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grapevynerendezvous · 3 years

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The Sopwith Camel - Sopwith Camel A prime example of how fast things can develop, The Sopwith Camel released their only hit single less than one year after they had started rehearsing as a band. Within a week after founder Peter Kraemer met guitarist Terry MacNeil (later known as Nandi Devam) at Big Little Book Store in San Francisco they had written several songs, including Hello Hello, Frantic Desolation and You Always Tell Me Baby. By the end of 1965 they added three other band members guitarist William Sievers, drummer Norman Mayell, and bassist Bobby Collins who soon gave way to Martin Beard. The band started rehearsals in a former firehouse on Sacramento St. In April they laid down six tracks for a demo recording.

Thanks to Bobby Collins, who had briefly played bass for Kraemer and MacNeil in the beginning, a copy of the demo ended up in the hands of Erik Jacobson. A New York producer with Sweet Reliable Productions, Jacobsen had been responsible for seven top ten hits for The Lovin’ Spoonful in one year. He had also worked with Tim Hardin as well as with The Charlatans, another fledgling SF band. Particularly attracted to Sopwith Camel’s Hello Hello, Jacobsen came to California to meet with them in May. Within the week the band signed a contract with his Sweet Reliable Productions. In late summer he took them into Coast Studio in SF to do the basic track of Hello Hello. The band then relocated to New York City to record the album and while there, signed with Kama Sutra, for which Jacobsen had produced two albums with The Lovin’ Spoonful. The Sopwith Camel was the second San Francisco band of the era to be signed to a label. Recording was done intermittently throughout the Fall while The Sopwith Camel also toured as an opener for The Lovin’ Spoonful. This meant they spent an extended period of time in New York.

Not long after Hello Hello b/w Treadin’ had been released as a single the band returned to San Francisco. After the release of their next single, Postcard From Jamaica b/w Little Orphan Annie, in April 1967. Sopwith Camel went back into Coast Recorders and recorded one more track, The Great Morpheum. In May the eponymous album was released. By this time Hello Hello had gone off the charts and that next single, had not been successful. Considering this, a sticker was placed on the album upon release that said, Remember Hello Hello! In early October a third single, Saga of the Low Down Let Down b/w The Great Morpheum was released but did not chart. It took over five months for the album, Sopwith Camel, to enter the Billboard Top 200 and after two weeks it went off the chart. By this time the band had started slowly disintegrating.

Hello Hello was not the song one would have expected to be the first Top 40 hit to herald the up-and-coming San Francisco psychedelia music era. It was released in mid-November 1966, b/w Treadin’. It entered the Billboard Hot 100 on Dec. 24 and by January ’67 crested at No.26 on the Top 100,y becoming the first San Francisco band in that era to have a Top 40 hit song. It did very well in some markets across the country: No.2 in San Jose CA, No.3 in San Diego CA, No.4 in San Francisco CA, and Louisville KY, and No.5 in San Antonio TX and Boston MA. It was one of the first songs written by band founder Peter Kraemer and guitarist Terry MacNeil right after the first met. The style harkens back to the days of Vaudeville, which was the primary live music source from the the late 1800’s to the early 1930s. The lyrics are about a simple desire to meet someone, get to know them, to share with them.

Song two of the album, Frantic Desolation, was also one fo the first songs Peter Kraemer and Terry MacNeil wrote together, but , according to MacNeil, they didn’t perform it early on. They decided to record it because they needed songs for the album. It was a distinct shift from the good timey vaudevillian Hello Hello to a distinctly psychedelic sound. The fuzztone guitar played by Terry MacNeil was noted by Elvis Costello to be ‘one of the best examples of psychedelic guitar from the period’. In an interview with the The Psychedelic Guitar MacNeil said that he wanted to reflect the meaning of the words desolation, desperation, in his guitar playing. He sat close to the amp for feed-back and played as weird as he could. In later reincarnations of Sopwith Camel it was regularly played.

William “Willie” Sievers penned The Saga of the Low Down Let Down. This has a good time feel to it musically, but it is about a low down let down none the less.. MacNeil again shines on the all too short, but effective guitar solo. Little Orphan Annie is a musical version of the syndicated newspaper comic strip that first appeared in 1924. Back to the vaudeville era, but with just a hint of the ‘60s hippie chick as well. The tongue-in-cheek performance has a a very winning way about it, with a skillful instrumental interlude featuring twelve-string guitar. One can’t help conjuring up images of Annie and Sandy in this winning “comic strip” tune.

