Led by lisping singer and poet/lyricist Tom Rapp, Pearls Before Swine formed in 1965 and wrote and recorded a number of songs which they sent to the avant-garde ESP label in New York.
They were quickly signed up and recorded their debut album One Nation Underground (1967).
Their second album, Balaklava (1968), was as vehement a condemnation of Vietnam as any posturing protest song. The front cover (a detail of The Triumph of Death by Pieter Brueghel the Elder) showed a grotesque allegorical depiction of the horrors of war, while the back cover, showed a photograph of a young girl at an anti-war protest.
Rapp cloaked his lyrics in religious and historical references, irony and surrealism, which was all offset by music which was at once melancholic, eerie and exotic.
Tom Rapp
Guitar, vocals
Jim Bohannon
Organ, piano, clavinet, marimba
Wayne Harley
Banjo, vocals
Lane Lederer
Bass, guitar, swinehorn
