THE NITE PEOPLE-Summertime Blues/In The Spring Time U.K. Fontana TF 885 1967It's a strange concept to think of "mod r&b/Hammond n' horns" records in '67, the year of all-things Hendrix, Summer of Love, The Pink Floyd and yes, Sgt. Pepper. But it happened. I can't tell you a thing about The Nite People, I've heard other tracks by them and they sound, to me, like another band when compared to this monster.
"Summertime Blues" bears little in common with the Eddie Cochran number, other than it's melody. The Nite People's version is an instrumental, led by organ and sax, propped up by some throbby bass. The organ is wailing, much like something by those U.K. heroes of the Hammond Wynder K. Frog (more on them some other time!), totally a classic floor filler. In grand U.K. 45 rpm tradition the flip sounds like a different band. Well maybe that's a bit of an overstatement, there's still horns and organ, but there's vocals too, somber and ethereal much like Keith Relf on The Yardbirds "Farewell" or "Only the Black Rose". It's actually pretty darn cool, especially the little horn lick after each chorus and the ending swirls into this semi-freaky organ and horns blast that reminds me of The Quik when they got "trippy" on their last Deram 45 (see older blog on that one). Sadly this hasn't cropped up anywhere, strange because the A-side has always commanded a heavy stack of mod moolhah when it was around (and mine didn't go away cheaply either).
"Summertime Blues":
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