Fact #102953

To inspire him to write a single for his band, Zombies keyboardist Rod Argent had settled down in his mum's front room with a pile of old blues albums. The needle clicked onto a John Lee Hooker album, and Rod took note of the title, No-one Told Me. "I just liked the sound of it, so that became my first line." Musically, he remembered a chord sequence from Brian Hyland's Sealed With A Kiss. "It went from D to D minor but with unusual root bass notes. I liked the sound of that little change so I started messing with it on the piano."

Realising that, in Colin Blunstone, he had a vocalist who could hit a top A, Rod constructed the song to build in excitement and end on that high note. "And the piano solo was, er, just because it was my song."

Chris White recalls how, "When Rod played She's Not There to Ken, it was shorter, with a longer piano break, and Ken suggested going back to the verse again. Rod had to write another verse."

Chris meanwhile had come up with a driving b-side, You Make Me Feel Good, and on 12 June they headed for West Hampstead. "Ken was producing and we were given a great engineer," remembers Blunstone.

Gus Dudgeon (engineer) : The producer just turned around and said, 'Right, it's time for you to take over.' I wound up continuing to do all their sessions after that. As an engineer, that was my first No. 1 hit.

Colin Blunstone : He had been out drinking and by the time we started in the evening he had become downright intimidating! Rod had to sing a little "aah haa" in You Make Me Feel Good, and coming through the headphones very loud was this engineer yelling 'If you are going to fucking aah, fucking hell, fucking aahh'. Luckily, he then passed out and had to be carried away."
(Source : not known)