One of many earliest, most noteworthy chart battles within the UK was fought between Bayswater-based The Foundations and their north London contemporaries The Equals, with each bands striving to be the primary mixed-ethnicity outfit to make it to primary. The previous’s debut launch, “Child, Now That I’ve Discovered You”, triumphed when it reached the highest spot in November 1967, eight months earlier than their rivals’ “Child, Come Again” adopted swimsuit.
The victors had been honing their craft in golf equipment and dancehalls for 2 years as The Ramongs and The Ramong Sound. A change of identify introduced success, however the template remained the identical: upbeat soul with singalong, pop-minded aspirations, but infused with the edgier, grittier parts of Booker T & The MG’s or the home band at Motown’s Hitsville energy base.
Whereas The Foundations solely troubled the High 20 on 4 events, the business bounciness of their chart-topper, plus “Again On My Ft Once more”, “Construct Me Up Buttercup” – extra of which later – and “In The Dangerous, Dangerous Outdated Days” solely tells a part of the story outlined on this 3CD anthology. They’re significantly of their factor on the frenzied “Jerkin’ The Canine” (beforehand a minor US hit for R&B showman The Mighty Hannibal), and the mod strut of “Mr Persona Man”. For the fullest, most vivid portrait of the band of their pomp, the inclusion on this set’s third disc of the ’68 stay album Rocking The Foundations is difficult to beat. From the Hammond-led funk of the Freddie Scott music that offers this compilation its title, to the horn-blasting howl of Edwin Starr’s “Cease Her On Sight”, it’s a masterclass in how you can confidently throw soul-infused shapes throughout a dance ground.
All was not properly within the ranks, nevertheless. Shortly earlier than the album’s launch, singer Clem Curtis introduced he was quitting to attempt his luck as a solo artist within the US (the place he was briefly mentored by Sammy Davis Jr, and performed a Las Vegas residency opening for the Righteous Brothers). Diplomatically, he hung round to assist run auditions for his substitute, the gig finally going to Colin Younger. The brand new boy’s arrival noticed the discharge of the group’s second-biggest hit; like its predecessors, “Construct Me Up Buttercup” got here from the pen of their longtime producer Tony Macaulay (writing in tandem with Manfred Mann’s personal new singer, Mike D’Abo), its construction deliberately aping materials Holland-Dozier-Holland had been fashioning for The 4 Tops – a ploy rewarded by a spell at No 1 within the American commerce journal Money Field chart.
However the relationship with Macaulay was changing into more and more strained, largely due to his reluctance to permit the group to contribute self-penned materials. The recording of 1969’s Digging The Foundations displeased some members, sad with having to play, particularly, a model of “Let The Heartaches Start”, the Macaulay ballad that had been a UK No. 1 for Lengthy John Baldry two years earlier (knocking “Child, Now That I’ve Discovered You” off the highest spot, actually) and the producer’s light-weight “That Similar Outdated Feeling”, which might later see chart motion when coated by Pickettywitch.
To be honest, The Foundations’ overhaul of the Baldry monitor has so much going for it; a quickening of tempo provides the music the air of an early Drifters hit with a smidgen of The Isley Brothers on the aspect, whereas the identical album’s “Take Away The Vacancy” possesses the finger-clicking fizz of Chairmen Of The Board at their greatest. Ties with Macaulay had been severed the next 12 months (he would go on to put in writing million-sellers for David Soul), and though singles like “Take A Woman Like You”, the theme music to the Hayley Mills film of the identical identify, adhered intently to the Macaulay components, the hits days had been over.
The band lastly bought their want when the Younger-penned “I’m Gonna Be A Wealthy Man” was chosen because the A-side for what would develop into their final single, however whereas its bluesy psychedelia was consultant of the more durable route they wished to pursue, followers had been in no hurry to go together with them.
Curtis returned to the UK within the late ’70s to entrance a brand new band bearing The Foundations identify, leading to a authorized wrangle with an identical advert hoc lineup put collectively by Younger (compilers of this set embrace recordings by each). Younger later toured in one other permutation of the group with unique guitarist Alan Warner (who nonetheless shepherds a lineup as we speak), following renewed curiosity when “Construct Me Up Buttercup” featured prominently within the 1999 comedy There’s One thing About Mary. But their affect goes additional than simply their very own trailblazing hits: their hybrid of white pop and black soul was a torch carried ahead into the ’70s and ’80s by the likes of Sizzling Chocolate and The Beat, whereas Lynval Golding of The Specials has cited seeing The Foundations on the Midlands membership circuit within the ’60s as a seismic inspiration.
