Blossom Toes

Blossom Toes were a quintessentially English psychedelic pop band active between 1967 and 1969.

Signed by Yardbirds manager Giorgio Gomelsky to his fledgling Marmalade label, the band’s debut album, We Are Ever So Clean (1967), was presented in Melody Maker as “Giorgio Gomelsky’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”.

Although not a major commercial success at the time (it was, after all, released about two weeks before The Beatles‘ Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band!), tracks such as What On Earth and Look At Me, I’m You have helped the album develop something of a cult status (it was voted #40 in a Record Collector list of the “100 Greatest Psychedelic Records”).

The album was way ahead of its time, which made it pretty difficult stuff to reproduce on stage. This meant the band had virtually nothing they could play at their gigs apart from old rock numbers.

“We got a three-week tour of Sweden offered us, playing some new psychedelic clubs, ’cause psychedelic was all the rage then see, so we went to Sweden without any numbers whatsoever, except for The Remarkable Saga Of The Frozen Dog, which was the only number we could manage to do live off the album. So we just did two hours of freaked-out jamming every night!”

Unlike their first album, the second album – the heavier and rockier If Only For A Moment (1969) – contained many numbers (including the single Peace Loving Man) that the group could quite easily perform live. It was also a brilliant example of how intricate and carefully structured British pop music could be.

The band finally called it a day in 1970, with guitarist Jim Cregan going on to be part of Family, Cockney Rebel and Rod Stewart‘s band.

Brian Belshaw
Bass, vocals
Jim Cregan
Guitar, vocals
Brian Godding
Guitar, keyboards, vocals
Kevin Westlake
Drums
Barry (Bazzo) Reeves
Drums
John “Pol” Palmer
Drums