| The World in a Sea Shell | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | November 1968 | |||
| Recorded | 1968 | |||
| Genre | Psychedelic pop, sunshine pop | |||
| Length | 34:09 | |||
| Label | Uni/Sundazed | |||
| Producer | Frank Slay, Bill Holmes | |||
| Strawberry Alarm Clock chronology | ||||
| ||||
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |    [1] |
The World in a Sea Shell is the third album by Strawberry Alarm Clock, released in November 1968 on the Uni label. [2] The album was not a chart success, and was the final LP to include the classic Strawberry Alarm Clock lineup.
When the band's second album, Wake Up...It's Tomorrow , failed to recapture the huge success of 1967's Incense and Peppermints , the band's management decided to exert more control over the recordings for the third album. [3] To this end, they pressured the band to record several compositions written by outsiders, including Carole King and "Incense and Peppermints" lyricists John Carter and Tim Gilbert. The band members bristled at this situation, but reluctantly agreed to it in the end. Thus, five of the album's 12 songs (including most of side 1 of the vinyl LP) were non-SAC songs.
The new direction did not pay off commercially for the band. Many of the tracks on The World in a Sea Shell featured lush orchestration and a gentle, escapist feel that stood in stark contrast to the adventurous psychedelia of the band's past work. This sudden change in direction, seen as a gross miscalculation on their managers' part by the band members, helped seal Strawberry Alarm Clock's fate. This frustrated the band, as their own compositions for this album included some adventurous moments and sound collages that fans might have expected and that weren't too far removed from the style of the previous albums. [2]
Two singles were released, "Sea Shell" (which didn't chart in the US; No. 88 in Canada [4] ) and "Barefoot in Baltimore" (which reached No. 67 in the US charts during the summer of 1968, and No. 45 in Canada [5] ). The latter was especially popular on local radio stations in its namesake city of Baltimore, Maryland and was used as a theme song for the city for decades afterwards. [2]
In the wake of the album's release, original members George Bunnell and Randy Seol departed, with the lineup on the band's final album Good Morning Starshine consisting of guitarists Lee Freeman and Ed King augmented by Nightcrawlers singer Jimmy Pitman, and previous drummer Gene Gunnels. [6]
Strawberry Alarm Clock is a psychedelic rock band formed in 1967 with origins in Glendale, California, a city about ten miles north of downtown Los Angeles. They are best known for their 1967 hit single "Incense and Peppermints". Categorized as acid rock, psychedelic pop and sunshine pop, they charted five songs, including two Top 40 hits.
Edward Calhoun King was an American musician. He was a guitarist for the psychedelic rock band Strawberry Alarm Clock and guitarist and bassist for the Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd from 1972 to 1975 and again from 1987 to 1996.
Incense and Peppermints is the debut album by psychedelic rock band Strawberry Alarm Clock. Released in October 1967, it reached No. 11 on the Billboard 200 album charts during a 24-week run and included the band's No. 1 Billboard Hot 100 hit "Incense and Peppermints".
Leland Bruce Sklar is an American bassist and session musician. Sklar rose to prominence as a member of James Taylor's backing band, which coalesced into a group in its own right, The Section, which supported so many of Asylum Records' artists that they became known as Asylum's de facto house band, as those artists became iconic singer-songwriters of the 1970s.
The Lady of the Lake is the name of several related characters in the Arthurian legend.
Randy Holden is an American guitarist best known for his membership of the West Coast acid rock group Blue Cheer and performance on their third album, New! Improved! (1969). His solo album Population II (1970) is considered to be one of the earliest examples of doom metal. Holden is also a painter.
Morly Grey is an American psychedelic rock band that formed in the late 1960s.
Mark Stephen Weitz is an American musician. A keyboard player for the 1960s psychedelic rock group Strawberry Alarm Clock, Weitz was the principal composing member of the band.
The Rainy Daze was a psychedelic pop group formed in Denver, Colorado in 1965. They were composed of singer/guitarist Tim Gilbert with his brother Kip on drums, lead guitarist Mac Ferris, bassist Sam Fuller, and keyboardist Bob Heckendorf.
