Search - Overlanders :: Michelle: The Pye Anthology

Overdue CD from Underated 60s group

Lawrance M. Bernabo | 09/10/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"What an enjoyable CD! I had heard only Michelle & looked into this group, and now I think it is one of their weaker tracks!?Blending melodic pop, folk, country & dead-on harmonies, this CD is full of one toe-tapper after another. A kickin' version of Yesterday's Gone puts Chad & Jeremy's to shame. Other standout tracks such as Summer Skies & Golden Sands, Don't It Make You Feel Good, Rainbow only tell me how fickle the music market can be - these guys should have had numerous hits but didn't.Expect more of a folkie sound than rock'n'roll...but Searchers or Everlies fans should appreciate it. More reissue labels should take note of the 31 tracks!"

Great sixties folk-pop group

Peter Durward Harris | Leicester England | 04/13/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This British group, managed by Tony Hatch, took their name from a traditional Australian folk song. Much of their music was folk-based, but this did not prevent them from taking the opportunity to cover Michelle, a Beatles song, and have a British number one hit with it. Brilliant though it was, it is certainly not typical of their music. They remain one-hit wonders in every sense - no other single of theirs even scraped into the bottom of the chart.So if you're looking for more songs like Michelle, buy a Beatles album. If, however, you enjoy sixties folk-pop, you will find plenty hear to enjoy, including many original songs as well as covers of Gone the rainbow, Delia's gone, Along came Jones, Freight train, Cradle of love and Go where you wanna go. They also teamed up with another group, the Settlers, to cover Have a drink on me and a medley of folk songs called Pick a bale of cotton medley. It is clear from these covers where their roots were.Of their own songs, the opening Summer skies and golden sands is outstanding. For anybody interested in the sixties folk boom, this anthology is well worth checking out."

The best of the forgotten British Sixties folk-rock groups

Lawrance M. Bernabo | The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota | 07/31/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"It is amazing to me how many great groups from the past I continue to discover as I make my way through various CD collections of hit songs. The Overlanders are just such a group, combining folk sensibilities with the Merseybeat sound that you would have thought would have made them more popular. Because their only #1 hit in the U.K. was a cover of "Michelle" by the Beatles (which explains the title of this collection), many references to the Overlanders are as a cover band, but that is way off the mark. You will know that as soon as you listen to the first two tracks on this collection, because "Summer Skies and Golden Sands" and "Call of the Wild" were the two sides of the group's first single in 1963. Both songs reflect the way the Overlanders combined the guitar playing of rock 'n' roll with the harmonies associated with folk music.



The Overlanders were originally a trio composed of Paul Arnold (piano & guitar), Lori Mason (piano & harmonica), and Peter Bartholomew (guitar), with all three doing the singing. They were part of the British folk revival of the early 1960s and some of the tracks in this collection are pure folk music, most notably the lovely "Gone the Rainbow," which blows the familiar Peter, Paul & Mary version away. The group recorded with the Pye label, with Tony Hatch, who also worked with the Searchers as well as Petula Clark (his wife), producing their records. What you have on "Michelle: The Pye Anthology" are the group's records in the order they were produced. "Movin'" and "Rainbow" were the two sides of their second 45, while their third, a cover of Chad & Jeremy's "Yesterday's Gone" was ironically the first non-original song they released and their only chart success (#75) in the U.S.



With both the guitar playing and the vocal harmonies being well above average I am at a loss ot explain why we did not hear more of the Overlanders. "Don't It Make You Feel Good" is a better song than a lot of the British Invasion songs that made it to the Top 10 on this side of the pond and "Room Enough for You and Me" is pretty good too. In 1965 they evolved into a legitiamte beat group by adding Terry Widlake (bass) and David Walsh (drums) and had their big moment when the Beatles released "Rubber Soul." Lots of groups covers songs from the album (e.g., the Hollies did "If I Needed Someone"), but the Overlanders took "Michelle" to the top of the charts in the U.K. for three weeks in January 1966. The differences from the Beatles version are obvious, with the song being more of a rock song and not as light as what the Fab Four released. Some of you are going to find that you might actually like this cover a bit better than the original. The B side of the single, "Cradle of Love," is more representative of the group's sound, and reaffirms that the Overlanders usually had good songs on both sides of their 45s.



This is the only Overlanders album you need because this includes their complete recordings. The title makes it sound like they went on to record with another label, but that is not the case. After the success of "Michelle" the Overlanders returned to their folk routes doing familiar American folk songs like Woody Guthrie's "This Land" and "Pick a Pale of Cotton." You will get a chuckle out of "Circle Line Blues," which is obviously a London vesion of the Kingston Trio's "M.T.A." In the 1970s Arnold toured with the New Overlanders, who were strictly a folk group. But as you will hear in these 31 tracks, the Overlanders were much more than that. It is just too bad that what we have here is not just their best but everything that they ever recorded."