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A Great Lost Album From 1975

Pop quiz! Name the group in the photo below. No peeking.

Give up? Here's a hint, it's the back cover photo from one of the most neglected albums of 1975. Despite the growing scourge of disco and punk rock, 1975 was still a pretty good year for rock music. Among the classic releases that year were Bob Dylan's Blood On The Tracks, Born To Run by Bruce Springsteen, Rumors by Fleetwood Mac, Katy Lied by Steely Dan, A Night At The Opera by Queen, Still Crazy After All These Years by Paul Simon, Physical Graffiti by Led Zeppelin, One Of These Nights by the Eagles, Young Americans by David Bowie, and Patti Smith's Horses. Alright, 1975 was no 1969, but it was no slouch either.

As happens every year, there are some really fine albums that fall through the cracks, don't find an audience, and don't sell nearly as well as they should. Assuming you haven't guessed the group in the photo, it's the back cover from the album Change by Spanky & Our Gang (front cover photo way down below). Not only was Change one of the best albums of 1975, I'd argue it's pretty high up on the list of all-time great neglected albums. Yeah, yeah, just hear me out.

New Wine Singers - first album, 1963

In the early 1960s, Elaine "Spanky" McFarlane (b. 1942) left Peoria for Chicago where she hoped to make it as a singer. Her first paying gig was in 1962 with a jazz-based vocal group called the Jamie Lyn Trio. By 1963, she was singing in a folk group called The New Wine Singers. The New Wine Singers had some modest success and put out two albums of folk and protest music in 1963 and 1965.

For the purposes of our story, The New Wine Singers are important because it was here that McFarlane got the nickname "Spanky." Reports vary as to why, but in a 2012 interview, McFarlane says that the band liked to watch reruns of Hal Roach's "Our Gang" comedy shorts, and the resemblance between the name of the child actor who played Spanky -- George "Spanky" McFarland -- and McFarlane, was too hard to resist, so she became Spanky McFarlane. It was also during her time with The New Wine Singers that McFarlane met multi-instrumentalist Malcolm Hale, who would later join Spanky & Our Gang.

By late 1965, The New Wine Singers had split up, and McFarlane headed to Florida. The story goes that she met musicians Oz Bach and Nigel Pickering when they were trapped for three days by a hurricane. They apparently hit it off, and McFarlane invited the guys to come see her in Chicago sometime.

Mother Blues nightclub in Oldtown Chicago

Some months later, in early 1966, McFarlane was living in an apartment over a Chicago club called Mother Blues. (It's unclear, but she may also have been working at the club). In any case, the club's co-owner, Curly Tait, knew McFarlane and knew she was a singer, and asked if she could put together a house band to open for the headliners at his club (including the likes of Jefferson Airplane and Muddy Waters). McFarlane quickly convinced her Florida hurricane buddies, Pickering and Bach, to come up to Chicago, and together they formed an acoustic jug-band trio, with Pickering on guitar, Bach on bass, and McFarlane singing and playing kazoo and washboard. Since they didn't have time to rehearse a lot of songs, the group mixed in silly costumes, gags and novelty bits.

The trio called themselves Spanky & Our Gang, which was originally meant to be a joke. After (somewhat surprisingly) getting some favorable press and attracting a local following with the name, they decided to keep it. As word spread and the group began to play bigger venues, they brought in McFarlane's old bandmate from The New Wine Singers, guitarist and percussionist Malcolm Hale, to fill out their sound. Soon they were in demand at the hottest spots in the Windy City. Curly Tait signed on to manage the group.

First single, 1967

Mercury Records was based in Chicago, and pretty soon the label took notice of the up-and-coming group in their backyard and offered Spanky & Our Gang a contract. Once the group was on board, the label shipped them off to New York to give them more exposure and assigned their NYC A&R man Jerry Ross to help polish their sound and get them ready for the studio. Their first single (which had been rejected by The Mamas And The Papas) was "Sunday Will Never Be The Same." It was released in May, 1967 and quickly charted, reaching #9 on the Billboard Hot 100. Two more top 40 hits, "Lazy Day" and "Making Every Minute Count" followed in short order. By late summer, the group added drummer John Seiter to the...