Blue Mink
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Blue Mink was a British five-piece pop group from 1969 to 1973.
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[edit] Career
Roger Coulam (organ) formed the band in the autumn of 1969, with Madeline Bell (vocalist), Roger Cook (vocalist), Herbie Flowers (bassist) and Barry Morgan (drummer). Most of the songs were written by Cook and Roger Greenaway.
Flowers, Morgan and the guitarist Alan Parker all worked with Coulam at London's Morgan Studios. The four of them recorded several backing tracks, with which Coulam approached soul singer Bell and Greenaway (who had been half of David and Jonathan) as vocalists. Greenaway declined, but put forward Cook (the other half of David and Jonathan).
The band's debut single, "Melting Pot" (written by Cook and Greenaway) was recorded with this line-up and released in November 1969; it charted at #3 in the UK Singles Chart. An album of that title was released early in 1970, at the same time as the second single, "Good Morning Freedom". This track was not on the first release of the LP; but it was added to subsequent pressings.
The members continued with their session work despite the success of the band. In March 1970, Cook and Bell appeared on Elton John's Elton John album; Elton John covered "Good Morning Freedom" anonymously on the Deacon Records budget compilation album Pick Of The Pops. In April, Cook and Greenaway played briefly in Currant Kraze, and together they continued to write songs like "You've Got Your Troubles", "I've Got You On My Mind" and "I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing". Other side projects included involvement with Alan Parker's band The Congregation; Herbie Flowers' contributions to Lou Reed's Transformer album; and the involvement of Flowers, Morgan and Parker in sessions with Pete Atkin in March 1971, that later appeared on his Driving Through Mythical America album.
The band's second album and their third single released on Philips Records in September 1970 were entitled Our World (the album was released as Real Mink in the U.S.). The band's next release was "The Banner Man" on Regal Zonophone in the spring of 1971. It reached #3 in the UK chart. The members' other projects now took priority until January 1972 when Blue Mink played two weeks at the Talk Of The Town club in London. Recordings from this engagement were released that March as the album Live at the Talk Of The Town simultaneously with the studio album A Time Of Change (renamed from Harvest to avoid confusion with Neil Young's new LP).
Ray Cooper (drums) and Ann Odell (keyboards) joined the band that summer and played on the single "Stay With Me" which charted at #3 in November 1972. By the time of Blue Mink's fourth album, Only When I Laugh, glam rock was supplanting the light pop sound of the last few years. The associated single, "By The Devil (I Was Tempted)", written by Guy Fletcher and Doug Flett, only reached #26 and the Top 10 single "Randy" in June 1973 was their last success.
Their final album, Fruity (January 1974) and the singles "Quackers" (January 1974) and "Get Up" (July 1974) failed and the band split up that autumn after a farewell tour of the United States. Elton John was among the celebrities present to say goodbye, introducing the band onstage at The Troubadour in Los angeles.
As a footnote, it is worth recording that when Capital Radio, one of the UK's first two Independent Local Radio stations took to the air in London in 1973, the station identity jingles which became very familiar to millions of listeners were written by Cook and Greenaway, performed by Blue Mink and orchestrated by George Martin. Appropriately, Madeline Bell had also sung the original jingles for Radio Caroline, the offshore pirate station that first went on-air in 1964, in the end successfully challenging the BBC's monopoly of British radio broadcasting.
[edit] Post Mink
- The Rimshots covered "Get Up", retitled as the disco single "7-6-5-4-3-2-1 (Blow Your Whistle)" in 1976, and had a huge hit.
- The various members of the band continued to have success individually when they left Blue Mink.
[edit] Album discography
- Blue Mink (1969)
- A Time of Change (1972)
- Live at the Talk of the Town (1972)
- Only When I Laugh (1973)
- Fruity (1974)
- Attention (1975)
- Compilation: Collection: Blue Mink (1978)
[edit] Sources
- The Guinness Who's Who of Seventies Music, (London: Guinness) ISBN 0-85112-727-4
