I Confess
Dawn Is Breaking
A very astute reader from
Nitro-Retro noted from our
post on The Scorpions' song, Too Many Lovers, that the organ work on that song shared a nice similarity to the Flip-Side of the debut single from US band, The New Colony Six. I sauntered (cooly) to the record collection, played the song and thought to myself: "yeah, that's a cool coincidence." So we of course have to follow our flowing stream of consciousness all the way from Manchester to the Netherlands to San Diego and now to Chicago.
I Confess/Dawn Is Breaking was the debut single for The New Colony Six way back in November, 1965 on the Centaur Records label. The band was at this point, Ray Graffia, Chick James, Pat McBride, Craig Kemp, Wally Kemp and Gerry Van Kollenburg. Kollenburg and Graffia wrote the A-Side; Kemp the Flip-side.
I Confess is the stronger of the two, but
Dawn Is Breaking is pretty cool...and of course, you can compare it to The Scorpions 1965 Flip-Side,
Too Many Lovers. Go crazy kids!
Until next time, we'll see you On The Flip-Side!
I should add that the opening bass line of Dawn is Breaking reminds me of Larry and the Bluenotes' Night Of The Phantom. Uh oh, more connections!
ReplyDeleteGreat stuff.... Thanx!
ReplyDeleteI Confess is unusual - and brilliant - in that it seemingly has no verse. It skips from intro to chorus to alternate chorus to chorus to alternate chorus to outro ....
ReplyDeleteAt least that's the impression it gives me.
Also with respect to Dawn Is Breaking, it is more than the similarity of organs. There is a similarity in the riff that the organ plays under.
By riff, I mean chord progression, not that nifty riff that The Scorpions deliver.
Deleteunderstood
DeleteThis is Ray Graffia commenting and if you enjoyed the "A" side of "Dawn Is Breaking", which is "I Confess", you might get a kick out of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0sF6neMiIU. Chic (NC6 founding drummer), Craig (NC6 founding keys) and I each left the Colony and while I returned and am still part of the current and 59th year since we started Colony, they did not. While on hiatus, we started the RJM Band and that link will take you to our later version of "I Confess", maybe about 1972 or thereabouts. It, along with so,e of the other tunes done together as Raymond John Michael can be found on a CD compilation called "SIDES", which included rarer NC6 tunes, RJM music as well as the title track created by my brother and me, listed as Graffia Brothers! Talk about rarities - check 'em out and let me know - I still kill brain cells on Facebook or as I like to nickname it, Farcepuke!
ReplyDelete