OK,seeing the mention of THAT song,that we ALL have overheard for years by the aptly named Middle Of The Road,may be repellant in giving THIS very fine album a listen or even a glance!!
If so YOU are missing a very good pop album,full of clever ideas, imaginatively arranged with strings,brass,flute and other embellishments and put together with clever wordplay and catchy tunes but NOT inane corny pop,and like i mentioned elswhere on another site,if you enjoy the likes of the poppier moments of The Humblebums,with a snatch of"Can I have My Money Back"Gerry Raffery,a sprinkle of quieter Majority One,a squeeze of Vaughan Thomas,a dash of Bert Wigley and a pinch of Duncan Browne...then you just maybe onto a winner.It was certainly a winner for my ears.
Lally Stott was a member of The Motowns,a UK group popular on the continent,who released a sole album not released in the UK,but he left the group and recorded this album,which again did NOT get a release in the UK.
The pick of the numbers amongst an album full of good numbers are:
Love Is Free,Love Is Blind,Love Is Good-An excellent piece of sprightly and as catchy as hell cello driven pop with added flute embellishments alongside acoustic guitar and added electric leads resulting in this being a wee cracker.
London Town-A slow tempod but lovely acoustic led song with string quartet embellishments with its sound of big ben beginning and ending and sandwiched in between are marvellous echoed electri guitar parts,subdued flute parts and smashing vocals,for me this has a slight 60s Bee Gees vibe about it with a smidgen of 60s hangover pop sound to it.
She Smiles-A song like this proves Lally Scott was a marvellous creator of imaginative but still clever and catchy songs,with imaginative arrangements and vibe,with clever use of vocal parts,and not overbaring cheesy OTT instrumentation.This is simply marvellous made even better by understated fuzz guitar too.
Help Me Mrs Jones-This is one for 60s pop nuts as it IS a very 60s sounding sounding vignette character type song,so popular in psych era pop,replete with lovely strings,brass and harpsichord,giving it a slight baroque pop sound,with wonderful wordplay and instrumentation and deserves to be heard by 60s pop officiandos everywhere.
Tip Aling Along-One of the worst song titles you could imagine,but the inane titles give no indication of the clever construction,clever wordplay and the gift of very catchy but imaginative songs Lolly Scott has put together throughout this fine album,and this IS another to add to the toe tapping brain sapping pop masterclass,AGAIN with lush string quartet,brass parts,clever vocal parts,and this could have quite easily been a Gerry Rafferty Humblebums song,beautiful stuff.
Red Sun Blue Moon-Another fabulous slow number with some twangy guitar parts,with lovely vocals,understated string parts,accompanied by other neat guitar lines,and its a wonderful song to end to a wonderful little mentioned album,which is a shame as it trully deserves to be heard by more late 60s and early 70s pop enthusiasts,as there is so much quality and excellent songs to be savoured.
Lally was really a little pop genius, who would deserve a compilation of the many songs he wrote for himself and other acts. Check also Middle Of The Road of course, Peacock, Smiffy, Jasmin, Kathy & Gulliver, Lovebirds, Cyan, The Black Jacks....:wink:
Is it true that Lally Stott died young c1977 in a crash when he was driving his 'dream car' Mercedes bought out of his C.C.C.C. royalties?. Anyway I'm very reluctant to be over critical of M.O.T.R. as they were very accomplished musicians (fine rhythmically and melodically) usually their live reviews were very positive they just went down a bubblegummy route. Sally Carr's vocals seem to be a bit of a 'Marmite' issue though.