Various Artists - NME Poll Winners' Concert, Empire Pool, London, Britain, 5-1-1966

I've already posted the NME Poll Winners' Concerts from 1964 and 1965. Here's the only other one known to be exist in the public sphere, the 1966 one.

This is arguably one of the greatest concerts of all time, just in terms of sheer star power. The last three acts were the Who, the Rolling Stones, and the Beatles, for crying out loud! That was probably the one and only time those three acts appeared on stage in a row like that.

Unfortunately though... we're missing most of the good stuff, including all of those three performances! So sorry. And worse, of the remaining concert, we are missing half of that too. This concert was at least two hours long. So, to broadcast it on TV, it was split it two, and the two parts were shown on TV a week apart. It's pretty clear to me that only the second part survives, because all of the first part is missing. 

Here are all the musical acts that played in the first part: the Overlanders, Small Faces, the Spencer Davis Group, Roy Orbison, the Walker Brothers, the Yardbirds, the Seekers, the Alan Price Set, the Shadows, and Cliff Richard. If you add all those acts together, plus the ones we do have below (Sounds Incorporated, the Fortunes, Herman's Hermits, Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich, the Yardbirds, Crispian St. Peters, Alan Price Set, and Dusty Springfield), plus the three acts finishing the second set (the Who, the Rolling Stones, and the Beatles), it's hard to argue this was the greatest collection of rock music talent ever on one stage in the 1960s. It's such a shame we don't have all of it!

Of course, the greatest loss is not getting to hear the Beatles' set. This would turn out to be the very last concert the Beatles performed in Britain, excepting the unannounced performance on top of Abbey Roads Studios in 1969. We do know the songs they played though: "I Feel Fine," "If I Needed Someone," "Day Tripper," "Nowhere Man," and "I'm Down."

To further frustrate you, these NME concerts continued until 1971. I couldn't find many details about the concerts after 1966. However, we know a bit more about the 1967 and 1968 concerts, because setlist.fm gives a list of the performers for each of those years.  

Here's a list of the known performers for the 1967 concert (in alphabetical order): Alan Price Set, Cat Stevens, Cliff Richard, Cream, Dusty Springfield, Geno Washington and the Ram Jam Band, Lulu, Small Faces, the Beach Boys, the Dubliners, the Move, the Spencer Davis Group, the Troggs. 

And here are the known performers for the 1968 concert (also in alphabetical order): Amen Corner, Cliff Richard, Don Partridge, Dusty Springfield, Love Affair, Lulu, Procol Harum, Scott Walker, Status Quo, the Association, the Herd, the Move, the Paper Dolls, and the Rolling Stones. 

Man, what incredible concerts those would be to hear! Unfortunately though, no known recordings of any of the concerts after 1966 exist. I strongly suspect they weren't broadcast on TV, but I don't know for sure. Let's hope that the remainder of the 1966 concert and all of the 1967 to 1971 concerts are sitting in some vault and will be released to the public one day. 

Now, let's get to why we don't have the recordings of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Apparently, there was a big argument backstage. The popular version is that both Mick Jagger of the Stones and John Lennon of the Beatles argued that they were the biggest band in the world, and thus demanded to go on last. However, it appears this wasn't true. In fact, most of the members of the Beatles and the Stones were friends with each other. 

I found what appears to be the more accurate story at The Paul McCartney Project website. It has an impressive webpage dedicated to this concert, with lots of photos and text. You can find that here:

https://www.the-paulmccartney-project.com/concert/1966-05-01/

That webpage includes an excerpt from a book that extensively quotes Maurice Kinn, who was the owner of NME at the time. Here's what Kinn claims happened: 

"Halfway through the Stones' set, the four Beatles arrived at the foot of the stairs to the stage, with their guitars in hand. I told them they were 25 minutes early, but Lennon insisted that they were going on. I said they couldn't and John shouted, 'Didn't you hear me the first time? We're going on now, or we're not going on at all.' In a rapidly convened huddle with Brian Epstein, I outlined my dilemma, that I had promised the Stones, in writing, that the Beatles should not follow them immediately onto the stage. I had arranged for the awards presentation to come between the two acts and explained to Brian that if the Beatles did not come on at the previously arranged time, I would be left with no option but to send MC Jimmy Savile on stage to explain to 10,000 NME readers that the Beatles were in the stadium but they weren’t going to play. I explained to him very clearly what would happen then. There would be a riot! Half of Wembley would be destroyed and Wembley and the NME would both sue Epstein. Brian conveyed this to the Beatles and John exploded! He gave me abuse like you've never heard before in all of your life. You could hear him all over the backstage area. He said, 'We'll never play for you again!' But he knew that he had no choice. Fifteen minutes later, the Beatles went on stage, collected their awards and played the show."

