Hue Montgomery

The Foundations were a British soul band (m. 1967–1970). The group's background was: West Indian, White British, and Sri Lankan. Their 1967 debut single "Baby Now That I've Found You" reached number one in the UK and Canada, and number eleven in the US, while their 1968 single " Build Me Up Buttercup" reached number two in the UK and number three on the US ''Billboard'' Hot 100. The group was the first multi-racial group to have a number one hit in the UK in the 1960s.

The Foundations were one of the few British acts to successfully imitate what became known as the Motown Sound. The Foundations signed to Pye, at the time one of only four big UK record companies (the others being EMI, which included the HMV, Columbia and Parlophone labels, Decca, and Philips, which also owned Fontana).

Biography

Origins

The Foundations attracted much interest and intrigue due to the size and structure of the group. Not only was there a diverse ethnic mix in the group, but there was also diversity in ages and musical backgrounds. The oldest member of the group, Mike Elliott, was 38 years old. The youngest was Tim Harris, who, at 18, was barely out of school. The West Indian horn section consisted of Jamaican-born Mike Elliott and Pat Burke, both saxophonists and Dominican-born Eric Allandale on trombone. They were all highly experienced musicians who came from professional jazz and rock-and-roll backgrounds. Mike Elliott had played in various jazz and rock and roll bands including Tubby Hayes and Ronnie Scott,Inlay notes to ''Baby Now That I've Found You'' CD, Sequel Records NEECD 300 the Cabin Boys (led by Tommy Steele's brother, Colin Hicks), and others. Pat Burke, a professional musician, was from the London Music Conservatorium. Eric Allandale had led his own band at one stage as well as having played with Edmundo Ros and was a former member of the Terry Lightfoot and Alex Welsh bands. Alan Warner was the guitarist. Bassist Peter Macbeth was a former teacher. Tony Gomez, the keyboard player, was a former clerk, while Clem Curtis had been an interior decorator and professional boxer.

There is some disagreement as to who was responsible for choosing the band's name, and various sources give slightly different accounts of their beginnings. One version is that they were originally called The Ramong Sound, or The Ramongs, and there were two lead singers, Clem Curtis and Raymond Morrison aka Ramong Morrison. When Raymond was imprisoned for six months, a friend of the band suggested future Psychedelic shock rocker Arthur Brown.

The Foundations came together in Bayswater, London, in January 1967. They practised and played in a basement club called the Butterfly Club, which they ran. While managing the club themselves, they played music nightly, and handled the cooking and cleaning. They would get to bed around 6 or 7 a.m., sleep until 4 p.m., get up and begin again to get ready to open at 8 p.m. Sometimes they barely made enough money to pay the rent, let alone feed themselves. At times, they lived off the leftovers and a couple of pounds of rice.

Career from 1967

The biography on AllMusic stated that Barry Class was the first to discover them, although others claim it was Ron Fairway.

When they were at the top spot with "Baby, Now That I've Found You", Fairway commented to '' Melody Maker'' that most managements would have pulled them out of the "bargain priced dates" that had been booked for some time. He expressed gratitude to everyone for their support, and said that they would fulfill every engagement for which they had signed.

Not long after "Baby, Now That I've Found You" became a hit, rock historian Roger Dopson describes what followed as a "behind the scenes struggle", where Fairway was "pushed out" and his partner, Barry Class, remained as sole manager of the group. Fairway later attempted to sue the band, alleging that he was wrongfully dismissed, though the band said that he had resigned of his own accord. Dopson also noted that Fairway also leaked a story to the media saying that the Foundations had broken up which only served to keep the Foundations name in the news headlines.
The day Tony Macaulay came to hear them play, he was suffering from what he described as the worst hangover of his life. The band was playing so loud he could not judge how good they were, but he decided to give them a chance. He would later comment in the book, ''1000 UK No. 1 Hits'' by Jon Kutner and Spencer Leigh, that he woke up that morning with a stinking headache, and when he got to the studio and heard the Foundations, he thought they were pretty terrible. He decided his hangover was to blame, and so he gave them the benefit of the doubt.

At first, they found progress quite slow, and one of their sax players, Pat Burke, had to drop out of the band and take another job while they went through a rough patch. He did rejoin them again later in 1967.

They were noticed by Brian Epstein, who added them to the roster of his NEMS Agency, but the contract became void when he died.

When "Baby Now That I've Found You" was first released it went nowhere. Luckily, the BBC
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