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THE ZOMBIES - ODESSY AND ORACLE by Johnny Black
With their career on a downward plunge, the Zombies had extricated themselves from their Decca Records deal, and then keyboardist Rod Argent and bassist Chris White took a proposal to CBS. “We had already decided to break up,” remembers Rod, “but we wanted to make a swan song album and produce it ourselves. We explained exactly that to CBS and asked would they fund us?”
Colin Blunstone, however, remembers the CBS deal as, “Simply a way to make a second album. It should have been a new start for The Zombies.” With an advance of £1000 they moved into Abbey Road.
Unquestionably, Abbey Road boasted the best studios, equipment and staff of any UK facility at the time. The other side of the coin though, was that it was run like a factory with maximum three hour sessions, strictly observed lunch-breaks, and close down at 10.00 lest neighbours complain about the noise.
“We were overdubbing harmonies on my song Changes,” remembers Chris, “when three guys in white overalls came in to remove the piano because we were five minutes over time. We could hear all this ‘Left a bit’ and ‘To you Charlie’ stuff, but we had to keep singing because it was the middle of a take and time was money.”
The last song written and recorded for the album was Time Of The Season. Composed quickly by Rod in a few hours, it became the final battle ground between Rod and Colin.
“The bass riff is Stand By Me, although I didn’t copy it consciously,” says Rod. “There’s a very unusual chord sequence going into the major at the end of the chorus. Originally we had a rhythm section under that but after we’d recorded it we decided to cut out the rhythm section and leave just that a capella bit. I remember when I played it to Chris I said that I felt it could be a hit.” Colin didn’t.
“I was incredibly dogmatic about things in those days,” admits Rod. “If I wrote a melody I wanted it sung exactly the way I’d written it. I’d make Colin do it over and over, and he got pissed off. Finally he shouted, ‘Look, if you’re so bloody good, you sing it.’ I must have been insufferable. But we stuck with it and in the end, in a very bad mood, he sang it beautifully.”
The album was completed, and the band was convinced of its quality, but CBS showed little interest in promoting it. Paul Atkinson was the first to voice everybody’s despair when he said "Look guys, it’s time for me to do something else.” Aware that Colin’s heart was no longer in it Rod said, "Well, if Paul’s going to leave I think we should finish the band.”
“I didn't say anything,” remembers Colin. “It wasn't very dramatic. The album was in the can and everyone just split.” It was hard for anyone to become more dismayed with the project, even when artist Terry Quirk delivered a psychedelic painting for the album cover on which the title, Odyssey & Oracle, was mis-spelled. It was simply left that way.
The album limped out in the UK during April of 1968 but CBS’ American parent company turned it down. By then Rod and Chris were planning the band that would become Argent. Colin had returned to his first job, at the Sun Alliance Insurance Company. Hugh was selling cars and Paul, after a brief flirtation with session work, was learning to be a computer programmer.
The end.
No. Former leader of Blood Sweat & Tears, Al Kooper, had been working for CBS in New York as an A&R man. On a trip to England he picked up a copy of Odessey. Loving what he heard, he insisted that CBS America should release it. His first choice for a single was Butcher’s Tale, an abrasive anti-war anthem which he considered topical. It bombed, as did several subsequent singles.
It wasn’t until early in 1969 that, as a last gasp, CBS released Time Of The Season. Chris and Rod were in America, negotiating a deal for Argent when “It registered six sales in one day in Boise, Idaho,” says Chris. “That was all it took to get the CBS machinery into gear. They sniffed a hit.“ By April it had sold over a million copies.
Immediately CBS applied pressure to have the band re-form. “I think Colin would have loved to do it,” says Rod. “He knew insurance was a mistake. Chris was involved with me in Argent, but I think he’d have done either, actually. I was the stumbling block. Going back just to make a few quick bucks seemed false to me and didn’t even seem good commercial sense in the long run.”
Feb 22, 1969. The Zombies new single Time Of The Season enters the Billboard US Singles Charts, on its way to No3.
