“Wishing Well” (RCA International INTS 1421) January 1973

Since I took early retirement a couple of years ago I no longer have the disposable income to squander huge amounts of money on rare and obscure ’60s garage and psychedelic records.

To compensate, I spend a lot of time searching for cheap records in charity shops. I don’t mind taking a chance and spending a couple of quid on an album. It’s still quite a buzz finding vinyl junk.

I’ve decided to begin a new series on my blog where I’ll focus on a track from a budget label release, remaster a FLAC directly from the record, create a YouTube video and investigate / research the performer and album under the spotlight.

My new series will be called “Budget Label Curios.”

Who knows what I’ll uncover, the music may be delightful to your ears or it could make you want to bang your head against the nearest brick wall to make the pain go away.

The LP “Non Stop Hits – Volume 4” cost 50p, from Shelter, a local charity shop in Sunderland. For this series of remakes that only lasted a couple of years, the label have credited The Mike Morton Sounds as the session musicians supplying the music.

Everything was recorded at the Majestic Studios, Clapham, London.

Quite a patchy selection of hits with some excruciating but there are a couple of stand-outs. “Relay” by The Who is decent enough, as is their remake of “Blockbuster” – originally a hit for The Sweet.

However my curated selection goes to “Wishing Well” mainly because it’s the best all round song on the set with hard rock vocals but fortunately not macho in any way. Also, the use of fuzz guitar is a bonus. I had no idea that fuzz was still in use during 1972.

“Wishing Well” was a number #7 hit for Free and had a release on Island Records at the start of December ’72, just in time for the Christmas buying rush.