Guests: Rose Garden bandmembers John Noreen and Bill Fleming.

Mid 60's Los Angeles; a band called "The Blokes" were knocking out their versions of Beatles and note-for-note, immaculate copies of Byrds songs when a chance meeting with Gene Clark - who had just left the Byrds culminates with him joining the teenagers on stage for a couple of tunes. Next thing you know, he's giving them some of his songs and writes one specifically for them to record. He even considers managing them at one point.

Adding a new lead singer, they change their name and record one folk-rock gem that spawns a hit and an appearance on American Bandstand. The future looks bright, but some poor management decisions combined with Uncle Sam's draft notices derails their momentum and we're left only with the one album and a follow up single.

With help from Rose Garden guitarist John Noreen and bassist Bill Fleming, we dive into this self-titled 1968 folk-rock beauty.

I hope you dig The Rose Garden as much as I do.

-FJ

==LINKS==

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Listen to all the songs used in this Epysode here:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7skVY3785KJ7XYTZDVNzDB?si=67e9e41dcdb54d37

==MUSIC==

Songs used in this epysode (in order of appearance). See above for a link to a Spotify playlist ( *denotes track is not available on Spotify):

BOWES ROAD BAND “Grass is Grass”

THE BYRDS “Feel a Whole Lot Better”

GENE CLARK “Till Today” (demo)

GENE CLARK “A Long Time” (demo)

*THE GIANT SUNFLOWER “February Sunshine”

THE ROSE GARDEN “Next Plane to London”

REDBONE “Come and Get Your Love”

THE ROSE GARDEN “I’m Only Second”

THE ROSE GARDEN “February Sunshine”

THE ROSE GARDEN “Coins of Fun”

THE ROSE GARDEN “Rider”

THE ROSE GARDEN “She Belongs To Me”

THE ROSE GARDEN “Flower Town”

THE ROSE GARDEN “Till Today”

THE ROSE GARDEN “Look What You’ve Done”

THE ROSE GARDEN “Long Time”

*THE ROSE GARDEN “If My World Falls Through”

*THE ROSE GARDEN “Here’s Today”

*ROTUNDI “Everyone and Everything”

THE DELEVANTES “Long About That Time”

SMITH “Baby It’s You”

?? MYSTERY ARTIST ?? Tune into the next epysode to hear his story...

NEWPORT ELECTRIC "Yippie-i-o"

~~You, my friend, are groovy~~