Fred Bennett, "Love Me, I'll Guarantee" c/w "Stay By Me," Angelus 67902 (rel. date unknown; poss. 1966-1968)
A year ago, I released a book that I thought would interest folks. One-Record Wonders: One Show was All They Got (RedwingBlackbird Books) couldn't hope to compete with the daily $h!tshow of Diaper Don & Co., and was as overlooked by the public as most of the records I share with you here every day of the year.
The book has since been revised, with a couple of records swapped out for stronger examples, and it has a free online playlists of its 199 songs discussed and analyzed. (There's a reason why the number isn't 200, but you'll have to read about it in the book!)
I stand by this book as an alternate history of the music scene in the 1950s and '60s. Records like these dominated labels' release programs. The fact that these 100 performer got far enough up the food chain to make their one 45-rpm single was a major accomplishment. As most of them learned, making a record is the easy part. Getting the world aware of its existence, let alone its charms, is the hardest, most grueling effort. In these decades before social media, it was a record company's onus to tout their wares. That ball was dropped millions of times in this period, and with it went the fates of as many performers--some gifted, some just determined to succeed.
Some of the 100 singles profiled are a bit messed-up, but in an endearing way; many are so good and strong that their obscurity is sad and confounding. All have a certain something that sets them apart from the mass of mainstream releases that surrounded/overwhelmed them.
In the faint hope that today's post might inspire one person to buy this book, I present one of its 100 entries--a fascinating oddball record shrouded in mystery.
* * *
Fred Bennett was a member of a garage band called The Motifs. They had one single released on Baton Records (no relation to the 1950s New York r&b imprint) in 1966. Bennett is credited as co-composer of its A-side. The B is a cover of an r&b staple. Good luck finding that one!
A year (or perhaps two) later, Bennett made a solo single for Angelus, a tiny label out of Canoga Park, California. There are a lot of Angelus Records, and this one may have just issued this long single. There’s another Angelus imprint in Southern California that was in business at the same time. They released some garage-psych material alongside tons of gospel albums, including the infamous “Jesus Use Me” by The Faith Tones, which sells for over $300 just for its cover, seen above. Behold its “Far Side” splendor.
Thus, we have a record that is so obscure we don’t know when it was made or who released it. I chanced upon a copy three years ago in someone’s dollar bin. It had enough of a “huh?” factor that I assumed it a reasonable gamble. What I got for my meager investment is a record that a top dealer is currently selling for between 200 and 300 dollars. (I don’t know if he’s selling it at that price; he has two copies for sale on eBay at present.)
These two tunes and their meager production, with the uncertain but earnest vocal stylings of their composer, who is backed by a garage-sounding group (The Motifs of Baton Records fame, perhaps?), have a haunting quality. I get the same vibes from the infamous recordings of The Shaggs. These are conventionally performed songs, done with competence; no off-kilter rhythms or haphazard, atonal vocals—though Bennett does j-u-s-t miss some notes along the way. In the week I’ve had this record, the songs have grown on me. I find myself humming “Love Me, I’ll Guarantee” quite often.
It opens with minor-chord urgency and builds as the band comes in. Bennett’s voice sounds like an American equivalent to George Gallacher, lead vocalist of cult Scottish band The Poets. The stop-start layout of the song is effective, and the melody has sunk into my brain and forced itself to pop up a few times a day.
What to call this record? It’s not pop-psych; not outsider music; not garage rock. It has elements of these three styles and is closest to that second category. It feels private and confessional; not meant to be heard by the public. Its release on an unknown label in an unknown year achieved that goal, intended or not.
“Stay by Me” is a more upbeat song that reveals (a) the ceiling of its singer’s vocal range and (b) the inadequacy of the Podunk recording studio where this was cut. Bennett’s voice is ill-miked and balanced. A little reverb would help smooth over some of his shortcomings; the band is under-amplified or -recorded; some details recede into the background. The bassist is front-and-center and delivers melodic runs that benefit the song.
Its sad-sack presentation aside, it’s an affecting song. One could imagine a more successful group like The New Colony Six or The Grassroots turning this into a pop hit.
Instead, it went out with zero fanfare and zero interest. The whereabouts of its performer remain unknown and, apparently, untraceable.
Fred Bennett, where are you? My efforts to track the story of his life have come up empty. Are you still with us? Drop me a line. I'd love to know more about you and about this haunting, raggedy record you made sometime in the last half of the 1960s.
To acquire this book, click HERE. It offers 340 pages of fact, opinion and speculation, and is decorated with mucho vintage imagery of records, ads, reviews and other ephemera. Not to mention a good five hours of music to listen to anytime!
Tomorrow: Del Shannon delivers a more polished, professional and commercial variation on today's disc with a 1966 all-original non-hit for Liberty Records, a label that didn't know what to do with this Midwestern maestro.
Maybe their lo-fi-ness doomed them or Angelus had no clue what to do with these two au courant love-themed mid-60's songs. I hear these as Kinks songs if off-key Dave Davies sang every the Kinks songs and Ray wasn't in the band. Decent lyrics and as-you-say sad sack delivery that in the '80s or '90s these two songs would have been on an alternative/indie album from Pavement or Yo La Tengo
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