lyme & cybelle, "Follow Me" c/w "Like The Seasons," White Whale WW 228 (rel. 2/1966)

 

Here is the debut record of future cool rock icon Warren Zevon. In 1965, he was just another American teenager gobsmacked by The Beatles and with an ear to the ground for new sounds all around him. He attended Fairfax High School, a hotbed of musical talent in the 1950s and ‘60s.

With a high-school friend, Violet Santangelo, he spent hours cooped up in his (or her) bedroom. There, they sang and made music. They were fascinated by The Beatles’ songs and often sang them in this safe chamber.

One day, he had a guitar riff with a raga feeling he’d worked up. He asked Violet to ad-lib a lyric. After some effort, she came up with enough words to make it worth completion. “Follow Me” was the result. The two played the song around, and child actor Michael Burns (of Wagon Train fame) was impressed enough to mention it to his mother. She worked for White Whale Records, a small label with some hits to their credit by local rock band The Turtles. She informed the label’s owners and got their interest.

Zevon and Santangelo signed with the label. Asked for a name, they came up with lyme and cybelle (lower case on purpose)—Zevon’s favorite color was green; Violet’s stage name came from a 1962 French film she liked. It was easy to make connections if you knew someone who knew someone; the two were soon in a recording studio with producer Bones Howe, conductor Bob Thompson and a gaggle of session musicians who could improvise at will. Hal Blaine, Howe and Zevon played percussion instruments; Tommy Tedesco got his pop-psych thing going on the guitar and Larry Knechtel on keyboards. Thompson had written out an arrangement which the musicians sight-read as they played.

Violet sings the first verse solo; Warren comes in with a counter-melody, with lyrics on top of lyrics; it creates the din of a crowded room. If it sounds like a Monkees song, that’s because the same musicians played on those hit singles; they’d synthesized current sounds and played them without effort. They often sound mechanical, but here a more intimate arrangement seems to inspire an earthier effort from them all.

This complex song is described by Peter Gallagher, author of Warren Zevon: Every Album, Every Song, as something that "…fit in all the styles that defined American popular music in 1966" in the confines of a two-and-a-half-minute pop single. The song attracted several cover versions and the original was a smash hit in the LA area. Outside home base, its appeal waned, but the single reached #65 on the national pop charts. It’s a hard-to-find record and I was happy to find a minty copy at one of the three record shows I’ve recently attended.

Billboard and Cash Box effused over this li'l folk-rock gem--as if to atone for their lack of reviews for several recent records featured here.

It sounds like Zevon plays acoustic guitar on “Like the Seasons,” the shorter B-side, which has a baroque-pop string section—a surprise for a mere flipside. Double-tracked Zevon sounds like Peter and Gordon here; Violet is nowhere to be heard on this country-ish ballad.

It just kinda ends; it doesn’t overstay its welcome, but the strings could’ve taken an instrumental spot; they sound great and are well-arranged. Zevon got some extra coin when labelmates The Turtles did their version on the flip of their massive hit “Happy Together” in 1967.

lyme and cybelle made one follow-up. The label insisted they do a Bob Dylan song for the A-side, and, despite the two not sold on the idea, they performed “If You Gotta Go, Go Now.” On the flip is a gorgeous Zevon original, “I’ll Go On.” It was an utter flop.

Zevon left the group before its third single, produced by the eccentric cult figure Curt Boettcher. In Warren’s place was one Joe Glenn. The results are cutesy, grating pop junk. It is, of course, their most spendy record.

Tomorrow: two funky, spirited sides by Dr. Feelgood and The Interns via a wild 1962 single for Columbia Records. Party music for a day of civil protest!