After a little break whilst I looked at the mono masters of The Jimi Hendrix Experience, we finish the month looking once again at the work of Curt Boettcher and the band he produced his masterpiece with, The Millennium. This seven piece band included a number of musicians that Boettcher had worked with on previous projects. Guitarist/singers Lee Mallory and Sandy Salisbury had been a member of The Ballroom. Drummer Ron Edger in The GoldeBriars. Their ‘Begin’ album is one of the few rediscovered albums that actually lives up to the hype. Is is a great record. Columbia records invested an estimated $100,000 into the LP, making it the most expensive record recorded up to that point. You can hear when’re the money went. The production is superb.
As good as it was, the album and singles did not sell and only came to the attention of most record buyers years later. Now, as with The Ballroom recordings, The Millennium produced a number of songs after the ‘Begin’ sessions finished with ‘Just About The Same’ being put forward as a potential single release. It did not come out due to the commercial failure of the ‘Begin’ album and the fact that none of the singles charted. These additional recordings, including a number of demos have be released on a series of compilation albums since the late 1990’s.
Looking over the ‘Magic Time’ compilation and ‘The Millennium At Last’, there were a number of songs listed under The Millennium name and I wanted to see if there was enough material for a second album. After playing through them, I found that I had so many that I could put together an LP as well as a number of singles. The production is nowhere were as lush or sophisticated as ‘Begin’, but that is understandable as many of these songs were demos or basic backing tracks that are waiting for additional instrumentation.
The Millennium did not get the chance to finish this record but no one seems to know why. Some people claim others were dropped by the label, they just decided to split (keeping together a seven piece band cannot be easy) or say that Boettcher himself was fired and the rest of the band decided to call it a day. Whatever the reason, by the end of 1969 The Millennium was over and their one artefact was all but forgotten until being rediscovered in the 1990s. Luckily for fans of Sunshine Pop, the band left enough music for possible what-if second album projects such as this.
Side 1
- Come To Me Baby
- I Just Don’t Know How To Say Goodbye
- Can You See
- Suspended Animation
- Dying With You
- Share With Me
- Little Lost & Found
Side 2
- Together In The End
- Baby, It’s Real
- A Younger Me
- Midnight Sun
- Sunshine Girl
- Magic Island
- I Can Still See Your Face
Singles
- Just About The Same
- Blight
- Good People
- How Much I Love You
- Navajo Girl
- Sometime Or Another
- Will You Ever See Me
- The Blue Marble
The cover for this compilation is from the Poptones compilation of the same name with the Columbia logo added.
This compilation could not be reproduced due to more than one song not being available on Spotify.