THREE BROTHERS:
EDEN KANE, PETER
& ROBIN SARSTEDT
Unique in British Top Forty history, the three Sarstedt brothers
had three separate careers across three distinct and different
eras of Pop. Andrew Darlington traces the stories of
Eden Kane, Peter Sarstedt and Robin Sarstedt…
It starts with Eden Kane, possibly the last of the sultry Pop teen-mag pin-ups to slip in under the wire, before the Beat Group Wave changed all the rules. He began life on 29 March 1942 as Richard Graham Sarstedt. Like Cliff Richard and Engelbert Humperdinck, he was born in India, where parents Albert and Coral were New Delhi civil servants. When Richard was a child, the family – including younger brothers Peter and Clive, plus their three sisters (Lorraine, Pam and June) – move to Kurseong, to run a Darjeeling tea plantation on the Himalayan foothills. He attends a boarding school until, with his father's death in March 1954, the family return to Britain. They settle in Norbury, Croydon, where young Richard attends Heath Clark Grammar School. Distracted from homework by the Bill Haley backbeat on the radio, like a thousand others, he learned guitar and formed the Fabulous Five, a skiffle-group with his brothers.
He supposedly appeared in a low-budget and now-lost film called ‘Drinks All Round’ (1960) – although I can find no trace of it, but fortuitously won a talent contest held at the Chelsea ‘Classic Cinema’ on the Kings Road, which resulted in him being signed by the contest adjudicators and management duo of Michael Barclay and Philip Waddilove – Simon Cowell-style. The product of careful planning, it’s said he adopted his stage-name from Orson Welles’ ‘Citizen Kane’, well, perhaps, but there are obvious Biblical overtones intended to resonate too, after all – thrown out of Eden, Caine becomes the world’s first murderer.
Never a hard Rocker, Eden’s swarthy photogenics and slicked-back quiff, with just a hint of Bad-Boy made him the ideal Teen Idol for the fan-mags and ‘Love-Story-In-Pictures’ romance-zines that regularly feature strip-tales ‘inspired’ by current hits. In that cosy contained very-English Pop world, Eden Kane was a gift for them, alongside Billy Fury and Cliff Richard who he’s now sharing tour-bills with… alongside Helen Shapiro. Larry Parne’s ‘The Big Star Show Of 1962’ saw Eden Kane in an immaculate white suit taking equal billing with John Leyton, Billy Fury and Karl Denver, with ‘Moody Guy’ Shane Fenton (he recorded Eden’s song “Fool’s Paradise” long before he became Alvin Stardust) and Joe Brown footing the bill – all for just 8s/6d, 6s/6d or cheap seats at 4s/4d.
It could be argued that he was ill-served by his record labels. The debut album, ‘Eden Kane’ (Ace Of Clubs ACL 1133) issued on Decca’s mid-price subsidiary, is largely a hits-so-far compilation, with ‘B’-sides such as Vandyke’s “Music For Strings” (and its c/w “I Don’t Know Why”), “Kiss Me Quick”, “I Told You’ and “A New Kind of Lovin’” under Kane’s ‘Ricky Sears’ aka, with “My Girl Sue” and “I’m Telling You” – written under the guise of his first names ‘R Graham’.
His second long-player – ‘It’s Eden’ (Fontana TL5211), boasts Les Reed arrangements, but is an unwieldy mix of standards – “Gonna Send You Back To Georgia” and “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes” with current hit covers “On Broadway” and “I (Who Have Nothing)” plus a touch of Motown with “Shoppin’ Around”. There were also a couple of EP Extended Play packages, ‘Well I Ask You’ (Decca DFE 6696) which is the hit plus its ‘B’-side “Before I Lose My Mind”, alongside “Get Lost” and its flip “I’m Telling You”. A second EP – ‘Hits’ (Decca DFE 8503), with Tony Barrow liner notes, simply gathers the four chart hits. But such treatment was largely the format imposed on Pop Stars by label managements who neither understood or greatly valued their ‘artists’.
