Turn on an American oldies radio station today and it shouldn’t be too long before you hear The American Breed’s “Bend Me, Shape Me,” a Top 5 hit in 1968. Across the pond, however, the song unequivocally belongs to Amen Corner. The Welsh outfit didn’t last long, but in a jam-packed two year period, Amen Corner produced six hits and three albums on two labels: Deram and Immediate. The Deram years have just been collected in full on RPM’s new Round Amen Corner: The Complete Deram Recordings. The
Archives for June 21, 2012
Baby, It's Burt: Cherry Red's Él Label Collects Early Bacharach On "Long Ago Last Summer"
Although Burt Bacharach had been composing songs at least since 1952, when he kicked off a long career with the instrumental “Once in a Blue Moon” for Nat “King” Cole, the Burt Bacharach “sound” didn’t truly crystallize until the early 1960s. Prior to his reshaping of the sound of adult R&B, Bacharach teamed with a variety of lyricists to craft songs in virtually every genre imaginable: rock-and-roll, rockabilly, country, pop balladry, jazz, even the novelty song. Naturally, the earliest