The Other Half was an American psychedelic garage rock band, based in San Francisco, and active in the mid-to-late 1960s. The band gained interest after one of the Nuggets compilations in the 1980s included their single, "Mr. Pharmacist".
"Incense and Peppermints" is a song by the Los Angeles–based psychedelic rock band Strawberry Alarm Clock. The song is officially credited as having been written by John S. Carter and Tim Gilbert, although it was based on an instrumental idea by band members Mark Weitz and Ed King. It was released as the A-side of a single in May 1967 by Uni Records and reached the number one position on the Billboard Hot 100, where it stayed for one week before beginning its fall down the charts. Although the single was released in the United Kingdom it failed to break into the UK Singles Chart. The song was featured in the film Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery and the fictional biopic Daisy Jones and the Six.
Wake Up...It's Tomorrow is the second album by the American psychedelic rock band Strawberry Alarm Clock, released by Uni Records in 1968. It came as the group was challenged with continuing the success of their debut single, the psychedelic classic and number one hit, "Incense and Peppermints" and the LP that followed. Their second effort would expand upon the arrangements of its predecessor's unique blend of vocal harmonies, psychedelia, and pop music. In addition, the band's atypical lineup, which featured two bassists, would be altered to address studio and performing issues.
Hunger! was a band in the psychedelic rock music scene that flourished on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles in the 1960s.
Hair is a 1968 cast recording of the musical Hair on the RCA Victor label. Sarah Erlewine, for AllMusic, wrote: "The music is heartening and invigorating, including the classics 'Aquarius,' 'Good Morning Starshine,' 'Let the Sunshine In,' 'Frank Mills' ... and 'Easy to Be Hard.' The joy that has been instilled in this original Broadway cast recording shines through, capturing in the performances of creators Gerome Ragni and James Rado exactly what they were aiming for — not to speak for their generation, but to speak for themselves."
Ernie and the Emperors were a rock band from Santa Barbara, California. They were an example of 1960s rock and pop, influenced by the British Invasion with songs that employed rich harmonies, instrumental hooks, and upbeat lyrics. Their biggest hit was their single "Meet Me At The Corner", a hit for them as Ernie and the Emperors. In later years, they also released materials as The Giant Crab, as Big Brother Ernie Joseph, Faith and as the Brian Faith Band.
John S. Carter Jr., better known as simply Carter, was an American music producer, writer, arranger, instrumentalist, and A&R man.
Happening '68 was a rock-and-roll variety show produced by Dick Clark Productions, which aired on the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) network. The show followed American Bandstand on Saturday afternoons. Happening '68 premiered on January 6, 1968 and was popular enough that ABC added a weekday spin-off. It's Happening ran on Mondays through Fridays from July 15, 1968 through October 25, 1968. When 1968 ended, Happening '68 became just Happening, which was canceled in October 1969.
Good Morning Starshine is the fourth album by American psychedelic rock band Strawberry Alarm Clock, released in 1969 on Uni Records. It featured a considerably altered lineup and a departure from the sound on the group's past psychedelic pop works, toward blues rock. The album itself failed to chart, but a single, "Good Morning Starshine", peaked in the lower reaches of the Billboard Hot 100.
Creation of Sunlight was an American psychedelic rock band formed originally as a cover group in Long Beach, California, in 1968. Though much of the group's history was initially unknown—even their name was obscured—overtime they have come to the attention of psychedelic music enthusiasts for their sole album, which was released in 1969. The Creation of Sunlight's sound incorporated different aspects of their California contemporaries, such as the cheery nuance of sunshine pop and harder-edge acid rock.
The Brain Police were an American psychedelic rock band formed in San Diego, California, in 1968. Led by songwriters Rick Randle and Norman Lombardo, the project had a cult following in the West Coast's psychedelic scene. Between touring with notable 1960s musical acts, the Brain Police recorded a single and an album's worth of material but failed to pick up traction from a major record label. Although the demos that originated from these 1968 sessions were bootlegged, the songs saw a proper release in the 1990s.