Inexplicably Les Vandyke’s “House To Let” – ‘houseful of misery, houseful of pain’, replete with all his characteristic touches, and “Sounds Funny To Me” fail to register, leading to financial problems, and a change of label. “Like I Love You” became his debut single for Fontana in 1963 – accompanied by Earl Preston And The TTs, by which time seismic changes have taken place. The Merseybeat deluge had shaken Pop to its core. Yet Johnny Kidd & The Pirates had made a major chart-return under the Beat Group flag of convenience, Adam Faith acquired the Roulettes and a new run of hits, Billy Fury fronted the guitar figure on “Do You Really Love Me Too (Fool’s Errand)”, while even Cliff Richard concedes in a half-spoof way ‘you can dance, Twist and Shout’ on his “On The Beach”.
Music changes. And seven-and-a-half years later – in 1969 younger brother Peter (Eardley Sarstedt, born 10 December 1941) is making new waves in the singer-songwriter genre. He’d played back-up bass on Eden Kane shows, and briefly masqueraded as Peter Lincoln for a Major-Minor single “In The Day Of My Youth” c/w “My Monkey Is A Junkie” in 1967. But it was his debut single for United Artists that made me first take note.
“I Am A Cathedral” is a strongly enigmatic song, vaguely in the Donovan vein. But “Where Do You Go To, My Lovely?” is the song of a lifetime, where all the elements come most perfectly together. With its French café-flavoured sway and catchy vocal hook it’s a movie or a Harold Robbins blockbuster novel about a poor little rich girl with a secret history all the way from the ‘back streets of Naples’. As with Bobby Gentry’s haunting “Ode To Billie Joe” there’s internal dialogue and hanging questions that hint at a wealth of more. There are product brand-names used as social-status signifiers in a way that was ahead of its time – even her name, Marie-Claire, is a glossy fashion-magazine, and there’s what passes for the risqué nudge-nudge humour of her ‘cleverly-designed topless swimsuit’ that gives ‘an even suntan, on your back and on your legs’. Clear through to the poignant closing verse where the two kids who have ‘shaken off their lowly-born tags’ recognize each other, and part for the last time.
It was followed by “Frozen Orange Juice”, a playful summer record, at a time when ‘the sunny hills of Madrid’ were still considered as romantically exotic as Marrakesh would be. In the same way that Eden Kane was never a Rocker, Peter Sarstedt was never a bona fide hippie, his penchant for wide ties contrasts his luxurious Zapata moustache. Yet the record caught the mood of the time to perfection. Then there was “Take Off Your Clothes”. Where Radio One could just about live with a ‘cleverly-designed topless swimsuit’ they threw up their hands in horror at his lascivious tongue-in-cheek ‘my daddy is a priest, you know, and I am not a beast, you know’, such an invitation to immodesty – ‘stand as naked as nature intended’, deemed as sinful as advertising ‘Hot Chocolate’ on its pristine airways. Dooming a delightful single to chart failure. For Peter, there was to be no second bite of the Pop cherry, although his three albums from the period have considerable singer-songwriter merit.
For Eden Kane there were still occasional Golden Oldie and ‘Solid Gold Rock ‘n’ Roll’ tours with Marty Wilde, Mark Wynter, John Leyton and others. And even more bizarrely he resumed his acting career, with appearances in the ‘Star Trek’ franchise series ‘The Next Generation’, ‘Deep Space Nine’ (as a Cardassian) and ‘Voyager’, as well as uncredited roles in four movies ‘Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country’ (1991) as a Romulan, ‘Generations’ (1994), ‘First Contact’ (1996) and ‘Insurrection’ (1998).
