When I hear the word Apple without context, I still usually think of the record label set up by the Beatles first, then that technology company. There is also another possibility to consider (excluding the fruit from which everybody took their name): the band Apple!
If you never heard of them, you are far from alone. Apple were a British psychedelic rock band, active in the late 1960s. They only ever released one album, An Apple A Day, which was a commercial flop. It has however gone on to become one of the most sought-after records from its era, becoming one of the most valuable albums in the Record Collector’s Rare Records Price Guide. More on that later.
The band was founded in Cardiff in 1968 by Robbo Ingram (guitar) and Jeff Harrad (bass). Dennis Regan (vocals), Charlie Barber (piano), and Dave Brassington (drums) completed the line-up. They were quite active on the Cardiff live circuit at the time, which was buzzing with anticipation after the success of fellow Cardiffians Amen Corner brought the scene some attention, with several acts becoming more ambitious as a consequence.
In mid-1968 the band went to London to record a demo tape. This resulted in their first release: the single Thank You Very Much (with Your Heart Is Free Just Like The Wind as the b-side) on Smash Records in 1968. It sold modestly, but that didn’t matter. A three-song demo tape from their sessions managed to get the attention of Larry Page.
Larry Page was a record producer/manager from the mid-1950s to the mid-1970s. Much of his success centred on his efforts with The Kinks and The Troggs, and his ownership of the record labels Page One Records (1966-1969) and Penny Farthing Records (1969 onwards).
Page offered Apple a contract, and signed them to his Page One Records label in 1968. That’s when they discovered that Page planned to release a single by simply using their demos as they were. The band was keen to record them properly, but Page did not feel that was necessary, which was a red flag. It felt like rather than being enthusiastic with the recordings themselves, Page was looking to save money by simply using what was already available. “Page certainly was a tight old bugger,” said Jeff Harrad in a new interview for the remastered album’s liner notes. “That’s why there are so few photos of us. He didn’t want to pay for things like that, and even then, the few that were taken were in black and white. He wouldn’t pay for colour.”
The label initially released a single: Let’s Take A Trip Down The Rhine/Buffalo Billycan (Oct 1969). In a sign of things to come, it received little to no promotion. Who knows what it could have done if it had been recorded and promoted properly. Starting off with the chorus, which basically is the song’s title sung repeatedly, it has catchy (and very Caravan-esque) verses and a very psychedelic middle section with charming la-la-la vocals).
The band did not have time to dwell on this at the time, as they had started work on their album.
Page coupled the band with producer Caleb Quayle. He had never produced a band before, but travelled to Cardiff to get to know the band and took the job seriously. He later became known as a guitar player in Elton John’s band on and off during his first ten active years, and for working with Hall & Oates, Lou Reed, Dusty Springfield and many others.
The band and Quayle travelled down to London to record one more single as well as a full album. The Doctor Rock/The Otherside single appeared in December 1968, while the full LP An Apple A Day was released in February 1969.
The album would include all four tracks from the Rhine and Doctor singles, which was probably good from a quality perspective, but that meant that the original demo recordings were still being used. Other tracks had been quickly recorded in demo-track fashion and had become actual takes used on the album. For this reason, the band themselves were extremely unhappy with the album.
The band’s feelings are very understandable, and they are probably right. Recording things properly will often give better results, depending on how rushed or bad sounding the demos in question are. I still have to say that the album contains a fine mixture of psych pop and psychedelic rock of its day, including some of the finest British psych moments of its day.
One of the stand-out tracks is Buffalo Billycan, with yet more extremely Caravan-sounding verses (this being before that band had even formed), and with choruses sounding like they were plucked from Pink Floyd’s 1967 Piper At the Gates of Dawn album sessions. This was one of the early demos, initially used as a single b-side. The track has an immediate quality that makes one wonder what it could have achieved had they flipped the A and B side of that release and recorded it properly.
