Would You Believe?
A UK pop-psych "Holy Grail" turns up on my turntable
In the first weeks of 1991, as the sabre-rattling run-up to the Gulf War intensified, I began eyeing the heavily-hyped new Byrds box set that sat on the shelf at the back of my record store with an increasing sense of hunger.
The box set had been out for a few months already, but much as I loved The Byrds and was dying to hear the 17 previously unreleased tracks that the set contained — as well as hear so many of my favorite songs “on CD” for the first time — $40 (the price of the box set with my employee discount) had felt like a larger expenditure than I could justify. But the more my existential anxiety ratcheted up with each new statement of bellicosity from the first Bush administration, the more I felt the need to soak myself in the healing, comforting power of The Byrds at their best.
So on January 18, when Iraq started launching Scud missiles into Israel in retaliation for Operation Desert Storm’s first aerial bombardments, I finally bit the bullet. “Fuck it,” I thought. “If the world ends tomorrow, at least I’ll have bathed in these glorious sounds tonight!” And the world did not end, but I never regretted my purchase.
I have no memory of jonesing for (or treating myself to) a particular record in early 2003, when the Bush II administration was beating the drums for “regime change” in Iraq over the country’s alleged stockpiling of “weapons of mass destruction”. I do, however, recall being really creeped out by hearing Shania Twain’s then-monster hit “I’m Gonna Getcha Good” blasting from a radio at my local newsstand while reading headlines about the first bombs falling on Baghdad; it was all too easy to imagine Dubya bopping his head along to the Twain song and chuckling, “That’s right, Saddam [or “Sodom,” as he always pronounced it for heightened “I’m on the side of righteousness” value] — we’re gonna getcha good!”
My other abiding musical memory from the beginning of the Gulf War was my Guitar World interview/adventure that March with ZZ Top in Houston, where I’d flown out to see them play a homecoming show at Reliant Stadium for the Houston Rodeo and Livestock Show. While that was a hilariously eventful trip — which I will write about here one of these days — I’ll also always remember it as the first time I ever heard the word “liberal” used as an epithet.
“You’re from L.A.?” Dusty asked, eyeing me with a certain amount of distaste as we were being introduced. I nodded in the affirmative. “Tell me — are people out there feelin’ kinda liberal about this whole Iraq thing?”
“Yes, Dusty, you could say that,” I laughed.
“Well then,” he asked, “How are you feelin’ about it?”
“I’m very much on the ‘liberal’ side of this,” I answered.
“I see,” he grunted. “Well, I’m very much on the other side… but that don’t mean we can’t sit here and have a nice conversation.” And, true to his word, we had a great chat (about music, not Iraq) — and actually got along so well that his wife Charleen approached me backstage the following night to inform me in sugary Texan tones that “Dusty just enjoyed talkin’ to you sooo much!” (I think Dusty liked that I knew really knew my shit about Elvis, his all-time favorite musician, whose image he had taped to the back of his bass cabinet…)
And whatever happens as a result of Operation Erectile Dysfunction, or whatever the fuck the current administration’s bumbling attempt to entangle us in the Israel-Iran conflict was called, the musical memory I’ll carry with me from these past couple weeks of insanity is of self-medicating by spinning Billy Nicholls’ wonderful 1968 album Would You Believe over and over again.
As I’m moving later this summer (same neck of the woods/mountains, just to a bigger place where my sweetheart and I can cohabitate), I’ve been trying to clamp down on my record-buying habit, both to save money for the move and so as not to add further weight to the schlep. But when a record like Would You Believe finally becomes available on vinyl again in affordable form — released by Charly Records as part of their continuing reissues from the Immediate Records catalog — at the same time that the cognitively-challenged current occupant of the Oval Office is once again unnecessarily stirring up some international shit and a Christian Nationalist drunk/former Fox News host is cosplaying as Secretary of Defense… well, this doesn’t exactly feel like a good moment to postpone joy, does it?
“Take my $21.98,” said I to the folks at Collectors Choice Music, and lo they did… sending me this lovely vinyl gem in return. Would You Believe has been a “Holy Grail” album for record collectors (myself included) for decades, its enduring most-wanted status primarily down to two things: 1) that only 100 copies of it were pressed upon its original release in January 1968, and 2) it’s a really lovely collection of songs that tunefully split the difference between US-style sunshine pop and UK-style light psychedelia.
