First off, I have to address the band's often changing name. They were first formed in 1964 under the name "the Liberators." Then in 1965, they renamed themselves "Pinkerton's Assorted Colours." In early 1966, their first single under that name, "Mirror, Mirror," reached the Top Ten in Britain. That was their only big chart success however. After their second single, they shortened their name to just "Pinkerton's Colours." In 1968, they shortened their name yet again to simply "Pinkertons." But they still weren't done. In 1969, after some personnel changes, they changed their name to "Flying Machine." Under this name, they had a classic hit (only in the U.S.) with the song "Smile a Little Smile for Me." But that was their only success, and a year later they broke up for good.
Phew! Pick a name and stick with it! Sheesh. I'm calling them "Pinkerton's Colours" because that was their name for the vast majority of the time period dealt with here.
Everything here is from Top of the Pops BBC sessions, which sound excellent, as they almost always do. Five of the songs here - tracks 4, 5, 9, 10, and 11 - were officially released on an obscure various artists collection ("British Beat Collection: The Beat Era Vol. 3"). The rest all come from my music friend's unreleased Top of the Pops collection. As is usually the case with Top of the Pops sessions from this era, BBC DJs spoke over the beginnings and ends of many of their songs. So I used the UVR5 audio editing program to get rid of that talking. In this case, seven out of the 11 songs here had that problem, all the ones with "[Edit]" in their titles.
I would have dearly loved to have ended this with a performance of "Smile a Little Smile for Me," since I think that's an excellent song. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any BBC performance of it. Perhaps that's because although it reached Number 5 in the charts in the U.S., it didn't make the charts in Britain at all. Unlike "Mirror, Mirror," which was written by a band member, "Smile" was written by professional songwriters Geoff Stephens and Tony Macaulay. I've already included it in my "Covered" album for Macaulay, and I'll also include a different version when I post a Covered album for Stephens.
I don't know much about this band. Here's their Wikipedia page, though it doesn't say a lot:
Pinkerton's Assorted Colours - Wikipedia
Here also is the page for their rebirth as the Flying Machine:
The Flying Machine (band) - Wikipedia
Their popularity didn't last long because musical trends were changing fast in 1967, and their pop style rapidly fell out of favor. They never were popular enough to release a full album. So some of the songs here were never recorded for a proper studio release, especially their cover versions of well known songs like "Summer in the City," "Richard Cory," and "You Keep Me Hangin' On."
This album is 27 minutes long. That's pretty short, but that's all the relevant material I could find.
01 The Power of Love [Edit] (Pinkerton's Colours)
02 Mirror, Mirror (Pinkerton's Colours)
03 Don't Stop Loving Me Baby (Pinkerton's Colours)
04 Magic Rocking Horse (Pinkerton's Colours)
05 Summer in the City [Edit] (Pinkerton's Colours)
06 Chains of Love (Pinkerton's Colours)
07 Richard Cory [Edit] (Pinkerton's Colours)
08 You Keep Me Hangin' On [Edit] (Pinkerton's Colours)
09 Mum and Dad [Edit] (Pinkerton's Colours)
10 I'll Always Love You [Edit] (Pinkerton's Colours)
11 On a Street Car [Edit] (Pinkerton's Colours)
https://pixeldrain.com/u/WRW61iyJ
alternate:
https://bestfile.io/en/F8xIIuQQci9KviI/file
I don't know much about this photo, except that it's from January 1966, right as their one big hit was rising in the charts.
I don't know much about them, but any unheard British Invasion stuff like this is appreciated!
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