The remastered (from the original master tape) Tonite Lets All Make Love In London soundtrack brings one instantly back to the kaleidoscopic height of “swinging” London in 1967. British film director and pop promo auteur Peter Whitehead created a film with the same name as this record and across 23 cuts, we as much hear music from the time as we do interview snippets from such notables as artists David Hockney and Alan Aldridge, actors Michael Caine, Lee Marvin and Julie Christie, Beat poet Allen Ginsberg, and Rolling Stones manager and Immediate Records founder Andrew Loog Oldham.
There’s a lot of Immediate here. From Oldham’s label roster we get the Twice as Much duo managing a string-laden harmony-rich “”Night Time Girl,” as well as Vashti Bunyan (found and signed by Oldham) warbling unintelligibly through another string-swept production of “Winter Is Blue.” British crooner Chris Farlowe injects a little blues and soul into the Stones’ “Out Of Time” and Paint It Black.”
Pink Floyd’s “Interstellar Overdrive” features that slicing metallic Syd Barrett guitar and Rick Wright’s spooky sounding organ (two other edits of the song appear on the album). The pop of “Here Come The Nice” by Small Faces rounds out the more rockin’ tunes. There’s been lots written, filmed, sung about those late 60s years in London, and Whitehead captured a lot of it in both the movie and soundtrack behind Tonite Lets All Make Love In London.
~ Ralph Greco, Jr.