So it seems it's true there was an argument involving Lennon, but not Jagger. Jagger was performing on stage at the time and was probably totally oblivious about the conflict going on nearby. While I think Lennon is one of the greatest musicians of all time, he could be an asshole sometimes, and it looks like this was one of those times. Probably the Beatles were sick and tired of giving concerts by this time, and Lennon had lost all patience and just wanted to get this obligation over with.

Be that as it may, the Beatles didn't even allow the cameras to roll when they took the stage, due to the conflict mentioned above. I'm not sure how it came to be that the Who and the Rolling Stones also didn't allowing their performances to be broadcast either, but that's what happened. 

So anyway, while we can lament all the missing music, what we're left with is still pretty damn impressive. And we're lucky to have anything at all, since very few live recordings from 1966 survive. As for the sound quality, it's reasonably good, but not great. Consider this was probably recorded off a TV in 1966, so one has to lower one's standards a bit. I tried to improve it, but there wasn't much I could do, since I couldn't successfully separate the vocals from the instruments, or the instruments from each other. In the end, I just kept it the same. 

In case you're curious about who won the poll awards this year, there's a list at the NME website, which you can see here:

https://www.nme.com/nme-awards/awards-history/1966-606221

Also, note that I found a review for this concert from NME, thanks to the Paul McCartney Project website mentioned above. I included an image of it in the download file. It has comments about all the performances, including all the missing ones.

This album is one hour long. 

01 talk (Sounds Incorporated)
02 In the Hall of the Mountain King [Instrumental] (Sounds Incorporated)
03 Zorba's Dance [Instrumental] (Sounds Incorporated)
04 talk (Fortunes)
05 This Golden Ring (Fortunes)
06 You've Got Your Troubles (Fortunes)
07 talk (Herman's Hermits)
08 A Must to Avoid (Herman's Hermits)
09 You Won't Be Leaving (Herman's Hermits)
10 talk (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich)
11 You Make It Move (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich)
12 Hold Tight (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich)
13 talk (Yardbirds)
14 Train Kept A-Rollin' (Yardbirds)
15 Shapes of Things (Yardbirds)
16 talk (Crispian St. Peters)
17 Send Me Some Lovin' (Crispian St. Peters)
18 The Pied Piper (Crispian St. Peters)
19 talk (Alan Price Set)
20 Baby Workout (Alan Price Set)
21 I Put a Spell on You (Alan Price Set)
22 talk (Dusty Springfield)
23 In the Middle of Nowhere (Dusty Springfield)
24 You Don't Have to Say You Love Me (Dusty Springfield)
25 talk (Dusty Springfield)
26 Shake (Dusty Springfield)
27 talk (Beatles & emcee)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/L5VqhUHF

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/GvbEFGJxuHwyVLp/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. Sorry if it's misleading to have a photo of the Beatles but no actual Beatles music on the album. At least we do have the recording of the Beatles accepting their awards. This photo was in black and white, but I colorized it with the use of the Kolorize program.

DBMT (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich) - Festival - Non-Album Tracks (1970-1972)

Recently, I posted an album by DBMT, a group that was essentially the 1960s British pop rock group Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich. But in 1969, Dave Dee left the group, the rest of them went with the new name DBMT, and they drastically changed their sound. Gone were the simple pop hits written by outsiders. Instead, they were heavily influenced by Crosby, Stills and Nash, both in their acoustic harmonies mode and rocking mode. 

Normally, this wouldn't have been of much interest, except it turns out they were really good at it. I posted their album "Fresh Ear," released in 1970 to very small sales compared to the band's hit-filled heyday. But I posted it because I think it's a lost gem that needs to be rediscovered.

