With "Hitchin' a Ride" and "Early in the Morning," Vanity Fare assured its immortality to AM radio connoisseurs.  The two 1969 hits are still in rotation on oldies radio today, but they're just two of the nearly 50 songs cut by the British band over the ten year period of 1966 to 1976.  Cherry Red's RPM label has recently put those two famous tunes in context with Vanity Fare's I Live for the Sun: Complete Recordings 1966-76.  This 2-CD anthology collects the band's output for the Page One, DJM, Philips, and Polydor labels, plus bonuses such as the rare RCA Victor single by The Sages which kicks off the set.  A fine companion to the White Plains anthology (from Cherry Red sister label 7Ts), I Live for the Sun captures the variety of styles tried on by the band during one of pop's most fertile periods.

Formed in Kent, in southeast England, Vanity Fare featured vocalist Trevor Brice, guitarist Tony Goulden, bassist Tony Jarrett, and in its most commercially successful period, drummer Dick Allix.  The group had its roots in 1961 with Brice, Goulden and Jarrett's band The Avengers; the trio stuck with the band through iterations as The Four Avengers, The Grockels, Brice's Braces and The Sages before taking their most enduring name from William Makepeace Thackeray's 1848 novel about conniving Becky Sharp, Vanity Fair!  RPM's collection chronicles a number of changes to the line-up, including the addition of keyboardist Barry Landeman from Brinsley Schwarz forerunner Kippington Lodge, and the departures of Goulden, Allix and Jarrett, to be replaced by Mark Ellen, Eddie Wheeler and Bernie Hagley.  In Andy Davis' excellent liner notes, Trevor Brice admits, "There were many other acts similar to us, but we had a great vibe in the band."  Without a visionary songwriter or producer to aid in giving the band a distinctive sonic identity, it's true that Vanity Fare didn't break any new ground.  But this 2-CD set leaves no doubt that the group was a first-class purveyor of well-crafted pop.

I Live for the Sun is named for the group's cover of Rick Henn's song, originally performed by Murry Wilson's post-Beach Boys charges, The Sunrays.  Brought to the newly-christened Vanity Fare by manager Roger Easterby, it started the band's recording career on a high note in 1968.  Reaching the U.K. Top 20, it proved that the California sound certainly was a universal one!  (That said, Vanity Fare's rendition lacks the drive of the original Sunrays recording.)  Vanity Fare was even booked to support The Beach Boys on the band's '68 European tour.  Bigger things were to come, though.

Mike Leander's bouncy, beguiling slice of baroque pop "Early in the Morning" was released on 45 in June 1969, and reached No. 8 in the U.K. and No. 12 in the U.S., establishing the band on both sides of the Atlantic.  But Vanity Fare's very next single, Mitch Murray and Peter Callander's catchy harmony-pop nugget "HItchin' a Ride," did even better stateside.  While it reached a respectable No. 16 in the U.K., it made it to No. 5 in America, becoming the fourteenth most successful song of 1970.

However, "Early in the Morning" and "Hitchin' a Ride" don't arrive until Tracks 19 and 21, respectively, on the first disc of this set.  So there's plenty to explore.  It's a treat to hear numerous album tracks which the band carried over from its live act including covers of familiar songs by The Tokens ("I Hear Trumpets Blow"), Martha and the Vandellas ("In My Lonely Room"), The Righteous Brothers ("You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling"), The Lovin' Spoonful ("Younger Girl") and fellow Brit Sandie Shaw ("Puppet on a String").  Of the latter, Brice comments in the notes that his freewheeling, exaggerated performance was intended as a friendly send-up of Shaw; he performed the song in concert with his shoes on, contrasting the famously shoeless starlet: "They shouldn't have put it on the album!  I don't think people realized it was meant to be funny!" Bruce Channel's "Hey Baby" afforded them a chance to do straightforward beat/R&B.  Even Teresa Brewer's 1949 oldie "Music, Music, Music" got the Vanity Fare treatment.  These early recordings best showcase the group's rich harmony sound; a West Coast-style "In My Lonely Room" is a particularly inventive remake.

