Bite-sized posts about 7″ singles I own – shameless nostalgia from the days of vinyl.
Vanilla Fudge – You Keep Me Hangin’ On b/w Take Me For A Little While (Atco Records, 1967)
Not too sure how this one landed in my single’s box. It was probably nabbed from my elder brother although it doesn’t sound like his usual taste.
He was a fan of Motown though so maybe he was swayed by the fact that the A side is a slowed down and metalized version of the hit by The Supremes. He probably threw it out after hearing what they did to the original.
The B-side it more melodramatic fluff with false histrionics as Mark Stein dwells on lines like “I need you – it ain’t funny”, which it decidedly ain’t.
Both are produced by Shadow Morton famous for introducing the world to The Shangri-Las.
My well thumbed ‘NME Book of Rock’ says the band were recklessly considered by some as “the first of the heavy bands” and reports that there were also known as “doyens of punk mysterioso” whatever that may mean (bear in mind that this mini encyclopaedia came out in 1973 when Punk Rock was defined as American garage bands from 1965-8 “invariably made up of acned High School heroes”).
The Fudge sounded and looked more that prototype prog than punk as their deliriously camp performance on 1968 TV demonstrates (watch those dancers go-go) :