It turns out the band's fortunes continued to decline. I suspect that if they'd been a brand new group, they would have gotten more positive attention and would have been on the upswing. But it seems they couldn't shake their Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich past despite the new name, and by 1970 the reputation of their old group was about as uncool as one could get in the music business. As a result, the band's record company never allowed them to record a second album in their new style. However, they did get to put out a few singles from 1970 to 1972 while their commercial fortunes continued to decline. The band petered out after that, although various members restarted the group years later to tour the oldies nostalgia circuit.

This album collects the band's songs from their DBMT years that didn't make it on the "Fresh Ear" album I posted. In my opinion, this is also very solid stuff and stands as an impressive album on its own. I was a little short of material, so I included four songs that I already posted on the third volume of the band's BBC albums: "Helplessly Hoping," "Bluebird," "Wedding Bells," and "Sweden." These are songs they only did for the BBC. Had they put out an album in 1971 or so, it seems probably those would have been on it. By the way, note the Crosby, Stills and Nash influence with the covers of "Helplessly Hoping" and "Bluebird." These BBC songs sound great; you can't tell they weren't studio tracks instead.

This albums is 38 minutes long.

01 Festival (DBMT)
02 Frisco Annie (DBMT)
03 Come and Stay with Me (DBMT)
04 Helplessly Hoping (DBMT)
05 I Want to Be There (DBMT)
06 For the Use of Your Son (DBMT)
07 Bluebird (DBMT)
08 Wedding Bells (DBMT)
09 Sweden (DBMT)
10 They Won't Sing My Song (DBMT)
11 Sarah (DBMT)
12 She's My Lady (DBMT)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15109392/DaveDBMT_1970-1972_DBMTFestivl_atse.zip.html

The band's popularity declined so drastically during this time period that I couldn't find any good color photos for the cover. However, I found a cover of one of their singles and used that. I cleaned it up a bit, and removed the song titles, replacing that with the album title I'd chosen.

DBMT (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich) - Fresh Ear (1970)

Here's a rather odd album. I already posted three BBC albums by the British pop rock group Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich. This is by them, but it's very different from the stuff that made them famous. In my opinion, they put out one solid album right at the end of their career, in 1970, that's in the vein of multiple harmony, singer songwriter influenced rock, like Crosby, Stills and Nash or America. 

From 1965 to 1969, Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich (DDBMT) had a bunch of hits in Britain (but only in Britain, they never made it big in the US). They were teenage heartthrobs and actually one of the best selling artists in Britain for a couple of years. But musical styles were changing rapidly in the late 1960s, and they found themselves out of fashion. In 1969, their lead singer Dave Dee left the group to pursue an unsuccessful solo career. The others kept on, but changed their name to DBMT, since their old, and very unwieldy, name was now uncool. 

Most groups in a similar situation faded out of popularity around the same time, such as the Searchers, the Mindbenders, or the Tremeloes. Pretty much all of DDBMT's hits were not written by them, making it more likely that they would disappear once the hits stopped. Yet on this album, all of the songs were written by the band members with Tich, Beaky, and Dozy each writing a few. They were really included by the CSN sound that was very popular at the time, and sound dramatically different than how they did on their hits. If you're into that kind of music, I suggest you give this album a try.

The first two songs are not actually from the album, but were released as the A- and B-sides of a single a few months before it, in late 1969. They already had the new name by that time, but it's a transitional sound, and the A-side was a minor hit in some countries, but not Britain. One song from the album, "Mr. President," was released as a single and was a minor hit as well.

This album is rather short, at 35 minutes, but since I added the two songs at the start it's a more typical album length, 41 minutes.

DBMT has a bunch of other good songs from this time period that only came out as singles. There's enough of those for a nice album, so I'll post that album separately later.

01 Tonight Today (DBMT)
02 Bad News (DBMT)
03 Mr. President (DBMT)
04 Too Much (DBMT)
05 She Was a Raver (DBMT)
06 Mystery Rider (DBMT)
07 World (DBMT)
08 Rain (DBMT)
09 Soukie (DBMT)
10 Leader of a Rock and Roll Band (DBMT)
11 Buttercup Joe (DBMT)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15109391/DaveDBMT_1970_DBMTFrshEar_atse.zip.html

The cover here is the original album cover with no changes at all.

Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich - BBC Sessions, Volume 3 (1969-1971)

Here's the third and final Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich BBC sessions album. If you enjoy the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young sound, you might be interested in this one, even if you skipped the first two, for reasons that will be explained below.

It's too band the band's commercial fortunes declined drastically around this time, and they broke up soon thereafter, because this is when they started to get really good and interesting, in my opinion. Dave Dee left the band near the end of 1969. Although he was a lead singer, his departure wasn't a big loss in my opinion, judging by the paltry results of his short-lived solo career. 

The rest of the band carried on. No doubt tired by their unwieldy name, they renamed themselves "D, B, M & T." They put out an album in 1970 called "Fresh Ear." It contained mostly original material instead of songs by professional songwriters Ken Howard and Alan Blaikley, which had been the norm for them up until then. I'll quote from one review at rateyourmusic.com: "A highly underrated album. Don't be fooled by the personnel here - this is light years ahead of the quirky but dated late 60's pop that Dave Dee and co. were doing." I think that album is so strong that I'm tempted to post it here with some of the stray tracks they did around that time.

But anyway, the first five songs here date to 1969, when Dave Dee was still part of the band. The next two songs are also still from 1969, but are with DBMT only - they're versions of an A- and B-side. Then there's a switch to the "Fresh Ear" songs by DBMT. Note the covers of "Helplessly Hoping" by Crosby, Stills and Nash and "Bluebird" by Buffalo Springfield (a band led, of course, by Stills and Young). On the last volume, they also did "Mr. Soul" by Buffalo Springfield. Clearly, they were heavily influenced by the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young sound, and that's a very good thing, in my book.

The last three songs are from an April 1971 BBC session. I'm just speculating here, but I think Dave Dee reunited with his band mates for this session, because two out of the three songs, "Wedding Bells" and "Sweden," were the A- and B-sides of a solo single Dave Dee just released. Yet all three songs have the lust multi-part (and very CSNY influenced) harmony vocals that DBMT were doing at the time. If anyone knows for sure who was involved, I'd be curious to find out. (For simplicity's sake, I've used the same band name for all the tracks here, even though some should be sans Dave Dee.)

In retrospect, it probably would have been smart for DMBT to have given themselves a totally different name and ditched their 1960s past entirely. Because despite the quality of their 1970 album, they weren't popular enough to put out another album, only a few singles, and faded away, breaking up in 1973. The band has gotten back as a nostalgia act in the years since, sometimes with Dave Dee and sometimes not, but they never again put out any of their own new material.

By the way, three of the songs have "[Edit]" in their titles, due to BBC DJs still talking over the music into the early 1970s. Sigh! I did the usual thing of wiping out the talking using the audio editing program X-Minus.

This album is 42 minutes long.

01 Don Juan (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich)
02 Run Colorado (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich)
03 Bora Bora (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich)
04 Snake in the Grass (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich)
05 Tonight Today (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich)
06 Bad News [Edit] (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich)
07 Talk to You [Edit] (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich)
08 Mr. President (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich)
09 Rain [Edit] (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich)
10 Leader of a Rock and Roll Band (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich)
11 Helplessly Hoping (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich)
12 Bluebird (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich)
13 Wedding Bells (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich)
14 Sweden (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15281000/DaveDBMT_1969-1971_BBSessionsVolum3_atse.zip.html

Because the band dropped drastically in popularity from 1969 onwards, I couldn't find any good photos of them that weren't already used on official releases. So this photo dates from 1968, an appearance on the "Morecambe and Wise" TV show.

Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich - BBC Sessions, Volume 2 (1967-1968)

Here's the second of three volumes of Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich (DDBMT) performing for the BBC.

As I mentioned with Volume 1, I'm not a big DDBMT, but they did have talent, and their songs have a lot of period charm. I think they got better and more creative as they went on, even though their popularity declined. This comes from a time period when they were still very successful. In fact, "The Legend of Xanadu," featured here, was their biggest hit, reaching number one in Britain. 

