Press Release by: Conqueroo
‘60s San Francisco band helped pioneer country-rock, adding British Invasion influence
LOS ANGELES, Calif. – The Beau Brummels are best known for their chart topping 1965 single “Laugh Laugh” on the indie Autumn label. The band featured a great songwriter in Ron Elliott and a gem of a singer in Sal Valentino, both of whom helmed the group through many personnel changes. When the band signed to Warner Bros. Records in 1966, they made a curious decision to record an album of cover songs. This album, Beau Brummels 66, will be reissued for the first time on CD by Collectors’ Choice, which will simultaneously re-release the band’s eponymous Beau Brummels LP, documenting their short-lived reunion of 1975. Both reissue CDs, slated for release on July 17, are re-mastered with extensive liner notes by Richie Unterberger.
Many questioned the logic of releasing an album of covers when the Beau Brummels had such an asset in Elliott, who had penned “Laugh Laugh” a year prior. The only plausible explanation might be that when the band went from Autumn to Warner Bros., the label acquired the band but not the publishing, which went elsewhere. So America’s first country-rock band with Beatle-esque harmonies made an album that contained such hits du jour as “Mr. Tambourine Man,” “You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away,” “Bang Bang,” “Yesterday,” “Louie Louie,” “Hang On Sloopy,” “Play With Fire,” “These Boots Were Made for Walking” and even “Mrs. Brown You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter,” among others. Laugh laugh if you will, but the covers are all pretty good.
If one considers that the Standells released a covers album that year (The Hot Ones!) and the Supremes an album of British Invasion covers two years prior (A Bit of Liverpool), Beau Brummels 66 doesn’t sound so far-fetched. But all in all, it was a bad career move, foisted upon them by Warner Bros. – a label that became the spire of artistic integrity short years later. As lead singer Sal Valentino told Unterberger, “I was happy to go to Warner Bros. I was relieved that we were going to be somewhere and able to make records.” Two albums of originals – 1967’s Triangle and 1968’s Bradley’s Barn – ensued before the band took a seven-year hiatus.
Cut to 1975 and the rise of California country-rock. Ron Elliott had recorded a solo album, Candlestick Maker (also available from CCM), and Sal Valentino had recorded a few Warner Bros. albums with Stoneground (their self-titled debut is available from CCM, too). Members Dec Mulligan and Ron Meagher had formed a San Francisco-based band, Black Velvet. Drummer John Peterson, who’d left the Brummels to join Harper’s Bizarre, had also been in a band with Elliott called Crap (could we make this up?).
The reunited Brummels played some Sacramento shows to work up new material. Warner Bros. had matured as a label in the meantime, and no less than the duo of Lenny Waronker and Ted Templeman were tapped to oversee production. Nick DeCaro arranged strings. All ducks seemed to be in a row, other than comings and goings among band members. And an album’s worth of new material had been written by Elliott (or co-written by Elliott and Butch Engle) with the exception of one remake – their 1965 hit “You Tell Me Why.”
Venerable pop music critic Bud Scoppa reviewed the resulting album in Rolling Stone with high praise for Elliott’s song craft: “Elliott’s newer songs . . . sound quite similar in their moods and textures to his early writing – his consistency of approach is remarkable.”
Although the album was released to high praise, there were no more chances to see the Beau Brummels on stage as they soon dissolved permanently. The LP peaked at No. 180 on Billboard’s Hot 200 albums chart – which is still better than any Beau Brummels long-player before it. Beau Brummels remains a worthy swan song and has remained out of print until now.
These two releases complete Collectors’ Choice Music’s reissue of all the Beau Brummels albums, including Triangle and Bradley’s Barn.
# # #
Click here for printer-friendly version of review.
Send this page to a friend.
JazzReview.com
