Live music listings: October 2007

Doors 7.30
£10 via WeGotTickets | £12 door

PF Sloan's career is one of the most fascinating music business stories ever. He started his music business career at age 14, making a single for Aladdin Records, the great LA R&B label. In 1964 his group The Fantastic Baggys had a hit with 'Tell 'Em I'm Surfin'' and the album contained the original version of the surf music classic, 'Summer Means Fun' that was later recorded by Bruce and Terry, Jan and Dean, and the Legendary Masked Surfers. Sloan wrote all the songs on the record and produced it.

He went on to be the inhouse musical force behind Dunhill Records, produced, played on and wrote many of the Dunhill hits including 'Eve of Destruction', 'Monday, Monday' and 'California Dreamin''. He had a hit in LA and Europe under his own name with 'The Sins of a Family.

He sang the falsetto lead on 'Little Old Lady from Pasadena' as well as many other records by Jan and Dean. He wrote 'You Baby' and 'Let Me Be' by the Turtles, 'Take Me for What I'm Worth' by the Searchers, 'A Must to Avoid' by Herman’s Hermits, and of course 'Secret Agent Man' by Johnny Rivers.

Those are some highlights of his creative accomplishments, all occurred before he was twenty-two, and they just scratch the surface of an unbelievable story of the history of the pop music business at a big turning point. PF Sloan was there and involved when the rock era was born. He interacted with many of the major musical figures of that time including the Beatles, the Stones, Bob Dylan, Andrew Loog Oldham, Phil Spector, Lou Adler, Terry Melcher, and on and on... The new CD, Sailover, contains several of his old classics plus some new songs that are as good as anything he has ever done. Guests on the album include Buddy Miller, Frank Black, Lucinda Williams, and Felix Cavaliere. It was produced in Nashville by Jon Tiven.

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