LA native Mike Deasy had got the rock and roll bug at high school in the 1950s, and wound up the decade playing with Eddie Cochran and Richie Valens. By the early 60s he was an established member of Dick Clark's Caravan of All-Stars, and had also started to acquire a name as a session guitarist, his ability to read music greatly endearing him to clock-watching producers Before long he was contributing licks to sessions for legends such as Phil Spector and Brian Wilson, as well as countless also-rans. By 1966 he was one of LA's top guitars-for-hire, with the added cachet of actually liking rock and roll - unlike many of his jazz-loving contemporaries. Though his musical inventiveness was widely acknowledged, the hip, bearded Deasy cut an incongruous figure next to his pipe-smoking studio brethren, and by 1966 he'd fallen in with boy wonder Curt Boettcher. The restlessly ambitious and creative Boettcher had showcased his astonishing abilities as a producer and vocal arranger on the Association's colossal hits Along Comes Mary and Cherish, and welcomed the opportunity to collaborate on a putative Deasy solo project - not least because he was experiencing frustration getting his own recordings with the Ballroom off the ground.
The cast Deasy and Boettcher assembled for Friar Tuck and his Psychedelic Guitar reads rather like their phone books must have: the guitarist rounded up some of the hippest session cats in the city (including Ben Benay, Toxie French and Jerry Scheff, who later made the rare Goldenrod LP), while Boettcher recruited the other three-quarters of the Ballroom (Michele O'Malley, Jim Bell and Sandy Salisbury) as well as Dottie Holmberg, who'd been in his first group, the Goldebriars. The album they recorded may have been conceived and commissioned as a cash-in on the burgeoning hippie movement, but there are no peace and love clichés in the grooves Instead, it comprises deranged cover versions (including a spectacularly lethargic take on Sweet Pea, a recent hit for Roe), set to almost avant-garde guitar parts, with deranged mutterings and sounds endlessly floating in and out of the mix. Though the first side can be interpreted as skewed easy listening, the self-penned second side is a multi-layered suite that reveals fresh eccentricities on every listen.
Boettcher's vocal arrangements are rarely to the fore, but provide a constant ambient drone in the background, occasionally vying with Deasy's laid-back half-singing to unsettling effect. The overall atmosphere is of inscrutable, stoned humour, and - given that it was recorded in three different studios - the album is surprisingly uniform in conception and sound. It appeared on Mercury early in 1967, trailed by a 45 (Alley-Oop / Sweet Pea), but neither sold and Friar Tuck hung up his habit. Later that year Deasy recorded two rare sitar-driven 45s for the Vault label as The Flower Pot (included here as bonuses), before collaborating with Ry Cooder on another one-off solo project, the Ceyleib People's Tanyet. Boettcher, meanwhile (after working with many of the same musicians on Bobby Jameson's Color Him In LP) was soon at work on his 1968 masterpiece, the Millennium's Begin.
Friar Tuck and his Psychedelic Guitar was soon forgotten about by all but the most dogged pop-psych collectors, and Boettcher himself dismissed such projects in a 1974 Goldmine interview, stating: "I was kind of half demented myself, and usually didn't care what I was doing, as long as I was working and getting session money." The album's legend, however, has never stopped growing, and it stands today as a fascinatingly bizarre piece of the 1960s LA pop-psych jigsaw.
Liner-Notes
Tracks
1. Sweet Pea (Tommy Roe) - 3:16
2. Louis Louis (Richard Berry) - 4:41
3. Work Song (Nat Adderley, Oscar Brown Jr.) - 4:51
4. Alley-Oop (Dallas Frazier) - 5:10
5. All Monked Up - 2:52
6. Ode To Mother Tuck - 2:00
7. A Record Hi - 2:34
8. Fendabenda Ha Ha Ha - 2:29
9. A Bit Of Grey Lost - 2:41
10.Where Did Your Mind Go? - 3:37
11.MrZig Zag Man - 2:02
12.Black Moto - 2:03
13.Wantin' Ain't Gettin' - 2:05
14.Gentle People - 2:45
Alls songs by Mike Deasy except where stated
Tracks 11-14 as The Flower Pot
Personnel
*Mike Deasy - Guitar
*Ben Benay - Guitar
*Jim Helms - Guitar
*Butch Parker - Piano
*Mike Henderson - Organ
*Jim Troxel - Drums
*Jerry Scheff - Bass
*Toxie French - Vibes
*Curt Boettcher
*Jim Bell - Vocals
*Michele - Vocals
*O'Malley - Vocals
*Sandy Salisbury - Vocals
*Dottie Holmberg - Vocals
*Sharon Olsen - Vocals
*Dyann King - Vocals
*Alicia Vigil - Vocals
*Bob Turner - Vocals
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