- MY PEOPLE WERE FAIR AND HAD SKY IN THEIR HAIR...BUT NOW THEY'RE CONTENT TO WEAR STARS ON THEIR BROWS
"Tyrannosaurus Rex rose out of the sad and scattered leaves of an older summer" writes John Peel about the underground acoustic duo that he nurtured and promoted over the next two summers. That of course before Bolan knifed him squarely in the back by breaking free of his acoustic constraints, cranking up his electric and becoming a mainstream glam rock star, but at the end of the day being a star was all Marc really wanted.
In 1967 Tyrannosaurus Rex were the way he felt he could best achieve this, after a couple of failed solo efforts, and a stint in Johns Children (which was never going to work as Bolan clearly needed to be the main man). He strode forward forming this acoustic duo alongside a practically silent partner in the shape of Steve Peregrine Took who handled (at least on this album) Bongo's, Chinese Gong, Assorted Percussion and Pixiephone !!!.
He christened them with an attention grabbing, media friendly name and early albums had equally commanding titles. UK Radio 1 DJ John Peel championed their cause, he plugged them constantly, and raised their profile as often as he could, and when they charted with the excellent debut single "Debora" everything looked rosy, but I'm afraid the My People album tells a slightly different story.
Bolan was instantly different and appealing, his Larry the Lamb voice and Tolkienesque lyrics stood him apart from the other breaking artists of the era but overall the quality of this debut simply isn't up to scratch. The album kicks off with one of the better tracks "Hot Rod Mama" which is the first in a long line of songs written about Marc's obsession with cars, which is a little spooky considering that he never learnt to drive and ended up meeting his maker as a front seat passenger in this girlfriends Mini.
"Hot Rod Mama" sets the tone for the album, short, acoustic based venture's with limited percussion and for the best part of the set indecipherable lyrics. The stronger tracks for me are the gentle "Scenescof" , "Strange Orchestra's" & " Chateau in Virginia Waters" with their interesting vocal arrangements and wonderful harmonies, "Mustang Ford" a little more upbeat than the rest with great lyrics, "Knight" which for some reason always reminds me of Don McLean's "Driedel" and "Weilder of Words" which builds to a nice frantic climax.
Unfortunately the rest of the tracks here though are simply bland and uninspired and despite really trying to like this album these tracks all sound the same on first listen, and still do after five or six repeats. "Child Star" plods along for the main part, threatens to get interesting and falls flat again, "Dwarfish Trumpet Blues" & "Graceful Fat Sheba" are simply more of the same and "Afghan Woman" is so dull that it must take the honours as worst track on the album.
The final track on the set "Frowning Atahuallpa" starts well and just when you think Marc is going to finish the album off in style it quickly descends into Hare Krishna chants and to make matters worse John Peel gets some payback by having the honour of reading the first of Bolans pointless children's stories, this time the subject being Kinsley Mole scraping bluebeat rhythms whilst wearing his yellow Rupert Trousers.
The good news is that things did get better for Tyrannosaurus Rex but not before another album of efforts similar to this. My People is not a total write off, it's just that the weaker tracks make the album as a whole so difficult to sit through that I tend to prefer not playing it at all. Quite often I end up playing albums I don't immediately like, more times than the albums I do, this is in an effort to ensure that I've given the album a fair chance, unfortunately I remain unimpressed in this instance which is a shame as I tend to regard the main body of Marc's work quite highly.
Tread carefully here, Unicorn is far better introduction to Bolan's early work, Marc dedicated My People to "Aslan and the Narnians", I hope they enjoyed it.
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