Les Fleur de Lys
Reflections

For me “tidying up” is an excuse, I know myself...

When I decide to empty a drawer where I throw everything day after day to bring a bit of order, I know it means looking at old photos, rereading letters, reliving situations.

So, experiencing emotions. It doesn't take much for me, I've lived quite a bit, and my mind, but especially my heart, gladly return there, or maybe I don't care anymore because I think the "good" has passed, or maybe both, or it's likely just noble delusions ahahah.

Obviously the Countesses are my life now, the rest matters little or not at all, except for those “famous” values that must always be there, present and spontaneous.

With records, it's different. While in the drawer you have to tidy up (what an ugly term!) and you already know what you'll find, if you move albums there is always the surprise of an album you don't remember, which you struggle at first to associate with people or situations. So it's like a new album or almost, because then you listen to it again and (re)associate everything.

I didn't remember having this CD, but I remembered hearing it. Very strange for me, as I don't know how to download an album and for ages haven't listened to music at someone else's house (and never liked it, music is my thing, it doesn't exist to listen to it while talking or while others talk). The only neuron left to provide a minimum of logical reasoning to the noble brain automatically clicks into action and takes me back to the times of the album.

Les Fleurs de Lys. But it's written wrong, isn't it?! If I write it—in French—if I put "les," it needs an "s" in "fleurs," or I remove the "s" in "les" and keep "fleur" without an "s".... Just to create a bit more confusion, you can find the band's name in several ways, including a The Fleur de Lys and a Fleur de Lys without an article which might be better. You decide, imagine if I'll start being a foreign "literary" critic, and it matters absolutely zero.

Strange story, and little is known about it. A band from Southampton, their career developed from 1964 to 1969 with a focal center, obviously, in London.

I own many albums from that period, purchased in those nineties that saw the birth of a new psychedelic phase and thus the printing or reprinting of every possible thing from the sixties. Taken but listened to little.

And this one, listened to again today, is absolutely a great CD.

English psychedelia was a purely musical phenomenon and a lifestyle. Unlike the USA, there were no wars to oppose, no discontented and angry students, or blacks treated like crap. Thus no specific protest, just a mad desire to vary blues and rock 'n' roll making them more varied and imaginative. Everything becomes colorful, London becomes the center of it all. Living, playing, dancing, having fun at the absolute limit. Even too much, and, as always, when things are beautiful, it will end soon.

But the years of Swinging London will be epochal (and never has this overused word been more apt here!).

I think those who were lucky enough to spend their youth in that decade lived ten times my life and 100 that of a pointless modern-day person always “in line by three” and unrealistic to (my) nobility of spirit.

Everything was compressed to the fullest, everything burned immediately, you enjoyed every moment to the limit of possible and even impossible. Because when a charge of adrenaline surrounds and embraces an entire generation, the most noble madness prevails... I don't know, I wasn't there, but that's how I imagine it was.

And so it happened that for a group that succeeded, there were dozens that never really managed to reach it.

In that colorful, euphoric, and dazzling period, it could happen that one of the very first groups of Swinging London finished their career without even recording an album.

Yet, these guys were one of the legendary bands of that psychedelic London, among the most popular in the trendiest clubs of the English capital.

They are now a sensational cult band of those years, remembered and admired by "industry insiders" (I mean people who were there, colleagues, or lovers and "collectors" of British rock from the period).

They churned out quite a few remarkable singles, appreciated among enthusiasts but never managed to break through. Very strange that they lasted so long; usually, if a band didn't achieve success in the span of one/two years, they disbanded.

Here lies their other peculiarity. They changed at least four/five/six formations (their history is not so documented) with one constant member, the drummer, Keith Guster, always present. That's why they went through multiple phases with more record labels, including Atlantic.

And, without meaning to (or maybe just to do so), they recorded singles even under the guise of other groups with names like Shyster, Chocolate Frog, Rupert’s People, or The Staccatos. In the latter, it seems the members, apart from the indomitable drummer, were all ex Creation... another legendary band with a bit more recording success (and another among my favorites). In other cases, they joined and helped the careers of solo singers among whom was the formidable twenty-year-old Sharon Tandy.

In this case, they played for Stax (yes, the Blacks, perhaps the only white band) in what was their (also) soul phase. And they accompanied on tour absolute artists like Aretha Franklin and Isaac Hayes.

Moreover, it seems unfortunately nobody knows where the Fleur de Lys's recording material with the rising star of global rock ended up. In 1966 in London, in that amazing London, a certain Jimi Hendrix was taking off. It was their year; they too were on the launch pad. But it wasn't meant to be. I would so love to hear those recordings.

A rich and sumptuous 24-course psychedelic buffet, yet light and enchanting. You'll end up in shape, not burdened at all, rather ... swaying, indeed.

You can listen to the band's psychedelia under various facets. Often closely linked to the simple British beat of those years, sometimes closer to more relaxed atmospheres akin to the Byrds or Beatles or to soul with Sharon's splendid voice.

There is also an exciting cover of "Circles" by the Who and a single, strangely of decent commercial success, "Reflection of Charles Brown" which, rather than remembering, is almost identical to "A Whiter Shade Of Pale" by Procol Harum... just to create even more "confusion" around the band's identity.

But you feel, oh you feel, their best comes out when they are more aggressive with that sound called "freakbeat," where everything is let loose, and a splendidly acid, scratching, and distorted guitar takes the stage. It seems that meeting with Jimi really marked them. "Prodigal Son," "Mud In Your Eye," "Gong With The Luminous Nose," "One City Girl," "Hold On," "Daughter Of The Sun," "Liar," "Tick Tock," "Hammerhead," "So Come On," "I've Been Trying" .... well, except for a couple of dull episodes, I could list them all.

I could end, but I have to tell you what immediately came to mind associated with the CD.

Beautiful girls, larks with friends, parties, concerts?! No... what came to mind was that the basis for purchasing the CD, informed by my friend who "knew everything," involved a twenty-year-old already alert and shrewd, "my" Devil (what a drag oh ahahah). The first to believe in Fleur de Lys, to produce their first 45s and to even play with them was him.

But this time, Jimmy didn't manage to launch these guys. Then he was taken by other things (Yardbirds and the Zeppelin), at the beginning he was really recharged to a thousand.

But then it was too early, the boy still had to go to the crossroads to barter his soul.... and nothing, dear guys, it wasn't meant to be.

Happy listening, great sound, trust me.