The career of England’s Orange Bicycle was as commercially unsuccessful as it was brief. Thanks to a mistranslation of the text on a French EP’s cover, the psychedelic pop sextet has often been said to have had a chart-topping single in that country. In fact, Orange Bicycle had no hits, much less chart-toppers, anywhere on earth.
The group formed in 1967, though its members were already performing together as Robb Storme & the Whispers for several years before that. They released only one full-length album, an eponymous LP that came out in 1970, the year before they broke up.
However, they produced more music than this suggests. The Complete Trip, a new three-CD box, contains 63 remastered tracks, including both sides of the group’s Columbia singles, the French EP, and assorted other material unearthed in the decades since they disbanded. Despite all this, the album’s subtitle, The Complete Recordings 1967–1971, is a misnomer. Among the missing are tracks from BBC sessions, such as covers of Bob Dylan’s “She Belongs to Me” and Paul Simon’s “A Hazy Shade of Winter.”
The box comes with a 28-page booklet that details the band’s history and the management and promotional blunders that contributed to its demise. The music itself, however, reveals the primary reasons the group never gained traction. At the same time, it suggests why Orange Bicycle deserved more attention than it received.
To say that the group never established a trademark style would be an understatement. In fact, The Complete Trip sounds more like a multi-artist anthology than the work of one band. Besides dabbling in umpteen genres with its original material, Orange Bicycle covered everyone from Richie Valens (“Donna”) and the Rolling Stones (“Sing This All Together”) to the Fifth Dimension (“Carpet Man”), the Byrds (“Renaissance Fair”), and Leonard Cohen (“So Long, Marianne”), and its approach was as varied as its sources.
So was its artistic success rate. On the negative side, three Elton John covers, while competently performed, largely just ape the originals, though the group does deserve credit for releasing “Country Comforts” before John himself put it on a record. Also here are fluffy, inane instrumental covers of the Beatles’ “Penny Lane” and Herman’s Hermits’ “No Milk Today.” An enervated version of the Beach Boys’ “Farmer’s Daughter,” meanwhile, sounds like something you’d hear in an elevator or over a supermarket’s audio system.
On the other hand, “Hyacinth Threads,” the group’s first single and best-known number, occupies a satisfying space somewhere between Syd Barrett–period Pink Floyd and the Left Banke. Another winner is “It’s Not My World,” which feels like a cross between psychedelia and the groove that powers the Velvet Underground’s “Run Run Run.” (That number is credited just to multi-instrumentalist Wil Malone, one of Orange Bicycle’s three vocalists, who went on to become a music producer and arranger for acts such as the Who, Black Sabbath, and Todd Rundgren.). Among the other winners are “Hallelujah Moon,” which finds the group dabbling in baroque rock, and a reading of Bob Dylan’s “Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here with You” that could be mistaken for a Joe Cocker track.
If you’re a fan of late 1960s psychedelic pop, you’ll likely find more than a few of the tracks on The Complete Trip to be as likable as they are obscure. Just be prepared to find them interspersed with less laudable material.
A Covers Set from Indie Folk Singer David Huckfelt
Minneapolis-based David Huckfelt, whose vocals evoke a folk-music version of Willie Nile, has previously interpreted the work of other composers, such as on his excellent sophomore solo album, 2021’s Room Enough, Time Enough. However, on the new I Was Born, But…, his third LP, he takes a break from songwriting to deliver nothing but covers.
The production values, vocals, and musicianship on most of the CD’s 15 tracks recall Huckfelt’s former group, the indie-folk trio the Pines, which underscores what a large role he played in that outfit. Recorded live in a studio in Tucson, Arizona, the LP features producer Gabriel Sullivan on multiple instruments, including synths and guitar; former Bob Dylan accompanist Winston Watson on drums; Tucson’s Connor Gallaher on pedal steel, electric guitar, and dobro; and Giant Sand member Thoger Lund on bass. Subsequent overdubs by several musicians in Minneapolis helped to flesh out the performances.
The program encompasses material as varied as Jackson Browne’s “I’m Alive,” George Jones’s “The Race Is On,” and Bo Diddley’s “Who Do You Love.” The Jones and Diddley tracks don’t play to Huckfelt’s strengths, but the lion’s share of the numbers here are engrossing.
Highlights include “Changing of the Guards,” from Dylan’s underrated Street Legal; a version of Gordon Lightfoot’s “Early Morning Rain” that emphasizes its protagonist’s dire straits; a lilting rendition of the traditional “Little Satchel”; the affecting “Anything,” by Adrianne Lenker, lead singer and principal songwriter of the folk group Big Thief; and “NON Kars,” by indigenous artist Keith Secola, who guests on the track.
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Jeff Burger’s website, byjeffburger.com, contains more than four decades’ worth of music reviews and commentary. His books include Dylan on Dylan: Interviews and Encounters, Lennon on Lennon: Conversations with John Lennon, Leonard Cohen on Leonard Cohen: Interviews and Encounters, and Springsteen on Springsteen: Interviews, Speeches, and Encounters.
