Claiming no connection to the aircraft enterprise, Boeing Duveen and the Beautiful Soup was actually a pseudonym for Sam Hutt. A doctor by trade, the enigmatic fellow specialized in holistic medicine and later went into country music billing himself as Hank Wanford.
Originally released on the Parlophone label in 1968, “Jabberwock/Which Dreamed It” was to be Boeing Duveen and the Beautiful Soup’s sole entry in the rock and roll sweepstakes, making for a ghastly rare piece of plastic. Recently reissued by the Captain High label, the obscure single captures the character and color of psychedelic pop rock in all its weird and warped splendor.
Based on the classic Lewis Carroll tale, “Jabberwock” features clipped British vocals performed at a dramatic sing-songy lilt, joined by waltzing rhythms playing hopscotch with jittery sitars. Shrieks and giggles also echo in the background, giving the tune an even stranger effect. The flipside of the disc, “Which Dreamed It,” is further plastered with trippy sitar furnishings, but the mood is breezy and ethereal.
A fascinating relic, “Jabberwock” and “Which Dreamed It” combines childlike imagination with musical innovation to rapturous acclaim. It’s our loss Boeing Duveen and the Beautiful Soup didn’t record a complete album of this groovy stuff, but what a gain it is the long forgotten single is now available for a whole new generation of psychedelic fans to cherish.
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