Monocled Alchemist

”Suddenly You Love Me” / ”As You Are” (CBS 3234) January 1968

The Tremeloes | Suddenly You Love Me | (CBS) 1968 | What a week. One hit after another. It’s going to be a busy time ahead with groups galore fighting their way into the Top of The Pops studio.

The Trems keep up the good work of producing unpretentious, attractive and appealing pure pop. Once again vocal harmonies are the forte, while the rest is safe and sure four-to-the bar of the most foot-stomping kind.

Guaranteed from freak-out. Highly recommended. (Melody Maker, 13/01/68)

A sparkling track from the Tremeloes, equally as good as “Even The Bad Times Are Good,” and in much the same style. It exudes a wonderfully lighthearted atmosphere, with organ, rattling tambourine and handclaps providing a sizzling backcloth to the boys’ spirited vocal.

There’s a touch of Latin-Americana about it – not surprising, as it’s adapted from an Italian song, with English lyrics by Peter Callander. The tune is simple and catchy, and the Trems sound as though they’re having a whale of a time.

Flip: This is a double-A side, meaning that it’s regarded with equal importance. Much slower than the coupling, it’s a rhythmic ballad with a descriptive lyric, admirably showcasing the group’s distinctive vocal blend. With two value-for-money sides, this will do infinitely better than their last disc. (NME, 13/01/68)

“As You Are” | That’s rather a nice sort of song. it’s the sort to get that nice worked-up feeling to. I like the plucking . . . It’s not a hit. It’s all much of a muchness with other nice records. (John Gorman – Blind Date, Melody Maker, 13/01/68)

The Tremeloes | Suddenly You Love Me | (CBS) 1968

A double-A sider from the boys this time. “Suddenly” is a big-beating hand-clapping sort of job, fast-tempoed, with shuffling rhythm. Another catchy sort of chorus to guarantee a high chart placing – for me, the better side. But “As You Are” is a moving slow ballad, chunkily done, and emphasises that they’re a versatile outfit. (Record Mirror, 13/01/68)

It never fails to amaze me how record companies put out Double “A” sides when one side is usually far more obviously commercial or superior to the other. “As You Are” is pretty ordinary, but “Suddenly You Love Me” is going to get the Trems right back into the chart.

There’s a big insistent restlessness about the record that sounds in parts like “Here Comes My Baby” and an Israeli folk song. Instant commerciality. (Disc & Music Echo, 13/01/68)

Flower Power Is Out – says Chip Hawkes

The Tremeloes | Suddenly You Love Me | (CBS) 1968

Says Chip: “I’ve got about ten pairs of trousers all made by her. I’d never go to anyone else! She works from her home at Corngreaves Hall, Cradley Heath, Stafford, and her trousers are great!

“They’re tight above the knee and flared at the bottoms —very smart. We all wear ’em.

“I’ve got small feet, size six, and buy ladies’ fashionable boots. They’re smarter, and also far better made than any man’s boot—and they only cost about £9 a pair. I wouldn’t pay any more.

“Those Astrakhan coats I wear are good for the winter, but they won’t last much longer — too hot and smelly!

“In fact I’ve started, wearing conventional jackets again —which makes a change. People shouldn’t wear flowered shirts all the time. This one is a very dark navy blue, and I bought it in Chelsea, but not in a boutique — in an ordinary shop, though I can’t remember which one.”

Chip usually shops at “Granny Takes ‘A Trip” in King’s Road, Chelsea, or in the Chelsea Antique Market, which, believe it or not, sells an enormous range of clothes.

“I’m not an impulsive shopper. If I don’t see something I like I’ll carry on looking for hours until I find what I’m after. “As far as the future trend goes, I think the more conventional dress is coming back —suits even. But, as I already said, they’ve got to look smart and fit properly.” (Disc & Music Echo, 10/02/68)

CHRIS WELCH meets the TREMELOES and discovers . . .

War Of The Groups!

POP, crackle, snap — -there’s friction in the air! A slight bust-up between the Tremeloes, Herd and Love Affair was bubbling away this week, leaving the Trems ruffled, Peter Frampton “shaking with rage,” and the Love Affair chastened.

