February 8th, 2010 
Admin 
Album Description
1967’s Of Cabbages & Kings, issued in the ample wake of Sgt. Pepper, is a horse of a different color, preferably paisley. Includes 6 bonus tracks ‘Manners Maketh Man’ (prev. unissued), ‘Cautionary Tale’ (prev. unissued), ‘The Gentle Cold Of Dawn’ (prev. unissued instr.), ‘Rest In Peace’ (single version) & ‘Sister Marie’. Sundazed. 2002.
Related posts:
- Of Cabbages & Kings Album Description1967’s Of Cabbages & Kings, issued in the...
- Of Cabbages & Kings Album Description1967’s Of Cabbages & Kings, issued in the...
- Volare! – The Very Best Of The Gipsy Kings Product DescriptionNo Description Available.Genre: World MusicMedia Format: Compact DiskRating:...
- Kings of Swamp Pop Product DescriptionHere are 30 tracks of archetypal swamp music...
- Kings of Love Product DescriptionStephen Fearing, Colin Linden, and Tom Wilson of...
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
Posted in 
Tags: 
In reviewing Chad and Jeremy’s Of Cabbages and Kings, let us first stop with these ridiculous references to Sgt. Pepper. Chad and Jeremy do not rock, nor do they roll. At best they are an inferior British version of Simon and Garfunkel. This is a clumsy attempt at a theme album inspired by Lewis Carrol’s “Through the Looking Glass”, but I’ll be darned if I can find any connection. I guess in the mood of the times this album was deemed “experimental” though I could list fifty fascinating albums released in 1967 that better fill the bill. Chad Stuart’s over indulged orchestra arranging and Jeremy Clyde’s neophyte sitar playing should serve as warnings to anyone with high expectations from this duo. But all bashing aside there are a few things worth listening to on this CD, or at least the themes of death, pregnancy, and manners, which are not often dealt with in pop music. “Rest In Peace” is a catchy little ditty and the single version of Painted Dayglow Smile is a gem. Where this concept album falls apart (and it doesn’t get any better with repeated listening) is “the Progress Suite-Movements 1 Thru 5″. One has to wonder where the adults were when this was being made. It is as if Chad and Jeremy were rifling through Columbia’s sound effects catalog, taping any noise that caught their ear (a lot of it being their own noise) with Byrds producer Gary Usher stoned in the control room. This five track albatross of gross indulgence goes on ad naseum easily winning my vote as the worst recording of the 1960s. Rest in peace mop tops.
Rating: 2 / 5
Yet another memento for this sentimental boomer. This album, one of a phalanx of albums all meant to cash in on the “Sgt. Pepper’s” trend of psychedelia started in the summer of 1967 by the Fab Four, was one of the cleverest moves by this duo, who were ALSO one of a phalanx of singing duos, who were almost identical to each other, from the initial wave of the British invasion. “Chad & Jeremy” had a twin in “Peter & Gordon”, who were visually indistinguishable from them, and it didn’t stop there! There was a plethora of duos that had a blonde, bespectacled member and a non-bespectacled brunette one. This also segued into movies, where the duo was either together or seemingly split up: Michael Caine used to wear glasses and was visually identical to to both Chad and Peter; Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, though both non-four-eyed, had the same aspect as these soft-rock duos. And there was Tommy Steele, who was a dead-ringer for Jeremy Clyde. Chad Stuart had a clone hiding in the lineup of Herman’s Hermits as well.
However, getting back to the album at hand, this album, like I said, was a stroke of promotional genius for this duo, since their previous albums were undistinguished. This album, and the follow-up, “The Ark”, had critics falling all over themselves praising them. “Cabbages and Kings” had the prerequisite “Sgt. Pepper-y” cover, and the air of pretense and over-reaching in production values that were endemic to the late 60s. Some of the songwriting was actually rather clever for its day: “Rest In Peace” is the one song I remember most fondly from this album, along with “Family Way” and “The Progress Suite”, which takes over the entire B-side of the album. The rest is actually pretty much standard Chad & Jeremy, which is to say, VERY soft, almost ethereal sounding, standard Brit-pop. However, rock critics of the day, as well as some of their more mature pop music colleagues, universally lauded this venture into literary rock, (the album title is taken from Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky” companion to “Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland”). I have never heard anything from “The Ark”. but one of these days I intend to remedy that. And though this is a better-than-decent album considering the source, it was NOT one of THE seminal works of the era.
See my other boomer-era rock reviews for the best of THAT lot!
Rating: 3 / 5
I bought this CD because of the first track on it, “Rest In Peace”. This is a fantastic and poignant song.
The rest of the CD has it’s moments. Clearly the Beatles Sgt. Pepper gave a lot of 60’s groups the license to stretrch out beyond the usual Top 40 pop song. Sometimes the effort was successful (Gentle Cold Of Dawn, Busman’s Holiday, Can I See You) and sometimes not. The Progress Suite, which took up half of the original album firmly belongs in the “Let’s Beat The Listener Over the Head with The Message – Noisily” catagory.
The orchestrations here are highly reminiscent of the one’s Dovovan used on his early CBS albums and are sometimes very heavy handed. The sitar is particularly over used here.
Rating: 3 / 5
This is one of the best albums I ever heard, because it has a very fine orchestration – und the instrumental piece is great! I am looking for music like this, in the same orchestration. Who can tell me more music like this? PLease write to leif.boysen@xp-win.com. Thank you so much, Leif (from Germany)
Rating: 5 / 5
Anybody who demeans this recording just wasn’t around in the ’60s. Out of context, much of it IS hard to understand and may be found pretentious and childish. In the mid-late sixties, a lot of people were concerned about the cold war (which they had grown up with), the Vietnam war (which they were afraid of participating in), and the general malaise of “the establishment”. This comes out in “The Progress Suite”, where we see Chad and Jeremy mocking the corporate world, militarism, the sexual revolution, a jaded society, and many other institutions. In one memorable line, they talk about England as being home to the Beatles and the queen. After obviously being corrected, they say “excuse me madam… the queen and the Beatles”. Many other sardonic asides like that pepper the suite until, at the end, comes the big atomic bomb blast. This was an overriding theme in many people’s minds during that time.
Other tracks on the CD include “Rest in Peace”, which tells the story of a tombstone maker who is forced to write epitaphs which the dearly departed’s loved ones aren’t very sincere about. “Family Way” is about some poor kid who got his girlfriend pregnant and has to face up to the fact – and her family. Good stuff…tongue in cheek but still kind of relevant.
I had the 8-track tape and the LP of this one…I’m definitely going to get the CD!
Rating: 4 / 5