Episode Six - BBC Sessions, Volume 2 (1968-1969)

I just posted Volume 1 of Episode Six at the BBC. While I'm at it, here's Volume 2.

Hopefully, by posting these two together, I don't need to explain Episode Six and their music again. If you don't know, just read what I wrote with Volume 1.

As with that volume, the band mostly did cover songs for the BBC. I could be wrong, but I think the only originals here are: "Monster in Paradise," "Mozart Versus the Rest," "I Am the Boss," and "I Am a Cloud."

All the songs here come from the archival compilation "Cornflakes and Crazyfoam." There are a handful of songs near the end that the liner notes claim come from an unknown source, and say they could have been demos or from a radio show. However, there's another archival compilation that has those exact same versions of those songs with BBC DJ talk before and after them, clearly identifying their source.

A bunch of the songs (including those supposedly unidentified ones) come from a long BBC session in early 1969 of half an hour or more. The session was supposed to feature Pink Floyd, but they canceled at the last minute. The BBC called up Episode Six, and they raced to the studio just in time to fill in. So while that was nice, I must say I wish we could have had more of Pink Floyd at the BBC. 

Exactly the same as on Volume 1, only two out of the 19 songs here had the problem of BBC DJs talking over the music. As usual, I used the audio editing program X-Minus to fix those (which are marked with "[Edit]" in their titles).

This album is 58 minutes long. It's the last of anything worthwhile I have to post from this underrated band. Now I'll be free to start posting Deep Purple BBC sessions albums, since two of the band's members moved to that band in 1969.

Here are the original artists for each song:

01 Sunshine Superman - A Hard Day's Night - Donovan - Beatles
02 Can't Be So Bad - Moby Grape
03 Orange Air [Edit] - Fifth Dimension
04 Mr. Universe - Episode Six
05 I Had a Talk with My Man - Misty Collier
06 Stay with Me - Lorraine Ellison
07 Light My Fire - Doors
08 Temptation - Bing Crosby
09 Alone Again Or - Love
10 Monster in Paradise - Episode Six
11 Mozart Versus the Rest - Episode Six
12 [I Can't Get No] Satisfaction - Paint It, Black - Rolling Stones
13 The Morning - Dusty Springfield
14 I Am the Boss - Episode Six
15 I'll Be Your Baby Tonight - Bob Dylan
16 Something's Gotten Hold of My Heart - Gene Pitney
17 It's Been Such a Long Way Home - Garnet Mimms
18 Spanish Caravan - Doors
19 I Am a Cloud - Episode Six

Here's the usual song list:

01 Sunshine Superman - A Hard Day's Night (Episode Six)
02 Can't Be So Bad (Episode Six)
03 Orange Air [Edit] (Episode Six)
04 Mr. Universe (Episode Six)
05 I Had a Talk with My Man (Episode Six)
06 Stay with Me (Episode Six)
07 Light My Fire (Episode Six)
08 Temptation (Episode Six)
09 Alone Again Or (Episode Six)
10 Monster in Paradise (Episode Six)
11 Mozart Versus the Rest [Instrumental] [Edit] (Episode Six)
12 [I Can't Get No] Satisfaction - Paint It, Black (Episode Six)
13 The Morning (Episode Six)
14 I Am the Boss (Episode Six)
15 I'll Be Your Baby Tonight (Episode Six)
16 Something's Gotten Hold of My Heart (Episode Six)
17 It's Been Such a Long Way Home (Episode Six)
18 Spanish Caravan (Episode Six)
19 I Am a Cloud (Episode Six)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/EG7RHyy6

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/Iib63vFYcir8NCV/file

As I mentioned in the last post for this band, the best color photos I could find for the cover art all seem to come from the exact same photo shoot, done in 1965 or 1966. One can tell because they're wearing the exact same clothes and have the same haircuts. But at least the photos are significantly different from each other. For instance, this one was taken at night, and the other two I used were taken during the day. For this one, many of the colors were off, but I used Photoshop to align them with the colors from the other photo session photos.

Episode Six - BBC Sessions, Volume 1 (1967-1968)

I posted an Episode Six stray tracks album a few days ago, and that got a good reaction, so here's more from them already.

