The zombies
| The zombies | |
|---|---|
 The Zombies (2005) |
|
| General information | |
| Genre (s) | Rock , beat , psychedelic rock |
| founding | 1961, 1990, 2001, 2008 |
| resolution | 1968 |
| Founding members | |
| Rod Argent (born June 14, 1945) | |
| Chris White (born March 7, 1943) | |
| Colin Blunstone (born June 24, 1945) | |
| Paul Atkinson (born March 19, 1946 - April 1, 2004) | |
| Hugh Grundy (born March 6, 1945) | |
The Zombies are a British rock band . The founding members Rod Argent and Colin Blunstone are considered to be their best-known exponents. With the songs She's Not There , Tell Her No and Time of the Season , the band made the hit parade several times in the 1960s . She's Not There was also by many musicians gecovert . With partly changing members, the band has been reformed several times since it was founded and is still sporadically active today.
history
The band was founded in 1961 in St Albans near London , but only found a recording studio in 1964 after several live performances. Her main songwriters were about equal parts Argent and White.
The career started promisingly with the two single hits She's Not There and Tell Her No , but the other releases flopped, including the debut album. The work entitled Begin Here was produced by Ken Jones and was released in 1965. It consisted of singles, covers - including a version of Gershwin's Summertime - and other original material such as I Remember When I Loved Her , I Can't Make Up My Mind and that The Way I Feel Inside performed (almost) a cappella by Blunstone .
After more than half a dozen unsuccessful singles, the band received no more contract renewals from their old label Decca and switched to CBS in June 1967 . But before the self-financed concept album Odessey and Oracle was released in April 1968 , the zombies had already broken up. This second LP also sold poorly, but in retrospect is considered to be groundbreaking. The work produced by Argent and White is characterized by harmony singing, piano and mellotron . The spelling mistake in the title ("Odessey" instead of "Odyssey") goes back to the designer of the cover. Critically praised, the album now often appears in lists with the “best records of all time”, e.g. B. in the list of Rolling Stone Magazine .
When the single Time of the Season was delayed and surprisingly developed into the band's last hit and only US million seller, parts of the zombies briefly found themselves back in the studio in December 1968. A third album with the working title RIP was planned, half of which would have consisted of reworked zombies outtakes from the Decca phase. Although it was finished, it remained unpublished at the time, as the band members now had other interests and they soon went their separate ways. The total of ten pieces were later used as CD bonus tracks and were completely collected for the first time in the Zombie Heaven CD box and finally appeared in 2008 as an independent CD release.
Rod Argent had founded the band Argent in 1968 with his cousin Jim Rodford . Some of their original members had already jumped in for the RIP pieces. Chris White also worked as a songwriter on the new band project. Paul Atkinson became A&R manager at CBS and signed ABBA among others . He died in Santa Monica , California in 2004 at the age of 58 . Hugh Grundy also worked as an A&R man at CBS, but later retired from the music business. Colin Blunstone started a solo career and released three singles in 1969 under the pseudonym Neil MacArthur , starting with a contemporary recording of the zombie hit She's Not There . From 1971 he published under his real name, and from then on Argent and White worked for him as musicians, producers and songwriters for almost all of his solo projects.
Reunions
In 1990 Chris White, Hugh Grundy and Colin Blunstone gathered new musicians to record the album The Return of the Zombies (in some countries only released in 1991 under the name New World ) as Zombies . Rod Argent and Paul Atkinson were only involved as guest musicians.
In 2001 Colin Blunstone and Rod Argent brought out the album Out of the Shadows as a collaborative effort . The musicians Mark Johns, Jim Rodford (ex-Argent / - Kinks ) and his son Steve Rodford were involved in the production and the subsequent tour for the album . Since Mark Johns also worked with Ray Davies at the same time , he was soon replaced by Keith Airey. The next time Blunstone and Argent worked together in 2004, the old band name The Zombies was reactivated for the album As Far As I Can See .
In 2008, the four surviving original members of the band (Blunstone, Argent, White and Grundy) got together again for a series of live performances, including - on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of its release - the tracks from the album Odessey and Oracle were performed for the first time .
