Herman's Hermits - BBC Sessions, Volume 3: 1967-1969

Here's the third volume in a four volume series of Herman's Hermit's performing for the BBC. I don't want to repeat all my comments from the earlier volumes in this series, so I'll limit myself to saying don't dismiss this just because you see the "Herman's Hermits" name. Yeah, they were super uncool, but if you like the 1960s pop stylings of the Hollies and the Monkees, you should like this.

In 1967, psychedelic music was all the rage. Herman's Hermits began having few hits, because their poppy style was increasingly out of step with cultural trends. That said, I like this era more than their earlier era. They still were a million miles away from the likes of Jimi Hendrix or Cream, but they also had moved beyond the sometimes twee style of "Henry the VIII I Am" and "Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter."

The vast majority of the songs are made up of cover versions of hits by others, with only a few hits originally by Herman's Hermits scattered in there. Around 1968, the band wanted to put out an album entirely made of covers of famous songs. It never came out, not even as bonus tracks or the like, so not much has leaked to the public other than these BBC performances. A couple of months back, I made an album entirely of my best guesses for the songs that would have been released on that cover album. You can see that here:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2021/02/the-hermans-hermits-covers-album.html

There's a lot of overlap between that album and this one. But I figure anything the band did for the BBC belongs as part of this series.

By the way, note that one of the band's biggest (and best) hits was "I'm into Something Good," in 1964. It seems they never played that song for the BBC in 1964 or thereabouts. But for some reason, they decided to play it in late 1968. I'm glad they did, because I think these BBC albums make up a kind of box set length best of collection for the band. There would have been a big gap if that song hadn't been included.

Another by the way. If you've been following this blog, you've probably noticed how I don't like the BBC DJs talking over the starts and ends of songs sometimes on BBC recordings, and how I try to edit those voices out. This album is probably the worst case of that yet. No less than 14 out of the 18 songs had to be edited by me to fix this problem! You can see those with the "[Edit]" in the file names. But on the plus side, I think I'm getting better at doing this kind of editing, so I hope you won't notice when you listen.

01 New York Mining Disaster 1941 [Edit] (Herman's Hermits)
02 Marcel's [Edit] (Herman's Hermits)
03 Bus Stop [Edit] (Herman's Hermits)
04 Memphis, Tennessee [Edit] (Herman's Hermits)
05 Tallyman [Edit] (Herman's Hermits)
06 Sleepy Joe (Herman's Hermits)
07 Dandy [Edit] (Herman's Hermits)
08 Hello Mary Lou [Edit] (Herman's Hermits)
09 Sunshine Girl (Herman's Hermits)
10 Keep On [Edit] (Herman's Hermits)
11 It's All Right - Shout [Edit] (Herman's Hermits)
12 Morning Dew [Edit] (Herman's Hermits)
13 Love Is Blue [Edit] (Herman's Hermits)
14 Something's Happening (Herman's Hermits)
15 I'm into Something Good [Edit] (Herman's Hermits)
16 Save the Last Dance for Me (Herman's Hermits)
17 The Most Beautiful Thing in My Life [Edit] (Herman's Hermits)
18 Little Green Apples [Edit] (Herman's Hermits)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15291757/HermansH_1967-1969_BBSessionsVolum3_atse.zip.html

The cover art shows the band in 1967. Note how they seem totally unaffected by late 1960s fashion trends, still wearing suits.