Parrot Records Spotlight: The Alan Price Set - I Put A Spell On You and Iechyd Da

I Put A Spell On You

Iechyd Da

By popular request (one anonymous request to be exact), On The Flip-Side will feature each day this week a different single from the US based Parrot Records.

Parrot Records was created in 1964 as a subsidiary of London Records to release singles licensed from the UK version of Decca Records. Got it? While it was mostly a front to release these UK recordings, Parrot Records did, however, release a few US based records. We'll try to hit some of both this week. One note before we move on to today's single, we want to lay it out there that from a graphic design stand point, few company's had a cooler looking label/sleeve combination. 

The first record in our Parrot Records Spotlight is from Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. The artist is The Alan Price Set, and as any serious Flip-Side reader will know already, Alan Price was the founding member of The Animals. He was also their earliest casualty, exiting the band he formed by mid-1965.  In March of 1966, his new band, The Alan Price Set, released their second single in the UK, a cover of the oft-covered Screaming Jay Hawkins song, I Put A Spell On You. In this writer's estimation, hands down the finest version to be committed to wax. A month later The Alan Price Set version was released in the US on Parrot Records, his first US release. As one can well imagine, the single failed to light the world on fire. But that doesn't mean it isn't great. Not a chance. Alan Price's beautiful organ work builds slowly from a smoldering ember to a full on blazing fire. at 1:53. But Price's strong vocal work doesn't get lost by his immense organ skills. He belts out the vocals with confidence and composure and brings the song to a soaring conclusion. 

The Flip-Side is included here today. It is the Alan Price composed jazz instrumental Iechyd-Da. We hope you enjoy.

Until tomorrow, we'll see you On The Flip-Side!

Song of the Week: "Inside-Looking Out", The Animals

{right click here to listen to the song in another window while you read this article}

The last Song of the Week for the decade! And without doubt or hesitation or even a semblance of second guessing, I can tell you emphatically that our SOTW, this week, is my favorite Animals song ever. It is, I dare say, a perfect song. The song is called Inside-Looking Out and was recorded for Decca Records in 1966.

Let me tell you how I came to this song. Back in my high school days (or more likely shortly thereafter) in the 80s, I went out to a party with some of my lesser quality friends. The party was a dud and I sat in the living room with my mates picking through our hosts' father's records. As was always the case back then, it was a repository of 60's dinosaurs, and a few faded 70's soft rock records. I don't really recall, but he probably had the typical crappy Herb Alpert albums (though I always linger of the Whip Cream and Other Delights album cover) and the Herman and the Hermits dung heaps. But one could usually still find a good album like a Ray Charles or The Beatles Rubber Soul album. On this particular night, we ran across the US pressing of The Animals' Animalization album. I'm sure that in our always diplomatic way, we yanked off a Duran Duran or Howard Jones album and stuck this on. Just what the teens of the 80's wanted to listen to, right? Well, skip ahead a few hours and this album somehow ended up in the car with us as a newly adopted record. Liberated from it's lesser cousins in this forgotten stack and given a rebirth on a Marantz turntable just a few short blocks away. At home I was able to understand just how damn good this record was. Don't Bring Me Down and See See Rider as the first listen stand-outs. About the same time I picked up my newest issue of Ugly Things, the Mike Stax published fanzine. This would have been something like issue No. 3. In the back, Stax had a Top 10 list of songs that he was digging. One of them was...Inside-looking Out. So I put it on and gave it another listen. Who doggie. That is one hot number.

Inside-Looking Out was recorded as a stunning double sided single in the UK (the uber cool Outcast is the flip-side) and appeared in the US on Animalization and as a single where it flopped like New Coke. It's one of the last recordings with original drummer John Steel and well after band leader and organ player phenom Alan Price had left the band to be replaced by Dave Rowberry. The song was written by the Lomax brothers with Eric Burdon and bassist Chas Chandler. It tells the tale of an incarcerated man who keeps his will to live by dreaming of the day he will be released and, like the record I had in my hand, given a rebirth to live again.

Ice cold waters running in my brain/and they drag me back to work again. Pains and blisters on my minds and my hands. From living daily with those canvas bags/thoughts of freedom they're driving me wild/and I'll be happy like a new born child. We'll be together, girl, you wait and see/no more walls keep your love from me.

Besides Eric Burdon's beautiful pained performance, the song is driven by Chandler's powerfully melodic Gibson EB-2D bass and Hilton Valentine's stabbing guitar work.

It's getting louder. Can't you hear it? I'll be home soon. Whoa!