It all started when Mick Jackson of the Love Affair said in the MM: “Watch out, Herd. There’s only one guy in that group and there are five of us,” hinting Peter was the only one who mattered in the Image Stakes,”

Peter told me he was shaking with range when he read that,” said Mick this week “But we’ve sorted it out now, and we’re friends.” Meanwhile the Tremeloes leap to the Herd’s defence.

“In all the Interviews the Love Affair have done recently, they knocked established groups,” said Alan Blaikley, rhythm guitarist, organist and spokesman.

“You can’t buy experience, and they haven’t got that yet. We were particularly choked at them knocking the Herd. That was a joke, because the Herd are fantastic musicians. Each one of them is important to the group, and they are all very experienced and talented. The Love Affair are really a bunch of kids — very lucky blokes to get a hit.

The Tremeloes | Suddenly You Love Me | (CBS) 1968

“We have to work hard to get a hit, doing our own arrangements, looking for material and playing it ourselves. They had an instant hit made for them.”

“Give Steve, the singer, his due,” said Chip Hawkes. “He’s a good singer, and he’s not big headed.”

“Yes, but it really worries me when they go around saying things like that,” said Alan shaking his head.

The sudden blow-up occurred when the Tremeloes were killing time during rehearsals for Radio One’s Joe Loss Pop Show. They are respected as one of the most cheerful, unpretentious, friendly and talented groups in pop. Even their strongest criticisms were made without malice.

Their sane and adult attitude towards the business is obviously paying off, with a succession of hits, the latest being the double A side offering “As You Are” and “Suddenly You Love Me.”

What was the point in releasing two songs with a subsequent splitting of plugs?

“Can I have a go about that?” Alan looked quizzically round at the group.

“We couldn’t have ‘Suddenly You Love Me,’ unless we had ‘As You Are’ as well. It’s a bad set-up but it was partly our fault because we originally thought ‘As You Are’ was the right single for us.

“When we heard the other one we realised it was stronger. It’s meant some of the radio shows didn’t know which one to play. But it doesn’t matter anyway because it’s our fastest selling single ever!

“We’ve gone back to our cheerful style on this one. Let’s face it, while we are on to a good thing, let’s stick to it. We’d like to do more In Crowd type material sure, but that doesn’t sell a lot does it?

“Our main scene is to be a commercial pop group and get into the chart, so that’s what we try to do.”

Said Chip: “We do a couple of different things on our LP which is more the music we like to play. It would be nice to get a hit with that sort of thing, but in the meantime . . . ”

“We’d love to do a Dylan number,” continued Alan. “I’d like to have done ‘Mighty Quinn’ for example. But his songs don’t lend themselves to our sort of commercialization. Manfred can do it. They’re clever lads in that group.

“When we play in ballrooms they expect us to do comedy stuff all night, and they are surprised when we play some Four Tops songs. Then we do our hits. What a It down!”

“We never get a chance to show what we can do on records,” agreed Chip.

“At least we still play ballrooms,” said Alan. “That’s the first thing other groups drop when they get a hit. I don’t know why. Still it can be tiring travelling round the country all the time.

“I remember when we were on the road six days without a break. We were all in the same car, with pants flying from the radio aerial. There was no chance to stop anywhere for a change. We had to have the car fumigated afterwards.”

Apart from a chance to wash and change on the road, did the group have any special ambitions?

“We’d like to have our own TV series,” said Alan. “Not like the Monkees, but a show built around the group, getting away from just playing our hits.

“All the big TV series go to solo singers like Engelbert or Val Doonican. Why can’t a group have a go?”

“They underestimate groups,” agreed Chip. “Obviously some groups are talented and some aren’t, but none of them get a chance to show what they can do. We’d like to play, have guest groups and interview personalities.”

Chip also has another ambition—to meet Paul McCartney. “I’d really like to meet and talk to him. He’s my hero really. It may sound silly, but everybody has an idol don’t they?”

“I bet you wouldn’t say a word if you met him!” grinned Alan. “The great thing about the Beatles is they can make really complicated productions we would be proud to make if we could, yet they have a simple tune to them everybody can sing along.

“We can do simple songs, but the backing is simple as well. We can’t do something we’d be really proud of and says to everybody: ‘Listen to this!’ We couldn’t copy the Beatles anyway. Nobody could.

“We’ve got our own style I suppose. Simple but effective. We smile all the time we’re singing!

“Yes, it’s true. In the recording studio if we are not feeling too good we make ourselves laugh, and you can feel it come out in the song. We have to tickle each other sometimes when it gets a bit hard.”

