Regal Zonophone 2
I finally found a copy of this Dutch 45 by a singer named Shirley who I believe is known more for jazz stuff. The a-side is her version of Roger Bunn's "Fantasy in Fiction" from his Piece of Mind album. I found a picture sleeve of this about ten years ago, and thought it was great that there was a swinging 1970 version of the song.
It turned out Roger Bunn wasn't even aware it had been covered, and when I contacted him he was intrigued so I sent him the single. So I'm glad to find it again.
Somehow the song must have come to Rob Hoeke, the other name associated with this single while Roger Bunn was recording "Piece of Mind" in Holland? All I can find out is the song was used in a Dutch independent film in 1970. I had a hard time tracking it down because while the cover of the picture sleeve says "Shirley," this group of musicians went by "Corner Act '68" for some reason.
The b-side has a male vocalist and is not a Roger Bunn song, but also has a bit of a sixties feel. For some reason that song, and not the Roger Bunn a-side, is on Youtube:
Has anyone else heard the a-side or heard it on a compilation? If I remember correctly it's a bit jazzy but fairly faithful to the original version. It seems like it should have been comped...
Hi Joe,its been an age since anyone has mentioned Roger Buun and his love it or hate it album "Piece of Mind",heres a good description i found on Amazon,explains it a lot better than i could ever can!!;
A great 'lost' album from the 1960s - we've heard that claim before - but this time it really was an essential and groundbreaking album that got 'lost'. Through replacing the Beatles at the Star Club, Hamburg and after a request to Paul McCartney, Roger Bunn recorded some demos at the Beatles office in London in 1968 and somehow the tapes were sent to Philips Records in Amsterdam. Dutch producer Frans Peters teamed Roger up with arranger Ruud Bos and some fine classical and jazz musicians to record in Holland. All the album songs - including music and lyrics by Roger and John Mackie - were very original and far ahead of anything that was happening in the UK and USA at the time. Remember that in those prehistoric pre-Euromusic days there was little co-operation between countries for projects of this sort. This LP was one of a kind and that's probably the reason the album got lost. Deals were struck for it to be released in Germany and the UK - but both were on labels that gave Piece of Mind minimal or no promotion. We have added seven demos and studio recordings to the set, among them Roger's predictive vision of "In The Future" and the cynical "You and I" which tell of a world of never ending wars and home computers. And "Life Is A Circus", a classic song of its time - recorded - but never released - by David Bowie. Roger tells his own story in the 36-page booklet which includes tales of the musicians he worked with and for in his struggles against the machinations of the powerful big labels and reward organisations of the record industry - both then and now. Piece of Mind is a difficult album to put in a musical bag, with its fusions of jazz, blues and rock - and it is easily seen why Roger's music influences others rather than allows itself to be influenced by anyone. But if you liked the 'Top Gear' sounds of the late 60s and had thoughts of travelling East to Afghanistan along with Roger on the Hippy Trail, you'll like it. And as you take the Coltrane/McCoy Tyneresque "Road To The Sun" you'll wonder why this album never got to be one of John Peel's fave raves....
