It’s one of those odd quirks of fate why sixties beat group The Move never became as big as say The Who, Kinks or the Dave Clark Five or even The Beatles or The Stones. There are many reasons as to why this never happened—top of the tree is the fact The Move never broke the American market which limited their success primarily to a large island off the coast of Europe. Secondly, The Move was all too often considered a singles band—and here we find another knotty problem.

The Move, under the sublime writing talents of Roy Wood, produced singles of such quality, range and diversity it was not always possible to identify their unique imprint. They evolved from “pioneers of the psychedelic sound” with their debut single “Night of Fear” in 1966—a song that sampled Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture—through “I Can Hear The Grass Grow” and “Flowers In The Rain” to faster rock songs like “Fire Brigade”—which inspired the bassline for the Sex Pistols’ “God Save the Queen”—to the chirpy pop of “Curly” and “Omnibus” to sixties miserabilism “Blackberry Way” and early heavy metal/prog with “Wild Tiger Woman,” “Brontosaurus” and “When Alice Comes Back to the Farm.” Though there is undoubtedly a seriousness and considered process going on here—it was not necessarily one that brought together a united fan base. Those who bought “Flowers in the Rain” were not necessarily going to dig the Hendrix-influenced “Wild Tiger Woman” or groove along to “Alice Comes Back to the Farm.”

That said, The Move scored nine top ten hits during the sixties, were critically praised, had a considerable following of screaming fans, and produced albums which although they were considered “difficult” at the time (Shazam, Looking On and Message from the Country) are now considered pioneering, groundbreaking and (yes!) even “classic.”

The Move was made up from oddments of musicians and singers from disparate bands and club acts who would not necessarily gravitate together. Formed in December 1965, the original lineup consisted of guitarist Roy Wood (recently departed from Mike Sheridan and The Nightriders), vocalist Carl Wayne who along with bass player Chris ‘Ace’ Kefford and drummer Bev Bevan came from The Vikings, and guitarist Trevor Burton from The Mayfair Set. Each of these artists had a small taste of success—most notably Carl Wayne who had won the prestigious Golden Orpheus Song Festival in Bulgaria—but nothing that was going to satisfy their ambitions for a long and rewarding career.

It was David Bowie—then just plain David Jones—who suggested Kefford and Burton should form their own band. They recruited Wood onto the team sheet and decided to follow another piece of Bowie’s advice to bring together the very best musicians and singers in their hometown of Birmingham. This they did. And although technically it was Kefford’s band, Carl Wayne by dint of age steered the group through their first gigs as The Move. 

The Move’s greatest asset was Roy Wood—a teenage wunderkind who was writing songs about fairies and comic book characters that were mistakenly believed to have been inspired by LSD. This gave the band their counterculture edge when “Night of Fear” was released in 1966. They were thought to be acidheads tuning into the world of psychedelia a year before the Summer of Love—but as drummer Bev Bevan later recalled:

Nobody believed that Roy wasn’t out of his head on drugs but he wasn’t. It was all fairy stories rooted in childhood.

Young Wood and Wayne may have been squeaky clean but the rest of the band certainly enjoyed the sherbets—with one catastrophic result.

After chart success of “Night of Fear,” The Move were expected to churn out hit after hit after hit. Though Wood delivered the goods—the financial rewards did not arrive. Ace Kefford later claimed the pressure of touring, being mobbed by fans, having clothes ripped—and once being stabbed in the eye by a fan determined to snip a lock of his hair—for the same money he made gigging with The Vikings made it all seem rather pointless.

But their success continued apace. By 1967, The Move had three top ten hits, were the first band played on the BBC’s new flagship youth channel Radio One, and were touring across the UK and Europe. They also caused considerable controversy with their live stage act which involved Carl Wayne chopping up TV sets with an axe. While the golden youth were wearing flowers in their hair and singing about peace and love, The Move were offering agitprop political theater.

Then they were sued by British Prime Minister Harold Wilson.

