ZOMBIES: ‘TIME OF THE SEASON’ 1968 FIRST PRESS 45 ON DATE ~ NICE BEAUTIFUL COPY!

Description

ZOMBIES: ‘TIME OF THE SEASON’ 1968 FIRST PRESS 45 ON DATE ~ NICE BEAUTIFUL COPY!
This week on EBay we are offering up this very nice, very clean, beautiful copy of The Zombies great hit ‘Time of the Season’. This is an original 1968 release on the small Date label, a division of CBS, and comes with its original Company sleeve.
This classic song was from the terrific Psych Pop album ‘Odessy and Oracle.’ It was written by keyboard player Rod Argent and recorded at Abbey Road Studios in August 1967 and still sounds fantastic to this day.
It has become one of the Zombies' most popular and recognizable songs, and an iconic piece of 1960s psychedelia that remains popular all these years later. The song has become "something of a counterculture anthem".
This single belongs in any collection of 60s rock and this is your chance to get a great, original copy for your record collection. The full album is a prized collector’s item, but this single contains that album’s best track.
In 2012, NME named the track the 35th-best song of the 1960s.
ARTIST: THE ZOMBIES
TITLE: ‘TIME OF THE SEASON’ b/w ‘FRIENDS OF MINE’
LABEL: DATE
# 2-1628
~ MATRIX: ZSP 139169 / ZSP 139170
PRESSING: ORIGINAL 1968 US RELEASE ON THE DATE LABEL
(Pitman Pressing, ‘p’ in runoff)
RECORDED: AUGUST 1967 Abbey Road Studios London
RELEASED: MARCH 1968
GENRE: PSCYCHEDELIC POP ~ SIXTIES ROCK
Both the record and the vintage Date sleeve are in excellent condition. The vinyl is nearly perfect on both sides. The only ‘flaw’ is that the prior owner wrote a small number 55 and the title neatly in ball-point pen in the top left corner of the sleeve and there is a small number 55 written on the label. (See pics). It’s done nicely and isn’t that big of a deal, but I thought it should be pointed out.
This is an original first US pressing on the cool green Date label. The label and sleeve look very cool together. This 45 sounds great. Bold, punchy 45 rpm sound. It still sounds amazing. Nothing else sounded like this on the radio back then.
Both the labels and the vinyl are very clean, other than the small writing, and it looks and sounds terrific.
I’ve had this in my personal 45 collection for at least 40 years now, and it’s time it found a new home.
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THE ZOMBIES STORY
The Zombies were an English rock band. The original band formed in late 1962 and consisted of Rod Argent, Colin Blunstone, Paul Arnold, Paul Atkinson, and Hugh Grundy. They got their roots singing and playing together at school and in church choirs. They were originally called The Mustangs, but soon picked the cooler and unusual name The Zombies.
They won a band competition sponsored by the London Evening News, and were signed to Decca. Shortly afterwards, they made their first, and arguably best, song "She's Not There". It was released in mid-1964 and sold well in the UK but even better in the States, reaching #2 on the charts.
The Zombies, like many other UK bands, went to America and joined the British Invasion. "Tell Her No" became their next hit in 1965. Next up was this single, released in 1965. ‘She’s Coming Home’ b/w ‘I Must Move.’
The Zombies' first album, ‘Begin Here’ was released in 1965. It had some great R&B covers and interesting studio effects for the time, such as the sounds of footsteps, odd drum sounds and a coin dropping. Almost a spooky, zombie like feel to it.
The Zombies continued recording original songs through 1965 and 1966, trying to re-capture the glory of their first 2 hits. Record sales were fair and the live gigs were popular, but the band was dropped by Decca. The band was all set to split and go their separate ways when CBS records offered them one last shot.
THE STORY OF ‘ODESSEY & ORACLE’
CBS set them up in EMI’s great, expensive, state of the art, Abbey Road Studios, where they recorded the classic album ‘Odessey and Oracle’ famously misspelled by Terry Quirk, a local artist who designed the cover and shared a flat with Rod Argent and Chris White at the time.
The story goes that CBS’s budget for the sessions was so low, it didn’t allow for hiring outside musicians, so Argent and his bandmates fooled around with the studio instruments themselves. According to Argent, they used John Lennon's Mellotron, which had been left in the studio after the Beatles' sessions for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. That gave the album a very modern, trippy, psychedelic sound. Also, the band wisely paid, out of their own pockets, to have the album mixed in Stereo. The results were aurally mind blowing for the time, early 1968. It was a very different album in many ways and a totally new direction for the band. When it was released in the Spring of 1968, it didn’t sell well, but it slowly gained momentum with the hip London swingers as well as American listeners and eventually became the pop/psych masterpiece it is today.
The Zombies, for some strange reason, were never very popular in their native England. "Time of the Season" was #1 in most Countries in the world, but it wasn't a hit in the UK.
The band, which was basically dissolved before recording the album, finally fell apart for good by the fall of 1967. They had been on the road for 3 years, managed very poorly and broke. Rod Argent went into production and started his own band ‘Argent.’ Colin Blunstone started a solo act that did well in Europe. The other band members dabbled in various music projects.
The album was released in the UK in the spring of 1968, after the band had formally broken up, and got very little promotion or attention. CBS hated it. Musician Al Kooper, working as an A&R man for CBS at the time, had to personally insist it be released in America; he thought it was terrific.
In America, the track "Time of the Season", written by Argent, was released as a single in 1968 and wasn’t immediately successful, but, it had that special something. There’s a legend going around that a lone DJ in Boise Idaho constantly played the song on the air and it grew in popularity from that; one radio station at a time. The record wasn’t promoted in the US. Its psychedelic ripples just spread out further and further from Boise and it became a hit on its own merit.
You’ve got to admit, those little percussive details, that great bass-line, the hand-claps, the great fast-paced psychedelic keyboard improvisation jam, and those breathy vocal ‘ahhhs’ became an unforgettable Ear Worm, and by 1969, almost a year after its release, it became a major hit, reaching #3 on the charts. Now, it’s a timeless classic.
The chorus - "It's the time of the season for loving..." is very short, just eight seconds and is repeated three times. That's just 24 seconds of chorus, but that minimalist approach gave that single line tremendous impact, resonating with listeners at a time of social and political turmoil, and Viet Nam in America.
The famous lyrics, "What's your name, who's your daddy, is he rich like me?" are a nod to the Gershwin standard "Summertime," one of Rod’s favorites, which The Zombies released on their first album. That song contains the lyrics, "Your daddy's rich and your mama's good looking."
The title of the song happened because Rod Argent apparently misheard a lyric in a Smokey Robinson song, thinking Smokey sang ‘Time of the Season’. Although not what Smokey sang, it was a great song title.
The great album ‘Odessey and Oracle’ from 1968 has become a psychedelic pop classic and was ranked number 100 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.
The Zombies were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2019.
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