing group were powerhouse session players Hal Blaine and Carol Kaye, who had both recorded with the Beach Boys. If someone played this for you and told you it was an unreleased—and especially odd—Beach Boys demo, you’d believe them, no problem.
 

Gary Usher
 
Dig the musique concrète bridge section of carnival (bullfight?) noises and a slamming door. This part sounds like something straight off of Their Satanic Majesties Request, the Rolling Stones album that came out the same year, 1967, but is not included in the album version.
 

 
When “My World Fell Down” got to #70 on the Billboard chart, the label wanted Sagittarius to tour, at which point he revealed that Sagittarius didn’t actually exist as a real group and that it was his song, too. Usher moved forward with Sagittarius and recorded a full album leaning heavily on the talents of a young Curt Boettcher. Prior to the release of that record, Present Tense, in 1968, Usher and co. released a second Sagittarius single titled “Hotel Indiscreet” that had another musique concrète bridge section that utilized Peter Bergman of the Firesign Theatre ranting about… something:

“What for and how long my children? How long will we be made to suffer the utter degradation of everything we hold sacred? My fellow flowers, the time is upon us to open the door and purify the foul and pestilent air within, standing naked before the eternal judge and proclaiming we are all hip! Two three four… Hip! Two three four… zwei drei vier… Sieg Heil! SIEG HEIL!”

That bit was only on the mono version of the song, on the single. Clive Davis didn’t like the weirdo breaks in “My World Fell Down” and “Hotel Indiscreet” so he had Usher cut them out for Present Tense.
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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07.25.2014
09:31 pm
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