The Move’s first manager Tony Secunda decided to promote the single “Flowers in the Rain” with a satirical postcard of PM Harold Wilson in bed with his secretary, Marcia Williams. The postcard was Secunda’s wholly idea, and had nothing to do with the band. Unfortunately, Wilson did not find the satirical caricature funny and sued for libel. He won the case. All of Wood’s royalties for the single were paid over to Wilson, who donated them to charity—a situation that continues to this day.

By now the drugs were having a drastic effect on Ace Kefford who fried his brain with LSD. As he later told Mark Paytress for the liner notes for The Very Best of the Move his mind melted at a fancy dress party at Birmingham’s Cedar Club:

There were all these little men sitting around me with pointed heads and big noses and long fingers that touched the floor. They were with me all night, man. Acid screwed my life up, man. It devastated me completely.

The Move toured with Jimi Hendrix (who was a fan) and had Pink Floyd as support. They also supplied backing vocals to Hendrix’s track “You Got Me Floatin’.” Working with Hendrix sent Wood off to find a heavier sound for the band. which led to “Wild Tiger Woman” and a gradual move towards early Heavy Metal.

When Carl Wayne quit the band—to tour the cabaret circuit—Roy Wood took over vocals and brought in Jeff Lynne from The Idle Race. Trevor Burton then quit—he (oddly) wanted The Move to be more Country and Western—so Wood brought in Rick Price from the Sight and Sound.

Jeff Lynne proved the ideal partner for Wood. However, it was all too late and The Move were headed for the inevitable split that led to the phoenix-like creation of the Electric Light Orchestra (which originally consisted of Wood, Lynne and Bevan) before Wood quit to form Wizzard.

How good were The Move?  they were very, very good. In fact, they were an excellent band who competed with The Beatles and The Stones for innovation and pop originality. However, they never won the same success, not even close. To get an idea of how good they were, take a look at their performance on Colour Me Pop from January 1969 when The Move were a four piece band consisting of Wood, Wayne, Bevan and Burton. They are tight, loud, and unlike so many over-produced bands today, sounded the same live as they did on record.

Set List: “I Can Hear The Grass Grow,” “Beautiful Daughter,” “The Christian Life,” “Flowers in the Rain,” “The Last Thing On My Mind,” “Wild Tiger Woman,” “Goin’ Back,” “Fire Brigade,” “Something” and “Blackberry Way.”

The Move has seen no shortage of reissues over the years, but collectors can now finally embrace the definitive editions of the Birmingham band’s classic self-titled debut album and the follow-up Shazam! from Cherry Red’s Esoteric Recordings imprint.  Esoteric has just reissued The Move in a 3-CD edition and Shazam! in a 2-CD expansion, both of which add copious previously unreleased material.  (“Highlights” versions are also available.)  These two titles kick off the Move campaign from Esoteric which will also see the May 27th releases of Something Else from The Move (an EP expanded to full-length CD form) and Looking On.

1968’s debut Move – featuring the line-up of vocalist Carl Wayne, guitarists Roy Wood and Trevor Burton, bassist Chris “Ace” Kefford and drummer Bev Bevan (all of whom also sang) – showcased the group’s blend of pop, psychedelia and mod soul as produced by Denny Cordell and arranged for strings, brass and woodwinds by Tony Visconti.  Move also boasts ten Roy Wood originals including two U.K. Top 3 singles in “Flowers in the Rain,” the first-ever song played on BBC Radio One (and the cause of a legal action taken by then-Prime Minister Harold Wilson) and “Fire Brigade,” a rocker with surf guitar and typically strong Move harmonies.

The album tracks penned by Wood are no less impressive, such as the baroque ballads “The Girl Outside” and “Mist on a Monday Morning,” the catchy “(Here We Go Round) The Lemon Tree” (B-side of “Flowers”) and “Useless Information,” and the disconcerting “Cherry Blossom Clinic” – the latter in one of the album’s most stirring and freewheeling productions, embellished with wild brass and strings.  Three covers round out the LP: Eddie Cochran’s R&B rave-up “Weekend,” the electrified rock-and-roll boogie-woogie of Moby Grape’s “Hey Grandma,” and a Coasters-style, doo-wopping take on the standard “Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart.”   Even members of The Move felt that the LP was schizophrenic, but its stylistic variety today adds to its appeal as a snapshot of a time in music when anything was possible.

