Honeybus - I Can't Let Maggie Go - Non-Album Tracks (1966-1968)

I have to admit that, until recently, I wasn't that into the band Honeybus. I had their double album anthology "She Flies like a Bird," and I figured that was all the music from them that I would want. But I was wrong. If you've been following this blog, you may have noticed that I've been posting a lot of BBC material. Searching for that helped me reappraise Honeybus, because they have lots of good songs that were never officially released, and only exist as BBC recordings. This album will help show what I mean.

It's really shocking how badly Honeybus was treated by their record company. They existed from 1967 to 1973, and had a big Top Ten hit in Britain with "I Can't Let Maggie Go." They were critically acclaimed, and had three talented singer-songwriters in the band. Yet, despite that, the record company only allowed them to record ONE studio album, "Story," in 1970. And in terms of archival material, they continue to be badly served, with many quality songs still unreleased.

So thank God for the BBC! Luckily, this band was well liked by the BBC and had quite a few sessions with them despite only having that one hit. As a result, versions of many of their unreleased songs exist, usually with very good sound quality. This album has seven songs where the only version that exists is the BBC one. All of them have been officially released. They're all good songs, and the band might have had much more success if they'd been able to use them to flesh out a studio album at the time.

Four songs from the BBC suffer from the usual problem of BBC DJs talking over the music. And, as usual, I edited the songs to fix that.Those are the ones with "[Edit]" in their titles.

The first two songs are also rare. They are the A- and B-Sides to the only single by the Anteeeks. (Yes, that's with three e's in a row.) This band was basically an early version of Honeybus, though there were some personnel differences. Crucially, it contained Pete Dello. He wrote both songs. He also wrote Honeybus's one hit, "I Can't Let Maggie Go." Plus, he wrote "(Do I Figure) In Your Life." It wasn't a hit at the time, though it should have been. It has since been covered by many artists, including Dave Berry, Joe Cocker, Ian Matthews, and Paul Carrack.

But the band had a lot more than just two good songs. This album is solid through and through, in my opinion. I believe all the songs are originals. Since the band didn't release any albums in this time period, the remaining songs not mentioned above are eight songs released as the A- and B-sides of singles.

There's one bonus track here, "Lilly." I don't know where it's from exactly, but it's an unreleased studio version. Sadly, the sound quality isn't up to snuff with the others, thus the bonus track status.

I really like this album. If you haven't tried Honeybus, this is an excellent place to start, since it contains their two best known songs. Right after the time period here, the end of 1968, the band would suffer a blow when their main songwriter at the time, Pete Dello, would leave the band. But here, they were firing on all cylinders. It's a real shame that they didn't have more success and that they weren't even allowed to release a full album.

This album is 45 minutes long, not including the bonus track.

UPDATE: On July 12, 2023, I updated the mp3 download file. I removed one song, "Goin' Back." I'll be adding that to a BBC collection instead. I added one song, "Incredibly Bad," which actually is very good. I also updated some other songs with better sourcing.

01 I Don't Want You (Anteeeks [Pete Dello & Ray Cane])
02 Ball and Chain (Anteeeks [Pete Dello & Ray Cane])
03 Delighted to See You (Honeybus)
04 The Breaking Up Scene (Honeybus)
05 [Do I Figure] In Your Life (Honeybus)
06 Throw My Love Away (Honeybus)
07 Arise Sir Henry (Honeybus)
08 Like an Old Time Movie [Edit] (Honeybus)
09 Maxine's Parlour (Honeybus)
10 Ain't That Just Bonnie for You [Edit] (Honeybus)
11 Francoise [Edit] (Honeybus)
12 She Comes to Me [Edit] (Honeybus)
13 I Can't Let Maggie Go (Honeybus)
14 Tender Are the Ashes (Honeybus)
15 Girl of Independent Means (Honeybus)
16 How Long [Single Version] (Honeybus)
17 Incredibly Bad (Honeybus)

Lilly (Honeybus)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15437491/Honeybs_1966-1968_ICanLtMaggieGo_atse.zip.html

Normally, for an album like this, I prefer to have something that shows the members of the band. I went looking to see what the cover of the "I Can't Let Maggie Go" single looked like. There were several versions, and one had the photo you see above, with a literal interpretation of the song title. It's corny, but I like it as an example of the style of the era, so I used that one. I'll be posting other Honeybus albums where I can show what the band members looked like.