Their popularity at this time is a bit surprising because their poppy style was increasingly at odds with the rapidly changing musical styles in 1967 and 1968. They didn't totally turn psychedelic, or go hard rock, or fit into other popular musical trends. But they did bend and grow some even as they stayed poppy. You can get a taste of that with the cover songs here: "If I Were a Carpenter" by Tim Hardin, "Paint It, Black," by the Rolling Stones, "Mr. Soul" by Buffalo Springfield, and "Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)" by Kenny Rogers and the First Edition. The only one of those they put on record was "If I Were a Carpenter."

This album is 45 minutes long.

01 [You've Been A] Bad Girl (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich)
02 Here's a Heart [Edit] (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich)
03 Dr. Feelgood (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich)
04 If I Were a Carpenter (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich)
05 The Sun Goes Down (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich)
06 Zabadak (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich)
07 The Legend of Xanadu (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich)
08 The Tide Is Turning (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich)
09 Please (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich)
10 Mama Mama (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich)
11 Paint It, Black (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich)
12 Last Night in Soho [Edit] (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich)
13 Mr. Soul [Edit] (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich)
14 Still Life (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich)
15 The Wreck of the Antoinette (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich)
16 Just Dropped In [To See What Condition My Condition Was In] [Edit] (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15280999/DaveDBMT_1967-1968_BBSessionsVolum2_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is a promo photo related to an appearance on the German TV show "Beat Club" in 1967.

Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich - BBC Sessions, Volume 1 (1966-1967)

I have to say straight up that I'm not that big of a Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich fan. (Since that's such an unwieldy name, from now on I'll refer to them as DDBMT.) But I'm in the middle of a big BBC project, and I want to post all the music of artists who have had their music marred by BBC DJs talking over their songs. So I'm posting some music that I'm not crazy about, and this is one.

That said, it's not like I dislike DDBMT. Some of their hit songs are pretty good, and everything they did is bathed in that mid to late 1960s British Invasion sound that I really like. And I've come to appreciate them more after putting this BBC collection together (which spans three volumes). This first volume consists almost entirely of their hits and better album tracks, and isn't that revelatory. But the later two volumes have more cover versions they never put on record, and the band was moving in an interesting direction before it broke up in the early 1970s.

DDBMT isn't liked much by the critics. I think there are two reasons for that. First, their dumb band name. It clearly was a gimmick, and it helped gain them attention at the time, but nowadays it makes it hard to take them seriously, much like the name "Herman's Hermits." The second strike against them is that they sold tons of records, way more than bands that were more deserving of success. They didn't make much of a mark in the US, but in Britain they apparently had their singles on their charts more weeks than even the Beatles (though they didn't sell nearly as much as them). They also had a zany stage act, wore wild clothes, and so on. Hopefully, nowadays one can look past their name, their sales, their teenybopper appeal, and so on, and just focus on their music. 

Another strike against them is that they didn't write many of their own songs. In fact, the vast majority of their songs, including all their hits, were written by the songwriting team of Ken Howard and Alan Blaikley. This team was quite talented, writing other hits as well, such as "Have I the Right," a number one hit by the Honeycombs, and "From the Underground" by the Herd.

All the songs here come from an officially released album, called "The BBC Sessions."  Luckily, only two of them had the usual problem of BBC DJs talking over the music (the ones with "[Edit]" in their names). This was helped by the fact that the band played many songs twice or more at the BBC, allowing one to pick the best versions. I've only included one version of each song in this series.

This album is 45 minutes long.

01 Is It Love [Edit] (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich)
02 Hold Tight (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich)
03 You Make It Move (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich)
04 We've Got a Good Thing Going (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich)
05 Hideaway (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich)
06 Frustration (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich)
07 Bend It (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich)
08 She's So Good (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich)
09 Hands Off (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich)
10 Hello Josephine (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich)
11 Hard to Love You [Edit] (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich)
12 I'm on the Up (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich)
13 Save Me (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich)
14 Help Me (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich)
15 Touch Me, Touch Me (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich)
16 Watch Your Step (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich)
17 He's a Raver (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich)
18 Okay (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15281002/DaveDBMT_1966-1967_BBSessionsVolum1_atse.zip.html

The cover photo comes from a 1966 appearance on the British TV show "Ready, Steady, Go."