Before his ascent to mass stardom in Wings, and after his initial taste of success with the Moody Blues (Laine was replaced by Justin Hayward in 1966), Denny Laine showed off his songwriting talents to an incredible level on this single released at the height of the flower power era. Laine also proved his r&b chops when his reading of Bessie Banks' "Go Now" became the first Moody Blues hit single, and that influence is apparent on this track, with an added dash of psychedelia.
from 1967...
DENNY LAINE - SAY YOU DON'T MIND
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6 comments:
Great! Never even thought of looking into Denny Laine's career before Wings, and didn't know he had a hand in Moody Blues'Go Now (shame on me).
Thanks for that.
As for the song itself, it's a nice enough taste of typical Flower Power Britpop of the mid-sixties. Nothing wrong with that of course.
Thanks for this great single. Is there any chance that you can post the b-side?
//Off
Nice! Colin Blunstone of the Zombies did a good version of this too.
The Denny Laine Electric String Band sessions from the BBC are pretty good too.
Wow, I think I may like this better than Colin Blunstone's version. Thanks for sharing, Derek!
Denny Laine's Electric String Band were one of the really sad "Should have been" bands of the late sixties. "Say You Don't Mind" is a great song, and I've always preferred this original to Blunstone's rather twee version. "Ask the people" is a B side which could almost have been an A-side on its own, and the follow up single, "Catherine's Wheel"/"Too much in love" was equally good.
Saw them once live, with Viv Prince on drums. Brilliant, but they didn't have enough material to complete a whole gig, such just did the same set, twice. A great evening nonetheless. One track I recall was "Machine Song" (or something). I wonder what happened to that.
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