Midsummer Dreaming: An Anthology 1967-1970 (Uk)

An anthology of recordings from British harmony pop maestro John Carter and friends under their flower-power era guise The Flower Pot Men. Summer of Love hit 'Let's Go To San Francisco', further 45s (some using alternative period aliases), two unreleased-at-the-time concept albums and several tracks now gaining their first-ever issue. Inspired equally by the Haight-Ashbury scene, the worldwide Summer of Love and Brian Wilson's recent groundbreaking work, in mid-1967 former Ivy Leaguers John Carter and Ken Lewis pieced together the hugely ambitious, six-minute 'Let's Go To San Francisco'. The result was a UK Top Five hit, a success that encouraged Carter to record more material in the same vein including follow-up 'A Walk In The Sky', which flopped at home but became another Top Ten hit in mainland Europe. When psychedelia withered and died, Carter abandoned the name in public but continued to work on a brace of Moody Blues-style concept albums that failed to appear at the time. A four-hour set, 'Midsummer Dreaming' gathers up all four Flower Pot Men singles, those two aborted albums and sundry other material that either didn't gain a release or was issued under other aliases, such as the highly regarded 'Mythological Sunday' (credited to Friends) and 'Midsummer Deaming' (John Carter & Russ Alquist). An essential item for lovers of intelligent, melodic, harmony-based late 60s British pop and psychedelia, 'Midsummer Dreaming' includes five hitherto-unissued studio tracks as well as a brace of late 1967 Radio 1 sessions that are also gaining their first-ever official issue.