Oh I love you, baby, I love you night and day

Continuing my trip back through the 1971 album charts.

24/01/71 : McGuinness Flint - McGuinness Flint

Yet another artist I've never heard of - the name sounds like it's either going to be rock or folk, but it's hard to pick one (and so they're probably both a million miles off).

Hmmm - it's kinda rocky folk with a distinct American feel to it, despite everyone involved being British. It's not a million miles away from the stuff that Crosby, Nash and Stills have served us up this year but it stands separate from their stuff (and pretty much everything else we've heard). For some reason, I was strongly remind of The Beatles "Blackbird" in various places, despite none of the tracks really sounding like it - maybe it was just Dennis Coulson's voice? I'm not entirely sure whether I liked it or not, but it wasn't an unpleasant listen and it's all well played - it feels like another gap in my musical knowledge filled without much chance of a revisit. It's quite the album cover though, isn't it?

We're at #9 in the chart this week, having debuted at #31 last week and soared up the chart this week - which obviously means that after this they dropped out of the chart never to be seen again. How peculiar! The top five this week were Simon & Garfunkel (their 27th week at the top - we're going to be mentioning them a LOT in '70), Andy Williams, Motown Chartbusters Vol 4, George Harrison and Led Zeppelin, with the highest new entry being Elvis Presley (#15 - one of his albums we've actually managed to avoid!).

Wikipedia doesn't have an entry for the album but their entry tells us that they were formed in '70 by Tom McGuinness (bassist with Manfred Mann) and Hughie Flint (drummer with John Mayall) who were obviously the only ones present in the band name meeting because Dennis Coulson, Benny Gallagher and Graham Lyle didn't get a name-check (although the other two got their turn after they left the band to form Gallagher & Lyle). Their debut single "When I'm Dead And Gone" got to #2 in '70 and that seems to have been the start of the end because they somewhat crumpled under the pressure of trying to repeat the trick - not least because they couldn't replicate their sound live and then they got ill which meant that they had to cancel most of their first tour. One more bit of trivia for you from the entry - Graham Lyle wrote "What's Love Got to Do with It?" and "We Don't Need Another Hero" for Tina Turner.

discogs.com tells us you can pick up a decent version for £4, going up to £40 for a mint copy. I can't say I loved this but it's been an interesting visit because, unlike the other artists I'd never heard of who were either massively popular for quite some time or are even still going now, this lot really did just have their moment and then completely disappear. Having said that, the members kept going for quite some years in various other bands and Tom McGuinness is still touring with The Manfreds - and I'll leave you to guess what 60s band they all come from.

31/01/71 - Pretty decent

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