Hurst, Mike: Producers Archives Volume 4 1966 - 1980
Posted by Michael Popke, SoT Staff Writer on 2018-07-10 02:59:59
My Score: 
My SoT colleague did an exceptional job of summing up Mike Hurst’s career and the focus of this series of Producers Archives releases featuring Hurst’s diverse body of work. How diverse? Consider the sheer variety of songs on this single 22-song disc: • A cover of Chip Taylor’s “Wild Thing” by a group called Fancy, for which Hurst writes in the liner notes he “settled for a non-vocalist, Helen Caunt (no error in spelling, please).” She also was a Penthouse Pet and Rod Stewart's girlfriend.
• “Killer on the Dance Floor,” a dark yet engaging precursor to the New Wave movement of the Eighties, performed by the one-man band known, oddly, as The Speedos.
• Firebird’s “Two Wheels,” a blatant Beach Boys wannabe, complete with revving engine and summertime harmonies.
• The disco-rocker "Keep It Up" by the Gilly Mason Band, which sounds like "Hot Stuff"-era Donna Summer. "This is the one I have no idea about," Hurst writes. "I don't recall who Gilly Mason was or any of the band, only that it was released on Bell." That's too bad.
• A pair of songs -- Jackie DeShannon’s “Children and Flowers” and The Drifters’ “Save the Last Dance for Me” -- from The Bachelors, a band Hurst calls “a tough act to handle” because of the group’s manager. “I am not too proud of this,” Hurst admits, “but sometimes in business we do what we have to do.”
There’s nothing remarkable about Hurst’s production techniques, but that doesn’t make this collection any less of a revelation. Hurst hints at the end of Volume 4’s liner notes “that’s it. No more archive.” If that is, indeed, the case, then you might find it worth digging into the first three volumes of Hurst’s Producers Archives to track down more songs that you probably never would otherwise hear.
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Mike Hurst is an English musician turned producer who has had a long and fruitful career in the music business. He joined The Springfields in 1962 and helped unleash the band in the US with the hit "Silver Threads and Golden Needles" and continued their success with "Island of Dreams" and "Say I Won't Be There". However, the band's career was short and they broke up in 1963. He then went on to form the band The Methods featuring Jimmy Page and Alvin Lee on guitar. From there it was on to producing and becoming influential in the early careers of Marc Bolan and Cat Stevens.
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