About the Artist
Roger Bunn was hardly ever a household name in music, even at the peak of his career during the last three years of the 1960s. He somehow managed to play with lots of important people and bands, and at major gigs -- and intersected with the early career of David Bowie, as well as playing a role in the founding of such outfits as Roxy Music -- but he only ever got known especially well among musicians, rather than to the public. During the mid-'60s, he worked with a wide array of players, including Graham Bond, Zoot Money, and Joe Harriott, and crossed paths with Jimi Hendrix. By his own account, he also used a massive amount of recreational, often hallucinogenic drugs across the years leading up to the late '60s, which caused a memory lapse on aspects of his life that lasted well into the 1980s. He played with the Ken Stevens dance band and in Marianne Faithfull's backing band, and also lost out to Mick Taylor in a bid to join John Mayall's Bluesbreakers. After a stint playing with the expatriate South African Blue Notes, Bunn ended up working alongside Glenn Sweeney and Dave Tomlin in a trio called Giant Sun Trolley, which played on the same bills as Pink Floyd, Soft Machine, the Crazy World of Arthur Brown, and Procol Harum at the UFO Club. He was, through the trio, part of "The 14 Hour Technicolor Dream," a renowned psychedelic extravaganza.Bunn's solo career seemed to take off after he walked into the Apple offices on Baker Street and -- apparently based on the fact that Paul McCartney remembered him from the Beatles' days in Hamburg -- was able to talk his way into getting the use of one of their studio facilities to cut a series of demo sides. Those eventually became the basis for his recording contract with Philips Records, which resulted in the album Piece of Mind. Even that release wasn't simple and straightforward, however, as Philips licensed the new recording to Major-Minor, a tiny outfit that went bankrupt soon after. It took some doing to get the album issued a couple of years later, and in the interim Bunn received an invitation from an old friend, drummer Laurie Allen, to join the progressive rock band Piblokto, which brought him back to Pete Brown's orbit and made a brief musical splash in the turn-of-the-decade art rock world. It was after leaving them and forming his own outfit, Endjinn, that Piece of Mind was finally issued, but his work with the group proved more fortuitous at the time. Endjinn led to Bunn's most musically important gig, as the original guitarist for Roxy Music, from November of 1970 to the summer of 1971. He was long gone by the time they were signed to a recording contract, but his name has occasionally come up in recollections by Bryan Ferry. Since the early '70s, Bunn had more or less dropped out of music, apart from one-off projects such as one album by McCartney's brother, Mike McGear, and much later, releases by Davy Graham and Peggy Seeger. He became much more focused on politics, and was especially concerned with issues of national and corporate malfeasance and greed, and the specific issue of South African apartheid; he also happily helped to inform anyone who would listen of the CIA's complicity in the Afghan opium trade, among other nefarious goings on around the world, and sides to the West's involvement in the Middle East that are almost never discussed. Bunn passed away in July of 2005, just a few days after his 63rd birthday, in the same year in which the CD reissue of Piece of Mind -- long regarded as one of the great lost albums of the psychedelic era -- had finally been arranged.
Yeah, that is a good write-up. I met Roger in London when he was still with us. A great guy. I do enjoy the "Piece of Mind" album in all of it's hazy late-sixties flow, but I know it doesn't work for everyone. I kind of remember the Shirley version of "Fantasy in Fiction" (mis-printed on the label as 'Fantasy and Fiction') was quite good, and the song already has that kind of Sharon Tandy/France Gall/Doris Swingin' Sixties horn arrangement. It almost sounds like it was written to be a swinging soundtrack number, but as I said earlier, Roger had no idea about this version or the movie it was used for. Then again, I was talking with him well after the fact. I don't think I ever got his opinion on this version, or in fact whether he even had the opportunity to play it on a set-up turntable.
The only scant information I've been able to find is that her name seems to be Shirley Zwerus, and she recorded some sides as a vocalist with this Rob Hoeke group.