The Otherside is another great track, and ironically also a b-side and song demo. The track is instantly recognisable due to its jagged guitar riff, not a million miles away from Status Quo’s Pictures of Matchstick Men well-known guitar line. The song has a wonderfully sad melody and a captivating piano-guitar arrangement that should have gotten a bigger chance of making a splash.
The song would later redeem itself and gain a significant reputation after being one of the highlights of the early 1980s series of previously buried psychedelic rock nuggets, called Chocolate Soup For Diabetics. This created a new awareness of the band and their album, sending collectors scurrying for copies.
Some tracks features a mixture of brass and orchestral arrangements which is very charming. Queen of Hearts Blues is one, with an arrangement reminiscent of the Kinks at that time. Photograph is also very effective. Both songs feature a lyrical surrealism typical for the band, suitable for their jangly psycho-progressive sound.
Who knows whether the record label ever had faith in the band and why Page went to the effort of signing them. The label never really did much to promote any of their releases. They did not give the band proper time or opportunity to reach their potential in the studio. Although, for the album, they came up with an incredible sponsorship pairing.
The album was accompanied by a colour leaflet/brochure from the Apple And Pear Development Council (a newly established organisation to promote English and Welsh apples and pears). I can just imagine Larry Page doing a sales pitch to the council, telling them about how the album would reach millions of potential purchasers of homegrown fruit – which they bought into, creating one of most unlikely sponsorship deals in rock music! You could not make it up.
It was almost as if the label foresaw that the record would struggle. They decided that only a limited number of album copies would be pressed, presumably to avoid storage houses filled with unsold stock. It became a self-fulfilling prophecy. The album was doomed to become a commercial failure, in spite of the wonderful fruit brochure, minimum stock available, and near non-existent distribution. Who would have thought it?
It was speculated that the album only saw release because the costs were effectively underwritten by the sponsorship from the Development Council. The overall slapdash presentation of the album certainly indicated that the label’s interest in the band was poor. The cover seemed to have been designed to appeal to the Apple And Pear Development Council rather than the band or public. The running order on the sleeve also failed to correspond to the vinyl. Two band members had their names spelt incorrectly, and song titles were similarly listed and even registered with errors! (Pretty Girl Love You has always been listed as the name of that song, but if anyone had cared enough back then, it would have been obvious that the title actually was supposed to be Pretty Girl I Love You.)
Heavily discouraged by the label’s treatment of them and the poor sales, the band ceased to exist shortly after the album’s release.
Interestingly, the album did get some positive reviews. Melody Maker found it to be “An interesting first album from a new five-piece group… they sound talented and exciting on wax.” Record Mirror said “the band plays music that is pretty progressive, innately tasteful and above all delivered with a great deal of zest.” The NME were more reserved in their appraisal. “Denis Regal is a pleasant vocalist, backed up by a so-so instrumental unit. A dozen tracks, and mostly in the happy music category. Pleasant to hear.”
Over the years, the album has been reappraised, especially after the mentioned attention gained by The Otherside due to its mentioned inclusion on the Chocolate Soup For Diabetics-collection. The album gained a cult following, and the next generation of rock critics and journalists started citing it as a classic.
The album has become one of the most sought-after British psychedelic rarities. Due to the modest sales back in 1969, the original Page One Records pressing has always been extremely hard to find. As a result of that, but also as an acknowledgement of the quality of the music, the initial release is listed as one of Record Collector’s Top 20 most collectable albums of all time, with a copy selling for over £4000 on eBay a few years ago.
Thanks to more recent reissues and – for the first time – plentiful availability, An Apple A Day has finally been allowed to reach the larger audiences it never could when it was first released.
A reissue by Repertoire Records was released in 1994, which included several bonus tracks (early mono versions of some of the album’s tracks). Since then it has been released on LP and CD several times, including a remastered edition on Trading Places LP in 2019 and CD on Grapefruit Records/Cherry Red Records in 2020.
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