Colours

One of scores of LA bands who briefly flourished then slipped back through the cracks in the late 1960s, Colours took the ornate, harmonic breakthroughs of 1967 Beatles and ran with them.

Formed around the central partnership of Jack Dalton and Gary Montgomery (one-time Motown songwriters The Dalton Boys), the consciously Anglo-centric Colours counted members of Derek and The Dominos and The Beach Boys among their various line-ups.

The group signed to the Dot Records label on the basis of their sitar and bagpipe-hued novelty 45, Brother Lou’s Love Colony, and went on to release two albums for the label.

Virtually every track on their superbly orchestrated self-titled debut album (1968) can be traced to the Fab Four, although with subject matter ranging from botched liquor store hold-ups to catalepsy, the parallels sometimes turned weird.

Sadly, neither the debut album or their follow-up, Atmosphere (1969), made any commercial impact at the time.

Brother Lou’s Love Colony may be antiquated, but its mix of sitar, bagpipes, strings, wispy harmonies and screaming guitars is blindingly ambitious for a band often dismissed as a knockoff.

After the group disbanded, Jack Dalton returned to his native Detroit and started a jingle company with Jeff Parsons. The Road Company quickly became the largest jingle company in Detroit, with Jack writing, arranging, playing, and singing on most of the commercials.

Jack Dalton
Guitar, vocals
Gary Montgomery
Keyboards, vocals
Carl Radle
Bass
Rob Edwards
Lead guitar
Chuck Blackwell
Drums