What a Groovy Day: Cherry Red's Grapefruit Records Celebrates "The British Psychedelic Sounds of 1969"

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Cherry Red's Grapefruit imprint has recently released the latest volume in its year-by-year chronicle of British psychedelia. Try a Little Sunshine: The British Psychedelic Sounds of 1969 follows Let's Go Down and Blow Our Minds (1967) and Looking at Pictures in the Sky (1968) with 3 CDs and 73 tracks from another fascinating year in music history.

The box explores the various musical strains impacted by psychedelia, such as pop (including bubblegum, baroque, and sunshine/harmony pop), progressive rock, folk, and singer-songwriter. Tracks have been freed from the vaults of the labels like CBS, Pye, Harvest, Regal Zonophone, RCA, NEMS, Parlophone, Philips, and Ember. While American artists and American influences do pop up, the sound of these cuts is, more often than not, uniquely British. As such, they make for a valuable time capsule into a fascinating year of great musical change.

Naturally, there are some still-famous names dotting the track listings of these three discs, including The Spencer Davis Group ("Letters to Edith," the original title track of the album that was released in the U.S. as Funky), Barclay James Harvest ("Barclay Thrush"), Procol Harum ("A Salty Dog"), The Move ("This Time Tomorrow"), Dave Davies of The Kinks ("Creeping Jean"), Ralph McTell (the decidedly pop-oriented "Summer Come Along"), Status Quo ("The Price of Love"), The Pretty Things ("You Might Even Say"),

Typically of these sets, Try a Little Sunshine features some major names in unfamiliar settings. The aforementioned Dave Davies produced and sang backgrounds on Ewan Stephens' "Mindless Children of Motherhood." Greg Lake was a member of The Shy Limbs, represented here with the grandiose, organ-driven "Reputation." The edgy axe of Ian "Lemmy" Kilmister can be heard on Sam Gopal's "It's Only Love," and the pre-fame Gerry Rafferty contributed harmonies to "Saturday Roundabout Sunday" while a member of The Humblebums. The Jimi Hendrix Experience bassist Noel Redding's band Fat Mattress is heard with the psych-pop-with-harmonies nugget "Petrol Pump Assistant" - a far cry from his blues-rock work in the Experience.

The lesser-known Goffin and King song "Just What I Was Looking for Today" is heard in a fine version by The Spectrum, remembered chiefly as RCA U.K.'s answer to The Monkees. Another gem from the RCA vaults is The Harmony Grass' catchy slice of sunshine pop, "What a Groovy Day." The band began their career with Beach Boys-inspired sounds as Tony Rivers and The Castaways before changing their name upon signing to RCA. The Beach Boys were also major influences on Ireland's The Freshmen, too; the group's Pye recording of "Mr. Beverly's Heavy Days" is in more of a Beatle bag, but the Freshmen harmonies still shine through. The Montanas were best known for irresistible pop treats like "You've Got to Be Loved," but their producer (and songwriter extraordinaire) Tony Hatch also helmed some off-the-beaten-path tracks like the heavier "Roundabout."

Try a Little Sunshine includes a thick, full-color 44-page booklet with copious images and comprehensive track-by-track liner notes by compiler David Wells. Simon Murphy has remastered all tracks at Another Planet Music. Like its predecessors, the three discs are housed in paper sleeves within a compact clamshell case. The box is available now from Cherry Red's Grapefruit Records at the links below!

Various Artists, Try a Little Sunshine: The British Psychedelic Sounds of 1969 (Cherry Red/Grapefruit, 2018) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

CD 1