You are all the woman I need and baby you know it

Continuing my trip back through the 1968 album charts.

31/03/68 : Round Amen Corner - Amen Corner

Amen Corner are one of those bands I'd heard of and I probably know a song or two, but not off the top of my head.  It's kinda folky/hippy stuff, isn't it?

No, it's not.  It starts out with "Bend Me Shape Me" which I know and quite like.  I thought was a cover, but then I realised I didn’t know who did the original, so I wasn't sure - Wikipedia tells me it was first done by The Outsiders in '66, but the best known versions are by The American Breed and this one, both of which charted in early '68.  The rest of the album is, shall we say, variable - some of it is perfectly acceptable pop/rock and some of it is appallingly bad.  "Love Me Tender" is absolutely murdered - I don't have the words to describe the sheer awfulness of it all.  "Something You've Got" is also pretty bad and "Can't Get Used To Losing You" makes me long for Andy Williams's version (or even the one by The Beat).  It does sound like they'd have been a fun band to see live, but they really needed some better quality control here.

We're back in the lower 20s again this week at #26 on their second week of a six week run - that's all they got.  The usual top five were this week ordered Bob, Otis, The Supremes, TSOM and The Four Tops this week and the highest new entry was, just as I'd given up seeing any more, another named woman - Petula Clark at #37 (having a one week run!) and funnily enough she was also at #38, so the running totals are now 9 named and 8 featured.  I'm also going to mention another Julie Andrews soundtrack at #40 which is Thoroughly Modern Millie which was just finishing a 19 week run, which is no slouch - and we'll get to see it at some point, but maybe not this year.

Wikipedia doesn't have an entry for the album - their entry tells me they hail from Cardiff and are probably best remembered for their UK #1 "(If Paradise Is) Half As Nice".  It also reminded me that one of their founding members was Andy Fairweather-Low, who's had a fascinating musical career playing with a load of people including The Who, Joe Satriani, Roger Waters, Eric Clapton, Dave Edmunds, Linda Ronstadt, George Harrison and Bill Wyman.

"Customers also listened to" Manfred Mann, The Move, The Herd and Marmalade - and the best bits of this album are certainly reminiscent of that kind of sound.  The worst bits of it are not reminiscent of any kind of sound - it's mystifying awful.  Which, all in all, makes this a very peculiar album indeed.

24/03/68 - A gem of a live album
07/04/68 - Another mystifyingly popular album

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