Disc One of Esoteric’s new reissue has the original album in remastered mono plus thirteen choice bonuses (four of which are previously unissued).  You’ll hear both sides of The Move’s first two pre-album 45s; three songs recorded in the studio in January 1966 and restored from an acetate; five more January ’66 tracks from Birmingham Local Radio (complete with DJ intros); and one 1967 outtake, “Vote for Me.”  The explosive “You’re the One I Need” from that early studio session has Ace Kefford channeling Ray Charles on his vocals, while “Winter Song” and “The Fugitive”  (the latter recalling “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away”) have a gentler, folk-rock feel.  The radio covers, such as a previously unreleased take on The Marvelettes’ Tamla-Motown classic “Too Many Fish in the Sea” and The Isley Brothers’ “Respectable,” reveal the soulful influences shared by the band members as does a storming version of Carole King and Gerry Goffin’s “I Can’t Hear You No More.”  The Move even took on the Philly pop of The Orlons’ “Don’t Hang Up” in another never-before-released performance.

The second disc of Move has twenty studio tracks in stereo, sixteen of which premiered on the second disc of Salvo’s 2007 2-CD set.  (Indeed, all of the bonus tracks from that release are happily reprised here.)  The third disc is a treasure trove of BBC sessions all recorded prior to the album’s April 1968 release, between January 1967 and January 1968.  These in-studio takes from Top Gear,Easybeat and Saturday Club offer a tantalizing glimpse into The Move as live performers.  Energetic covers are peppered throughout, like The Byrds’ “So You Want to be a Rock and Roll Star,” Love’s “Stephanie Knows Who,” Joe Tex’s “You Better Believe It, Baby,” and Van McCoy’s “Stop and Get a Hold of Myself” from the pre-Motown days of Gladys Knight and the Pips.

It took nearly two years, until February 1970, for The Move to return with a second studio album.  By the time of the release of Shazam!, The Move had released a number of singles including the chart-topping “Blackberry Way.”  The band’s line-up had altered, too.  Ace Kefford had departed, and Rick Price had replaced Trevor Burton on bass and vocals. Shazam! introduced a “new” Move.  The album only featured six songs – three from Roy Wood, and three covers.  The tracks were of epic length (with four songs breaking the five-minute mark and one approaching eleven minutes) and spoken word “interview” segments with Carl Wayne on the street added an “in-the-moment” feel.  In addition, co-producers Wood, Wayne and Price took full advantage of stereo, panning back and forth for a far-out effect.

A new, far more muscular direction was clear from the searing guitar that opened the LP’s first track, Wood’s “Hello, Susie.”  It had been previously recorded by Amen Corner as a slice of pure AM pop, and earned a berth in the U.K. Top 10.  With its heavy instrumentation and swaggering vocal, The Move’s rendition clearly anticipates glam rock and metal while nodding in a progressive direction.  “All those gorgeous harmonies draped over hard rock arrangements,” Bev Bevan accurately observes in Mark Paytress’ liner notes.  The heavy sound continued on a hard ‘n’ heavy reworking of the previous album’s “Cherry Blossom Clinic,” as “Cherry Blossom Clinic Revisited,” without strings and brass, and with a classical interlude quoting Bach.  Wood’s third composition, the pretty and haunting “Beautiful Daughter,” is the most atypical.  Tony Visconti’s slashing strings harken back to the group’s first album, and the track is an oasis of serenity among the rock fury.

