It’s too bad that the Left Banke weren’t able to flourish in their time. “Walk Away Renee” and “Pretty Ballerina” were two of the most beautiful singles of the ‘flower power’ era, but the group never really capitalized on their singles success.

They were judged as a singles band when ‘single’ started to become a dirty word among the hippy cognoscenti. Case in point; Due to his remarkable success as the songwriter/leader of the Mamas and the Papas, John Phillips set out to organize the concert event that came to define the era, with his band as the closing act.

By the time that the Monterey Pop Festival took place, though, the Mamas and the Papas were viewed as an anachronism, hopelessly caught up in the pop singles commercial market while Jimi Hendrix, the Who, Ravi Shankar and Otis Redding altered the course of history. For similar reasons, the same fate befell The Left Banke, although infighting certainly did not help matters.

Both of the band’s hits for which this album is named were released in 1966 (July and December). The band must have been surprised and pleased with their instant success, which is why they were nonplussed when Michael Brown, their keyboardist and main songwriter produced a third single, titled “Ivy, Ivy”, with no other member’s input. Brown’s father was both managing and producing the band, so his input must have played a large role in said decision, but the band (somewhat understandably) reacted with extreme prejudice. They even went so far as to notify their fan club that the single should be banned.

The ploy worked and the single flopped, but so did the band’s subsequent career. It seems that the harsh reaction caused their fan base to move on, so when the album saw the light of day in February 1967, the audience was disinterested, either because a) they already owned the hits, b) they were disenchanted with the shenanigans that seemed to tear the band in two, c) by1967, the album seemed like an afterthought or d) in the spawning psychedelic era, times had changed for an album based primarily on hit singles. Whatever the primary reason, there were enough to keep “Walk Away Renee/Pretty Ballerina” from selling in significant numbers. It fell off the charts quickly, and most astoundingly, remained out of print until 2011!

The Left Banke could honestly be credited for inventing a genre known as baroque rock, extrapolating what George Martin and the Beatles started with “Eleanor Rigby.” Even when you remove the extraordinary singles, this album still holds up. Each song is a wonder of melody and harmony, with harpsichord and violin providing the baroque instrumentation that led to the genre’s title. Think of them as a precursor for bands like Belle and Sebastian, Bon Iver and Fleet Foxes, to name just a few.

February 1967 - Billboard Charted #67