Rod Argent (The Zombies) : It was the last thing we wrote for our album, Odessey And Oracle, and one of the quickest things I’ve ever done. I wrote it in just a few hours at the flat I shared with our guitarist Chris White in Woodside Park, Finchley.
Lyrically, it doesn’t mean very much. I tend just to put words and phrases together that have resonance for me. It’s not a story, and it’s not about a real person. I like that line about ‘pleasured hands”. I was fond of that.
It had one of those broken sort of rhythms, which was a bit unusual. He bass riff is Stand By Me, although I didn’t copy it consciously. There a very unusual chorus chord sequence going into the major at the end. Originally we had a rhythm section under that but it was a production decision after we’d recorded the track to cut out the rhythm section so you just had that a capella bit.
I remember playing it to Chris just before we recorded it. I remember saying to him “I’ve got the last track, and I think this could be a hit” a feeling that obviously wasn’t shared by CBS because they put it out as the sixth single, a sort of last gasp.
Geoff Emerick produced Time Of The Season, and Peter Vince mixed it. A lot of the rest was produced by Peter Vince, a lovely man. We used Mellotrons and synths, exploring all these new things. I’ve since learned that we were one of the first non-EMI artists to come in and use Abbey Road.
But the song became a hit just as The Zombies were ending, and I was really full of trying to get Argent off the ground so, in that context, having a big hit with Time Of The Season seemed fantastic. It meant I could go into CBS in America coming off the back of a huge hit record to negotiate a deal for Argent.
Also my own insecurities were assuaged. I’d been through a down period with the Zombies, but this was proof that I could still be involved in something successful. I could still write hit songs. We were only ever in it for one reason, which was to make good music. Obviously we wanted to make as much money as possible as well, but the music was the primary factor.
The only slight problem that the success of Time Of The Season gave me was that there was immediate pressure to re-form The Zombies. I think Colin would have loved to have done it, because he had realised that insurance, which he’d gone into, was a mistake. But our guitarist Chris White was still involved with me in the Argent thing, and I think he’d have done either, actually, but he could see the value of generating something new. I think that going back just to make a few quick bucks seemed a bit false to me and didn’t even seem like good commercial sense in the long run.
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With their career on a downward plunge, the Zombies had extricated themselves from their Decca Records deal, and then keyboardist Rod Argent and bassist Chris White took a proposal to CBS. “We had already decided to break up,” remembers Rod, “but we wanted to make a swan song album and produce it ourselves. We explained exactly that to CBS and asked would they fund us?”
Colin Blunstone, however, remembers the CBS deal as, “Simply a way to make a second album. It should have been a new start for The Zombies.” With an advance of £1000 they moved into Abbey Road.
Unquestionably, Abbey Road boasted the best studios, equipment and staff of any UK facility at the time. The other side of the coin though, was that it was run like a factory with maximum three hour sessions, strictly observed lunch-breaks, and close down at 10.00 lest neighbours complain about the noise.
“We were overdubbing harmonies on my song Changes,” remembers Chris, “when three guys in white overalls came in to remove the piano because we were five minutes over time. We could hear all this ‘Left a bit’ and ‘To you Charlie’ stuff, but we had to keep singing because it was the middle of a take and time was money.”
The last song written and recorded for the album was Time Of The Season. Composed quickly by Rod in a few hours, it became the final battle ground between Rod and Colin.
“The bass riff is Stand By Me, although I didn’t copy it consciously,” says Rod. “There’s a very unusual chord sequence going into the major at the end of the chorus. Originally we had a rhythm section under that but after we’d recorded it we decided to cut out the rhythm section and leave just that a capella bit. I remember when I played it to Chris I said that I felt it could be a hit.” Colin didn’t.
“I was incredibly dogmatic about things in those days,” admits Rod. “If I wrote a melody I wanted it sung exactly the way I’d written it. I’d make Colin do it over and over, and he got pissed off. Finally he shouted, ‘Look, if you’re so bloody good, you sing it.’ I must have been insufferable. But we stuck with it and in the end, in a very bad mood, he sang it beautifully.”