While its rarity has caused Would You Believe to be overhyped by some as a “forgotten masterpiece,” it is quite the enchanting pop artifact; if the album doesn’t quite measure up to such actual masterpieces of the era as The Zombies’ Odessey and Oracle, Something Else by The Kinks or The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds (the latter of which inspired its creation), I’ve nevertheless loved it unashamedly since first picking up a CD reissue in the late nineties.
The Small Faces-assisted title track was my “way in,” but I quickly came around to digging the entire thing, which also features musical contributions from the likes of John Paul Jones, Nicky Hopkins, Caleb Quaye, Big Jim Sullivan and Arthur Greenslade. But vinyl issues of the album have been few and far between — and even though the previous ones go for significantly less than the many thousands of dollars that an original pressing fetches, they’re still expensive enough that I figured I’d never have the pleasure of hearing the record on wax unless I hit the lottery.
Nicholls is an interesting figure, a fine singer and songwriter who never really “made it” as a solo artist, but whose songs have been covered over the years by such artists as Del Shannon, Dana Gillespie, Pete Townshend, Roger Daltrey, Leo Sayer, The Baby, The Outlaws, Phil Collins, Keith Urban and many others, and who has worked for decades with Townshend, Daltrey and The Who as musical director and backing vocalist. (I recently read an old interview where he claimed responsibility for bringing Zak Starkey into the band for the Quadrophenia tour of 1996-97, which was interesting in light of Pete’s recent claims that Roger was the one who hired him.)
Born in 1949, Nicholls began writing songs when he was just 13. A few years later, he summoned the cojones to deliver his early demos to the door of George Harrison, who was impressed enough by the young lad’s burgeoning talent that he recommended him to music publisher Dick James. While James wasn’t apparently interested in his songs, Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham definitely was, and offered young Nicholls a 20 quid a week gig as a staff songwriter at his newly-launched label, Immediate Records.
Oldham, who was completely obsessed with Pet Sounds at the time, dreamed of producing a “British” counterpart to the Brian Wilson masterpiece. After making a dry run with the visiting Del Shannon on what would become the Home and Away album (which featured three Nicholls originals, including the achingly lovely “Cut and Come Again”), Oldham decided that a Nicholls solo album would be a good basis for a Pet Sounds-like experiment.
Which is fairly amusing, in retrospect, because very little of Would You Believe bears any obvious resemblance to Pet Sounds. Whereas that album is lush with sophisticated orchestral arrangements, Nicholls’ record is far more on the slapdash side, with a much greater emphasis on guitar. (“Girl From New York,” one of my favorite tracks on the record, is driven by a guitar riff so fuzzy it could have been lifted from a US garage band like the Music Machine.) While you can’t fault the man for dreaming, Oldham just didn’t have the producer chops to go toe-to-toe with Brian Wilson.
Lyrically, Would You Believe is also coming from a much different place than Pet Sounds, and not just geographically. Whereas Pet Sounds’ songs are drenched in the melancholy of a guy approaching his mid-twenties and confronting emotional realities he isn’t prepared for, Would You Believe is very much a teenage record. The ebullient declaration of love in the title track is radiant with the flush of first love, just as the brooding “Come Again” (recorded by Shannon as “Cut and Come Again”) and “Life is Short” definitely have “first breakup” written all over them. “They were the first songs that I wrote and are so naive, especially the lyrics,” Nicholls reflected in a 2001 Shindig! interview. “[It’s] a teenager learning how to keep up with his peers, his loves and fears, drugs and emotions.”
And while there’s an unavoidably British tinge to the proceedings — what with Greenslade and Jones’ baroque arrangements, the local name checking of “London Social Degree” and “Portobello Road,” and Steve Marriott’s occasional cockney yelps — I hear more American influences than British ones in the grooves, though much more along the lines of The Association, Sagittarius and Paul Revere and the Raiders than The Beach Boys.
But it all works, and works beautifully. Like I said earlier, Would You Believe has only occasionally left my turntable during the past week or two; each spin has provided me with a welcome reminder of the enduring existence of beauty, innocence and magic in this dark, disappointing and horrifying world. If you are likewise in need of something to brighten your own day, I can’t recommend this album enough.
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It's so good seeing this album get some love and recognition! About a week before your essay here, Palmyra Delran (a talented musician in her own right) played "London Social Degree" in her show on Sirius XM radio. I forgot how good that song was 😊
Thanks for another truly informative piece of crate-digging journalism. While I obviously know much about Billy Nicholls due to Pete/Who connections, I did not know this full story. Listening through to Would You Believe?, I think you've nailed a pretty accurate description - and yes, as with me and the Chi-Lites LP "A Lonely Man," when certainly albums become available once more as LPs, you does just gotta get 'em!