“Yeah, I have to do my act occasionally,” said Ricky West, “running round the studio with me trousers off.”

“That gets a laugh,” said Alan unsmilingly. “I suppose we’ve got the same sort of image. But I don’t know what it is.”

“Instant happiness!” suggested Ricky.

“Come round tonight — and I’ll kick your head in,” said Alan. But it was just a Tremeloes “in” joke. (Melody Maker, 03/02/68)

Trems Will Make Tribal Songs Into Hits

PACK your bags, folks! Dig out the old topee and those flapping, knee-length khaki shorts, nip down to the travel agents and fix yourself up with a ticket for the big trendy scene of 1968 . . . a song safari!

First off the mark are the Tremeloes. Group leader Alan Blakely is firmly convinced that the rhythms of Africa are going to be what’s happening in the charts very soon. “Tarzan-land,” gags Al, “is definitely going to be where it’s all at in 1968.”

He wants to make it clear that The Trems’ newest and umpteenth hit “Suddenly You Love Me” isn’t supposed to be African influenced (“that one’s from Italy, which is another great source of good numbers”).

The African idea, says Alan, stems from a visit to Johannesburg the Tremeloes made about three years ago when they were working with Brian Poole.

Going round

Over shepherds pie and mash in a West End pub. and in the company of fellow Trem Chip Hawkes, he told me that ever since then some of the tribal traditional rhythms he heard have been going round and round in his head.

Said Alan: “We heard some right way-out chants from the Zulus we worked with when we made a film there, ‘Africa Shakes’.

” I brought back some Swahili LPs with me, but while we were there we also met a guy from Manchester who imports albums into this country. Just recently we met him, and he really got my interest going again.

“The result is that next week we’re going to Manchester just to have a listen to all the traditional African chants he’s got, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we dig up something really great.

“This bloke’s got Italian songs, too, and when we met him he told us he wished he’d known—he could have told us about ‘Suddenly You Love Me’ months ago.”

Until “Family Favourites” last Sunday—when two versions of ‘Suddenly You Love Me’ were played by mistake, one by the Trems, one by Cilla—I hadn’t realised that somebody else in this country had already recorded the number.

“Oh, yeah,” said Al candidly,” we heard both versions before we did ours . . . the Italian one and the one by Cilla. It gave us the chance to compare and do ours really different.”

The Tremeloes | Suddenly You Love Me | (CBS) 1968

One of Alan’s greatest dreams is to see the group in which his brother Michael is drummer, Eternal Spasm, sitting way up there in the NME Chart.

According to Alan: “I’ve told him the next record they do has got to be something right corny. Never mind progressive . . . a good tune is what they want, maybe one of these African ones. Once they’re away in the charts they can do what they want in the future.”

The conversation began to weave through a variety of topics.

Alan says he’s developed a golden formula for deciding whether a particular song could be a big chart hit. He told me: “Whenever we have a song in mind now, we try to imagine people singing it in a pub.

“That’s the iron test. People can laugh as much as they like, but if a melody isn’t simple and catchy enough for people to sing along with – whether it’s a fast number or a ballad it can’t stand much of a chance.

“I’ll never forget the time I went into the gents’ in a pub, and I heard a bloke singing ‘Here Comes My Baby’ —it was great. I thought: ‘It’s got to be a hit, it’s got to . . . .”

Chip Hawkes and Alan agree that although the Trems want to be unashamedly commercial on their singles, their next album must show they know their stuff and they can give out with groovy progressive sounds when they want to.

Said Chip: “We thought we might do one side of the next LP as a live show with an audience, and the other as a showcase for our own compositions.”

Chip was so wrapped up in thinking about songs the other night—while driving—that his car skidded along the side of some railings and he spent about 20 minutes sitting in a lay-by shaking with fright.

Failure

Finally, as we finished the shepherds pie and were looking forward to the plum pudding’, Chip and Alan held a post-mortem on the comparative failure of their last single, “Be Mine.”

The general opinion: “We tried something we shouldn’t. It would have made a good LP track, but we liked the way it sounded so much, we forgot to take the broader view and think if it was right for the charts.

“We won’t make the same mistake again. We’ve got it all worked out and (this bit from Alan), I don’t think we’ll flop in the future. We’ll stick to the formula.” (NME, 03/02/68)