The Love Exchange
Encyclopedia
The Love Exchange
By 1967 The CrusadersThe Crusaders
The Crusaders are an American music group popular in the early 1970s known for their amalgamated jazz, pop and soul sound. Since 1961, more than forty albums have been credited to the group , 19 of which were recorded under the name "The Jazz Crusaders" .-History:In 1960, following the demise of a...
's manager Barry Kaye, who was "a real Hollywood creep ... [who] took every penny we made off of some real big gigs", persuaded The Crusaders to change their name to The Love Exchange, and moved to San Francisco, California. According to Richie Unterberger: "The Love Exchange were a typical support-level Los Angeles band of the psychedelic era
Psychedelic era
The Psychedelic era refers to the time of social, musical and artistic change influenced by psychedelic drugs, generally described as occurring during early 1960s to the mid 1970s. Some consider the psychedelic era to be more tightly limited to the years of 1965-1969...
, right down to their name. After experimenting briefly with 14 year-old Lana V. Hale, the only daughter of actor Alan Hale, Jr.
Alan Hale, Jr.
Alan Hale, Jr. was an American film and television actor, best known for his role as Skipper on the popular sitcom Gilligan's Island. Hale was the lookalike son of popular supporting film actor Alan Hale, Sr....
, famous as the skipper on Gilligan's Island
Gilligan's Island
Gilligan's Island is an American television series created and produced by Sherwood Schwartz and originally produced by United Artists Television. The situation comedy series featured Bob Denver; Alan Hale, Jr.; Jim Backus; Natalie Schafer; Tina Louise; Russell Johnson; and Dawn Wells. It aired for...
, as their female lead singer, they replaced Hale with 16 year-old lead singer Bonnie Blunt, described as "the group's strongest asset, giving them the competent vocals in the soaring, folky Mamas & the Papas/early Jefferson Airplane
Jefferson Airplane
Jefferson Airplane was an American rock band formed in San Francisco in 1965. A pioneer of the psychedelic rock movement, Jefferson Airplane was the first band from the San Francisco scene to achieve mainstream commercial and critical success....
style", and whose voice was described as "a heavenly hybrid of Grace Slick
Grace Slick
Grace Slick is an American singer and songwriter, who was one of the lead singers of the rock groups The Great Society, Jefferson Airplane, Jefferson Starship, and Starship, and was a solo artist, for nearly three decades, from the mid-1960s to the mid-1990s...
and Elaine "Spanky" McFarlane [that] burns bright as the sun". Their sound was described as "the perfect soundtrack for a Griffith Park
Griffith Park
Griffith Park is a large municipal park at the eastern end of the Santa Monica Mountains in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. The park covers of land, making it one of the largest urban parks in North America...
Love-In". By 1967 they were signed by Uptown Records
Uptown Records
Uptown Records was an American record label, founded by Andre Harrell in 1986. It went on to become one of the most popular Hip-Hop and R&B labels of the late 1980's and early 1990s. Featured on the roster were such luminaries as Guy, Heavy D & The Boyz, Jodeci, Mary J. Blige, and Soul for Real...
, a subsidiary of MCA Records.
"Swallow the Sun" (1967)
By late November 1967 The Love Exchange released a single "Swallow the Sun" (written by John Merrill) (backed by "Meadow Memory") (Uptown Records 755), which is described as the band's "chief claim to fame", and "a nice folk-rock-psychedelic tune that's emblematic of the time with its trippily optimistic lyrics, garage-like Mamas & the Papas female-male harmonies, and swirling organ". "Swallow the Sun" was "a re-titled cover of 'Dark On You Now' (with some different lyrics) by the Peanut Butter Conspiracy", which had previously been recorded by Merrill's previous band, The Ashes. The song was anthologizedAnthology
An anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler. It may be a collection of poems, short stories, plays, songs, or excerpts...
on the Los Angeles portion
Highs in the Mid-Sixties, Volume 3
Highs in the Mid-Sixties, Volume 3 is a compilation album in the Highs in the Mid-Sixties series, featuring recordings that were released in Los Angeles....
of the Highs in the Mid-Sixties series
Highs in the Mid-Sixties series
rightThe Highs in the Mid-Sixties series is a group of 23 compilation albums of garage rock and psychedelic rock recordings that were issued by AIP Records in the mid-1980s. This series is a companion to the Pebbles series of similar music; the title is technically preceded by "Pebbles Presents:"...
, and also on the folk-rock volume of the vinyl Nuggets series on Rhino in the 1980s.
Love Exchange (1968)
The Love Exchange's eponymous 1968 album Love Exchange was recorded in one day at Leo de Gar Kulka's Golden State Recorders Studios at Harrison Street, San Francisco, produced by Number One Productions of Larry Goldberg, who "put his name on our songs", and was credited with writing most of the songs, with the exception of "the appropriately melancholy and ghostly 'Ballad of a Sad Man' (written by bassistBassist
A bass player, or bassist is a musician who plays a bass instrument such as a double bass, bass guitar, keyboard bass or a low brass instrument such as a tuba or sousaphone. Different musical genres tend to be associated with one or more of these instruments...
Mike Joyce)". In an act of "psychsploitation",
Goldberg took some of the LP's backing tracks and used them on a soundtrack album
Soundtrack album
A soundtrack album is any album that incorporates music directly recorded from the soundtrack of a particular feature film or television program. In some cases, not all the tracks from the movie are included in the album; however there are rare cases of songs in the trailers that do not appear in...
for a musical titled How Now, Dow Jones
How Now, Dow Jones
How Now, Dow Jones is a musical comedy by Academy Award winner Elmer Bernstein, Tony Award nominee Carolyn Leigh and Max Shulman. The original Broadway production opened in December 1967. A critically acclaimed revised version premiered in August 2009....
, credited there to the Floor Traders". These songs were "Step to the Rear" and "Live a Little", both with lyrics by Carolyn Leigh
Carolyn Leigh
Carolyn Leigh was an American lyricist for Broadway, movies, and popular songs. She is best known as the writer with partner Cy Coleman of the pop standards "Witchcraft" and "The Best Is Yet to Come."-Biography:...
and music by Elmer Bernstein
Elmer Bernstein
Elmer Bernstein was an American composer and conductor best known for his many film scores. In a career which spanned fifty years, he composed music for hundreds of film and television productions...
. The original soundtrack album "How Now, Dow Jones" was released by RCA Victor (RCA LSO-1142/ RCA LOC-1142) by January 1968.
In April 1968 Love Exchange was released without the two Broadway songs, and received a favorable rating by Billboard
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
magazine. However, Richie Unterberger described this album: "In addition to featuring "Swallow the Sun," [it] had an assortment of minor-league psych-folk-pop crossover efforts, few of them written by the band. ... These were pretty shallow garage-psych-folk-rock efforts with their utopian rose-colored lyrics and organ-modal-guitar combinations, like a minor league Peanut Butter Conspiracy (who weren't such major talents themselves)."
The Love Exchange played often in Los Angeles, including gigs at the Pandora's Box and other Sunset Strip
Sunset Strip
The Sunset Strip is the name given to the mile-and-a-half stretch of Sunset Boulevard that passes through West Hollywood, California. It extends from West Hollywood's eastern border with Hollywood at Harper Avenue, to its western border with Beverly Hills at Sierra Drive...
clubs, the Los Angeles Sports Arena, and at some festivals, but broke up after appearing at the Newport '69 Pop Festival
Newport Pop Festival
The Newport Pop Festival, held in Costa Mesa, California, August 3–4, 1968, was the first music concert ever to have more than 100,000 paid attendees....
in June 1969.