Grapefruit - BBC Sessions (1968-1969)

I just posted a BBC sessions album from an obscure 1960s British band. Here's another one! This time, it's Grapefruit.

In digging up BBC sessions for this blog, I've come across many 1960s artists that I didn't know that well, but have come to enjoy. Grapefruit definitely fit into that. If you enjoy the music of Badfinger, heavily influenced by the late Beatles sound, then Grapefruit should be right up your alley. Just like Badfinger, they had many Beatles links. Not only were they signed to the Beatles' record label Apple, one of their songs was produced by Paul McCartney AND John Lennon. Even their name came from a suggestion by Lennon.

If you want to know more about the band, here is the Wikipedia link:

Grapefruit (band) - Wikipedia

 I'll say a little more in summary. The key member in my opinion was George Alexander (also known as Alexander Young), the band's lead singer and main songwriter. He came from a very musical family, because he was the brother of George Young, one of the two key songwriters in the Australian band the Easybeats, as well as being the brother of Malcom and Angus Young, members of the Australian band AC/DC. He wasn't in the Easybeats at this time because the rest of his family emigrated from Britain to Australia in the early 1960s, but he stayed behind because he was older than his brothers and already was making a living as a musician.

Anyway, I think that the quality of the songs here is very good. The original "Dear Delilah" was a top 20 hit in Britain, and the cover "C'mon Marianne" was a top 40 hit there. All the rest are originals, I believe, except for "Say You Don't Mind" and "To Love Somebody." In my opinion, the band should have been more successful, but their record company bungled things, they didn't tour and promote their music that much, their records were overproduced, and they didn't stick together long. As far as the overproduction, these BBC versions are usually better because they're simpler, even though some of them have orchestral arrangements added.

All but one of the performances here have been officially released, on the album "Around the BBC." The one exception is "Yes." I removed a couple of songs that were performed twice, and without those the album was a bit short, so I looked around for other TV or radio show performances to add. I found a few songs they did for a French TV show called "Bouton Rouge." A couple of those were also done for the BBC, so I didn't include them, but "Yes" was unique, so it's been added here.

As for the BBC tracks, the vast majority of them had the problem of BBC DJs talking over the music - all the ones with "[Edit]" in their titles. As usual, I used the audio editing program X-Minus to wipe the talking and keep the underlying music.

As mentioned above, this album is a bit short, at only 34 minutes long.

01 Breaking Up a Dream [Edit] (Grapefruit)
02 Dear Delilah [Edit] (Grapefruit)
03 Trying to Make It to Monday [Edit] (Grapefruit)
04 Yes [Edit] (Grapefruit)
05 Elevator [Edit] (Grapefruit)
06 Say You Don't Mind [Edit] (Grapefruit)
07 Somebody's Turning on the People (Grapefruit)
08 C'mon Marianne (Grapefruit)
09 Someday Soon [Edit] (Grapefruit)
10 Round Going Round [Edit] (Grapefruit)
11 To Love Somebody [Edit] (Grapefruit)
12 Deep Water (Grapefruit)
13 Thunder and Lightning (Grapefruit)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15118259/Grapeft_1968-1969_BBSessions_atse.zip.html

The cover uses a promo photo of the band. I don't know exactly where or when it was taken. I don't know why, but for some reason I added a slice of a grapefruit at the bottom corner.