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.
his Stratocaster and returned to England (in June ’71). Then the drummer went and formed another band called Beast, so Barry and I were there on our own. We were in the studio mixing something down when Jean Pierre came in and told us he had a telegram informing us that the record was at #7 in Italy. So Barry and I dragged in the French session man who played keyboards and arranged the strings on ‘Because I Love’and we used him when we went off to do the Italian Top Of The Pops, though it was just miming really.”
Despite of ‘Because I Love’ becoming a belated hit, Wigley and Mizen did not seriously entertain any thoughts of reforming the band, and Wigley too soon returned to England. John Turner explains that “Barry had also married a Bunny girl who, like Ken’s wife, was Australian, and they decided to go to Australia.”
“When Barry went back to England, I did the Rocky Cabbage thing as I was the only one left,” remembers Pete Mizen, who remained in Europe, where he recorded – with the aid of a session drummer – a single called ‘Birds Must Fly’ under the name Rocky Cabbage. Another Rocky Cabbage single, ‘Freedom’, was also issued,
though according to Mizen this is actually a Majority One recording.
Following the success of ‘Because I Love’, Majority One’s sole LP finally saw the light of day in late ’71, when it too was issued in France and Holland on the Pink Elephant label. It was also later issued in Germany on the Finger label in ’73. But by that late date, the ’60s rock ’n’ roll dreams of the musicians who had comprised The Majority and Majority One were well and truly over, with all but guitarist Pete Mizen packing up their instruments and getting proper jobs.
The Majority One saga may have ended with a whimper, but thankfully they left behind a superb album to serve as a testament to their remarkable talent. The Majority One album boasts amazing consistency despite being cobbled together from sessions that were recorded at various times between ’70 and ’71. Kicking off with the high-energy powerpop of ‘Feedback’, and showcasing such highlights as ‘Looks Like Rain’ and ‘I See Her Everywhere’ (both of which evoke nothing less than prime White Album-era McCartney), The Majority One album generally avoids all the excesses – long,
gratuitous guitar solos, strained hard-rock vocals, excessive song length – that marked so many albums released in the early ’70s. Indeed, the concise melodic songs, clever arrangements and energetic performances that distinguish The Majority One LP enable it to more than hold its own when compared to the finest late ’60s efforts of The Moody Blues, Bee Gees and other similarly inclined groups. Of course, these same qualities had limited commercial appeal when the LP was issued in the early ’70s, and this – along with the fact that there was no group to promote it – certainly contributed to the modest sales figures and ensuing rarity of the original album.
In 2005, RPM Records issued Rainbow Rocking Chair – a compilation of Majority One’s 1969-71 recordings and four years later Rev-Ola released The Decca Years 1965-68. The Majority/Majority One have now thankfully been rescued from continental obscurity and justifiably recast as one of the great lost pop groups of the late ’60s and early ’70s. Would things have been different had the group stuck it out in London and not opted for the easy living they enjoyed in France? Several members have long wrestled with that question, but in the end, it no longer matters. More than three decades since they called it a day, the music they recorded in the Paris suburbs remains some of the finest “English” pop-psych sounds you could ever want to hear.
Stefan Granados is the author of Those Were The Days: A History Of The Beatles Apple Organization 1967-2002, which is published by Cherry Red Books.
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