The final two songs on side one each have their own character about them. You Always Tell Me Baby recites a complaint about how the protagonist is being told how to do things by their counterpart. It features flowing harmonies behind the lead vocals and well placed trumpet throughout. The conclusion of the song seems poised for the following song. Maybe in a Dream is basically an instrumental until the final quarter of the song. It has an optimistic feel as guitars and keyboards soar and glide throughout. The most arresting song on the album, Cellophane Woman, starts off side two. It is the other psychedelic number but with a harder, almost punk quality to it. The lyrics, written by Willy Sievers, seem to be an anti-materialism metaphor that doesn’t quite hit it’s mark. Yet the angst is there and the instrumentation takes it over the top right to the finish. Returning to the roots of the album, The Things That I Could Do With You takes it straight back to the vaudeville era. Again written by Kraemer and MacNeil, this one is a fantasy about all the things someone could be doing together with their girl. Well, not quite that kind of fantasy, unless you let your imagination run wild. It features a nice little harmonium solo. Walk in the Park continues in the vein of old-time vaudeville, only this time going back to the 19th century for inspiration. While very original in many ways, composer Willy Sievers seems to take a cue from British songwriter Harry Dacre’s 1892 “Daisy Bell (A Bicycle Built for Two)”. Sievers replaces a ride on a bicycle with a walk in the park. The ragtime-style piano style fits in perfectly as do the background harmonies. On top of all this, the comedic voice-over in the middle is priceless as William, shyly but slyly, asks Daffney to take a walk in the park with him. The Great Morpheum was the last song written and recorded for the album. Like Hello Hello, it was recorded in San Francisco. It was in April 1967, the month before the album release. The band had just recorded four 45-second commercials for Levi Strauss. Peter Kraemer recalls that he and Terry MacNeil went into a smaller studio at Coast Recorders to write the song. Along with guest saxophonist Terry Clements, Martin Beard and Norman Mayell had the basic track cut on the second take. After inclusion in the album it later became the B-side of their third single. The pace of the song slows considerably from the other cuts on the album. It has variation within itself though and the highlight happens when Clements’ saxophone comes to the fore. The song is about a surreal movie at a theater (the Morpheum). I was recently enlightened by none other than Peter Kraemer, that the Great Morpheum is in fact, about the Vietnam War. I agree that, with a bit of thought and understanding, makes perfect sense. Thanks to Peter for pointing this out. Who else would know better than he? The song’s conclusion builds to a dramatic finish, but once again the last note, so to speak, hangs in mid-air. It also leads into the final song.

Postcard From Jamaica begins with a postman ringing a doorbell announcing a mail delivery. It’s a message from a girlfriend who is visiting Jamaica, and an invitation for the reader to take a trip to see her there. As the album had not come out as yet, Postcard From Jamaica b/w Little Orphan Annie was released as second single. The haste to get it out created a scenario as told by Peter Kraemer, "Sopwith Camel was being interviewed by the DJ at a radio studio in Dallas when a guy named Richie, from Cavallo’s (the band’s manager) office, brought the 45 in from New York. When the engineer in the sound booth dropped the tone arm it bounced and skated right off the record. He tried again; it did the same thing. He looked at the band through the double glass and sadly shook his head; the bass was cut too hot and the record wouldn't track. It would play on the more primitive equipment in jukeboxes and became what was called a 'jukebox hit' in some parts of the country and in Canada.”

The album featured poster artist Victor Moscoso’s first great pop-art cover. Essentialy the design already was used for a Matrix poster back in February. The back liner cover had the first infra-red band photo, shot by Jim Marshall.

While Hello Hello wasn’t precisely one of my favorite songs, when I spotted the album at the record store I decided to find out what the rest of it sounded like. I thought it strange that there was a sticker on the cover that said REMEMBER HELLO, HELLO. Of course I remembered it, but at the time I perhaps didn’t completely get that their only hit song had come and gone three or four months before the album hit the market. I immediately enjoyed what I heard though, and quickly added it to my small but growing collection.