EDEN KANE
1960 – ‘You Make Love So Well’ c/w ‘Hot Chocolate Crazy’ (Pye 7N 15284)
1 June 1961 – ‘Well I Ask You’ c/w ‘Before I Lose My Mind’ (Decca F 11353) no.1 for the single week of 3 August, 21 weeks on chart
14 September 1961 – ‘Get Lost’ c/w ‘I’m Telling You’ (Decca F 11381) no.10, 11 weeks
1961 – ‘Well I Ask You’ EP (Decca DFE 6696) with ‘Get Lost’, ‘I’m Telling You’, ‘Well I Ask You’, ‘Before I Lose My Mind’
18 January 1962 – ‘Forget Me Not’ c/w ‘A New Kind Of Lovin’’ (Decca F 11418) no.3, 14 weeks
10 May 1962 – ‘I Don’t Know Why’ c/w ‘Music For Strings’ (Decca F 11460) no.7, 13 weeks
1962 – ‘Eden Kane: Hits’ EP (Decca DFE 8503) with ‘Well I Ask You’, ‘Get Lost’, ‘Forget Me Not’, ‘I Don’t Know Why’
1962 – ‘House To Let’ c/w ‘I Told You’ (Decca F 11504)
1962 – ‘Eden Kane’ LP (Ace Of Clubs ACL 1133) with ‘House To Let’, ‘Kiss Me Quick’, ‘Well I Ask You’, ‘Before I Lose My Mind’, ‘I’m Telling You’, ‘Music For Strings’, ‘Forget Me Not’, ‘My Little Sue’, ‘Get Lost’, ‘I Told You’, ‘A New Kind Of Lovin’’, ‘I Don’t Know Why’
1963 – ‘Sounds Funny To Me’ c/w ‘Someone Wants To Know’ (Decca F 11568)
1963 – ‘Tomorrow Night’ (Geoff Stephens, Les Reed) c/w ‘I Won’t Believe Them’ (R Graham) (Fontana TF 398)
1963 – ‘Like I Love You’ (R Graham) c/w ‘Come Back’ (Fontana TF 413) with Earl Preston And The TTs
10 May 1964 – ‘Boys Cry’ c/w ‘Don’t Come Crying To Me’ (Fontana TF 438) no.8, 14 weeks
1964 – ‘Rain Rain Go Away’ (Les Reed, Tommy Scott) c/w ‘Guess Who It Is’ (Fontana TF 462)
1964 – ‘It’s Eden’ LP (Fontana TL 5211) with ‘Gonna Send You Back To Georgia’, ‘I Know A Man’, ‘Sticks And Stones’, ‘Smoke Gets In Your Eyes’, ‘Shoppin’ Around’, ‘Rain Rain Go Away’, ‘I (Who Have Nothing)’, ‘On Broadway’, ‘I Should Care’, ‘Charade’, ‘Guess Who It Is’, ‘The Last Leaf’
1964 – ‘Hangin’ Around’ c/w ‘Gonna Do Something About You’ (Fontana TF 508)
1965 – ‘If You Want This Love’ c/w ‘Have I Done Something Wrong?’ (Fontana TF 582)
1966 – ‘Magic Town’ c/w ‘The Whole World Was Crying’ (Decca F 12342)
PETER SARSTEDT
1967 – ‘In The Day Of My Youth’ c/w ‘My Monkey Is A Junkie’ (Major-Minor) as by ‘Peter Lincoln’
January 1968 – ‘I Must Go On’ c/w ‘Mary Jane’ (Island WIP 6028)
September 1968 – ‘I Am A Cathedral’ c/w ‘Blagged’ (United Artists UP 2228) arranger Ian Green, producer Ray Singer
5 February 1969 – ‘Where Do You Go To, My Lovely’ c/w ‘Morning Mountain’ (United Artists UP 2262) no.1 for four weeks from 26 February, 16 weeks on chart
1969 – ‘Peter Sarstedt’ LP (United Artists SULP 1219) with ‘I Am A Cathedral’, ‘Sons Of Cain Are Abel’, ‘No More Lollipops’, ‘Stay Within Myself’, ‘You Are My Life’, ‘Sayonara’, ‘Where Do You Go To, My Lovely’, ‘Blagged’, ‘My Daddy Is A Millionaire’, ‘Once Upon An Everyday’, ‘Mary Jane’, ‘Time Was Leading Us Home’, ‘Many Coloured Semi-Precious Easter Eggs’, ‘Time Love Hope Life’
4 June 1969 – ‘Frozen Orange Juice’ c/w ‘Aretusa Loser’ (United Artists UP 35021) no.10, 9 weeks
1969 – ‘As Though It Were A Movie’ c/w ‘Take Off Your Clothes’ (United Artists UP 35041)