In 2010 Tom Toomey took over from Keith Airey on guitar and in 2011 The Zombies featuring Colin Blunstone & Rod Argent released another album with Breathe Out, Breathe In , which received good reviews everywhere.
occupation
Founding members
(see table)
Other band members
- Rick Birkett - guitar (1969)
- Sebastian Santa Maria - Keyboard (from 1990)
Occupation 2001–2007
- Rod Argent - keyboard
- Colin Blunstone - vocals, guitar
- Mark Johns or Keith Airey - guitar
- Jim Rodford - bass
- Steve Rodford - drums
Current occupation
- Colin Blunstone
- Rod Argent
- Jim Rodford
- Steve Rodford
- Tom Toomey - guitar (from 2010)
Discography
Albums
Studio albums
-
Begin Here (1965) (first album in Europe)
- The Zombies (1965) (first album in the USA, some tracks other than Begin Here )
- Odessey and Oracle (1968)
- The Return of the Zombies (1990) / New World (1991)
- As Far As I Can See ... (2004)
- Breathe Out, Breathe In (2011)
- Still Got That Hunger (2015)
Live albums
- Five Live Zombies (1989)
- Live at the Bloomsbury Theater (2005)
- Odessey & Oracle {revisited} - 40th Anniversary Concert (2008)
Compilations
- Time of the Zombies (1972)
- 1964-1967 (1995)
- Zombie Heaven (1997) (4-CD collection with all recordings before the 1969 dissolution)
- Singles Collection (1964-1969) (2000)
- Live at the BBC (2003)
- The Singles As and Bs (2005)
- The Ultimate Zombies - Original Hits (2007)
- Into the Afterlife (2007) (early Argent demos, Blunstone solo material, special mixes)
- RIP (2008)
- Recorded Live at Metropolis Studios, London (2014)
EPs
- The Zombies (1965 - Kind of Girl , Sometimes , It's Alright with Me , Summertime )
Chart placements
| year | title |
Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes) |
Remarks | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 UK
|
 US
|
|||
| 1965 | The zombies | UK-UK |
US39 (17 weeks) US |
|
| 1969 | Odessey & Oracle | UK-UK |
US95 (13 weeks) US |
80th place in Rolling Stone 500 (2003 list)
|
| 2008 | The Zombies and Beyond |
UK43 (1 week) UK |
US-US | |
Singles
Singles (UK)
- She's Not There / You Make Me Feel Good (1964)
- Leave Me Be / Woman (1964)
- Tell Her No / What More Can I Do (1965)
- She's Coming Home / I Must Move (1965)
- Whenever You're Ready / I Love You (1965)
- Is This the Dream / Don't Go Away (1965)
- Remember You / Just Out of Reach (1966)
- Indication / How We Were Before (1966)
- Gotta Get a Hold of Myself / The Way I Feel Inside (1966)
- Goin 'Out of My Head / She Does Everything for Me (1967)
- Friends of Mine / Beechwood Park (1967)
- Care Of Cell 44 / Maybe After He's Gone (1967)
- Time of the Season / I'll Call You Mine (1968)
- Imagine the Swan / Conversation Off Floral Street (1969)
Additional US singles
- I Want You Back Again / I Remember When I Loved Her (1965)
- Butcher's Tale / This Will Be Our Year (1968)
- If It Don't Work Out / Don't Cry For Me (1969)
Chart placements
| year | Title album |
Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes) |
Remarks | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
UK
|
US
|
|||
| 1964 | She's Not There The Zombies [US] |
UK12 (11 weeks) UK |
US2 (15 weeks) US |
291st place in the Rolling Stone 500
|
| 1965 | Tell Her No The Zombies [US] |
UK42 (5 weeks) UK |
US6 (11 weeks) US |
|
| She's Coming Home Time of the Zombies |
- |
US58 (6 weeks) US |
||
| I want you back again |
- |
US95 (3 weeks) US |
||
| 1969 | Time of the Season Odessey & Oracle |
- |
US3  (13 weeks)US |
recorded in 1967
|
All five chart singles were written by Rod Argent.
Solo albums
|
Colin Blunstone
|
Rod Argent
with White Circle :
|
Argent (band)
|
swell
- ↑ a b 500 Albums The Rolling Stone Top 500 Albums (December 2003) ( Memento of the original from January 5, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Archive at rocklist.net, accessed on November 18, 2017
- ↑ a b The Zombies in the gold / platinum database of the RIAA (USA)
- ↑ a b Chart sources: Great Britain / USA
- ↑ US singles: Joel Whitburn's Top Pop Singles 1955-2006. Billboard Books, New York 2007, ISBN 0-89820-172-1 . / US albums: The Billboard Albums by Joel Whitburn , 6th Edition, Record Research 2006, ISBN 0-89820-166-7 .
- ↑ The Rolling STone 500 Greatest Songs of All Time - 2004 (December 2004) , archive at rocklist.net, accessed on November 18, 2017
literature
- The Odessey: The Zombies in Words and Images, texts by The Zombies with Scott B. Bomar and Cindy da Silva, contributions by Brian Wilson, Carlos Santana, Paul Weller and many others, R | A | P London, ISBN 978-1- 909526-44-0 .
- Stambler, Irwin: The Encyclopedia Of Pop, Rock And Soul . 3rd Revised Edition, New York City, New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989, pp. 766-768 - ISBN 0-312-02573-4 .
Web links
- Official website (English)
- The Zombies Fan Page (English)
- The Zombies at Allmusic (English)
- The Zombies at Discogs (English)