Monocled Alchemist

Three groups from the mid-sixties record the folk-rock number “I Don’t Believe”, originally created by The Guilloteens

The Guilloteens | “I Don’t Believe” | (HBR) July 1965 | The Guilloteens hailed from Memphis and were fortunate to have ’The King’ as a supporter who used his contacts to get them a regular booking at the Red Velvet Club in Hollywood.

Now that they were in Folk-Rock City and making money and meeting girls, the next step was to find a record label to release their sounds. This came in the unlikely form of HBR, a recently formed label mainly associated with cartoons.

The Lewis Paul Jr original ’I Don’t Believe’ was their first 45 and sold well in Los Angeles. The song is notable for it’s dense production and solid lead vocals by Lewis.

It’s interesting to note that The Guilloteens recorded an earlier demo of ’I Don’t Believe’ with help from Phil Spector. This version was never completed when the group signed to HBR.

misc information:

Joe Davis died 2008
Laddie Hutcherson died 2009
Lewis Paul Jr died 2015

discography:

I Don’t Believe / Hey You! (HBR 446) 07/65
For My Own / Don’t Let The Rain Get You Down (HBR 451) 10/65
I Sit And Cry / Crying All Over My Time (HBR 486) 07/66
Wild Child / You Think You’re Happy (Columbia 4-43852) 11/66
Dear Mrs. Applebee / I Love That Girl (Columbia 4-44089) 04/67

The Moonrakers | “I Don’t Believe” | (Tower) June 1966 | Denver, Colorado group The Moonrakers were quite a successful local group releasing several singles on Tower Records, then on Shamley, culminating in the album ‘Together With Him’, which had strong religious overtones.

But it is their early Tower material that has found favour with 60s garage 45rpm collectors especially their version of “Baby Please Don’t Go” backed with a remake of “I Don’t Believe”.

The Searchers | “I Don’t Believe” | (BBC Session) May 1967 | When The Searchers appeared on the American ‘Shindig’ TV show in September 1965, also on with them were Memphis garage band The Guilloteens, performing their recent single “I Don’t Believe”.

The song particularly impressed John McNally, who made a note of it for future reference. With nothing much else to promote apart from the current single, the band performed it for what turned out to be their final ‘Saturday Club’ broadcast in May 1967.

The song is an odd mixture of crooning, soul and rock, but with Mike Pender singing in a lower register than usual and some nice jangly guitar, it is quite memorable. It was first issued on ‘The Searchers 30th Anniversary Collection 1962-1992’ in 1992, as well as on ‘BBC Sessions’.