To review: Episode Six are very little known today, because they didn't have much success back when they were a band in the 1960s. They never released a studio album, and they had no hit singles. But they were a talented band. Their biggest claim to fame today is that lead singer Ian Gillan and bassist Roger Glover were band members, then left in mid-1969 to join the Mark II version of Deep Purple. 

So if you're a big Deep Purple fan you might have interest in this band, especially because most of the songs are song by Gillan, though the band also had a female lead singer named Sheila Carter, and many of the songs were written by the Gillan and Glover songwriting team. That said, the band was far more pop-oriented than Deep Purple ever was, so don't expect any headbanging here.

As I mentioned in that previous post, given how little success the band hand, it's surprising how much the BBC favored them. They performed many BBC sessions. There's enough for me to make two volumes. And that's with duplicates of the same songs removed, poor sound quality songs removed, a few songs I simply didn't like removed, and some entire BBC sessions lost. But it's easy to see why the BBC liked them, because they knew a ton of cover songs, in a wide variety of styles. 

The vast majority of the songs here are covers. The only originals here are the first three songs, plus "Incense" and "Little One" near the end. Note that I cheated by including "Love, Hate, Revenge" here. In my opinion, that's their best original song, but no version of them doing it for the BBC has survived. In order to have it represented here, I've included the US single version, which has some differences from the version I put on the stray tracks album I've already posted, including a different instrumental section in the middle.

All the songs are officially released. The vast majority come from an archival compilation called "Cornflakes and Crazyfoam," though three come from another compilation called "Love, Hate, Revenge." The sound quality is pretty good throughout, though some songs sound better than others. Two of the songs, "I Hear Trumpets Blow" and "Morning Dew," actually come from the German TV show "Beat Beat Beat." You can see the video footage of those on YouTube.

On a different note, with 1960s BBC recordings, one usually runs into the problem of BBC DJs talking over the intros and outros of some songs. For instance, I posted a Status Quo BBC album yesterday where most of the songs had that problem. But for some reason, Episode Six got lucky. Only two of the 19 songs here have "[Edit]" in their titles, which means those are the only two where I had to use the audio editing program X-Minus to wipe out the DJ talking. I suppose it was largely a matter of which BBC radio shows one was on. For instance, there's no sign any of these particular shows were hosted by DJ Brian Matthew, and he was the worst offender.

This album is 55 minutes long.

Here's a list of the original artists for each song, other than the five originals I just mentioned:

04 Morning Dew - Bonnie Dobson / Tim Rose
05 A Hazy Shade of Winter - Simon & Garfunkel
06 Him or Me - Paul Revere & the Raiders
07 Slow Down - Beatles
08 Stagger Lee - traditional / Lloyd Price
09 Que Sera, Sera [Whatever Will Be, Will Be] - Doris Day
10 Say You Don't Mind - Denny Laine
11 Island in the Sun - Harry Belafonte
12 [There's] Always Something There to Remind Me [Edit] -
13 My Little Red Book - Manfred Mann / Love
14 You Can Have Him - Dionne Warwick
15 Here, There and Everywhere - Beatles
16 The Castle - Love
19 River Deep, Mountain High - Ike & Tina Turner

As you can see, pretty far removed from the typical Deep Purple fare! Here's the usual song list:

01 Love, Hate, Revenge [US Single Version] (Episode Six)
02 I Can See Through You (Episode Six)
03 I Hear Trumpets Blow (Episode Six)
04 Morning Dew (Episode Six)
05 A Hazy Shade of Winter (Episode Six)
06 Him or Me (Episode Six)
07 Slow Down (Episode Six)
08 Stagger Lee (Episode Six)
09 Que Sera, Sera [Whatever Will Be, Will Be] (Episode Six)
10 Say You Don't Mind (Episode Six)
11 Island in the Sun (Episode Six)
12 [There's] Always Something There to Remind Me [Edit] (Episode Six)
13 My Little Red Book (Episode Six)
14 You Can Have Him (Episode Six)
15 Here, There and Everywhere (Episode Six)
16 The Castle (Episode Six)
17 Incense (Episode Six)
18 Little One [Edit] (Episode Six)
19 River Deep, Mountain High (Episode Six)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/6aEFzUee

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/4PTYImGQka2gxCg/file

There are very few good Episode Six color photos that aren't already used for album covers or the like. I've found three that seem to come from the same 1965 or 1966 photo session, because they're wearing the same clothes and have the same haircuts. At least they're in very different poses.