Though Vanity Fare's time as hitmakers was short-lived, there are numerous worthwhile discoveries here that sparkle as pure pop confections.  After "I Live for the Sun" but before "Early in the Morning," the group offered the lush, pretty ballad "(I Remember) Summer Morning," co-written by their manager Roger Easterby, and "Highway of Dreams," from popular songwriter John Carter ("Can't You Hear My Heartbeat," "Beach Baby").  Nicky Hopkins even supplied the pounding piano part on the latter.

Mike Leander supplied an "Early in the Morning" sound-alike in spring 1970, but his "Come Tomorrow" hardly, um, fared as well as its predecessor despite an attractive production.  Later that year, the band tried its hands at a composition by the team of Roger Greenaway and Roger Cook; "Carolina's Comin' Home" has that familiar "Cookaway" bounce; of course, White Plains recorded it, too!  (Greenaway and Cook were also responsible for 1974's "Fast Running Out of World.")  Another member of British pop royalty (and frequent Cook/Greenaway collaborator), Tony Macaulay, was tapped for 1971's string-drenched, melodic ballad "Better by Far," which boasts an anthemic, sing-along chorus.  Even Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield supplied one single, "The Big Parade."  Arranged with oom-pah brass and more than a touch of "Early in the Morning," the dramatic, cabaret-style number would later be recorded by Jane Olivor and Michael Allen, as well as Sedaka himself in 1981.

By 1972, Vanity Fare was broadening the sound of its A-sides.  That year's "Rock and Roll is Back" was an amiably nostalgic tribute to Elvis, Buddy, Jerry Lee, and the first generation of rock-and-rollers; the next year's "Take It, Shake It, Break My Heart" (written by future disco kings Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte) reflected glam influences.  But in truth, the band had been exploring other styles all along on its B-sides.  Beginning with "Betty Carter," the flip of "(I Remember) Summer Morning," the band penned original songs to accompany the A-sides written by outside songwriters.  Of these early B-sides, Barry Landeman's "You Made Me Love You" and the group-written "Waiting for the Nightfall" echoed the A-sides stylistically; the former even has the band's familiar harpsichord accompaniment.

But on songs like "Man Child" (backing "Hitchin' a Ride"), "Megowd (Something Tells Me)" (backing "Come Tomorrow") and "On Your Own" (backing "Carolina's Comin' Home"), Trevor Brice and company could explore tougher, less pop-oriented and more progressive sounds without worrying about making radio.  They even offered an environmental message in the form of 1971's "Nowhere to Go," asking "What's going to happen to the world when all the seas are dry and all the trees have died?"  The brassy, uptempo "Stand" ("...and be counted!") with its driving, Latin-esque piano part and stabs of organ, is about as funky as Vanity Fare got - and even that 1971 track found room for some rich harmonizing.  A country sound tinged "Down Home," the flip of "Take It, Shake It," while "Making for the Sun," the B-side of "Rock and Roll is Back," tried to recapture the magic of "I Live for the Sun" with its surf-style licks.  Putting into sharp focus the band's sense of musical schizophrenia is "At the End of the Pier," a jaunty, voh-de-oh-doh-style vaudeville throwback from 1972 which backed "I'm in Love with the World."  Trevor Brice re-recorded both "At the End of the Pier" and "Better by Far" as a solo artist in 1976; both of his renditions are included as bonus tracks here, along with a couple of Vanity Fare sides from 1977 that received a German-only release.  (The band, with more line-up changes, continued to record sporadically in the 1980s and 1990s, and an iteration of the group still tours today.)

I Live for the Sun includes a 16-page booklet with lengthy notes by Andy Davis drawing on a new interview with Brice.  Simon Murphy at Another Planet Music has remastered all tracks.  This entertaining journey with Vanity Fare plays like a trip all over and around the AM dial, happily bouncing from one pop style to the next.  Fans of the late 1960s/early 1970s British pop sound shouldn't hesitate to come to the Fare.

Vanity Fare's I Live for the Sun can be ordered from Amazon U.S. and Amazon U.K.!