The album was completed, and the band was convinced of its quality, but CBS showed little interest in promoting it. Paul Atkinson was the first to voice everybody’s despair when he said "Look guys, it’s time for me to do something else.” Aware that Colin’s heart was no longer in it Rod said, "Well, if Paul’s going to leave I think we should finish the band.”
“I didn't say anything,” remembers Colin. “It wasn't very dramatic. The album was in the can and everyone just split.” It was hard for anyone to become more dismayed with the project, even when artist Terry Quirk delivered a psychedelic painting for the album cover on which the title, Odyssey & Oracle, was mis-spelled. It was simply left that way.
The album limped out in the UK during April of 1968 but CBS’ American parent company turned it down. By then Rod and Chris were planning the band that would become Argent. Colin had returned to his first job, at the Sun Alliance Insurance Company. Hugh was selling cars and Paul, after a brief flirtation with session work, was learning to be a computer programmer.
The end.
No. Former leader of Blood Sweat & Tears, Al Kooper, had been working for CBS in New York as an A&R man. On a trip to England he picked up a copy of Odessey. Loving what he heard, he insisted that CBS America should release it. His first choice for a single was Butcher’s Tale, an abrasive anti-war anthem which he considered topical. It bombed, as did several subsequent singles.
It wasn’t until early in 1969 that, as a last gasp, CBS released Time Of The Season. Chris and Rod were in America, negotiating a deal for Argent when “It registered six sales in one day in Boise, Idaho,” says Chris. “That was all it took to get the CBS machinery into gear. They sniffed a hit.“ By April it had sold over a million copies.
Immediately CBS applied pressure to have the band re-form. “I think Colin would have loved to do it,” says Rod. “He knew insurance was a mistake. Chris was involved with me in Argent, but I think he’d have done either, actually. I was the stumbling block. Going back just to make a few quick bucks seemed false to me and didn’t even seem good commercial sense in the long run.”
Feb 22, 1969. The Zombies new single Time Of The Season enters the Billboard US Singles Charts, on its way to No3.
Rod Argent (The Zombies) : It was the last thing we wrote for our album, Odessey And Oracle, and one of the quickest things I’ve ever done. I wrote it in just a few hours at the flat I shared with our guitarist Chris White in Woodside Park, Finchley.
Lyrically, it doesn’t mean very much. I tend just to put words and phrases together that have resonance for me. It’s not a story, and it’s not about a real person. I like that line about ‘pleasured hands”. I was fond of that.
It had one of those broken sort of rhythms, which was a bit unusual. He bass riff is Stand By Me, although I didn’t copy it consciously. There a very unusual chorus chord sequence going into the major at the end. Originally we had a rhythm section under that but it was a production decision after we’d recorded the track to cut out the rhythm section so you just had that a capella bit.
I remember playing it to Chris just before we recorded it. I remember saying to him “I’ve got the last track, and I think this could be a hit” a feeling that obviously wasn’t shared by CBS because they put it out as the sixth single, a sort of last gasp.
Geoff Emerick produced Time Of The Season, and Peter Vince mixed it. A lot of the rest was produced by Peter Vince, a lovely man. We used Mellotrons and synths, exploring all these new things. I’ve since learned that we were one of the first non-EMI artists to come in and use Abbey Road.
But the song became a hit just as The Zombies were ending, and I was really full of trying to get Argent off the ground so, in that context, having a big hit with Time Of The Season seemed fantastic. It meant I could go into CBS in America coming off the back of a huge hit record to negotiate a deal for Argent.
Also my own insecurities were assuaged. I’d been through a down period with the Zombies, but this was proof that I could still be involved in something successful. I could still write hit songs. We were only ever in it for one reason, which was to make good music. Obviously we wanted to make as much money as possible as well, but the music was the primary factor.
The only slight problem that the success of Time Of The Season gave me was that there was immediate pressure to re-form The Zombies. I think Colin would have loved to have done it, because he had realised that insurance, which he’d gone into, was a mistake. But our guitarist Chris White was still involved with me in the Argent thing, and I think he’d have done either, actually, but he could see the value of generating something new. I think that going back just to make a few quick bucks seemed a bit false to me and didn’t even seem like good commercial sense in the long run.