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| CAT STEVENS-Matthew And Son/Granny U.K. Deram DM 110 1966 |
There are a multitude of cool Deram 45's by Cat Stevens, but this, his second for the label, is my favorite. "Matthew And Son"joins the ranks of loads of great U.K. mid 60's records that tackle the topic of the everyman and his workaday drudgery (The French Revolution "9 Till 5", Rupert's People "Reflections Of Charles Brown", The Kinks "Dead End Street" etc). It's also a classic example of some of the wonderful creative, orchestrated pop singles released on Deram in '66-'67. Like most of these, Steven's tune is sympathetic to the cause of our working stiff protagonist behind an array of brass and strings and his rapid fire vocal delivery with stellar arrangement by the famed "easy" listening arranger/producer/conductor Alan Tew is razor sharp. It's like the "Smithers Jones" 1966 in my book. It's flip, "Granny", to me is equally as powerful. With it's clockwork tapping behind a subtle build up of strings, brass, piano and some nifty jazzy guitar (dig the licks during the middle brass "solo") the whole thing falls into place.
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| Pop star Cat rubbing elbows with Cliff, Samantha Juste (aka Mrs. Dolenz) and Micky Dolnez |
Both tracks can be found on the Deram reissue CD of his debut LP "Matthew and Son"with a host of other 45 rpm bonus tracks (some in mono and stereo mixes).
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