Sunday, June 17, 2007

The Hello People - Fusion (1969)

One of the most unique rock groups of the 1960s, The Hello People, was created during late 1967 in New York by producer Lou Futterman. The idea for creating the group stemmed from Marcel Carné's film Children of Paradise (Les Enfants du Paradis). Etienne De Crux, the father of French mime, plays the part of Bapties's father in the film. During the sixties De Crux taught painting to a group of musicians. Since these musicians learned to paint so quickly, De Crux reasoned that musicians could also learn mime and apply it in some new way to create a new form. The manager of the musicians De Crux taught, Lou Futterman, decided he would implement this new concept. He then put together a new group of musicians who would perform in mime makeup and do mime routines between songs, never speaking a word to the audience.

The group recorded for Philips Records and although the group didn't have a hit record, they were often seen on major network television shows such as The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and the controversial Smothers Brothers Show. The group reorganized and moved to the Los Angeles area during the early 1970s and toured with comedians Richard Pryor and George Carlin. Later, two members left the band leaving it a four-piece group for the remainder of its days.

The Hello People went on tour with Todd Rundgren in the '70s and became a part of his touring group. During this period George Kiernan joined the group as an extra mime performer holding signs for the group.

The Hello People continued as a group through the late seventies then went their separate ways. Though by their breakup, the band had been releasing flimsy lightweight rock for a number of years, their first few albums were strange forays into psychedelia. "Fusion", the album featured here, is perhaps the most well-known of those early releases. Though it doesn't possess any monumental qualities, it is a charming slice of listener friendly folky psych. Considering its rarity, there was no question about its inclusion here. Download away!

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have been searching for this for years! Many thanks for the post.

Anonymous said...

Can you put your hands on the Fusion cover? Please look inside on the bottom right at the few bars of Jelly Jam and tell me what the time signature is. I remember it being very odd, but I can't find my album. Thanks!

Anonymous said...

psyberjef, my memory may be faulty, but I believe Jelly Jam's time signature is 5/4.

If you like odd sigs, check out the Don Ellis Orchestra.

leesa said...

Hey guy! Remember me?

Did you ever separate the Tracks on the Hello People Tascam/Teac LP? Just curious.

I was hoping you could please put (back) up these Two Hello People Albums? Are they from Vinyl?

The Hello People - The Hello People (1967)

The Hello People - Fusion (1969)

I noticed over at Amazon that some of their Albums have been rereleased recently. Unfortunately not the Todd Produced "Handsome Devils." 3 of the 4 are terribly expensive. Do you have them?

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dpopular&field-keywords=hello+people

JKR said...

Hey Leesa, I haven't really done much with this blog in years but I did see your request and wanted to share a link to the albums you requested. To my knowledge, they're sourced from vinyl but the quality is quite good. Those expensive reissues you're seeing are Korean only digi-sleeve CDs and they seem to be a little cheaper on eBay.

Hopefully these will suffice...and no, I've never gotten around to separating those TEAC tracks. Go figure!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/y95i63yvb16hl4m/The%20Hello%20People.rar?dl=0

leesa said...

Thanx!

I wonder if the Korean discs are sourced from vinyl?

JKR said...

Given what I know about other reissues from that label, they're prob from the original masters or at the very worst, a 2nd gen master or safety master. I've heard a few of their other reissues and the sound quality is fantastic. No clicks or pops whatsoever and little or no compression and noise reduction.

leesa said...

I can't seem to un-rar the file. It says "Hello People/The Hello People.rar is not RAR archive
No files to extract..."

JKR said...

Try this:

https://www.mediafire.com/file/i9qm7tpomabr5j5/The%20Hello%20People.rar

leesa said...

Same thing with this rar file. Is there a password I dunno about?

JKR said...

I just downloaded from that link and had no problem. I really don't know what else to do.

leesa said...

I figured it out. I'm on a Mac and have always used the Age-Old UnRarX 2.2. it's never failed me but it hasn't been updated in YEATS! I tried the UnArchiver and had no luck with that either, so I found a newer version of The UnArchiver and tried that and, Ba-da-bing! Worked fine.

You musta used a newer RAR Compression!

Thanx!!!

Unknown said...

The file is still there, and much appreciated.