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66: RUPERT'S PEOPLE
Reflections Of Charles Brown/Hold On
(Columbia, 1967)

A WEIRD one in every respect, this: A single by a band who didn't really exist at the time, which appears here not for its A-side but because of its pulverising B-side.

The Rupert's People story is discouragingly convoluted, but as far as I can gather the name was coined as a sop to the burgeoning psychedelic market, intended to help boost a Rod Lynton song, Reflections Of Charles Brown, into the charts.

Rod, a member of Sweet Feeling, had already been asked by his manager Howard Conder to rewrite the song using the melody of Bach's Air On A G String, perhaps to steal a march on Procol Harum who were poised for greatness with their own rock/classical hybrid A Whiter Shade Of Pale.

The terrific Southampton group Les Fleur De Lys, and jobbing organist Pete Solley, were recruited to play on the single and invited to "become" Rupert's People, as it were, but they balked at the latter part of this suggestion.

I do hope you're following all of this. Somehow or other, before Les Fleur De Lys left the picture, Rod Lynton and Howard Conder either collaborated with or divvied out royalties with Fleur De Lys bassist Gordon Haskell on Charles Brown's B-side, Hold On, which credits all three with songwriting duties.

Whoever is responsible should go to the top of the class, however. Where Charles Brown is a sweet but slight period piece, absolutely trounced in its aims by that epochal Procol Harum single, Hold On is a raving, boiling floor filler, just ripe for rediscovery as soon as any tastemaking DJ wraps his ears around that roaring Hammond accompaniment.

In fact, if I wanted to make a film iincluding a scene depicting the ultimate groovy 1960s club, this is the track I'd use...

Rupert's People did eventually become a "real" band, and even played at the Steering Wheel club in Weymouth later in 1967.

Charles Brown/Hold On organist Pete Solley, irony of ironies, went on to join Procol Harum for 1977's Something Magic album, while Fleur De Lys bassist Gordon Haskell, of course, achieved enormous belated success in 2001 when his single How Wonderful You Are reached number two in the charts and became the most requested song in Radio 2's history. Haskell was 57 years old at the time.

9:52am Friday 25th April 2008

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