Wayne Fontana & The Mindbenders

Album review

Wayne Fontana & the Mindbenders never got the recognition to which they were entitled. Usually pegged as one-hit wonders in America for "The Game of Love"; as three-hit wonders in England for "Um Um Um Um Um," "The Game of Love"; and their sole big hit as a trio (post-Wayne Fontana), "A Groovy Kind of Love," they had a lot more in them than that meager run of successes would indicate. As this album reveals, they were a well-above-average R&B-based British band with their own way of embracing material as different as the Barry/Greenwich-authored "She's Got the Power," Chuck Berry's "Jaguar and Thunderbird," Curtis Mayfield's "Girl, You Don't Know Me," and familiar British Invasion single fodder like "A Certain Girl." They even turned in a gorgeous original, "One More Time," co-authored by Fontana and Eric Stewart. Fontana later squandered his reputation in an abortive attempt at a solo career, but when he was part of the quartet, he had a combination of power, sincerity, and class that was compelling. They weren't the most virtuoso band to come out of Manchester, either vocally or instrumentally, but they could put over a song with enough inspiration and spirit so that you had to enjoy what they were doing. Every so often they came up with a flourish in the singing, like on "Too Many Tears," "One More Time," and "Cops and Robbers," that comes as a surprise. This was a brilliant debut album, incorporating new songs and a few remnants from their early singles and EPs, making up a healthy cross-section of their sound in 1963 and 1964, which encompassed not only the sounds of Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, but also the songs of Dave Bartholomew and other New Orleans influences. The only thing missing was a concurrent hit single, their cover of Curtis Mayfield's "Um Um Um Um Um."

© Bruce Eder /TiVo