MINT Clean SCARCE UK re- "ELMER GANTRY'S VELVET OPERA" UK PSYCH UNDERGROUND LP

$

103

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 ELMER GANTRY'S VELVET OPERA

   " ELMER GANTRY'S VELVET OPERA "

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MINT- FINAL COLLECTION ARTIFACT

1968 ADVANCE RELEASE WHITE LABEL PROMO

As rare as "Epic" label mates "JULY" Lp

The great 1968 first LP by UK Psychedelics Velvet Gantry's Velvet Opera .... a great "grower" with repeat plays::::

This is a SUPER-RARE =MONAURAL= release which was only available in this format as a limited promotional pressing sent to radio stations for review and not issued (in mono) on the retail market. By the tail end of 1967 major labels such as "Epic Records" had stopped manufacturing retail market Lp's with the mono format  

In Dave "Elmer Gantry" Terry they had an authoritative vocalist and theatrical frontman who could handle the genre straddling nature of the Velvet Opera's material with ease. Guitarist Colin Forster was almost as versatile - enough for lauded psychedelicists Tintern Abbey to steal him shortly after. The sole album to be made by the original line-up, Elmer Gantry’s Velvet Opera was one of the most original and consistently entertaining albums to emerge from the British psychedelic scene. 

In the beginning, Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera picked up on the British psychedelic movement after supporting The Pink Floyd as a psoul-blues-psych band called 'The Five Proud Walkers', the lineup was Richard Hudson (Hud) on drums, Colin Forster on lead guitar, Jimmy Horrocks (Horovitz) on organ and flute, John ????? (bass) and Dave Terry on vocals and harmonica. The boys took inspiration from the experience and it wasn't long before the change of both music and image. They gigged for a while playing blues based material,but gradually got interested in more free-form stuff. John ???? was replaced by John Ford and the band searched for a new name. Velvet Opera was chosen initially, which was amended to Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera within days after Dave turned up to a session wearing a long black cape and a preachers hat and had to endure some piss-taking from the rest of the band (Elmer Gantry was the fictional hero of a Sinclair Lewis novel and 1960 film about a preacher). The name stuck and Dave became Elmer. By this time Elmer, influenced by the music of John Cage, was making experimental taped backing sounds and using signal generators on stage in the act. The band began to get quite a following and played clubs and university gigs all over the country and at London venues like the Marquee and 100 club and Electric garden. They would also occasionally play at the Speakeasy where Jimi Hendrix would jam with them, also people like Jeff beck and Eric Burdon. The band had been recorded independently for a while by Southern Music Publishing, who had their own, four -track, studio in Denmark Street, and it wasn't long before they had secured a record deal with CBS's "Direction" label. The problem was that Southern Music had originally signed them as a bluesy/jazzy band and they were not very keen on trying to get new, more riotous stage act on disc. The group were persuaded to do more "regular" material. The first recording was the song, written by Elmer, that the band were best known for, 'Flames'. The record was on jukeboxes all over the country and was covered live by bands as diverse as "The Joe Loss Orchestra" and "Led Zeppelin", in fact Jimmy Page recently told Elmer that Flames was the only non-Zep number that they included in their early stage-act (Robert Plant also included it in his 2001-2002 tour). However, for the average radio listener the song was too far ahead of its time and despite live popularity and numerous radio plays the song only managed to achieve number 30 in the charts. Direction did however, take faith in the band to record second and third singles and more importantly a self-titled album. The group's second single, "Mary Jane" was taken off the BBC playlist after they realized that the song was the slang term for Marijuana. The third single, Volcano, was written by Howard & Blakely, who had written hits for Dave Dee etc. After three singles and the album, major success had still not been achieved. The agent at the time, Terry King, had booked the group a lot of shows, they were regularly appearing on the BBC on John Peel's show, among others, they were playing, touring and promoting hard, but recording success was still elusive. Colin Forster was then replaced by Paul Brett but this still didn't acheive the desired result. Disagreements erupted within the band, which lead to a split from Elmer and so the Velvet Opera was formed.

Elmer Gantry remembers : "eventually, ElmerGantry'sVelvetOpera broke up due to a change of direction within the band. Paul Brett, (who incidentally I had worked with previously and had brought into the band following our initial success) although a brilliant guitarist, had a strong interest in more folkish music and, with Hud's increasing interest in playing instruments other than drums, the band started to change direction. I did not welcome this change, and whilst I had great admiration for all the other members as musicians, was not interested. There followed a coup in which the other members of the band attempted to just replace me and keep the name. This would clearly have been ridiculous as I was already known as Elmer Gantry and the band was largely know for its riotous, envelope-pushing stage presence, not for electro-folk. The result was that they brought twelve string guitarist folk-blues guitarist Johnny Joyce in, and continued as The Velvet Opera and eventually The Strawbs and The Monks producing the novelty hits "Union Man" and "Nice legs, shame about the face" and I continued with a new line-up, formed from the Downliners sect, as the "Elmer Gantry band."

                      Intro (Gantry) 
                                 Mother Writes (Ford)
                               Mary Jane (Gantry/Ford)
                                I Was Cool (Brown Jr.)
                Walter Sly Meets Bill Bailey (Ford/Forster/Cannon)
                              Air (Forster/Gantry)
                  Lookin' For A Happy Life (Forster/Hudson)
                                  Flames (Terry)
                  What's The Point Of Leaving (Gantry/Ford)
                         Long Nights Of Summer (Gantry)
                          Dream Starts (Ford/Hudson)
                    Reaction Of A Young Man (Gantry/Ford)
                         Now She's Gone (Gantry/Ford)

CONDITION: The cover: rated: M(int) perfect limited edition UK copy of the mighty rare 1968 first LP on the British Direction label. Incidentally, the UK "Direction" label pressing is hopelessly rare and valued $$$. This rare, 35+ years ago pressing is hsard to beat with all things considered -IF-it-can-be-found! There are no delete marks, no split seams, no bends, and no writing  ... VERY collection worthy ...

The vinyl: Rated: M- stunning spotless platter - you won't find a better copy anywhere, ... far out sounds from the UK '60s underground  ... Both "UK Direction" 2nd press labels are spotlessly clean.

SEE: SELLERS OTher items for similar cool sounds for "head" people..

EFFICIENT/CAREFUL GRADING

All imperfections are noted both cover & record