The original LP’s second side transformed three tunes, Move-style.  “Fields of People” was introduced by the American progressive band Ars Nova.  The Move lengthened it, and lathered on sound effects, spacey harmonies, spoken-word asides and a raga break; the result is a slice of psych-pop that sounds as if Wood could have written it himself.  Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil’s “Don’t Make My Baby Blue” (also recorded by The Shadows and western crooner Frankie Laine!) got the full-on “heavy” treatment, with a scorching riff and slowed-down tempo.  Carl Wayne’s vocal sounds a bit like a template for glam-era Bowie, and the same can be said for that of the album’s closing track, a psych-folk treatment (with more than a dash of The Byrds!) of Tom Paxton’s “The Last Thing on My Mind.”

Esoteric’s reissue allows listeners to trace the development of the group up to Shazam! as it also includes the pre-Shazam!, post-Move singles among the bonus material on Disc One.  Among the other finds here are the U.S. single edit of “Hello, Susie,” the 1968 recording of “Second Class (She’s Too Good for Me)” and a host of demos and alternate mixes.  The second disc kicks off with two alternates from Shazam! before launching into another splendid array of BBC session material recorded between May 1968 and November 1969.  The covers here once again are most fascinating.  There are previously released versions of The Beach Boys’ “California Girls,” Janis Joplin’s “Piece of My Heart” and The Byrds’ “Goin’ Back” (another Goffin/King number) as well as previously unheard versions of Little Anthony and the Imperials’ “Goin’ Out of My Head,” Dion’s “Abraham, Martin and John,” The Nazz’s “Open My Eyes” and Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Sound of Silence,” and even The Rooftop Singers’ “Walk Right Back,”  plus Spooky Tooth’s “Evil Woman” – not the song of the same title written by a future Move member!  Few bands could have handled such wildly diverse material, but the bandmates in The Move were used to keeping a widely-varied repertoire as they split their time between cabaret venues and “proper” rock concerts.

Everything from the last Salvo edition of Shazam! is here other than an alternate mix of “Blackberry Way” and the stereo version of “A Certain Something” which have been dropped.  (The one-channel “Reduced Mix” of “Beautiful Daughter” from the ’07 edition is still credited as such here, but is actually the two-channel stereo version.)

Both Move reissues are housed in handsome digipaks designed by Phil Smee, and both contain both a booklet of liner notes and a foldout poster (with artwork or an advertisement on one side, and reprinted newspaper clippings on the reverse).  Mark Paytress’ comprehensive liner notes have been adapted and updated from his previous essays crafted for the 2007 reissues.

The Move’s catalogue can be a daunting one, but Esoteric has done a fine job in streamlining it as much as possible via these first two reissues.  Move and Shazam! are available now at the links below; Something Else from The Move and Looking On will arrive on May 27th!

The Move, Move (Regal Zonophone LRZ 1002, 1968 – reissued Esoteric/Cherry Red ECLEC 32536, 2016)

CD 1: The Original Album (Tracks 1-13) plus Bonus Tracks

1. Yellow Rainbow
2. Kilroy Was Here
3. (Here We Go) Round the Lemon Tree
4. Weekend
5. Walk Upon the Water
6. Flowers in the Rain
7. Hey Grandma
8. Useless Information
9. Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart
10. The Girl Outside
11. Fire Brigade
12. Mist on a Monday Morning
13. Cherry Blossom Clinic

January 1966 – Studio Recordings

14. You’re the One I Need
15. Winter Song (previously unreleased)
16. The Fugitive (previously unreleased)

January 1966 – Birmingham Local Radio Recordings

17. Is It True
18. Too Many Fish in the Sea (previously unreleased)
19. Respectable
20. Don’t Hang Up (previously unreleased)
21. I Can’t Hear You No More

Singles and More

22. Night of Fear (Deram single DM 109-A, 1966)
23. Disturbance (Deram single DM 109-B, 1966)
24. I Can Hear the Grass Grow (Deram DM 117-A, 1967)
25. Wave the Flag and Stop the Train (Deram DM 117-B, 1967)
26. Vote for Me (Recorded at Advision Studios, London, 1967)