Episode Six - I Can See Through You - Non-Album Tracks (1965-1969)

After reading the headline of this post, you're probably wondering, "Who or what the heck is Episode Six?" If you're already familiar with this band, then I'm impressed with the depth of your musical knowledge. Although they were a British band from 1965 to 1969, they never put out an album, and they never had even a minor hit single. These days, they're remembered for one thing: two future key members of Deep Purple were originally members of this band. 

More specifically, lead vocalist Ian Gillan and bassist Roger Glover would leave Episode Six and join Deep Purple in mid-1969. So that made Gillan the lead vocalist of the most critically and commercially successful "Mark II" version of Deep Purple in the early 1970s. Gillan and Glover were also a songwriting team, and had key roles in writing most of Deep Purple's most famous songs, from "Smoke on the Water" on down.

Gillan was the main lead vocalist for the entire duration of Episode Six represented here, and he and Glover wrote some of their best songs. So that makes this band of interest for serious Deep Purple fans. But Gillan wasn't the only lead vocalist. This band was unusual for that time in that they had both a male lead vocalist and a female one. The female, Sheila Carter, sang a lot fewer songs than Gillan, but she did sing a fair share.

Here's the Wikipedia page if you want to know more about the band:

Episode Six - Wikipedia

All Deep Purple connections aside, Episode Six was a talented band that deserved more success than they had. One hint of this is that the BBC loved them. Despite having zero hits, and not even having that many singles released, they performed sessions for the BBC over and over again. In fact, after posting this album, I plan on posting two albums of the band's BBC sessions.

In a way, the band had a problem of being TOO talented, because they could capably play just about any song in any style, and they did, which meant they didn't have an easily defined musical identity. Note that, in general, the band was far more poppy than Deep Purple. They had just decided to move into more of a hard rock style when Gillan and Glover were poached by Deep Purple, and the band's fortunes effectively came to an end (though they lingered on longer and slowly fizzled out).

Although the band never put out an album while they were together, there has been a handful of archival compilations in subsequent decades. I've taken what I consider the best songs from all of those (not counting the copious BBC material) to make this album. Thirteen out of the 20 songs here are A- and B-sides. The others are studio demos and outtakes that didn't get released at the time.

I think this is a solid collection all the way through, but the highlights in my opinion are the songs "Love, Hate, Revenge," "I Can See through You," and "Morning Dew." The first two are originals, like most of the other songs here. "Love, Hate, Revenge" was included on Rhino Record's classic "Nuggets" box set. In a better universe, it would have been a big hit. Oddly, "Morning Dew," a cover of the folk classic, was a number one song in Lebanon, but nowhere else! That suggests to me their lack of commercial success probably had more to do with record company promotion and/or distribution problems than the actual music.

This album is 52 minutes long.

Note that I plan on posting a bunch of Deep Purple BBC sessions albums soon, but I think it makes logical and chronological sense to post this and the Episode Six BBC sessions albums first.

01 Love Is Such a Swinging Thing (Episode Six)
02 I Will Warm Your Heart (Episode Six)
03 I Hear Trumpets Blow (Episode Six)
04 True Love Is Funny That Way (Episode Six)
05 Incense (Episode Six)
06 Love, Hate, Revenge (Episode Six)
07 Baby Baby Baby (Episode Six)
08 Plastic Love (Episode Six)
09 Time and Motion Man (Episode Six)
10 Only Lonely People (Episode Six)
11 Morning Dew (Episode Six)
12 Sunshine Girl (Episode Six)
13 I Won't Hurt You (Episode Six)
14 I Can See through You (Episode Six)
15 Little One (Episode Six)
16 Lucky Sunday (Episode Six)
17 Mr. Universe (Episode Six)
18 Mozart Versus the Rest [Instrumental] (Episode Six)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15111746/EpisodeSx_1965-1969_I_CnSeeThroughYou_atse.zip.html

There are very few good color photos of this band. I don't know where or when this one is from exactly. I'm glad to have any decent photo at all. If anyone can identify which band member is which, please let me know, and I'll add that info in.