Folk Pop Harmonies are in Full Bloom on The Rose Garden’s Charming New Collection
California band The Rose Garden are probably best remembered for their sunshine-filled hit single “Next Plane To London,” featuring the deep distinctive vocals of singer Diana De Rose, which went to #17 on the US charts in late 1967. The band quickly followed it with their sole self-titled album in early 1968 but despite good reviews and some cool package tours under their belt, as is in the fickle world of pop, audiences appeared to have moved on to the next big thing and the record barely dented the top 200.
One final single was released in 1968, the non-LP track “If My World Falls Through.” Its lack of success – along with some in-band fighting – led to the group finally calling it a day in 1969 and they seemed to disappear as quickly as they emerged.
The album may well have fallen into complete obscurity had it not been for the fact that it includes two rare Gene Clark-penned numbers that the ex-Byrd offered to the band after hearing them play at the Ash Grove club in Los Angeles one night. That, along with the band’s obvious Byrds-influenced sound, makes this new collection, A Trip Through The Garden: The Rose Garden Collection, a lovely companion piece to the new Gene Clark Sings For You release, which we reviewed last week.
The Gene Clark Sings For You album includes the entire five-song acetate that Clark gave to The Rose Garden’s teenage guitarist John Noreen as well as the acoustic demo for “Till Today,” one of the two songs the band chose to record for their debut (the other being “Long Time”).
Other than the studio recordings of those songs, there’s more to interest Clark’s fans on this beautifully put-together compilation of The Rose Garden’s entire recording career, in the form of two more versions of “Till Today.” The first is a band rehearsal of the track, with Clark running through the song with them, singing and playing tambourine. The second is an acetate of the song played with a full band, which has a much more Byrds feel. It’s definitely interesting and enjoyable to hear the song in all its different forms.
Other than the endorsement of Clark, The Rose Garden had other factors on their side too, which make it surprising that they didn’t enjoy more success. Starting life as a group called The Blokes (for some reason they even kept this name after De Rose joined), they met producers Brian Greene and Charlie Stone recording a demo at the famed Gold Star Studios, who at that point were enjoying huge success with acts such as Sonny & Cher and Buffalo Springfield.
The legendary duo got the band a gig briefly performing as the Giant Sunflower, a studio-only project masterminded by Eddie Hoh, who had a big hit with the folk-pop, flower-power anthem, “February Sunshine” but no real band to promote it.
Stone and Greene took the band into the studio to record their own superior version of “February Sunshine” which ended up on the band’s debut. They also insisted they change the band’s now ill-fitting name and The Rose Garden, inspired by singer De Rose’s name, were born.
The resulting album is pure sunshine pop, filled with jangly guitars and lovely male-female harmonies. Even without the inclusion of the
two Gene Clark-penned tunes, The Byrds influence is pretty evident: there’s even the obligatory Bob Dylan cover (in this case “She Belongs To Me”) – but there’s also a feel of early Jefferson Airplane and, of course, the Mamas & the Papas, making it a hugely enjoyable summer listen.
It could be that The Rose Garden’s warm harmonies and 12-string guitars were a little past their sell-by date when their debut album finally emerged in 1968 – even The Byrds had moved onto country rock by this point – and that is probably why the LP failed to live up to the success of “Next Plane To London.” But 50 years later its a hugely evocative listen and, despite the lack of original material on the record (the lovely, flute-filled song “Flower Town” is the only track actually written by the band), still stands up well against the gentle folk-pop of the period and De Rose’s voice is particularly enchanting.
This new release from Omnivore Recordings contains the original 10 track album (all newly remastered and restored) and an additional 16 tracks, 14 of which have never been released before.
These bonus tracks include the gorgeous “If My World Falls Through” single complete with B-side “Here’s Today” (both in Stereo and Mono mixes) and the previously mentioned rehearsal and acetate versions of “Till Today.”
There’s also a rather cool version of Buffalo Springfield’s “Down To The Wire,” written by Neil Young and then unreleased (it would be interesting to know why it didn’t end up on the LP as it would have made a nice addition).
The Byrds influence is shown further with live versions of “So You Want To Be A Rock ‘N’ Roll Star” and “She Don’t Care About Time” and there’s even a couple of rollicking Sonny & Cher covers, “Little Things” and “You Don’t Love Me” (the Stone and Greene connection may have inspired these and De Rose doesn’t sound -or look – a million miles from Cher either). These were all recorded live at a concert Chaminade High School in Canoga Park in 1967.
John Einarson (who wrote the fantastic Gene Clark biography Mr Tambourine Man) provides insightful liner notes that contain new interviews with the band and unseen photos, making this a great little package (the psychedelic artwork echoing the original album cover is rather nice too).
It’s a shame that The Flower Garden weren’t able to continue on to bigger and better things because there is a huge amount of potential on their one and only album. It would have been interesting to hear where they would have gone next, beyond the already fading ’60s folk pop sound. As it is, The Flower Garden made a rather lovely record and it deserves to be rediscovered.
A Trip Through The Garden: The Rose Garden Collection is available now from Omnivore Recordings
