Album review: WHAT A GROOVY DAY – The British Sunshine Pop Sound, 1967-72 (3 CD boxset)

Cherry Red/ Grapefruit [Release date 27.02.23]

Sunshine Pop – a worldwide phenomenon, though most popular in the USA and the UK – predated the age of psychedelia only by a matter of months.

Legendary but hitless sixties UK band, Tony Rivers and The Castaways had discreetly changed their name to Harmony Grass in 1967, releasing ‘What A Groovy Day’, as their “debut” single, giving this 3 disc, 86 track boxset its name.

Its blissful sound makes for the perfect Sunshine Pop song, as good as anything coming out the USA at the time from artists like The Association, Mike Curb Congregation or The Fifth Dimension. The UK was now on the map.

The inimitable songwriting/ producing UK suspects, John Carter and Ken Lewis, whose ear for a commercial music opportunity was unsurpassed (see The First Class and Beach Baby), loomed large once again.

Carter’s solo hit ‘She Won’t Show Up Tonight’ sits right next to Sixties survivors, The Tremeloes and ‘Sunshine Games’.

Many other eminently durable UK pop artists began life somewhere across these 3 discs. Herman’s Hermits (Sleepy Joe, written by Carter), The Zombies (Friends Of Mine), The Hollies (Everything Is Sunshine), Cliff Richard (Mr Nice, penned by prolific UK hit writer, Terry Britten), Genesis (Try A Little Sadness, one of many songs rejected by Impresario, Jonathan King, when the band were starting out) and Petula Clark (Colour My World, written by another prolific UK hit writer, Tony Hatch).

All of these artists used the Sunshine Pop banner to gain a foothold on fame.

The oft quoted Freaky Trigger, the internet publication that focuses on popular culture, referred to the Top Ten song (and Paul Weller favourite) ‘Jesamine’ by The Casuals as “charming and sun kissed”. The perfect Sunshine Pop accolade. It went on to trouble the charts all over Europe. The song’s writer, Marty Wilde, needs no introduction. His fascinating demo version features in this collection.

There are many more artists and songs here, who for some reason, usually fate and/or bad timing, failed to score.

The Symbols’ 1967 cover of the Four Seasons’ ‘Bye Bye Baby’ closes Disc 1 in grand style. It was a surprising chart failure. Scotland’s own Bay City Rollers took it to the No.1 spot in the UK charts in 1975, where it stayed for 6 weeks.

David And Jonathan’s (Cook & Greenaway) version of their own song ‘Softly Whispering I Love You’ is here. It also stiffed, to be later resurrected by The Congregation and turned into a worldwide hit.

Pop Music’s cross fertilisation between (sub) genres, and indeed between continents, continued unabated through the late sixties and early seventies, almost like it was unaware of the advent of Progressive Rock. Punk was on the horizon but hadn’t yet arrived.

In the world of Pop Music, there was more good stuff to come. ****

Review by Brian McGowan

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