Monday, November 11, 2024

Kid Gloves - Kid Gloves (1972 us / uk, wonderful melodic soft country folk rock, 2010 remaster)



Kid Gloves was one of my favorite harmony bands, who were as good or better as all the others I recorded. They were a studio group that formed in 1971 and disbanded less than two years later-- they never did any live gigs.

The lead singer, Scottish-born Davey Pattison, was one of the best vocalists I ever worked with. I had first heard him in the blues band Sunday, with whom I produced an album in 1970.

I was fortunate to know Davey early on, so it was easy to get him to front a proposed studio group that also included the excellent Tom Parker, who was my go-to arranger at the time. Tom played keyboards in the new group, who also wrote most of the music and lyrics for their original material.

The other two terrif musicians I booked were Gary Taylor on bass and Andrew Steele on drums. They had both recently been pop stars as members of the very successful Herd with Peter Frampton. After that group came to an end, both become A-list session players and I was using them a lot, along with Tom. It also helped that they too could sing!

Because of the breadth of talent in the group, I decided to start them off with a full album. All the sessions were held at Morgan Studios in north London between September 1971 to January 1972, and engineered by Robin Black. The eventual album was released in June of 1972, in the US only. A kinda curiosity was that the group was originally called “Herrod The Dog”. That name was replaced by “Muscles” (!), and eventually they settled on the name Kid Gloves.

The album is outstanding and should have made the band stars. Unfortunately, as it turned out the US label Buddah Records, after claiming how much they loved Kid Gloves, was apparently hit with multiple cases of simultaneous pandemic Alzheimers, as they forgot they had the record. Zero promotion ensued, and the LP sunk faster than a meteorite landing in a lagoon at full speed!

Davey would later become very much in demand as a lead vocalist, singing with Michael Schenker, Ronnie Montrose and Robin Trower in the 80s and 90s. I also signed his mid-70s group Findo Gask and we cut another great album, with many of his own songs.
by Shel Talmy 
Tracks
1. Let Him Sing His Song (John Stewart's Song) - 3:38
2. My Friend John - 4:22
3. A Little More Peace - 3:37
4. She's A Lady (Sunderland Nell) - 3:28
5. Coming Back Too Soon - 3:28
6. Spilt Milk - 5:05
7. Talking In A Field - 3:07
8. Funny - 4:47
9. Love And Not Money - 4:40
10.And - 6:50
Music by Tom Parker, Lyrics by Hugh Murphy

Kid Gloves
*Gary Taylor - Bass, Guitar, Vocals 
*Davy Pattison - Vocals
*Tom Parker - Keyboards
*Andy Steele - Percussion, Vocals

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