A WILD PAIR-the guess who and the staccatos

Dig this rare LP, promo funded by coca-cola corp, produced by Ben McPeek, on the first LP on the NIMBUS 9 Label. This showcases the transition of the GUESS WHO, while they were technically still signed to Quality,a label that had no confidence in the band, and let them go for next to nothing. The laugh is on them..

Nimbus 9 label side 1 with Allan Macmillan as musical arranger. The Staccatos hailed from Ottawa and were Capitol artists at the time they recorded this special album for Numbus 9. Incidentally, the Staccatos were not the first official Canadian rock group to appear on Capitol Records of Canada. That honor actually belongs to another Ottawa group called The Esquires, an instrumental/vocal group that sounded similar to Cliff Richard and the Shadows. This fact became available on a recent re-issue of The Esquires by Capitol contained in the liner notes.


March 1968 would see new challenges for McPeek as he and three other principal partners launched the Nimbus 9 record label. "Ben and Jack Richardson and I were 3 of the 4 founding partners in the Nimbus 9 Productions music group," said Allan Macmillian, "which came into being in 1968." The fourth member, according to author John Einarson who wrote American Woman - The Story of the Guess Who, was Peter Clayton. Two years later, Macmillan brought on board a fifth partner to the label: Bob Ezrin and he became assistant Musical Director to Macmillan.
The Nimbus 9 partnership stemmed from "several years collaboration working on ad conceptions and music to fit for the 'Youth' campaign for the Coke account," said Macmillan. They had other clients too, at the time: McCann, Erickson who were responsible for the Honda commercials. "Remember Honda cycles '2-wheeled freedom on a Honda?'", lamented Macmillan. "That was Burton Cummings' distinctive voice and from the discovery that the record deal the Guess Who had (with) Quality Records was expiring. Clearly, both Jack and Ben saw an opportunity here to sign the Guess Who...a group with a future one might say."
Thus it was the Coca-Cola account that caused McPeek, Richardson and their other two partners to take a gamble on the Guess Who...
The first Nimbus 9 album release was called A Wild Pair - an album featuring two pop groups, the Staccatos and the Guess Who. Each had a special musical arranger: Allan Macmillan for the Staccatos and Ben McPeek for the Guess Who with Jack Richardson as producer for both bands. This "one-off album" was made exclusively for Coca-Cola Limited by Nimbus 9 Productions, manufactured through RCA. Both groups were still under license from their respective record companies, Capitol and Quality Records, but each company gave permission to Nimbus 9 to record their groups with the idea in mind that any success would be good for their own future releases.
McPeek, Macmillan and Richardson's work on A Wild Pair paid off. Released in 1968, A Wild Pair sold an amazing 85,000 copies in Canada! Unheard of figures in those days for a Canadian album. In fact sales of A Wild Pair turned out to be "the biggest rock music seller ever at that point in Canadian rock history," writes Ritchie Yorke in his book, Axes, Chops and Hot Licks. It was an excellent start for Nimbus 9 whose humble beginnings in Toronto was "a back room in Ben's offices at 131 Hazelton Avenue," said Macmillan.
With the amazing success of A Wild Pair, Nimbus 9 decided to sign the Guess Who to their label. But in order to do that, they offered $1,000 to release the band from their remaining contractual obligations with Quality Records. The record company's executives accepted the offer mainly because of the "insulting lack of faith in the band and an absence of foresight" exclaimed author Einarson. Ben McPeek and Jack Richardson felt there was potential in the Guess Who. "We had a lot of confidence in the group and our own abilities to somehow expose them to the world, " said Richardson in an interview with Ritchie Yorke. "Ben and I had a strange kind of belief that it would turn out alright in the end."

Converted from original Stereo LP by freqazoidaic    @gmail.com
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