CD 2: Stereo Mixes

1. Night of Fear
2. Don’t Throw Stones at Me
3. Move Intro
4. Move
5. Yellow Rainbow (Enhanced Stereo Version)
6. Kilroy Was Here
7. (Here We Go Round) The Lemon Tree
8. Weekend
9. Walk Upon the Water
10. Flowers in the Rain
11. Useless Information
12. Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart
13. The Girl Outside (Alternate Take)
14. Fire Brigade
15. Mist on a Monday Morning
16. Cherry Blossom Clinic
17. Vote for Me (Alternate Take)
18. Night of Fear (Alternate Take)
19. Disturbance (Undubbed Version)
20. Fire Brigade (Undubbed Early Piano Version)

CD 3: BBC Sessions January 1967 – January 1968

BBC Light Programme Saturday Club, January 31, 1967

1. You Better Believe It Baby
2. Night of Fear
3. Stop and Get a Hold of Myself

BBC Light Programme Saturday Club, April 10, 1967

4. Kilroy Was Here
5. Interview with Carl Wayne (previously unreleased)
6. I Can Hear the Grass Grow
7. Walk Upon the Water

BBC Light Programme Easybeat, September 14, 1967

8. Morning Dew
9. Interview with Carl Wayne (previously unreleased)
10. Stephanie Knows Who
11. Flowers in the Rain
12. So You Want to Be a Rock ‘n’ Roll Star

BBC Radio One Top Gear, October 1, 1967

13. Hey Grandma
14. Cherry Blossom Clinic

BBC Radio One Top Gear, January 28, 1968

15. Fire Brigade
16. Weekend
17. It’ll Be Me
18. Walk Upon the Water (previously unreleased)
19. Useless Information

The Move, Shazam! (Regal Zonophone SLRZ 1012, 1970 – reissued Esoteric/Cherry Red ECLEC 22538, 2016) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

CD 1: The Original Album (Tracks 1-6) plus Bonus Tracks

1. Hello Susie
2. Beautiful Daughter
3. Cherry Blossom Clinic Revisited
4. Fields of People
5. Don’t Make My Baby Blue
6. The Last Thing on My Mind

Singles and More

7. Wild Tiger Woman (Regal Zonophone single RZ 3012-A, 1968) (mono)
8. Omnibus (Regal Zonophone single RZ 3012-B, 1968) (mono)
9. Blackberry Way (Regal Zonophone single RZ 3015-A, 1968) (mono)
10. A Certain Something (Regal Zonophone single RZ 3015-B, 1968) (mono)
11. Curly (Regal Zonophone single RZ 3021-A, 1968)
12. This Time Tomorrow (Regal Zonophone single RZ 3021-B, 1968)
13. Hello Susie (Abridged U.S. Single Version)
14. Second Class (She’s Too Good for Me) (Recorded at Olympic Studios – 9/23/68)
15. Wild Tiger Woman (Stereo Mix)
16. Omnibus (Full Version)
17. Curly (Alternate Mix)
18. This Time Tomorrow (Demo Version) (mono)

CD 2: Outtakes and BBC Sessions May 1968-November 1969

1. That Certain Something (Demo) (mono)
2. Beautiful Daughter (Reduced Mix)
3. Interview with Carl Wayne (previously unreleased)
4. (Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher
5. Kentucky Woman
6. Interview with Bev Bevan (previously unreleased)
7. Wild Tiger Woman
8. Long Black Veil
9. Piece of My Heart
10. Goin’ Back
11. Blackberry Way
12. California Girls
13. The Christian Life
14. Bev Bevan Interview (previously unreleased)
15. Beautiful Daughter (previously unreleased)
16. Goin’ Out of My Head (previously unreleased)
17. Evil Woman (previously unreleased)
18. Carl Wayne Interview (previously unreleased)
19. Curly (previously unreleased)
20. The Sound of Silence (previously unreleased)
21. Abraham, Martin and John (previously unreleased)
22. Open My Eyes (previously unreleased)
23. Hello, Susie (previously unreleased)
24. Walk Right Back (previously unreleased)
25. Fields of People (previously unreleased)