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"
