{"id":15487,"date":"2018-11-12T05:30:38","date_gmt":"2018-11-12T10:30:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=15487"},"modified":"2018-11-13T07:34:41","modified_gmt":"2018-11-13T12:34:41","slug":"listen-to-this-the-zuider-zee-story-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2018\/11\/12\/listen-to-this-the-zuider-zee-story-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Listen to This: The Zuider Zee Story (Part 1)"},"content":{"rendered":"

(An edited version of this story appeared previously in <\/em>Goldmine.)<\/p>\n

In 1975, a Memphis-based band called Zuider Zee recorded an album for Columbia Records. The melodic, power pop-leaning collection of songs was released, and it didn\u2019t sell. Zuider Zee never made another album. But that wasn\u2019t the end of the story. In fact it was really only the second chapter in the group\u2019s history. The first has gone largely unexamined, unreported, unknown \u2026 until now. On June 8, Light in the Attic released Zeenith<\/i>, a previously-unheard collection of songs from Zuider Zee, recordings that are closer in sound and spirit to the band\u2019s original intention than the major-label album that withered on the vine back in \u201875.<\/p>\n

First of all, Zuider Zee wasn\u2019t really<\/i> a Memphis band. Hearing that Columbia album today (assuming you can find it; it\u2019s long out of print, used copies are scarce, and to date there\u2019s been no CD reissue) modern-day listeners might detect a faint stylistic similarity to Jigsaw or the Hudson Brothers. Lead singer (and songwriter and guitarist) Richard Orange\u2019s voice sounds a bit like Van Duren. But Zuider Zee was actually from Lafayette, Louisiana; the band relocated to Memphis only at the behest of its manager. And in their time in the Bluff City, the members of Zuider Zee never heard \u2013 much less had any interaction with \u2013 Big Star or the other bands now thought of as part of that scene.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Quite a While<\/b>
\nThe band\u2019s story reaches back to the Summer of Love, when its members were still in high school. \u201cI used to record vacuums,\u201d says Richard Orange with a warm chuckle. \u201cBlowing bubbles in the water and things like that. I wasn\u2019t even of legal age then.\u201d In addition to making experimental recordings, Orange was also writing original material, and he soon put a band together.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a group called Thomas Edisun\u2019s Lightbulb Band,\u201d says drummer Gary Simon Bertrand. \u201cRichard and myself were the founders of that group.\u201d The band released a single, \u201cNo One\u2019s Been Here for Weeks.\u201d Once Orange and Bertrand finished high school, manager Leland Russell offered the band a regular weekend spot at a club he owned.<\/p>\n

Eventually, Russell started Alpha, a professional light and sound company, and moved to Memphis in hope of drumming up business there. By that point, the band Richard Orange led (still with Bertrand as drummer, plus bassist John Bonar and keyboardist Kim Foreman) was called Zuider Zee. As Russell began booking the band throughout the southeast, he decided it would make more sense to have the group use Memphis as its base of operations. His ultimate goal, Bertrand says, was for Zuider Zee to score a record deal and then \u201cuse Alpha as our main sound system and lighting company as we progressed with our success.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zuider Zee\u2019s live set at the time featured a mix of Orange originals and like-minded covers. Bertrand recalls that some of the latter included tunes by Wings and Badfinger. A rough bootleg cassette recording of the band playing at a club called Jail West also features Orange’s original songs \u201cAfter the Shine\u2019s Gone,\u201d \u201cMight Be I\u2019m Losing My Mind\u201d and \u201cNight Light.\u201d Curiously \u2013 or perhaps not so \u2013 none of those songs would be recorded for the band\u2019s sole release on Columbia.<\/p>\n

All That Is<\/b>
\nThose three songs \u2013 along with at least nine others \u2013 were in fact professionally recorded by Zuider Zee some months before the group signed with CBS\/Columbia. Working at TMI Studio in Memphis with engineer Jerry Williams, Zuider Zee dropped into the studio whenever schedules allowed, putting down an album\u2019s worth of material between 1972 and January 1974. Orange and Russell co-produced the sessions.<\/p>\n

Recorded not as an album but instead for demonstration purposes, the Zeenith<\/i> tapes nonetheless sound finished. They present Zuider Zee in a less slick style than found on the later Columbia LP. The band rehearsed relentlessly before entering the studio to cut the demo tracks, and that unity of purpose shines through on the recordings; it\u2019s as honest a document of the group’s live sound as could be hoped for. \u201cThat\u2019s the simplicity you hear on Zeenith<\/i>,\u201d Bertrand says with pride.<\/p>\n

\u201cRichard was such a prolific writer,\u201d Bertrand says, \u201cthat we had all these new songs. So instead of going back to finish [the Zeenith<\/i> tapes], the group went on to playing the newer songs. And those were what was recorded with CBS.\u201d The version of \u201cHaunter of the Darkness\u201d that appears on the major-label LP is a remix of a recording from those earlier sessions, made at a time when Bertrand was still in the group.<\/p>\n

Just before getting the CBS deal, Zuider Zee had again been working out of Lafayette; Russell had instructed them to stay put rather than return to Memphis. \u201cI was just adamant about not doing that,\u201d Bertrand recalls. \u201cAnd that\u2019s when I just blurted the words out: \u2018I quit.\u2019\u201d Before he could reconsider, the band had replaced him. He went on to play drums with G.G. Shinn and the T.S.C. Trucking Company. Bertrand would later sit in with Zuider Zee on a temporary basis, but never again as a full member.<\/p>\n

Click here to continue<\/a>…<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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