Release Date: 23 May 2025
Label: Grapefruit / Cherry Red
Packaging Type: Digipak
No of Units: 3
Barcode: 5013929195721
Description
• 3CD anthology of recordings from British harmony pop maestro John Carter and friends under their flower-power era guise The Flower Pot Men.
• Includes Summer of Love hit 'Let's Go To San Francisco', further 45s (some using alternative period aliases), two unreleased-at-the-time concept albums and several tracks now gaining their first-ever issue.
• Inspired equally by the Haight-Ashbury scene, the worldwide Summer of Love and Brian Wilson's recent groundbreaking work, in mid-1967 former Ivy Leaguers John Carter and Ken Lewis pieced together the hugely ambitious, six-minute 'Let's Go To San Francisco'.
The result was a UK Top Five hit, a success that encouraged Carter to record more material in the same vein including follow-up 'A Walk In The Sky', which flopped at home but became another Top Ten hit in mainland Europe.
When psychedelia withered and died, Carter abandoned the name in public but continued to work on a brace of Moody Blues-style concept albums that failed to appear at the time.
A four-hour set, ‘Midsummer Dreaming’ gathers up all four Flower Pot Men singles, those two aborted albums and sundry other material that either didn't gain a release or was issued under other aliases, such as the highly regarded 'Mythological Sunday' (credited to Friends) and 'Midsummer Deaming' (John Carter & Russ Alquist).
An essential item for lovers of intelligent, melodic, harmony-based late 60s British pop and psychedelia, ‘Midsummer Dreaming’ includes five hitherto-unissued studio tracks as well as a brace of late 1967 Radio 1 sessions that are also gaining their first-ever official issue.
Tracklisting
DISC ONE
1 Let's Go To San Francisco Parts 1 and 2 (original mono version)
2 Mythological Sunday (John Carter lead vocal)
3 A Walk In The Sky
4 Blow Away
5 Say Goodbye To Yesterday
6 Now And Then
7 Cooks Of Cake And Kindness
8 Children Of Tomorrow
9 Mythological Sunday (Tony Burrows lead vocal)
10 Midsummer Dreaming
11 Let's Go To San Francisco Parts 1 and 2 (stereo mix)
12 E=MC2/Musha Hada
13 Let's Go To San Francisco* BBC session
14 California Dreamin'* BBC session
15 Flowers Never Bend With The Rainfall* BBC session
16 Don't Worry Baby* BBC session
17 A Walk In The Sky* BBC session
1 Single, Deram DM 142, released August 1967
2 Alternative version of Peace track, recorded 1968, unreleased at the time
3 Single, Deram DM 160, released November 1967
4-8 Alternative versions of Peace and Past Imperfect tracks, unreleased at the time, recorded 1969-1970
9 Single, credited to Friends (Tony Burrows lead vocal), Deram DM 1968, released July 1968
10 Single, credited to John Carter & Russ Alquist, Spark SRL 1017, released October 1968 11 Later stereo mix, unreleased at the time
12 From the musical Seasons, recorded c. 1970, unreleased at the time
13-14 BBC session, recorded September 1967
15-17 BBC session, recorded November 1967
DISC TWO
1 Prologue
2 These Heavy Times
3 Mythological Sunday
4 Colours
5 Blow Away
6 Cooks Of Cake And Kindness
7 Gotta Be Free
8 Heaven Knows When
9 White Dove
10 Epilogue
11 Now And Then
12 Say Goodbye To Yesterday
13 Memories Of Tomorrow
14 Autumn Love
15 Morning Prayer
16 Blues
17 I Am Me
18 Journey's End
19 All I Have Is You
20 Brave New World
21 Children Of Tomorrow
1-10 The album Peace, recorded 1968-69, unreleased at the time
11-21 The album Past Imperfect, recorded 1970, unreleased at the time
DISC THREE
1 The Laughing Man
2 Mr. Light
3 Magic People
4 In The Sky
5 Conversations (In A Station Light Refreshment Bar)
6 A Letter To Josephine
7 Tahiti Farewell
8 Pantomime People
9 A Night To Be Remembered
10 Goodbye To Rosalie
11 Sunday In The Park
12 Going Round And Round
13 Life Is Living
14 Roberto Billow
15 When I Was Born
16 Rain, Rain, Rain (John Carter lead vocal version)
17 Going Nowhere*
18 I Think I'll Be Leaving Tonight* (Tony Burrows lead vocal)
19 Land Of Love*
20 Take Me Along*
21 Lady Of The Blue Lagoon*
22 Am I Losing You
23 Man Without A Woman
24 You Can Never Be Wrong
25 In A Moment Of Madness
26 Young Birds Fly
1 Single, credited to John Carter & Russ Alquist, Spark SRL 1017, released October 1968
2-5 Demos, recorded circa 1968, unreleased at the time
6 Single, credited to The Haystack, United Artists UP 35024, released June 1969
7-8 Single, credited to The Haystack, United Artists UP 35035, released September 1969
9 Single, credited to Dawn Chorus, MCA-UK MK 5004, released October 1969
10-16 Demos, recorded circa 1968, unreleased at the time
17-21 Demos, recorded circa 1968, previously unreleased
22 Single, Deram DM 160, released November 1967
23-24 Single, Deram DM 183, released April 1968
25-26 Single, Deram DM 248, released March 1969 * previously unreleased
Various Artists
Various Artists
Uriah Heep
Tina Turner
Tina Turner
The Fall
Tangerine Dream
Status Quo
