LOST TREASURES – Picadilly Line

Posted on 19 October 2016

Lost Treasures

PICADILLY LANE

“The Huge World of Emily Small”

 

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Last week, my son and I went to see Donovan on the Sunshine Superman 50th Anniversary Tour. For me, it was a bit of a pilgrimage—Donovan was one of my favorite pop stars of the Summer of Love, yet I had never gotten around to seeing him perform live. For my son, it was more of a museum trip: “Henry, this is a hippie.” Either way, we both had a great time. Today’s Lost Treasures installment is a footnote in Donovan’s career (and, as well shall see, in the career of The Beatles): the sole album by the light psych-pop group Picadilly Line, The Huge World of Emily Small.

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Picadilly Line was essentially a duo, consisting of Ron Edwards (guitar/organ/vocals) and Roger Hand (guitar/vocals). Edwards and Hand met up while students at London University, and began performing in local clubs in the mid-’60s. After securing a residency at the influential folk club Les Cousins, they signed a management deal with Roy Guest who quickly landed them a contract with CBS Records. The duo decided a suitably swingin’ named was required―Chad and Jeremy and Peter and Gordon were last year’s news and so Ron and Roger would not do—finally settling on the misspelled Picadilly Line, the misspelling chosen due to a fear that they might be sued by the London Transport system. Sessions began almost immediately, produced by Guest and John Cameron, the arranger on Donovan’s Sunshine Superman and Mellow Yellow. The players on the album were largely drawn from the same pool of musicians that recorded Sunshine Superman, including, perhaps most famously, Nicky Hopkins on piano, and Herbie Flowers on bass. A pop-psych classic was born and The Huge World of Emily Small was released at the peak of flower-power, in the summer of 1967.

 

Now the term psych-pop can cover a lot of territory, and the reader should be alerted that the music on The Huge World of Emily Small is fairly precious and even twee at times—just like Donovan. But if you like that kind of stuff—and I do—you won’t be disappointed. “Emily Small (The Huge World Thereof)” is the opener and while it promises an ambitious concept album, the concept is pretty loose and, to be honest, I have never followed the songs’ progression as such. It’s perhaps a little more conceptual than Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, but not quite a conceptual as Murray Head’s terrific Nigel Lived. At any rate, “Emily Small” starts the album off winningly, with a gentle baroque-pop arrangement of strings and horns and period-perfect background vocals. It’s definitely lightweight, but charming. “Silver Paper Dress” is in a more traditional folk style, not unlike the material on Simon and Garfunkel’s Sounds of Silence LP, though again, with some string and flute flourishes. “At the Third Stroke” sounds a little like early Chad and Jeremy covering something from the first Bee Gees record—both delicate and too clever by half. “Can You See Me?” is reminiscent of The Hollies’ “Jennifer Eccles,” but with a lighter, uncluttered arrangement. It’s one of the better tracks here, but the standout track is “How Could You Say You’re Leaving Me?,” sounding quite a bit like Kaleidoscope circa White Faced Lady. It has a gorgeous chorus and more detailed production than most of the rest of the album, leading me to conclude that Guest and Cameron believed it to be a likely single. “Tumble Down World” is another folk ballad with terrific two-part harmonies, not unlike those purveyed by The Kings of Convenience. The closer is “Her Name is Easy,” another highlight, reminding me of Duncan Browne covering a Boyce and Hart song from More of the Monkees. OK, maybe not quite that good!

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The Huge World of Emily Small did not receive a heavy promotional push from CBS and failed to generate any traction in either sales or airplay. Sessions for a second album were begun, but when two follow-up singles failed to chart, the band folded—well, not folded so much as regrouped, this time emerging as Edwards Hand, best known for being produced by none other than George Martin. Edwards Hand released two albums, the self-titled Edwards Hand in 1969 and Stranded in 1970. A third album, Rainshine, was recorded in 1971, but not released until nearly three decades later. In 1975, Edwards and Hand set a collection of poems by Alan Aldridge (editor for the two volumes of The Beatles Illustrated Lyrics) to music, which was ultimately released under the title, The Butterfly Ball and the Grasshopper’s Feast.

 

The Huge World of Emily Small was reissued on CD by Grapefruit Records in 2009. The reissue includes ten bonus tracks which are mostly in the same vein and complement the album well. There is also a vinyl reissue on Radiation Records, but in my view, the bonus tracks give the nod to the CD. Summer of Lovers will consider this one a treasure—and one no longer lost!

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Pop Pioneer and “Lost Treasures” writer, Peter Marston is the leader of long-running power pop band, Shplang, whose most recent album, “My Big Three Wheeler” has been described as “the Beatles meet Zappa in pop-psych Sumo match.”  Peter has a new project in 2015 under the name MARSTON.   Marston have a track on the latest “Power Pop Planet – Volume 5” compilation just out now and available at:  www.PopGeekHeavenStore.com.

CHECK OUT SHPLANG out at this link:  http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/shplang

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LINKS:

Wikipedia:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwards_Hand

Discogs:  https://www.discogs.com/Picadilly-Line-The-Huge-World-Of-Emily-Small/release/1629841

Blog Post:  https://kossoff1963progandpsychrock.blogspot.com/2015/11/the-picadilly-line-uk-huge-world-of.html

Blog Post 2:  http://surfingtheodyssey.blogspot.com/2015/02/picadilly-line-1967-huge-world-of-emily.html

VIDEO:

 

EMILY SMALL:

AT THE THIRD STROKE:

I KNOW SHE BELIEVES (non-LP track)

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