Monday, November 20, 2006

Request
Family Dogg "The View From Rowland's Head" 1972

Family Dogg was a British vocal group best known for their harmony vocals.
The idea was born when the British singers of the Spanish groups Los Flaps and Diamond Boys Albert Hammond and Steve Rowland met for the first time at a concert in Madrid in 1965. In 1966 Family Dogg was formed in England with the participation of the singers Mike Hazelwood and Christine Holmes. The debut album A Way of Life was released in 1969 and the title track scored a number 6 hit in the UK Singles Chart.
In 1970 the group was renamed as "Steve Rowland and The Family Dogg". In April 1970 they got a Number 2 hit in the Netherlands with the song "Sympathy" previously recorded by the group Rare Bird in 1969. In 1972 Steve Rowland released a last Family Dogg album, View from Rowland's Head, with guest musicians like Chris Spedding on the guitar and Ireen Sheer as singer. ~ Wikipedia

Formed in the UK in 1969, the original line-up comprised Steve Rowland, Albert Hammond, Mike Hazelwood, Doreen De Veuve and Zooey. Rowland already had a chequered history as a film-maker, actor and continental recording artist before forming the Double R production company with Ronnie Oppenheimer. With the backing of Fontana A&R head Jack Baverstock, Rowland produced a string of hits for Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick And Tichand the Herd, while his company also recorded such artists as P.J. Proby, the Magic Lanterns and Amory Kane.After assembling a talented back-up crew, Rowland launched Family Dogg and soon scaled the charts with Way Of Life, written by Roger Cookand Roger Greenaway. Specializing in high harmony and classy covers, the Dogg followed up unsuccessfully with Paul Simon's Save The Life Of My Child and recorded an album of hit standards with backing by several members of the newly-formed Led Zeppelin Although the Dogg had considerable commercial potential they were clearly a studio group with a tendency to lose members at short notice. In July 1969, De Veuve was replaced by the glamorous ex- CHARLIE GIRL star Christine Holmes, and several months later Ireen Scheer took over Zooey's role. With Hammond and Hazelwood busy writing the 13-piece suite OLIVER IN THE OVERWORLDfor Freddie And The Dreamers, Rowland was forced to explain that his group was a concept which only came together occasionally before dissipating into individual projects. The UK music press, unconvinced by such rhetoric, made such sarcastic news item remarks as No change in Family Dogg line-up this week. Nobody was too surprised when the Dogg ceased operations early in the new decade.

6 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Great! Thanks a lot!

20 November, 2006 17:21  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

had the album for a long time but never knew the people or story behind it. when i read "With Hammond and Hazelwood busy writing the 13-piece suite OLIVER IN THE OVERWORLD for Freddie And The Dreamers" i thought i'd slipped into an alternate universe. Never saw Garrity & co in this light before!
QEF

06 June, 2008 02:53  
Blogger furrball said...

There were some differences between this and the U.S. version I remember - namely, the track "Forget It" which isn't here.
Does anybody have it?

Thanks for the post!!!

12 July, 2008 06:37  
Blogger gokker said...

A nice album, with some cool arrangements of RODRIGUEZ's tracks ("i wonder" , "like janis" etc) from his famous "COLD FACT" LP in buddah's SUSSEX subsidiary!!

25 October, 2009 22:24  
Blogger gokker said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

25 October, 2009 22:26  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

And Rodriguez diehards can find his song "Advice to Smokey Robinson" on _Rowland's Head_. I haven't heard a Rodriguez version of this- I think it's unique to the Family Dogg album.

10 February, 2011 08:13  

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