at a loss to explain why, offering with more than a hint of sarcasm that “it was a remarkable gift we had.”
One of the most impressive compositions to be recorded for the album was a song called ‘Rainbow Rocking Chair’. Bob Long, who wrote it, explains that, “It came from a book I was reading about astronauts. One of them remarked that the land was up and the sky was down, I thought what a great idea for a song. I will turn everything upside down, hence the rainbow.” To many listeners, this Lennon-inspired, dreamy pop- psych track certainly appears to be a striking evocation of an acid trip, but Pete Mizen downplays that notion, explaining how “We weren’t much of a drug band. A bit of marijuana perhaps – and very little of that. Very straight we were and very professional. In fact, I remember when we were promoting ‘Glass Image’in Monte Carlo. Jean Pierre arranged for us to do a promo where we were miming to the record on one of these six o’clock news magazine programs. Well, the presenter came into our dressing room about a half hour before we were on, and we were all polishing our shoes, cause we always did that, and we was very impressed by how conscientious and professional we were (compared to other rock groups of that era).”
In Nov ’70, Majority One inadvertently launched what would turn out to be a parallel career as the studio-only band, Black Label. “We did a TV show for a guy called Albert Raisner in France, who had this Saturday afternoon pop music show,” explains Pete Mizen. “It was all live and we were on it because he was a friend of Jean Pierre Rawson. We put together a medley of records that were in the British charts at the time. One of the songs was Dave Edmunds’ ‘I Hear You Knocking’, which had just come out, but which we knew was going to be big. Jean Pierre heard it and said he’d like us to put it out as Majority One, and we said no because we wanted to do all originals. ‘Alright,’ he uttered, ‘we’ll do it and put it out under another name,’ and it came out as Black Label, which was what we were drinking during the mix down. We released it with an original on the B-side and it sold a lot. We got a deal out of that with a French label and the next single we did was a version of Badfinger’s ‘No Matter What’ with an original on the flip and then another single called ‘Li Li’.”
Throughout the spring, Majority One continued to record tracks for their album, as well as for the Black Label project, but the group had essentially ceased to exist by the summer of ’71. Even though their future may have been uncertain, Jean Pierre Rawson continued to make international licensing deals for the band’s recordings. One of these deals led to the single ‘Because
I Love’/‘Get Back Home’ being issued in Holland on Pink Elephant in Sept ’71. To everyone’s surprise, the single made the Dutch Top 20 (#11) in October, became a Top 10 hit in Italy and was also a substantial chart hit in Brazil of all places. Ironically, the band had already split by the time ‘Because I Love’became Majority One’s long awaited chart hit. “There was no band left when the record made the charts,” explains Pete Mizen. “We had basically stopped working as The Majority. The Majority One singles had not done particularly well in France and we were all a bit fed up. Oddly enough, the Black Label thing was doing quite well and we were doing other stuff as well. Jean Pierre had lots of different artists that he worked with and we did a lot of session and production work for him. But gradually, we ended up not working. The Majority was originally a touring band and I don’t think Jean Pierre was all that interested in that aspect. He had us on a retainer and whatever we earned over and above that came to us as lump sums every now and again. When nothing was happening and we started doing studio work rather than live work, Barry, Bob and Ian I think decided that Wally was not pulling his weight musically so they sacked him. They had decided that he was redundant really as I had ended up playing the bass on most of The Majority One album.”
After Wally Andrews had returned to England, the band began to slowly drift apart. “By the summer, I ended up as the only person left in the band as everybody gradually went back to England,” recalls Mizen. “Bob was the next to go. He left when his wife had a baby, so he sold me
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140