1969 – ‘As Though It Were A Movie’ LP (United Artists UAS 29037) with ‘Overture’, ‘As Though It Were A Movie’, ‘Open A Tin’, ‘Step Into The Candlelight’, ‘Take Off Your Clothes’, ‘Letter To A Friend And Intermission’, ‘Overture’, ‘Boulevard’, ‘The Sunshine Is Expensive’, ‘The Artist’, ‘The Friendship Song (Hey Nena)’, ‘Juan’, ‘I’m A Good Boy’, ‘The National Anthem X Doors Close At 10:45pm’
1970 – ‘Without Darkness (There’s No Light)’ c/w ‘Step Into The Candlelight’ (United Artists UP 35075)
1971 – ‘Every Word You Say Is Written Down’ LP (United Artists UAS 29247) with ‘Every Word You Say’, ‘Down On The Flesh’, ‘You’re A Lady’, ‘Lay Down My Alibi’, ‘Let The Music Flow’, ‘Taxi Driver’, ‘Nexus’, ‘Mind Of Man’, ‘What Makes One Man Feel’, ‘Slow’, ‘Stand Outside Ourselves’, ‘Politics Is Showbusiness’, ‘Rain’, musicians include BJ Cole (steel guitar), Clive Sarstedt (slide guitar), Max Middleton (piano), Cozy Powell (drums)
May 1972 – ‘Every Word You Say’ c/w ‘What Makes One Man Feel’ (United Artists UP 35369) produced by Vic Smith, Clive and Peter Sarstedt
Peter Sarstedt died 8 January 2017
SARSTEDT BROTHERS
1973 – ‘Worlds Apart Together’ LP (Regal Zonophone SRZA 8516) with ‘A Way Leading Out’, ‘Kurseong’, ‘Mohammedan Girl’, ‘Here We Are In London Town’, ‘All Together Now’, ‘The Genuine Romanoff’, ‘You’re Just An Image’, ‘Searching For The Truth – Love Love Love’, ‘Sea Wall’, ‘Glory Glory’, ‘Catch The Next Train’, ‘World Apart Together’ with Eden Kane, Peter and Clive Sarstedt, produced by Tony Visconti with Dave Mattacks (drums), Roy Babbington (bass), Danny Thompson (double bass), Ray Cooper (percussion), Blue Weaver (piano), Mary ‘Opkins
ROBIN SARSTEDT
1963 – ‘There’s Lots More Where This Came From’ (Hal David, P Hampton) c/w ‘Three Cups’ (Meek) (Columbia DB 4996) As ‘Wes Sands’, produced by Joe Meek
1969 – ‘Lo Mucho Que Te Quiero (The More I Love You)’ c/w ‘Picture On The Wall’ (SNB/ CBS 3965) as ‘Clive Sands’
March 1969 – ‘Hooked On A Feeling’ c/w ‘Marie’ (Clive Sands) (SNB 55-4058) as ‘Clive Sands’
July 1969 – ‘Witchi Tai To’ c/w ‘In A Dream’ (C Sarstedt) (SNB 55-4431) as ‘Clive Sands’
December 1969 – ‘A Very Lonely Man’ c/w ‘You Made Me What I Am’ (Clive Sands) (CBS 4672) as ‘Clive Sands’
8 May 1976 – ‘My Resistance Is Low’ c/w ‘Love While The Music Plays’ (Decca F 13624) no.3, 9 weeks. Arranger Ian Green, producer Ray Singer
1976 – ‘Let’s Fall In Love’ c/w ‘So Long Lonely Nights’ (Decca F 13662)
November 1976 –‘Sitting In Limbo’ c/w ‘Love Is All I Need’ (Decca F 13677)
1977 – ‘Just Tell Her Jim Said Hello’ c/w ‘All Said And Done’ (Decca F 13705)
1978 – ‘Something For The Weekend’ LP (Decca TXS 130) with ‘My Resistance Is Low’, ‘Something’s Goin’ On’, ‘Written On The Wind’, ‘Down The Disco’, ‘Manhattan’, ‘Slip Away’, ‘Keepin’ My Head Above Water’, ‘French Waltz’, ‘Sitting In Limbo’, ‘Blackjack’, ‘Jewellery Store’, ‘Let’s Fall In Love’
PETER AND CLIVE SARSTEDT
1997 – ‘Asia Minor’ LP (Disky BX 880242) with ‘Dream Pilot’, ‘Teradactyl Walk’, ‘Glider’, ‘India’, ‘The River’, ‘Corigador’, ‘Vaguely Connected’
4 comments:
You forgot to mention Clive's early 70s albums for RCA, "Clive Sarstedt (aka "In A Dream")" and "Freeway Getaway"!
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