ALBUM: The Knickerbockers, ‘The Challenge Recordings’
Man alive, I have got a TREAT for you today, so let’s just jump in feet first!
If you’re any sort of fan of the ‘60s sound, then you’ve heard the Knickerbockers; you just may not realize it. Hit the link below and dig their biggest hit “Lies”:
Recognize ‘em now? You’d be forgiven if you thought at some point that that was the Beatles. I’m betting a lot of teens did when the single made the rounds as 1965 gave way to 1966 – two of the best years for music ever, and the perfect time for “Lies” to have been recorded and released. The energy is enormous, the harmonies are heavenly, the music is marvelous, and the sound is spectacular. In my opinion, the 45 rpm record was created SPECIFICALLY for “Lies” to exist in the most perfect form.
Think I’m a bit over the top? You might be right, but you gotta admit it’s a killer song. Not bad for a bunch of guys from New Jersey.
When you really dig a song by a group – especially from the ‘60s – it is way too easy to fall into one of two traps. You could 1. assume that the tune is the only track worth hearing, not bother digging any deeper, and possibly deprive yourself of many more musical reasons for living, or 2. you could hope that it’s just the tip of the iceberg and dive into whatever catalog that exists, only to find that everything else is pure dreck, leaving you to wonder if they just hired somebody else to write and record the only good song they ever created.
Thankfully, there is a third option: you dig a little deeper and find plenty of other gems to keep your ears and your heart happy. This is where the Knickerbockers should be filed away, and the fine folks at Sundazed have made the task of aural exploration easier than ever before. The Challenge Recordings gathers up 80 tracks the Knicks recorded for the Challenge label from 1964 through 1967 and gives you four(!) discs full of riches.
This may seem a bit excessive for a one hit wonder, but the Knickerbockers were mighty prolific during the four years they were present in a recording studio. The earlier releases consist of two albums full of their takes on hits made popular by the Beatles, the Kinks, and the Kingsmen, not to mention covers of Tom Jones, Roger Miller, and Petula Clark, among others. This may sound strange, but they do a cool version of “I Know a Place.”
These early albums may not reinvent the musical wheel compared to the original versions, but they do show how tight a band the Knickerbockers were from the start. Given the numerous gigs they had before they procured a recording contract, it’s no surprise they sounded as good as they did. You may not find yourself listening to this material as much, but it makes for pleasant listening.
Things really got interesting once “Lies” broke through in late 1965. For the rest of their existence, the Knicks tried their best to produce another hit, and while their next two singles made the Billboard charts, nothing else was anywhere near as successful. This is a crying shame, because these guys were really churning out some quality material at a rate that countless other bands could only dream about. Check out their follow up to “Lies”:
Granted, “One Track Mind” is perhaps a bit derivative of “Lies” but that doesn’t diminish the fact that it is a solid ROCKING tune! I envy anybody who got to hear this one on AM radio back in 1966 because it must have sounded spectacular.
What’s even more mind-boggling is the number of songs they didn’t release at the time that could have easily been hit singles, or at the very least make up a high quality LP.
Anyway, long story short, the Knickerbockers released a few more singles (and left a bunch of material unreleased at the time in the vaults) before moving on to other musical ventures. Such is the story of many a group from that magical time.
Anyway, let’s get down to the specifics of this latest release from Sundazed. The Challenge Recordings gives you all three albums the Knickerbockers released back in the day – including the “Lies” album and the two albums of covers. You also get all of their singles, and a truckload of tracks that didn’t make their way to vinyl back then. Most of ‘em are rockers, and the ones that aren’t (such as covers of “You’ll Never Walk Alone” and “Harlem Nocturne”) still make for some pleasant listening. These guys were really good, and deserve the box set treatment.
Sundazed has been the town crier for the Knickerbockers’ magic ever since the label’s birth 26 years ago. They’ve released various Knickerbockers collections over the years, but this one really puts the group on the pedestal they deserve. If you don’t have much by these guys, this is a great and efficient way to catch up to everybody else.
If you’ve already purchased some of the previous collections that Sundazed put out in the past, you may already have a lot of this material. The few tracks on here that are truly unreleased at this point are mostly demos provided by the group. Also, every last track on here is in pure glorious mono. Everything sounds terrific, but you might want to hold on to that Fabulous Knickerbockers CD that Sundazed released decades ago if you want to hear “Lies” in stereo.
The package itself is terrific. Four discs in mini-sleeves housed in a nice little box – for easy storage on your shelf with your other regular sized CD cases – along with a thick booklet containing a well written essay by Domenic Priore telling the band’s story in great detail.
Sundazed has always been a quality label, and seeing a fave artist getting the Sundazed brand of reissue treatment on CD was always a cause for celebration. Over the past few years, however, they’ve been focusing on the vinyl revival (revinylval?) that’s become the rage by reissuing classic albums on record and not releasing as many CDs as before. More power to them for that, but a void was left in the “new releases” bulletins when their name stopped showing up as much.
This Knickerbockers set is a return to their early days, and hopefully a sign of things to come. The presentation is great and the sound is fantastic. Best of all, the music is top notch. If you dig what you’ve heard up to now, you’ll want to absorb even more of what this great group created. At their worst, the Knicks were a top notch cover band; at their best, they were one of the great ones that fell through the cracks. Give ‘em a shot, and show Sundazed that they’re on the right track with these kinds of releases.
The Challenge Recordings is available on the Sundazed website.
