Tyrannosaurus Rex - "My People Were Fair And Had Sky In Their Hair... But Now They're Content To Wear Stars On Their Brows" 1968

Well, our concert last night was not what I had in mind or expected, which could be good I guess. I had a hard time hearing myself, the setup was not ideal, and our new drummer brought a computer instead of drums. Ah, this band is not what I think it is, so I will stop trying to reconcile it with my idea, and let it run its course:-)

Enough about that, here´s something light-hearted and organic to waft into your head like an early spring breeze...

Tyrannosaurus Rex - My People Were Fair And Had Sky In Their Hair... But Now They´re Content To Wear Stars On Their Brows

Regal Zonophone, 1968

I can´t help thinking of Satwa or something like that when I listen to this album. Two magical foresty sort of fellows creating a world of their own with simple acoustic means... It´s special if you like that sort of thing:-) I got this as a double "two-fer" LP, which I think is from 1972, with the album "Prophets Seers & Sages The Angels Of The Ages". That one is also nice in a similar vein, I may post it sometime. With these albums it´s easy to see where Devendra Banhart is getting his inspiration...

Wikipedia: "My People Were Fair and Had Sky in Their Hair... But Now They're Content to Wear Stars on Their Brows is the debut album by the British rock band Tyrannosaurus Rex (later known as T. Rex) and was released in 1968. The record features Marc Bolan on vocals and guitars, and Steve Peregrine Took on backing vocals, drums, pixiephone, and percussion. It also features disc jockey John Peel, who reads a Bolan-penned fairytale for the album's closing track, "Frowning Atahuallpa (My Inca Love)," which includes what must be one of the earliest "Hare Krishna" chants on a British pop record (two years before George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord").

The album's music is much influenced by Tyrannosaurus Rex' psychedelic contemporaries, and marks, for Bolan, a rejection of the electric guitar–led freakbeat music he'd been playing with his previous band, John's Children.

The album was recorded at Advision Studios in London in early 1968. Advision was the first studio in the U.K. with eight-channel recording equipment. This Advision eight-channel machine was a model 280 made by Scully Recording Instruments. It allowed for far greater recording flexibility than the standard 4-track recorders of the era."

"Bolan is the front man throughout, as he would be for most of his successful but troubled career. Peregrine-Took makes the whole thing work though, providing not only backing vocals (both harmonizing and alternating), as well as all manner of percussion including bongos, shakers of various sorts and a pixiephone (I do love hippies, I really do). Bolan sings and strums away on his acoustic guitar but mostly just engages in the act of being Marc Bolan. His haphazard approach is not unlike what I’ve heard on some of his later work like ‘Futuristic Dragon’, and especially some of the outtakes and alternate versions found on that album’s 2002 CD reissue.

Two of the songs here were written for Bolan’s previous psych band John’s Children (“Hot Rod Mama” and “Mustang Ford”). I haven’t heard those versions but I can’t imagine they sound much like these, which are both pretty much harmonized chanting by Bolan and Peregrine-Took, Took’s bongos, and some mild percussion. “Hot Rod Mama” coming at the beginning of the album results in the band appearing to mature as the record progresses. That song was written in late 1966 or early 1967, and has that sound so many bands around then did that isn’t quite modern rock, but is definitely beyond beat music and folk. I always refer to the Moody Blues’ ‘Go Now!’ as the standard of that sound. By the end of the record Bolan is chanting a Krishna on “Frowning Atahuallpa”, something that was still kind of new in 1968 but certainly consistent with Bolan’s penchant to being both eclectic and in-touch with current fashions.

The two put out three more albums after this one and before Bolan ditched Peregrine-Took to form the glam act T. Rex, but each of those records would successively lean more toward mass appeal, with Bolan even plugging in for the fourth and final Tyrannosaurus Rex album “A Beard of Stars”. Bolan of course would perish in an automobile accident in 1977. Peregrine-Took would die of a drug overdose in 1980.

[...] a great picture of Marc Bolan early in his career before he got so consumed with being a star instead of a musician; and before he got so caught up in his own hype." -from Progarchives.com

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