|
Truly This Must Be Heaven! Prefer to buy the CD, visit our shopping site, click here for a direct link. |
The history of Morgan Records and Morgan Blue Town Records is
an interesting one. Morgan Records was originally set up in 1968 by Monty
Babson and Barry Morgan. The pair had in fact been working together for a
while constructing the now legendary Morgan Sound Recording Studios based at
169, High Road, Willesden
in London. The studio took shape after Monty Babson had started to receive
royalty cheques from Germany and France for The Smoke hit “My Friend Jack”
which Monty had licensed out via his Morgan Music publishing company.
Reviews on the first Limited Edition Vinyl
Pussy Plays.
"Pussy" LP arrived today. Pretty impressed
with the pressing, textured sleeve etc. My copy was ordered on 2 Oct and is
number forty, which would suggest that they're not being mailed out in
numerical order (and would also indicate that the complete run has already
been manufactured)...? |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Red Dirt | Pussy | Orange Bicycle | The Smoke |
| Available From iTunes | Available From iTunes | Available From iTunes | Available From iTunes |
| Click to buy from iTunes | Click to buy from iTunes | Click to buy from iTunes |
 |
 |
 |
|
| The Academy | Motherlight | Wil Malone |
The Wilson Malone Voiceband |
| Available From iTunes | Available From iTunes | Available From iTunes |
Available From iTunes |
| Click to buy from iTunes | Click to buy from iTunes | Click to buy from iTunes |
 |
|||
| Fortes Mentum | |||
| Available From iTunes | |||
| Click to buy from iTunes |
Flower pop psych monsters The Orange Bicycle were made up of Robb Scales on Vocals, Wilson Malone on Piano, Organ, Harpsichord, Mellotron and Vocals, Kevin Curry on Drums and Bernie Lee on Guitars. Through the sixties they had a handful of singles including the classic chart topper “Hyacinth Threads” and went on to release the album Orange Bicycle in 1970.
Possibly the
most well known of the Morgan Blue Town bands The Smoke owed much of this to
their classic track “My Friend Jack”, A well known psychedelic slab. Originally
known as R&B band The Shots in 1967 (with additional guitarist Phil Peacock) as
the music scene moved on so did the band and a name change saw their single My
Friend Jack (eats sugar lumps) banned by the BBC for obvious reasons.
The Smoke were Mick Rowley on Vocals, Mal Luker
Guitar, Zeke Lund Bass and Geoff Gill on Drums.
Fortes Mentum delivered and released three killer 45s in the late sixties
including the great freakbeat 45 “She’s Got Eyes That Tell Lies” and "I Can't Go
On Loving You". Band members Danny Beckerman & Barry Clark also formed the
studio band Pussy while still being involved with Fortes Mentum.
They conceived the idea for Pussy and started writing the first track "Come back
June". “After we finished this track Monty Babson and others at Morgan Studios
gave us the go ahead to finish the Album.” states Barry Clark who then went on
to find musicians to make up the rest of the band.
Again during studio down time the record was slowly put together with G.E.A.B.
being a studio jam. Pussy Plays is now regarded by many a record collector as
one of the finest U.K. psychedelic LPs of it’s time with copies changing hands
for large sums of money.
It would seem that York had quite a bit going for it musically and the band Red Dirt produced one of the best progressive Blues records of the time! Made up of Steve Howden on Guitar, Steve Jackson on Drums, Dave Richardson on Vocals and Ken Giles on Bass, Red Dirt cut one self titled record for Fontana Records before disbanding. The Red Dirt album is now another holy grail to record collectors the world over.
Wilson Malone is quite a heavy hitter when it comes to producing, recording and composing music having worked with artists as diverse as Black Sabbath and Hard-Fi, any and his own releases are as heavy, with two mighty fine records Motherlight and Wil Malone. Again the Motherlight record was recorded at Morgan Studio in what is commonly known as down time with the publishing rights to the tracks going to Monty Babson as the studio time was being provided for free. Motherlight featured the multi talented Malone on Vocals, Keyboards and Drums with the rest of the group made up of Morgan studio engineers Mike Bobak on bass and Andy Jons/Johns on guitar. The Motherlight record sold okay, while the Wil Malone LP was withdrawn for some reason after a few months on sale. Either way two great albums again from the Morgan studios.
