Chart entered : 29 July 1972
Chart peak : 9
Number of hits : 28
Well we already know where half of this lot came from -that's Bev third from right on the back row, Jeff in the centre, Roy on his right, Richard at the bottom - but who are these other four. Well I don't know which one's which but two of the other four are Bill Hunt ( horns, keyboards ) who'd worked with The Move and Steve Woolam ( violin ). The others are two from Wilfred Gibson, Hugh McDowell, Mike Edwards and Andy Caig , all string players who featured on the debut LP but were not credited as full members at the time of its release.
We haven't fully covered Jeff before. He was born in Birmingham in 1947. He first formed a band in 1963 and bought his first reel-to-reel tape recorder "which taught me how to be a producer" round about 1965. In 1966 he joined The Nightriders ( after Mike Sheridan and Roy Wood had left ) as lead guitarist. In November that year they released their only single under that name "It's Only The Dog" which sounds like a rough cover of Louie Louie indifferently sung by drummer Roger Spencer.
The following year they had a makeover and became The Idle Race with Jeff assuming the role of lead singer as well as guitarist. Roy was still keen to help his old bandmates and arranged their hook up with producers Offord and Chevin, let them record at The Move's studios and gave them a song "Here We Go Round The Lemon Tree". This catchy piece of pyschedelic nonsense - "bright green underpants" anyone ? - was slated for their first single in the UK but when The Move did their own version for the B-side of Flowers In The Rain enthusiasm cooled and Geoff's song "Impostors Of Life's Magazine" was released instead in October 1967. This sardonic swipe at shallow London trendies was in the frantic style known as "freakbeat" with some very strange keyboard noises. There's a bit too much going on, and none of it very melodic, for it to be a hit.
They followed it up with "The Skeleton And The Roundabout" a fairground-set allegory about redundancy that rollicks along with a vague hint of the Bonzos in the arrangement and Jeff singing some of it in a silly Mr Punch voice which is what may have cost it a chart placing. The third single , "End Of The Road" is a Kink / Small Faces melancholy English ditty ( apart from the bizarre Looney Tunes coda ) with some telltale ELO harmonies creeping into the sound. These last two singles featured on their debut LP "The Birthday Party", a delightful collection of whimsical songs on which the influences - Beatles, Bee Gees, Syd's Floyd - are obvious but well-used. "The Birthday" and "I Like My Toys" are particularly good. In a world moving from pop to rock it didn't quite fit despite much critical support.
Despite this Jeff rejected the offer to replace Trevor Burton in The Move in favour of persevering with The Idle Race. They released "Days Of The Broken Arrows" in April 1969, a harder rocking but overcooked song about the passing of childhood things. Jeff co-produced that one then did the follow-up "Come With Me" on his own. It's rather disappointing, a meaningless ditty with similarities to Blackberry Way on which only the jazz trumpet breaks are interesting. Likewise the eponymous second album produced by Jeff
which was released in November 1969. None of it's bad but it lacks a lot of the wit and invention of its predecessor and sounds bland in comparison. Jeff said on Rock Family Trees that he was losing confidence in his abilities as a songwriter and it shows. When the invitation to join The Move was reissued on Carl Wayne's departure, he took the silver on condition that he be fully involved in the Electric Light Orchestra project
"10538 Overture" was the opening track on the band's debut album but not released until six months after the LP came out to avoid the release schedules of The Move's final records. The album's heady brew of Beatles pop, baroque orchestration and classical illusion makes it a demanding record which peaked at a modest 32 but this was the obvious single.
Jeff wrote it as a conventional rock song about a prisoner on the run and it was destined for a Move B-side until Roy started over- dubbing it with cello parts ( fifteen in total ) to make it an "overture". From the opening Dear Prudence chords it's a monumental single with Jeff and Roy's keening vocal questions merely prompts for the almighty answers from the strings. Bev's heavy duty drumming ramps up the ferocity even further ; I can't think of any other record where the cymbals are hit so hard. It's a shame that it's come to stand for a "what could have been" story rather than simply being recognised as one of the greatest British rock singles of all time.
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