Kathe Green: Run the Length of Your Wildness (1969) ... plus

Californian actress, model and singer Kathe Green cut this hugely sought after but rare-as-hell long player for Deram in 1969 after having appeared in The Party with Peter Sellers. Finding herself in London as guest and bosom buddy of Richard Harris, himself enjoying a spin-off career as a hugely successful pop star at the time, Kathe found herself singing Mark Lester's vocal parts on 'Where Is Love?' for the soon-to-be-massive Oliver soundtrack. She was snapped up by Deram where she was teamed up with in-house whiz-kid producer Wayne Bickerton, arranger supreme John Cameron and the cream of London session players. Run the Length of Your Wildness can't quite make up its mind whether to be pop-folk or Swinging London pop/rock. In that respect, as well as in its Baroque orchestral arrangements it's reminiscent of another late-'60s record, Dana Gillespie's Foolish Seasons — not surprising, as Bickerton produced both albums. The resemblance between the two singers is emphasized by a song that appears on both LPs, 'Tears in My Eyes'. You can throw in some similarities to a few other British female vocalists of the time straddling the lines between pop and folk, like Marianne Faithfull, Vashti Vunyan and (much more distantly) Judith Durham of the Seekers or even Sandie Shaw. Green did write or co-write much of the material on the album, and some of it's above average for this orchestrated British pop-folk-rock genre, particularly 'Primrose Hill' and the slightly Donovan-ish 'Promise of Something New'. She also turns in a lump-to-the-throat reading of Cameron's perennial 'If I Thought You'd Ever Change Your Mind'. Housed in a striking sleeve which featured gushing notes by the likes of Peter Sellers, Rex Harrison and Simon Dee and named after a line of poetry bestowed on her by Richard Harris himself, Run the Length of Your Wildness disappeared as quickly as it had come, only being picked up on through Internet exposure over the last years. Produced in conjunction with Kathe herself, this is a lost late '60s femme pop classic! I included in a separate file her contribution to the motion picture soundtrack Oliver! (1968), 'Where Is Love?'. http://www.cherryred.co.uk/, http://www.artistdirect.com/

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