I also found this description of a Dutch film from 1970 called "Fantasy in Fiction" but the description is in Dutch. I see she's credited for "titelsong" and Roger Bunn is mentioned as the composer:
FANTASY IN FICTION
ook: IK DROOMDE DAT IK DROOMDE
Jan Dorresteijn
met: Piet Offermans, Maartje Philips, Ok Roefs, Wim Wildschut, Jessica
Scenario: Jan Dorresteijn, bewerkt naar een verhaal van Piet Meeuwissen. Rob, een etaleur, woont eenzaam in een wijd polderlandschap. Zijn enige menselijke contact is met een psychotisch inroverte jongen, Evert, die hem helpt met het maken van zijn etalagemateriaal. Rob krijgt bericht dat Van Rijn, een oude aristocraat, met wie hij als jongen schaakte, is overleden en hem als herinnering het schaakspel heeft nagelaten. Van Rijns pleegdochter, op wie Rob verliefd is geweest, maar die hij al die jaren niet meer heeft gezien, belt hem op en zegt dat ze hem komt opzoeken. Rob begrijpt haar bedoelingen niet, maar als de ware reden blijkt -het is haar te doen om de gouden koning uit het koperen schaakspel- is de afloop fataal. Muziek: Roger Bunn, Ruud Bos, Jos van Leeuwen. Titelsong: Shirley. Camera: Karel de Vries. Het onderwerp 'pedofilie' wordt in de film ook ter berde gebracht via poppen in een etalage. 16 mm film gemaakt door een dan 31-jarige amateurfilmer uit Alkmaar. FID 1971: "Het scenario (...) is ronduit slecht. (...) Ondanks enkele veelbelovende facetten is het een vervelende film geworden, die is bezweken onder de symboliek en pretenties."
Première: 17 december 1970
ZW-80 minuten
Fortunately, Google translate comes to the rescue. Doesn't sound like a cinematic masterpiece, but I'd definitely check it out:
Scenario: Jan Dorresteijn, adapted from a story by Piet Meeuwissen. Rob, a window dresser, lives alone in a wide landscape. His only human contact is with a psychotic inroverte boy, Evert, who helps him with making his window material. Rob will be notified that Van Rijn, an old aristocrat, with whom he played chess as a boy, is deceased and if memory failed him. Chess Van Rijn's foster daughter, with whom Rob has been in love, but he has not seen all those years calls him and says she comes to see him. Rob does not understand her intentions, but if the true reason appears-it's doing to her the golden king from the copper schaakspel- the outcome is fatal. Music: Roger Bunn, Ruud Bos, Jos van Leeuwen. Title Song: Shirley. Camera: Karel de Vries. The subject of pedophilia in the film also brought to the raised through dolls in a shop window. 16 mm film made by a then 31-year-old amateur filmmaker from Alkmaar. FID 1971: "The scenario (...) is very bad (...) Despite some promising aspects, it has become a tedious film, which has succumbed to the symbolism and pretensions.".
Premiere: December 17, 1970
The Dutch title of the film translates to "I Dreamed That I Was Dreaming," which if nothing else is a great name for a psych comp!
Actually, I wouldn't check it out now that I read the description carefully. It seems like an unpleasant topic for a film.
But the music intrigues me, and I wonder if the soundtrack features Roger Bunn instrumental music like Pink Floyd's "More," or if it's just that one "titelsong"?
I don't usually do this, but I would be happy to have the moderator remove this entire thread, as I don't really like the appearance of endorsing the film from that description. I realize it's probably an "art" film, and I haven't seen it, but I would rather ignore the film and discuss the music. I wouldn't want my interest in Roger Bunn's music, and versions of his music, to be confused with a film that I don't really know, but seems to be in questionable taste from the description. So if the moderator (who I notice does a fine job of removing fake passport spam---thanks!) would remove this whole thread, that would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Joe
I shouldn't worry Joe, you are clearly very up for the music and the intrigue behind it and the Bunn connection. Enthusiasm is the key of discovery I think which is always nice to see, as I do here. This kind of detective work benefits us all in the end, so I don't think you have anything to feel uncomfortable about. Think of all those well adjusted people who love Wagner's music despite him having been a hideous anti-semite for instance! I really want to hear the A side of the Shirley 45 now.
PM
Thanks Paul, for all I know that movie is a work of art like Kubrick, or it could be trash. I just wanted to be clear that I'm not endorsing a film I haven't seen. I'll let you know what that 45 sounds like when it arrives! As I mentioned earlier, I had that record about ten years ago and played it a few times, but it's been quite awhile since I've heard it. I thought it was pretty great that there was a pop version of a song from such an obscure album!