By Nick Warburton
In October 1967, CBS Records shipped the debut single by a rather pretentiously named group called The Kool.
The Kool in Richmond upon Thames, 1967, left to right: Ray Brown, Jeff Curtis, Pete Burt, Dave Carol and Jet Hodges
Produced by rock music impresario Mervyn Conn and arranged by sought-after studio wizard Keith Mansfield, Tony Macauley and John McLeod’s “Look at Me, Look at Me”, with its soaring, vocal harmonies and delicately crafted instrumentation had all the hallmarks of an Ivy League record. In contrast, the flipside, “Room at the Top”, was an unusual mod/soul workout, with the singer’s gruff lead vocals backed by cello, horns and Hammond organ.
To the casual listener, the tracks sound like two different groups, which is not far from the truth. To minimise studio costs and achieve the top notch production desired, Conn recruited session musicians to lay down the intricate backing tracks on The Kool’s CBS recordings.
While this policy was not unusual for its day and befell even successful chart acts like The Love Affair, The Kool was a seasoned pool of musicians with a long and fascinating history:
