Sixties Orchestral Pop with light psychedelia: The Young Idea - With A Little Help From My Friends 1967-68 (2009 Rev-Ola)

 

This UK duo featured Tony Cox (b. 10 November 1945, London, England) and Douglas Ugo Granville Allesandro MacRae-Brown (b. 17 April 1947, Florence, Italy). MacRae-Brown, a contemporary of Jonathan King at Charterhouse Public School, met Cox at university. The duo then forged a songwriting partnership and, having committed several demos to tape, hawked the finished product around London’s Denmark Street-based publishers. Their talent secured a management and recording contract and the duo made their debut as the Young Idea in June 1966. They completed several singles before achieving a UK Top 10 hit the following year with a reading of the Beatles’ song ‘With A Little Help From My Friends’. The pair achieved a higher profile with non-original material, including the Hollies’ ‘A Peculiar Situation’ and several poppy creations by Les Reed and Barry Mason. However, the Young Idea were unable to repeat the success of their lone chart entry. (allmusic.com)

Single Cover

Originally released in 1968, WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM MY FRIENDS is the debut studio album by the British pop duo known as the Young Idea. In addition to a fine cover of the Fab Four’s title track, the English act, consisting of Tony Cox and Douglas MacRea-Brown, offers up other excellent orchestral-pop numbers making it a kindred spirit to the contemporary group Chad & Jeremy. (Eric Schneider, allmusic.com)

The two were accused of how unnecessary it was to cover the Beatles. But that seemed to be related to the success of the single, because it was very common at that time to cover every new Beatles song as soon as possible. However, there are a few songs on the album that are worth listening the album. Enjoy!(Frank)

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