Wayne Fontana & the Mindbenders - BBC Sessions (1964-1968)

In November of 2021, I posted an album of BBC sessions by the Mindbenders, from 1966 to 1968. I did things out of order, because the Mindbenders first came to fame as the backing band to British singer Wayne Fontana. So this album essentially has two parts. The first 15 songs feature Wayne Fontana & the Mindbenders, and the remaining nine songs feature just Fontana from his short solo career.

Fontana had a bunch of hits in Britain, both with the Mindbenders and as a solo artist, but today he's mainly known for the really big hit "The Game of Love." That reached number two in Britain, and number one in the US (his only hit there). Here's the Wikipedia link if you want to know more:

Wayne Fontana - Wikipedia

The Mindbenders came together as Fontana's backing band, but they were more than just a typical backing band. I could be wrong, but I think a few of the songs here are sung by one of the Mindbenders instead of Fontana, probably Eric Stewart, who would later be a key member of the 1970s band 10cc. If anyone knows, please let me know. The Mindbenders wanted more of a rock and roll direction, and Fontana was leaning more towards being a crooner. Fontana abruptly quit in the middle of a concert towards the end of 1965. The Mindbenders went on to considerable success without him, especially with the hit song "A Groovy Kind of Love."

Normally for these BBC albums, I try to include all the unique songs I can find in worthy sound quality. But in this case, there were a handful of his solo songs in his crooning style that I didn't like, so I didn't include them. I figure that Fontana's isn't that popular these days, so there aren't going to be scores of fans screaming bloody murder at the omission. Sorry if anyone is disappointed, but I think it makes for a much stronger album.

Everything here is officially unreleased as far as I can tell (not counting some unauthorized "grey market" releases), and it's all from BBC studio sessions. As usual, some of the songs had BBC DJs talking over the music. And, as usual, I used the audio editing program X-Minus to wipe that talking. In this case, about half of the songs were affected, the ones with "[Edit]" in their titles.

As is often the case with these albums, I think this serves as an excellent "best of" collection. It includes all the key songs, and there's much more here of worth than just "The Game of Love." I particularly like "Like I Did," and two Graham Gouldman songs first done by Fontana, "Pamela, Pamela" and "The Impossible Years." 

Also, the album version of "Please Stop the Wedding" was marred by some talking sessions done by someone with a totally incongruous Indian accent. I suspect that was influenced by Peter Sellers doing that accent in some movies at the time, but it ruined the song by adding "funny" bits to a very serious song. The BBC version is thankfully free of that Indian voice, revealing a pretty good song.

Fontana's career faded out around 1968, due to changing musical trends and a lack of hits, so that's where this album ends too.

This album is 57 minutes long.

01 She's Got the Power (Wayne Fontana & the Mindbenders)
02 Um Um Um Um Um Um (Wayne Fontana & the Mindbenders)
03 I’m Gonna Be a Wheel Someday (Wayne Fontana & the Mindbenders)
04 The Girl Can't Help It [Edit] (Wayne Fontana & the Mindbenders)
05 Since You've Been Gone [Edit] (Wayne Fontana & the Mindbenders)
06 Too Much Monkey Business [Edit] (Wayne Fontana & the Mindbenders)
07 It's Just a Little Bit Too Late (Wayne Fontana & the Mindbenders)
08 The Game of Love (Wayne Fontana & the Mindbenders)
09 She's a Rebel [He's a Rebel] [Edit] (Wayne Fontana & the Mindbenders)
10 My Babe [Edit] (Wayne Fontana & the Mindbenders)
11 Like I Did (Wayne Fontana & the Mindbenders)
12 Sticks and Stones (Wayne Fontana & the Mindbenders)
13 Young Blood (Wayne Fontana & the Mindbenders)
14 She Needs Love (Wayne Fontana & the Mindbenders)
15 I'm Talking about You [Edit] (Wayne Fontana & the Mindbenders)
16 Can I Get a Witness [Edit] (Wayne Fontana)
17 It Was Easier to Hurt Her [Edit] (Wayne Fontana)
18 Come On Home (Wayne Fontana)
19 The Sun's So Hot Today [Edit] (Wayne Fontana)
20 [There's] Always Something There to Remind Me [Edit] (Wayne Fontana)
21 Pamela, Pamela (Wayne Fontana)
22 The Impossible Years (Wayne Fontana)
23 Please Stop the Wedding [Edit] (Wayne Fontana)
24 Waiting for a Break in the Clouds [Edit] (Wayne Fontana)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15184406/WayneFon_1964-1968_BBSessions_atse.zip.html

I was torn between using a photo of just Fontana or one with him and the Mindbenders. I was swayed by the fact that I found a particularly good one (in terms of picture quality) of just him. This photo dates to 1966.

