The Smoke seemed destined to be the greatest British band of the 60’s. Read on for their sad tale of record industry greed, radio station indifference, distribution mishaps, managerial exploitation, personal tragedy, substance abuse, mental instability, and an apathetic, capricious and philistine public…
Just kidding! They seem to be a classic 60’s case of one-hit wonders. I’d never heard this song until it popped up in my YouTube feed the other day. It became a big hit in Germany in ’67 (the year I moved, so I never heard it), but in England its progress up the charts was knee-capped by the BBC for drug references (the BBC did such a great job keeping young Brits off drugs). The most remarkable thing about this band is that not one of them did anything noteworthy before or after this song. Usually when you look into British bands with a hit during this period, you’ll find that at least one or two of them before or after played with someone you’ve heard of. But not these guys. Anyway, it’s a pretty good song and worth hearing.
I like it! Trying to think of who it reminds me of and I got nothing.
Yeah this is great!
Renfield is a bottomless well of vintage pop.
I can’t take credit for that one, it was all YouTube.
What did the BBC have against Sugar lumps? That is a good one. I wish Pete Frame’s family trees were indexed somewhere. Cliff Wade was also in the Beaver Brothers, Fickle Pickle, and the Roll Movement (according to Discogs), but no overlap even with John Mayall or Fleetwood Mac.
Thanks for finding the connections. I just checked Wikipedia, didn’t get as far as Discogs.
I’m surprised there’s no connection to Mayall or the Mac. There’s a decent chance that even your middle school football coach/history teacher played with them at some point.