If you've never heard of this band, here's their Wikipedia entry intro: "Blue Mink were a British six-piece pop group that existed from 1969 to 1977. Over that period they had six top 20 hit singles on the U.K. Singles Chart, and released five studio based albums. According to AllMusic: 'they have been immortalized on a string of compilation albums, each recounting the string of effervescent hits that established them among Britain's best-loved pop groups of the early 1970s.'"
They're much better known in Britain than the U.S., because they had a bunch of hits in Britain, as mentioned above, but no hits at all in the U.S. They had two lead singers, Roger Cook and Madeline Bell. Both of them have appeared elsewhere in this music blog. Cook was one half of a songwriting team with Roger Greenaway. I've profiled their songwriting in the "Covered" series, as you can see here:
https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2025/02/covered-roger-cook-roger-greenaway.html
https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2025/02/covered-roger-cook-roger-greenaway_14.html
Cook and Greenaway generally wrote most of the songs for Blue Mink. But while Cook was a good lead vocalist, Madeline Bell sang just as much or more than he did. She was a Black American who had lived in Britain since the early 1960s. She was able to bring authentic American soul music vocals into the band's sound. So the hit songwriting of Cook and Greenaway plus the vocals of Bell was a powerful combination that separated this band from most other similar pop bands in Britain at the time.
Most of the songs here come from excellent sounding BBC studio session recordings given to me by a musical associate. I don't think these have been widely publicly available until now. One problem though was that BBC DJs in this time period often talked over the starts and ends of songs. In fact, of all the BBC studio session songs here, EVERY SINGLE ONE had BBC DJ talking over it! But I was able to get rid of that talking in the usual way, with the use of the MVSEP audio editing program. That's why all but the first two songs have "[Edit]" in their titles.
The first two songs are not from the BBC. In fact, they are from Blue Mink even formed as a group. But Madeline Bell had a solo career going on before, during, and after her time in Blue Mink. These two songs are from an obscure U.S. T.V. show in 1968 called "Live at the Bitter End." It showed live performances at the Bitter End venue in New York City. These two songs only featured Bell singing live lead vocals over recorded instrumentation, but I thought they were worth including anyway.
Also, later in the album, there was one BBC session of three songs featuring Bell from her solo career. So I included them here as well.
In case you're not familiar with Blue Mink's music, the two big hits they had in Britain during the time span on this volume were "Melting Pot" and "Good Morning Freedom." Both of those are included here.
This album is 41 minutes long.
01 I'm Gonna Make You Love Me [Live Lead Vocals Only] (Madeline Bell)
02 Picture Me Gone [Live Lead Vocals Only] (Madeline Bell)
03 Melting Pot [Edit] (Blue Mink)
04 Gimme Reggae [Edit] (Blue Mink)
05 The Onion Song [Edit] (Blue Mink)
06 Mary Jane [Edit] (Blue Mink)
07 Good Morning Freedom [Edit] (Blue Mink)
08 Morning Dew [Edit] (Blue Mink)
09 Proud Mary [Edit] (Blue Mink)
10 Country Chick [Edit] (Blue Mink)
11 How Much Do I Love You [Edit] (Madeline Bell)
12 You're Messing Up My Mind [Edit] (Madeline Bell)
13 We're So Much in Love [Edit] (Madeline Bell)
14 Jubilation [Edit] (Blue Mink)
https://pixeldrain.com/u/RJEnuDXi
alternate:
https://bestfile.io/en/0GNgfn7HtOOWiHy/file
The cover image shows Blue Mink in 1970. I don't know who all the band members are. But in front is Roger Cook (with the beard) and Madeline Bell (with the Coca Cola T-shirt).
Thank you
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