Over the course of their first three albums (The Young Rascals, Collections, and Groovin', all reissued on CD by Collectors' Choice Music), the Rascals had evolved enormously as songwriters and soul-rock stylists within an astonishingly short period of time. That was true of several major rock bands of the 1960s, of course, but it was still remarkable that only a year and a half or so separated the blue-eyed soul raunch of "Good Lovin'" from the near-psychedelic bliss of "Groovin'." For all its innovative qualities, however, the Groovin' album had consisted largely of songs that were released on singles, a couple of them making their debuts on 45 considerably in advance of the LP's release. Once Upon a Dream marked not only a deeper immersion in the psychedelic ethos of the time, but also perhaps the Rascals' first long-playing record conceived of as an album, not just a collection of tracks cut during roughly the same period. Tellingly, it was also the first Rascals LP comprised entirely of original material, and featured just one hit single.
Before the album
was
released, there had been hints that it would be a departure from
previous Rascals longplayers, both in sound and attitude. "Our new
album, and I say this in a humble way, will be Sgt. Pepperish," organist and
singer Felix Cavaliere told Melody
Maker in October 1967. "We'd really like to go on a world tour
in Japan, Turkey, Europe and even the USSR to spread a message of
peace. It would be a world peace tour. The message won't be simple
pacifism, it'll go deeper than that. It's lack of communication that
leads to ignorance and war. On our travels we have found already that
young people are really groovy all over the world. Although we're not
fighters or anything, we would like to do our bit to get them together.
We feel there is freedom of expression in pop music today so that we
can do this, and it is the Beatles who have opened up so many doors for
so many people, both musically and as regards the press."
Sixteen years later, incidentally, Cavaliere would
speculate that the Rascals influenced the Beatles as well. Discussing
Jimmy Smith's organ work with Rock
Keyboard in October 1983, Felix observed, "He created a rising
crescendo sound pattern that was tonal, by just putting his hands on
the keys and moving up. I magnified that to the '60s level of monster
sound, and I think my way of doing it had a very strong effect on the
music of the Beatles...all of us were very aware of each other in those
days. We took plenty from the Beatles, and I'm proud to say that they
took something from us. We were working in a club in London, and Paul
[McCartney] came down to see us. It was a small room, and in that kind
of a place, a Hammond organ with two Leslie speakers and full reverb is
quite an experience. You can't get away from it. It fills every corner,
because the sound from the Leslie isn't straight; it's around. At the
end of our set we played this jazz-rock number called 'Cute,' and at
the end I did this effect, going from the complete bottom of the second
manual to the midpoint and all the way up to infinity. I remember that
Paul was very taken aback by that. He felt it. The next time they put
out an album, it was Sgt. Pepper,
and they did the same thing, using a whole orchestra [in 'A Day in the
Life']. He took it another step. From Smith to Cavaliere to McCartney;
that's how that one went. Where Smith got it from I have yet to find
out."
The specific influence of Sgt. Pepper and other psychedelic
records of 1967 can be heard on Once
Upon a Dream in the frequent use of brief instrumental and
spoken passages and sound effects to link and introduce tracks; the
abundance of session musicians and orchestration to embroider the
quartet of actual Rascals; the eclecticism of styles and arrangements,
which varied widely from track to track; and the whimsical,
loose-livin'-and-lovin' optimism of much of the lyrics and music. It
could even be seen, in fact, on the album's cover, which featured a
collection of sculptures by drummer Dino Danelli, and—for the first
time on any of their LP sleeves—billed the band as the Rascals, the
group having outgrown the Young Rascals name. With any such risk-taking
venture, the danger lies in having the ambition tip over into gimmickry
that overwhelms the music. Fortunately, the Rascals, like the Beatles,
didn't lose sight of the most essential ingredient—strong, memorable
pop songs, all but one (guitarist Gene Cornish's "I'm Gonna Love You
Too") written by the team of Felix Cavaliere and singer Eddie Brigati.
And Once Upon a Dream has
many of them, even if they didn't always sound like the blue-eyed soul
with which the Rascals first made their mark.
For all its psychedelic trimmings, however, Once Upon a Dream did contain one
bona fide hit single, "It's Wonderful," which made it to #20 in early
1968. Remarkably, it was both wonderful and psychedelic, exuding the
carefree relaxed vibe the group had perfected with "Groovin'," but
adding a downright freaky instrumental break with high echoing
harmonies that disappeared into the ether (and which would be sped up
into oblivion on the track's fade), a brief snatch of free jazz brass,
and criss-crossing laser beams of sound effects. (Adrian Barber—later
to work as engineer on albums by the Allman Brothers, Velvet
Underground, Bee Gees, and Cream—even gets a "Sound Effects Engineer"
credit on the sleeve.) As a weird extended coda of sorts, it segues
into "I'm Gonna Love You Too," a fusion of soul ballad and Salvation
Army instrumentation that is one of the record's most overt nod to
trendy psychedelicisms. The most overt nod is unquestionably the
raga-rocker "Sattva," on which Cavaliere plays sitar, Danelli tabla,
and Brigati tamboura, though even that become a typically Rascalian
blue-eyed soul groover in the middle section.
Yet several of the record's songs were as earthy
soul-rock concoctions as anything the Rascals had done. "Easy Rollin'"
was lowdown funky soul-blues, albeit with a wistful veneer; "Please
Love Me" was urgent uptempo romantic blue-eyed soul with a thumping
piano base, albeit with some bits where the song unpredictably drifted
off into snake-charming jazz passages. "Singin' the Blues Too Long" was
a tasteful homage to the sort of bluesy piano R&B mastered by Ray
Charles (complete with wailing responsive gospel backup vocals), whom
Cavaliere has always credited as a major influence. It was this kind of
performance that gave the Rascals a bigger black audience than
virtually any other white act of the era; the Once Upon a Dream album, in fact,
would actually chart higher in the R&B listings (where it peaked at
#7) than the pop ones (where it made #9). "My World" was the kind of
bittersweet, high-harmony-bathed soul ballad that would have been a
natural for a Philadelphia vocal soul group to cover in the late '60s.
Elsewhere, the lushly orchestrated "Rainy Day" was
the kind of sentimental ballad at which Brigati (who sang lead)
excelled, and "My Hawaii" satisfied his soft spot for semi-operatic
melodramatic pop of the pre-rock sort. Eddie also took lead on "Silly
Girl," the sort of bouncy, out-and-out catchy romantic pop song with
which the group might have had a hit single, though it didn't even make
it onto a B-side. And "Finale: Once Upon a Dream" features as lead
singer not one of the Rascals, but Eddie's brother David Brigati, whom
Cavaliere had met back in the Starliters days, and who had contributed
birdcalls for "Groovin'." Several other high-profile guests played on
the record as well, including tenor saxophonist King Curtis; jazz
flutist Hubert Laws; jazz soprano saxophonist Steve Marcus; and jazz
bassists Chuck Rainey, Ron Carter, and Richard Davis, all of whom
filled in the spaces unavailable to the Rascals in their bass-less
onstage lineup (though Gene Cornish played some bass on Once Upon a Dream as well).
Considering how unusual Once Upon a Dream might have
sounded to some Rascals fans, it sold quite well, in addition to
satisfying the group's newly grown appetites for lyrical and musical
experimentation. They weren't done with those yet, either, taking an
entire double LP for their next album, 1969's Freedom Suite, which has also been
reissued on CD by Collectors' Choice Music. -- Richie Unterberger
HOME WHAT'S NEW MUSIC BOOKS MUSIC REVIEWS TRAVEL BOOKS