I felt that overall, the song-writing, arrangements, originality, vocals and instrumentality were really top-notch. It’s notable that the music was all band-written, not something usually encountered at that time. What struck me most about some of the writing was its’ droll humor. In particular I was quite taken by Little Orphan Annie and Walk in the Park. They are among those songs on the album that harkened back to vaudevillian style, yet worked so well in the renaissance of the ‘60s. I was equally intrigued by Frantic Desolation and Cellophane Woman, both of which explored the more experimental aspects of the period. While I enjoyed the rest of the songs, the final two took me a bit longer to warm up to. I simply didn’t listen to them as much for quite awhile. Eventually though, I began to appreciate the more elaborate arrangement of The Great Morpheum, and the warmth and optimism of Postcard From Jamaica.

The record quickly became one of my favorites. I can still fairly well sing along with most all the songs. It’s unfortunate that, since the album faded so quickly once it finally appeared, not many people really got to hear all Sopwith Camel had to offer. It turns out that by the time of the release the band had started to fall apart due primarily to bickering and, as one band member called it, immaturity. Willy Sievers had announced in November that he intended to leave to start a solo career, but didn’t actually do that until late spring of the next year. The band members still played in other projects, some of which included two or more of them, but things seemed to be over for good. At least for the time being. I missed a golden opportunity to see not only Sopwith Camel, but Buffalo Springfield and The Standells as well in 1967. The event was a tri-school dance that had been put together by a student named Rod Jew at Cubberley High School in Palo Alto. Held at the high school pavilion, the concert was on April 27th, just prior to the Camel’s album release. All the bands had, or were enjoying, big hits. I thought I had lost any opportunity after that but Sopwith Camel was to have more in store.

Another opportunity unexpectedly came up in 1971. After not hearing anything about Sopwith Camel for nearly four years, they resurfaced playing a dance concert at Foothill Community College in Los Altos Hills CA. By this time I was a student there and attended the show in the gym with my girlfriend/future wife. While he was not aware that this event had occurred, based on information obtained through a blog done by music historian Bruno Ceriotti, it appears that four of the original band members had reunited. Hearing them play songs from that first album live was like a dream come true.

Speaking of Bruno Cerotti, through three decades of research he created a day-by-day diary of The Sopwith Camel as well as other bands. Utilizing information from interviews, as well as gathering many visuals, from several individuals and news media sources, it gives far more details than one would would normally expect to encounter. Particularly for a band that had but two albums (not counting re-releases), three singles, one hit song, and lasted less than a decade at their height. He also documented their return to performing from 2009-2016. Finally looking into what Bruno has accomplished I decided to reach out to him and we have become friends. He was quite amazed and excited to hear of the show at Foothill College. He helped me hone in on the year it must of happened and now all we need to do is get a precise date and any other details. It’s good to be interactive.

http://brunoceriotti.weebly.com/the-sopwith-camel.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sopwith_Camel_(band)

https://www.allmusic.com/album/the-sopwith-camel-mw0000117772

website https://www.sopwithcamel.com

Joel Selvin articles https://www.sopwithcamel.com/stories2.html

https://www.sopwithcamel.com/stories4.html

https://sopwithcamel.org/about-the-band/

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/sopwith-camel-where-are-they-now-93996/

https://www.sopwithcamel.com/Albums.html

https://vancouversignaturesounds.com/hits/hello-hello-sopwith-camel/

http://therockasteria.blogspot.com/2014/09/sopwith-camel-sopwith-camel-1966-67-us.html

https://www.discogs.com/artist/391236-Sopwith-Camel

https://www.sopwithcamel.com/stories4.html

http://www.rockremnants.com/2013/06/22/song-of-the-week-hello-hello-sopwith-camel/

http://andrewdarlington.blogspot.com/2014/01/

https://www.sopwithcamel.com/Terry.html

https://fictionliberationfront.net/erik_jacobsen.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Jacobsen

Hello Hello https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjYsl__loTw

Frantic Desolation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaxiKL-Rzjk

Saga of the Low Down Let Down https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdcMbtkQxaQ

Little Orphan Annie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-y-afIkukg

You Always Tell Me Baby: Maybe in a Dream https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yU2Saf1EKlc

Cellophane Woman https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_0LxEQnnVI

The Things That I Could Do With You https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3-kM0brrXQ

Walk in the Park https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CIG6Xc-GFc

The Great Morpheum; Postcard From Jamaica https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DU5e3lcHkx0

LP25

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