On This Day 21/0/1970 Love Sculpture

On this day, 18-year-old soccer sensation, Arsenal’s recent £100,000 signing Peter Marinello was tasked with reviewing the latest single releases in the national music newspaper Melody Maker.

Amongst reviews was the latest by John and Yoko, “Instant Karma”, Jimmy Ruffin and Byrds was Cardiff’s Love Sculpture with “The Land Of The Few”.

Marinello’s review - “Is it The Who? It’s quite like them. It could get in your mind if it got enough plays, but it doesn’t get you the first time. Hey that sounds like Zorba the Greek! It’s okay, good for discos but not just for listening.

Love Sculpture’s new album release also featured in the review column with “Forms and Feelings” on the Parlophone label receiving this from the pop paper’s reviewer.

Much of the group’s work as classical overtones - for example, their hit “Sabre Dance” which is included here; the baroque going on in “In The Land Of The Few” and their arrangement of Bizet’s “Farandole” it can occasionally feel rather gimmicky, but at their best, the group as a heavy, rough sound and an original approach.

Instrumentally, the best thing is the bluesy, gutsy guitar. A nice album which tries to present the group doing very much their own thing. BD.

On This Day 14/12/1968 Dave Edmunds/Love Sculpture

ImaIges

On this day, 14 December 1968, Melody Maker featured a report on the success of Sabre Dance, recording by Welsh band Love Sculpture, lead by Dave Edmunds.

When John Peel featured the special taping of "Sabre Dance" on his Top Gear Radio One Show, the letters started pouring in.

"Where," they pleaded "can we get a recording of this tune" and "What's the name of the group playing it?"

Easy to answer the second query. The group is called Love Sculture. But a single was non-existant. However, Love Sculpture soon put that right.

They have recorded "Sabre Dance" and it was released last Friday week. and immediately jumped into the MM chart.

So who is this group with the romantic name? It consists of three Cardiff boys, Dave Edmunds, lead vocals and guitar, John Williams, bass guitar, and Bob "Congo" Jones on drums.

"We'd been playing in Wales for about seven months when we decided to come to London with the idea of making it. It seems to be in London where it all happens. We had just about got as far as we could in Wales." says Dave.

And how did the group get its name? "Our drummer was reading a book of horror stories, one of them was called 'The Ohio Love Sculture' We liked the name and just abbreviated it," adds Dave.

Love Sculpture had previously recorded a tune called "River To Another Day" it had some airplays, but didn't sell too well," says Dave.

"There probably wasn't enough publicity for the group at the time.

"But John Peel heard the record and liked the B side - 'Brand New Woman' So he booked us i nto Top Gear.

"We wanted to do something a little different for the programme, so I arranged 'Sabre Dance' John featured it twice on the programme and requests started coming in for a recording.

"Now, wherever we play we are asked for 'Sabre Dance' That one show has certainly made a difference. Already we've been asked to tour with the Amen Corner, now all we need is some TV exposure, as 'Sabre Dance' is more of a visual thing"