Reviews

Downliners Sect
Album: Sect Maniacs
Label: Grapefruit
Tracks: 28+17+25
Website: https://www.cherryred.co.uk/

This five-piece outfit was a leading act on the thriving London-based R&B scene of the mid-'60s. Don Craine, the Sect's leader, was a distinctive presence with his trademark deerstalker hat, but for some inexplicable reason his band never managed to emulate the success of their Thames-Delta contemporaries despite a modicum of chart action in Sweden in 1964/5.

Disc 1 of this excellent all-under-one-roof box-set presents the what-it-says-on-the-tin energetic R&B of their nigh-eponymous first LP (The Sect), characterised by its welcome excess of high-octane enthusiasm - in those respects perhaps best comparable to the debut albums by the Stones and Pretty Things, with hints of the Yardbirds perhaps, although a breakneck version of Willie Dixon's Tiger In Your Tank recalled the Manfreds' 5-4-3-2-1 template. Here's 14 tracks of mostly covers with a sprinkling of promising originals; upfront vocals and thumping, pounding rhythm section, often featuring the blistering harmonica playing of Ray Sone and plenty of better-than-average lead guitar work from Terry Gibson. The disc is topped up with 14 rarities from the band's early years, most of them new to CD and containing some real gems like the 1963 demos, sundry 45s and the obscure live EP Nite In Gt. Newport Street from January 1964.

Disc 2 finds the band changing tack (and some personnel), partly in disillusionment following their lack of success on the R&B scene, and partly due to it being 1965 and the R&B boom was fizzling out. In a sudden musical volte-face, ostensibly to pay tribute to Lonnie Donegan and skiffle, the band titled their second LP The Country Sect. In the context of the year of its release, which spawned some seriously significant rock and pop, this venture was well out of place and to nobody's surprise was an almost total failure. Artistically too, in my opinion, it was limp and unconvincing for the most part, veering uncomfortably between quasi-sendup Hicksville (If I Could Just Go Back) and slowpoke country balladry (Waiting In Heaven Somewhere, Little Play Soldiers) with just a handful of reasonable-or-better cuts (Wolverton Mountain, the Tommy Collins cover I Got Mine, the moody apocalypse-flavoured Bad Storm Coming, the washboard-gospel Wait For The Light To Shine, the slow harmonica blues Rock In My Bed). Around the same time as The Country Sect appeared, the band released a curious EP The Sect Sing Sick Songs, a spin on the then-craze for "death discs", headed up by a production-overkill cover of the later-to-find-notoriety Jim Cross epic I Want My Baby Back. This EP, along with the non-album-45 Wreck of The Old 97, is included on Disc 2 for completeness.

Disc 3 sees The Sect return to "form" with album #3, "The Rock Sect's In!", which took a bunch of trusty old rock'n'roll numbers - together with a few originals - and gave them a heavy driving beat. By and large this worked well, but again the band seemed out of vogue (it was 1966) and the album didn't sell. It did contain some great garage-type originals, notably Comin' Home Baby and Outside with its blistering guitar work, while another claim to fame for the album was the presence of a very early (and rather in the Louie Louie mould) Lou Reed-John Cale composition (Why Don't You Smile Now?). Disc 3 is completed by 11 enticing rarities, including a clutch of post-album singles and three Swedish EP tracks from 1969, taking the Sect's story into the psych-rock era (and quite commendably too).

With an excellent house-standard booklet essay by David Wells, full track notes and a wealth of archive photos, this fabulous set forms the perfect compendium of the largely undersung (albeit musically uneven) work of this underrated combo.

David Kidman

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