CITY BOY’s Steve and Lol : their first vinyl credit: ROY EVERETT “Look at that Old Bird”

 

Birmingham mates and the leaders of the legendary group CITY BOY, Steve Broughton Lunt and bearded Laurence “Lol” Mason got their first songwriting credit via Roy Everett. Also from Birmingham, Everett (full name Roy Everett Taylor) called attention to himself circa 1963 leading The Climbers. The rest of the band included Jim Kelly and Chris Wheeler (guitars), Ralph Wheeler (Drums) and Honri Edouarde on bass. They managed to get on a British TV show called "Teenagers Only."

He next fronted The Blueshounds, a group that included bass player Honri Eduoarde but otherwise a new group of players:  Dave Pegg (guitar). Mike Burney (sax), Frank Devine (drums) and Gordon Bache (organ). The group began to get noticed, and circa 1966, Roy Everett got lost. The band was renamed The New Generation, and included Jimmy Cliff (yet to cross too many rivers) and Ayshea Brough.  

Roy surfaced as a solo singer for a pair of Parlophone singles, of which the B-sides have proven to have interest among trivia fans. The B-Side of Roy’s 1969 single “Birthday Blues” on Parlophone was “Empty Sky,” issued a few weeks before Elton John. At the time Elton was better known, if at all, as a budding songwriter working for Dick James.  “If I’m being honest,” Roy’s take is muscular with just a slight trace of Jagger attitude. This intriguing mess of funk, Vanilla Fudge drum and organ, soulful back-up singers and bursts of trumpet and blazing lead guitar somehow didn’t interest British audiences. That’s too bad. And you want to hear it for yourself, don’t you?
 

 

Roy got some attention in some pretty well known venues. In February of 1969 he was on the bill at The Marquee in London, along with Locomotive (Mick Taylor a member of that group), Tea & Sympathy, the Bakerloo Blues Band, and an odd group called Earth which included some bloke named Ozzy Osbourne who was then merely John Osbourne. If you've got your glasses on, you'll find Roy Everett in this picture (heavy guy with his hand on Pete York's shoulder) along with members of Locomotive and Earth (later to be called Black Sabbath...yes, that's Ozzy doing the gurning, while Iommi, Geezer and Ward play it straight).  You can click the pic to get a larger image.

 

The second and last Roy Everett single: “Turn On Your Own Heat,” (1970) was written and produced by Donny Marchand and arranged by Mike Batt.  “Look At That Old Bird” is the  B-side, produced by Jonathan Peel. The song is given a Jose Feliciano-Elton John treatment, with maybe a dash of Jimmy Cliff.  It's hard to make out all the words, at least the way Roy sings it. It would be a stretch to say it could’ve been used as the theme song for “MacKenna’s Gold” instead of Feliciano’s meandering “Old Turkey Buzzard.” It would be a stretch, since the film came out two years earlier, but both old bird songs are about equal in musicality. One song might be slightly better known than the other, but not to most people, who never heard of either. 

You want to hear Feliciano's song? Somebody on YouTube kindly uploaded the opening credits, which show scenic Utah, a lot of canyons, and a buzzard. Which is about as entertaining as the overly long "last of the epic westerns" gets. About the only memorable moment in the film is Julie Newmar's double swimming naked underwater for thirty seconds. (You do get to see the real Julie emerge bare-ass and run into the bushes). But I digress. 

And now...

Listen online or download: 

LOOK AT THAT OLD BIRD! Roy Everett sings Lunt-Mason