I found this late 60s LP today. It’s been in a cupboard for at least a decade and both record and sleeve are pretty much knackered. But I’ve never thrown it away and I’ll tell you why when someone identifies it.
Name the band, the album and the famous member.
No cheating please.
http://i.imgur.com/OUUyrZQ.jpg
Now read on……
That’s Phil Collins at the bottom isn’t it?
You might very well say that, I couldn’t possibly comment
Flaming Youth?
Ark 2
Correct. The band is Flaming Youth and the album is titled Ark 2. Its a 1969 release on Fontana.
Despite the reggae-sounding name it’s a prog rock LP featuring a pre-Genesis Phil Collins . That’s Phil at the bottom of the sleeve photo with the centre parting. It’d be a shame if he ever lost that lovely head of hair, eh?
The LP sold diddly-squat despite an elaborate and attractive “stained glass window” effect plastic insert in the front panel of the gatefold sleeve and the band broke up soon after.
Collins and guitarist Ronnie Caryl auditioned for Genesis, but only one of them was successful.
An out-of-town second hand record shop which I used to visit back in the 1990s had a copy of this album pinned to their wall for two or three years, with an asking price of about £80. It only disappeared from the particular spot when the shop moved to smaller premises.
Yes, you’d have to be a Genesis completest to pay that kind of money
It’s probably them pesky Genesis completists who paid $20 recently for THAT Charlie Drake single. Or King Crimson. Or Sandy Denny. Don’t make me post it again.
This is an album I wish I had in my collection. Released in 1980, much of the album is sung and narrated by Anthony Daniels, reprising his role as C-3PO. Tracks include, “What Can You Get a Wookiee for Christmas (When He Already Owns a Comb?)” & the title track “Christmas in the Stars”.
The album is notable for featuring the first professional recording of an artist who would go on to have much international success. He sang lead vocals on the song “R2-D2 We Wish You A Merry Christmas.”
Can you name him?
https://flic.kr/p/B7Nhc1
Me sir! Was it a young Jon Bongiovi (son of the producer)?
His cousin Tony Bongiovi co-produced the album and ran the recording studio at which it was recorded, where Jon was working sweeping floors at the time.
https://youtu.be/dUFZklIOFvg
Reissued this week @beany! CD with vinyl replica sleeve, unlikely to trouble the charts
Released today, according to Amazon. Usually dispatched within 4 to 6 weeks. What hell is that?
I WANT IT NOW!
Your nearest branch of HMV probably have it. Mine does.
I have just shouted up the chimney. Perhaps Father Christmas will be kind.
‘Shouted up the chimney’ should be in Viz’s Roger’s Profannisaurus.
If indeed it isn’t already. . .
*Adopts Duncan Bannatyne voice*
“I’m oot”
I recall that the plastic on the sleeve of the Flaming Youth album had a very strange smell.
Re, shouting up the chimney, see also Yodelling in the canyon, the phrase famously used by George Melly in the Oz trial, after m’lud had misheard the word cunnilingus, thinking it was a cough mixture