ALBUMS: A Group Called Smith (1969); Minus-Plus (1970; Gayle McCormick (Self-entitled solo by Smith vocalist 1972); Flesh and Blood (1972, solo).
MVC Ratings: Group 4.5/$$$; Minus-Plus 4.0/$$$; Gayle McCormick 4.0/$$$$; Flesh and Blood 4.0/$$$$$.
NOTE: This group is not connected in any way to the British 80’s group ‘The Smiths.’
This group, and notably Gayle McCormick, are a great bargain bin find. Although it appears over the past year that prices for these are going up. I have them all except McCormick’s last album.
When I was about 10 or 11, I first heard the song ‘Take a Look Around.’ It was on an 8-track tape player that came with the used car we had bought, a Pontiac which I later wrecked as a 16-year-old.
Years go by and I hear the song again. I track down the band’s name and started a little mini-collection. ‘Take a Look Around You,’ was a minor hit in 1970, off the Minus-Plus album. That album was solid straight ahead rock and roll with a secret weapon. That weapon being McCormick, who stands on a front porch with band mates on the cover their first album, blond hair over her shoulders, hip-hugger jeans and a psychedelic belt-tie shirt. Stereotypes aside, she didn’t look like she sang. Her voice had reach and volume.
Quentin Tarantino used the song ‘Baby It’s You,’ in his Grindhouse movies. It was Smith’s biggest hit with more than a million copies sold — beating out the Beatles’ version and the original version by the Shirelles. McCormick’s first two solo albums are different. The first is a slick, highly produced collection of pop and soul.
. Her second solo outing, was Flesh and Blood and it is harder rock, hearkening back to some of the Smith’s album sides.
McCormick died in Florida of cancer at age 67. Critic Robert Christgau called them Three Dog Night with a girl singer. I suspect it was intended as an insult, but Three Dog Night was not too shabby at reinterpreting others’ songs. Harry Nillson’s ‘One’ and Randy Newman’s ‘Mama Told Me Not to Come’ to name a couple.