Various Artists - NME Poll Winners' Concert, Empire Pool, London, Britain, 4-11-1965

I read an interesting article today (in January 2022) about how the sale of new music is continually falling to all time lows every year, while interest in older music continues to rise. It's a good article. I suggest you check it out:

https://tedgioia.substack.com/p/is-old-music-killing-new-music

As the article points out, there's still plenty of good new music, it's just that's not what gets promoted and makes it big, due to screwed-up record companies and other factors. Compare the artists on the top of the charts today to the quality of the mainstream artists at the time of this 1965 concert: the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Kinks, the Animals, Dusty Springfield, Them (with Van Morrison), the Moody Blues, Donovan, and many more, all sharing the same stage! Is it any wonder that lots of people (including me) are more interested in this kind of music than the generic, pre-packaged pop of today? The amount of sheer talent bursting up the charts in 1965 was staggering.

The reason so many big names played this one concert was because it was an awards show of sorts for NME - New Musical Express, a British music magazine. NME began giving out yearly poll winner awards in 1953, and continue to do it until this day (2022 as I write this). At least through 1971, there were annual concerts to celebrate the winners. But unlike most awards shows, this concert just focused on music instead of bogging things down with lots of speeches and award presentations (though there was a short section for that). 

I would love to hear the 1966, 1967, and 1968 shows in full, since music just got better and better as the 1960s went on, in my opinion, and all sorts of interesting artists played in those later shows, including Cream, the Small Faces, the Move, the Beach Boys, Cat Stevens, the Who, the Yardbirds, and lots more, including more appearances by big names in this concert, like the Beatles and Rolling Stones. It seems only the 1964, 1965 and 1966 shows are available on bootleg. I'm posting the 1965 one first as I think it's more interesting, with these mostly British Invasion acts more fully developed by then.

The sound quality is excellent throughout. This concert was professionally recorded in order to be broadcast on British TV a short time afterwards. The TV version was edited down, but somehow luckily a recording of the entire show has made its way to the public. You can watch the entire thing on YouTube, though it's only in black and white.

This concert took place before artists typically stretched out with lots of soloing and jamming and such. These songs don't differ that much from their studio versions (with a few exceptions, like Them and the Animals). But I still think this is a fascinating listen, as there aren't many quality concert recordings from this early in the 1960s. In particular, there were many artists who were pretty big back in the day but have little to no surviving audio or video of them in concert. Even for major names like the Animals and Dusty Springfield, there's very little from around this time period. And for the lesser known acts, this is often the only evidence of them in concert that seems to still exist.

I'm a big Kinks fan, so a minor disappointment for me is that the Kinks only played two songs. Even at this early stage in their career they were a big enough name to deserve more time. Apparently, this has to do with them being late to the show, as they had just got off a plane coming from another country. You can hear guitarist Dave Davies apologize about this between songs. According to some accounts, they actually played after the Beatles, as the very last act. However, the recording I used had them just before the Beatles, and that seems to fit in terms of the audience applause and announcement and such, so I'm keeping it that way.

As far as naming the artists for each song goes, technically I should have put the names of the emcee or emcees on many of the talk tracks. Some of those had band members talking, some had the emcees, and some where a mix. But rather than spend time dealing with all that, I just put the name of the act being introduced, for simplicity's sake. (Unfortunately, one of the emcees was DJ Jimmy Savile, who later was disgraced in a child molestation scandal. Thankfully, his role here is very minor.) I only put in the DJ names on the very first and last tracks, since those weren't linked to any particular artists.

A couple of the performers here are rather forgettable. I was tempted to cut out Freddie and the Dreamers and Sounds Incorporated in particular. But ultimately I decided it was best to present the entire thing unedited (although I cut out some annoying laughter by Freddie and the Dreamers between songs). Overall, I think the percentage of quality performers is quite high. 

The Beatles only got to do a 15 minute long set, but it's nice that you can actually hear them perform instead of being totally drowned out by screaming, as was typical of the time. Apparently, the arena (Empire Pool, later renamed Wembley Arena), held about 10,000 people. I'm sure that, by 1965, the Beatles could have filled up a much larger venue in London all on their own.

