Vanilla Fudge ...

[uwe]

I sometimes get an itch to complement my CD collection with some iconic (or thus perceived!) album, one such case was very recently VF's 1968 debut. It's the first time I have heard it in full - I knew of course their You Keep Me Hanging On version (much later on carbon copied by Nightwing and a blueprint for how dozens of early seventies bands would approach slowed down covers) and had a reunion album with a (more than decent) remake of it plus the Cactus and BBA connections, but I have only heard the debut in the flesh yesterday. And must say - this was 1968 after all - I'm impressed. Early DP Mk1 always wanted to "outfudge the Fudge" (Ian Paice: "I don't think we ever did!") with their sometimes overwrought covers of pop material, but the VF debut is in another league as regards harmony vocal prowess, general groove as well as a certain bludgeoning power plus a (then) really fresh and undaunted approach toward rearranging and even reinventing the cover material.

So this is my question to the, uhum, more elder members of the forum who were already listening to rock when the VF debut came out: What did people make of it back then?

[copacetic]

Well for me it was refreshing. I had been moving back and forth between Japan and Europe ( in my mid teens then) and being a commited electric bass player ( and in constant hassles with guitar players telling me to just keep at the root notes and none of that filler stuff and keep the volume down) so any band that had upfront bass playing caught my ear. Vanilla Fudge was one of them. Got the LP on a stop over in New York on the way back to The Hague. Intriguing because they were obviously American and could not tell at first if they were white or black. Things were really getting psychedelic then with most and they were a little more grounded. They also did not have the patented Motown sound , so that was also different. They sort of reminded me a little of The Spencer Davis Group ( white guys sounding authentic and obviously cut their teeth on r&b, stax, motown and New Orleans stuff)

[westen44]

We were all young, of course.  But everyone I was around was astounded at VF.  Plus, there was a great cover band called the Tropics that would sometimes come to town.  They would do "You Keep Me Hanging On," and you could barely even tell the difference between them and Vanilla Fudge.  Listening to a song live like that with the volume loud as hell is an experience impossible to forget. 

[ack1961]

I was 7 and at the mercy of my oldest brother's album collection (that I wasn't allowed to touch).
When he'd leave the house, I'd play whatever side of whatever album that was on his turntable...and leave the label facing in the same direction as when I got to it.

Luckily, for the next few years, I got great doses of VF, Canned Heat, Deep Purple, Heep, etc.

What I remember most about that VF album is that everything seemed about half speed, but the keyboards were mind-blowingly  powerful.  During those years, I got great doses of the greatest keyboardist ever: Lord, Hensley, Stein, Wakeman...good time to be a kid falling in love with music.

[Highlander]

My parents were playing Hank or some Gaelic something or other... dad religiously bought the "number one on the hit parade" single every week, so I was missed out on a stack of stuff...

[Rob]

I was 17 or so and playing in a B-3 equipped band.
They had a LOT of airplay in the midwest, and I thought they were awesome. 

PS
Saw BBA a few years later and they weren't as good as I had hoped.

[Highlander]

+1 on BBA

[Pilgrim]

To me they were just another band.  I never liked the slow version of "Hanging On", and I can't recall any of their other stuff.  Maybe I would if I heard it played.  To me the band is just one of many, and not one that excited me at all. 

I started working as a disc jockey in the summer of 1968, but that was at a country station.  It took me a long time to sort out much of the rock music that pre-dates 1969 or so.  There's a lot of it I've only learned about in retrospect.

[Highlander]

You're like my wife, Al ... liking all kinds of music ... country, and western ...

[Pilgrim]

I think today's country is a lot closer to rock (at least lighter rock) than a lot of the bubble gum I hear today.

[Highlander]

Jackie's most recent purchase was the last Alan Jackson release, which is more trad than some...

Mind you, she's been watching that "Nashville" soap...

[Dave W]

To me they were just another band.  I never liked the slow version of "Hanging On", and I can't recall any of their other stuff.  Maybe I would if I heard it played.  To me the band is just one of many, and not one that excited me at all. 

...

That's my view too. Their cover of Hanging On was the only song I remember hearing played on the radio where I was. Read some buzz about them but that's all.

[uwe]

+1 on BBA

True. Neither the studio album nor the live one were of the "awsumness" you would have expected from a guitar god and one of the best rhythm sections around. It was ... just barely competent, a lot of the Cactus stuff was better. Maybe jeff Beck just isn't made to shine in a band situation. And for the life of me I do not understand why they didn't find a decent singer or poached one from another band. 

[nofi]

i saw bba and the sound was sort of lame. could have been that wall of univox amps they were endorsing at the time. those blue/ gray cabs with speaker holes cut in the particle board grill. imo beck never had a big enough sound for a trio configuration.

[westen44]

Vanilla Fudge toured with Hendrix in 1968.  A lot could be said about what was done right and what was done wrong with them.  But I think that second album is what hurt them the most.  Just to make a generalization, VF had way less flexibility as a rock band than you would expect.