To review: Episode Six are very little known today, because they didn't have much success back when they were a band in the 1960s. They never released a studio album, and they had no hit singles. But they were a talented band. Their biggest claim to fame today is that lead singer Ian Gillan and bassist Roger Glover were band members, then left in mid-1969 to join the Mark II version of Deep Purple.
So if you're a big Deep Purple fan you might have interest in this band, especially because most of the songs are song by Gillan, though the band also had a female lead singer named Sheila Carter, and many of the songs were written by the Gillan and Glover songwriting team. That said, the band was far more pop-oriented than Deep Purple ever was, so don't expect any headbanging here.
As I mentioned in that previous post, given how little success the band hand, it's surprising how much the BBC favored them. They performed many BBC sessions. There's enough for me to make two volumes. And that's with duplicates of the same songs removed, poor sound quality songs removed, a few songs I simply didn't like removed, and some entire BBC sessions lost. But it's easy to see why the BBC liked them, because they knew a ton of cover songs, in a wide variety of styles.
The vast majority of the songs here are covers. The only originals here are the first three songs, plus "Incense" and "Little One" near the end. Note that I cheated by including "Love, Hate, Revenge" here. In my opinion, that's their best original song, but no version of them doing it for the BBC has survived. In order to have it represented here, I've included the US single version, which has some differences from the version I put on the stray tracks album I've already posted, including a different instrumental section in the middle.
All the songs are officially released. The vast majority come from an archival compilation called "Cornflakes and Crazyfoam," though three come from another compilation called "Love, Hate, Revenge." The sound quality is pretty good throughout, though some songs sound better than others. Two of the songs, "I Hear Trumpets Blow" and "Morning Dew," actually come from the German TV show "Beat Beat Beat." You can see the video footage of those on YouTube.
On a different note, with 1960s BBC recordings, one usually runs into the problem of BBC DJs talking over the intros and outros of some songs. For instance, I posted a Status Quo BBC album yesterday where most of the songs had that problem. But for some reason, Episode Six got lucky. Only two of the 19 songs here have "[Edit]" in their titles, which means those are the only two where I had to use the audio editing program X-Minus to wipe out the DJ talking. I suppose it was largely a matter of which BBC radio shows one was on. For instance, there's no sign any of these particular shows were hosted by DJ Brian Matthew, and he was the worst offender.
This album is 55 minutes long.
Here's a list of the original artists for each song, other than the five originals I just mentioned:
04 Morning Dew - Bonnie Dobson / Tim Rose
05 A Hazy Shade of Winter - Simon & Garfunkel
06 Him or Me - Paul Revere & the Raiders
07 Slow Down - Beatles
08 Stagger Lee - traditional / Lloyd Price
09 Que Sera, Sera [Whatever Will Be, Will Be] - Doris Day
10 Say You Don't Mind - Denny Laine
11 Island in the Sun - Harry Belafonte
12 [There's] Always Something There to Remind Me [Edit] -
13 My Little Red Book - Manfred Mann / Love
14 You Can Have Him - Dionne Warwick
15 Here, There and Everywhere - Beatles
16 The Castle - Love
19 River Deep, Mountain High - Ike & Tina Turner
As you can see, pretty far removed from the typical Deep Purple fare! Here's the usual song list:
01 Love, Hate, Revenge [US Single Version] (Episode Six)
02 I Can See Through You (Episode Six)
03 I Hear Trumpets Blow (Episode Six)
04 Morning Dew (Episode Six)
05 A Hazy Shade of Winter (Episode Six)
06 Him or Me (Episode Six)
07 Slow Down (Episode Six)
08 Stagger Lee (Episode Six)
09 Que Sera, Sera [Whatever Will Be, Will Be] (Episode Six)
10 Say You Don't Mind (Episode Six)
11 Island in the Sun (Episode Six)
12 [There's] Always Something There to Remind Me [Edit] (Episode Six)
13 My Little Red Book (Episode Six)
14 You Can Have Him (Episode Six)
15 Here, There and Everywhere (Episode Six)
16 The Castle (Episode Six)
17 Incense (Episode Six)
18 Little One [Edit] (Episode Six)
19 River Deep, Mountain High (Episode Six)
https://www.upload.ee/files/15111755/EpisodeSx_1967-1968_BBSessionsVolume1_atse.zip.html
There are very few good Episode Six color photos that aren't already used for album covers or the like. I've found three that seem to come from the same 1965 or 1966 photo session, because they're wearing the same clothes and have the same haircuts. At least they're in very different poses.
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