In case you're curious about who won the poll awards this year, there's a list at the NME website, which you can see here: 

https://www.nme.com/nme-awards/awards-history/1965-606223

It seems there were even more musical acts who performed but didn't make it to the recording for one reason or another. I'm not entirely sure if they actually performed, but these other names were included in the program given to the audience and were at least scheduled to perform: Tom Jones, the Bachelors, the Rockin' Berries, and Twinkle.  

This concert is two hours and 23 minutes long. I cut out some dead air between songs. But there was surprisingly little of that to begin with. Either this was already edited down, or this was a tightly run show.

01 talk (Keith Fordyce & Jimmy Savile)
02 Bo Diddley - Pretty Thing (Moody Blues)
03 Go Now (Moody Blues)
04 talk (Freddie & the Dreamers)
05 Little Bitty Pretty One (Freddie & the Dreamers)
06 talk (Freddie & the Dreamers)
07 A Little You (Freddie & the Dreamers)
08 talk (Georgie Fame & the Blue Flames)
09 Yeh Yeh (Georgie Fame & the Blue Flames)
10 talk (Georgie Fame & the Blue Flames)
11 Walking the Dog (Georgie Fame & the Blue Flames)
12 talk (Seekers)
13 I'll Never Find Another You (Seekers)
14 talk (Seekers)
15 A World of Our Own (Seekers)
16 talk (Herman's Hermits)
17 Wonderful World (Herman's Hermits)
18 talk (Herman's Hermits)
19 Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter (Herman's Hermits)
20 talk (Ivy League)
21 Funny How Love Can Be (Ivy League)
22 talk (Ivy League)
23 Sweet and Tender Romance (Ivy League)
24 talk (Ivy League)
25 That's Why I'm Crying (Ivy League)
26 talk (Sounds Incorporated)
27 Time for You [Instrumental] (Sounds Incorporated)
28 talk (Sounds Incorporated)
29 In the Hall of the Mountain King [Instrumental] (Sounds Incorporated)
30 talk (Wayne Fontana & the Mindbenders)
31 The Game of Love (Wayne Fontana & the Mindbenders)
32 talk (Wayne Fontana & the Mindbenders)
33 Just a Little Bit Too Late (Wayne Fontana & the Mindbenders)
34 talk (Rolling Stones)
35 Everybody Needs Somebody to Love (Rolling Stones)
36 Pain in My Heart (Rolling Stones)
37 Around and Around (Rolling Stones)
38 The Last Time (Rolling Stones)
39 talk (Cilla Black with Sounds Incorporated)
40 Zip-A-Dee Doo-Dah (Cilla Black with Sounds Incorporated)
41 talk (Cilla Black with Sounds Incorporated)
42 Going Out of My Head (Cilla Black with Sounds Incorporated)
43 talk (Donovan)
44 You're Gonna Need Somebody on Your Bond (Donovan)
45 talk (Donovan)
46 Catch the Wind (Donovan)
47 talk (Them)
48 Here Comes the Night (Them)
49 Turn on Your Love Light (Them)
50 talk (Searchers)
51 Bumble Bee (Searchers)
52 talk (Searchers)
53 Let the Good Times Roll (Searchers)
54 talk (Dusty Springfield)
55 Dancing in the Street (Dusty Springfield)
56 talk (Dusty Springfield)
57 Mockingbird (Dusty Springfield)
58 I Can't Hear You [No More] (Dusty Springfield)
59 talk (Animals)
60 Boom Boom (Animals)
61 Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood (Animals)
62 Talkin' 'bout You (Animals)
63 talk (Kinks)
64 You Really Got Me (Kinks)
65 Tired of Waiting for You (Kinks)
66 talk (Beatles)
67 I Feel Fine (Beatles)
68 talk (Beatles)
69 She's a Woman (Beatles)
70 talk (Beatles)
71 Baby's in Black (Beatles)
72 talk (Beatles)
73 Ticket to Ride (Beatles)
74 talk (Beatles)
75 Long Tall Sally (Beatles)
76 talk (Keith Fordyce)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/6niBfp48

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/RBH3ooSgczT5hrW/file

When I first posted this album in 2022, I used a black and white photo of the Beatles from the concert that I colorized. But looking at the cover again in 2026, I decided the photo wasn't very good. So I used a different photo of the Beatles from the concert that is zoomed in closer, and has more detail. This one also was black and white, and then colorized by me with the use of the Kolorize program.

I took most of the cover text from advertisements of the show, though I added in the list of some of the artists.

The Mindbenders - BBC Sessions (1966-1968)

I'll be explaining more what I'm doing in a different post soon, but I'm going through a phase where I'm posting as many BBC sessions as I can, even if it's from musical artists I'm not a big fan of. BBC sessions need to be better known in general, especially when there's no official album for a given artist. And now that I'm using the audio editing programs Spleeter and X-Minus to wipe the BBC DJ talking from the music in a better way than ever before, I feel even more of a need to post these sessions.

I'm happy to say that I'm not the only person working on improving BBC sessions lately. My musical friend Lilpanda feels the same way I do, and has also learned how to use the X-Minus program. This particular album is almost entirely his effort. Most importantly, he wiped the DJ vocals. I merely added the info to the mp3 tags and balanced the volume levels from song to song.

Lilpanda turned me onto the Mindbenders. I knew there was a British group called Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders that had the big international hit "The Game of Love" in 1965. I also knew Fontana split from the band in 1966 (for a solo career that quickly fizzled out), and the Mindbenders had a big international hit of their own later in 1966, "A Groovy Kind of Love." But after that, their popularity declined, and they broke up in 1968.

Here's the Wikipedia entry on them:

The Mindbenders - Wikipedia

Beyond that, I didn't know much, and I hadn't heard their music beyond a hit or two. However, I was intrigued when I found out that allmusic.com is very high on them. Here's what their write-up on the band says after discussing their "A Groovy Kind of Love" hit:

"Had the group only succeeded in locating a decent follow-up, they might well have developed into one of the finest British bands of the late '60s. Instead, a series of disastrous choices of 45s condemned them to the ranks of rank also-rans, and it is only later that the sheer quality of their other work -- material hitherto lost on two Mindbenders LPs -- had been re-evaluated sufficiently to let listeners state that here was one of the greatest of all Britain's post-beat bands."

What also intrigued me is the band's connection to the 1970s group 10cc. After Wayne Fontana left, the band's lead vocalist and main songwriter was Eric Stewart. He would later be one of the lead vocalists and songwriters in 10cc. And when one of the other three members of the band left in early 1968, the replacement was expert songwriter Graham Gouldman, who would be one of the other lead vocalists and songwriters in 10cc. Unfortunately, the record company wasn't very interested in Stewart's songwriting, so most of the songs they did were covers. And Gouldman joined too late to have much of an impact, although "Schoolgirl" and "Uncle Joe the Ice Cream Man" were written by him. (He probably plays on the last five songs here.)

If you enjoy British pop from the 1960s like the Hollies and the Move, you should enjoy this. I wish they would have done more originals and fewer covers of very well known songs, but you can't have everything. 

Thirteen of the 22 songs here have "[Edit]" in their titles. Those are the ones where Lilpanda wiped the BBC DJ talking while keeping the underlying music. 

All of the songs are officially unreleased. Many of the songs here were not released by the band in studio versions, such as "Ride Your Pony," "We Can Work It Out," "Rock Me Baby," "Omaha," and "My White Bicycle." to name just a few.

This album is 55 minutes long.

01 A Groovy Kind of Love (Mindbenders)
02 Love Is Good [Edit] (Mindbenders)
03 Don't Cry No More [Edit] (Mindbenders)
04 The Way You Do the Things You Do [Edit] (Mindbenders)
05 Can't Live with You, Can't Live without You (Mindbenders)
06 All Night Worker [Edit] (Mindbenders)
07 Land of 1000 Dances - In the Midnight Hour - See See Rider - Jenny, Jenny (Mindbenders)
08 Seventh Son (Mindbenders)
09 Ashes to Ashes (Mindbenders)
10 Ride Your Pony [Edit] (Mindbenders)
11 Cool Jerk [Edit] (Mindbenders)
12 I Want Her She Wants Me (Mindbenders)
13 Homework [Edit] (Mindbenders)
14 The Morning After [Edit] (Mindbenders)
15 We'll Talk about It Tomorrow (Mindbenders)
16 The Letter [Edit] (Mindbenders)
17 We Can Work It Out (Mindbenders)
18 Rock Me Baby [Edit] (Mindbenders)
19 Blessed Are the Lonely (Mindbenders)
20 Hold On Baby (Mindbenders)
21 Omaha [Edit] (Mindbenders)
22 Uncle Joe the Ice Cream Man [Edit] (Mindbenders)
23 My White Bicycle [Edit] (Mindbenders)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16700806/TMINDBNDRS1966-1968_BBSessons_atse.zip.html

The photo used for the cover art is from 1967, before Graham Gouldman joined the group.