Glenda Collins with The Riot Squad: It’s a Riot, 10″ Vinyl EP
Glenda Collins

• THE LATEST RELEASE FROM JOE MEEK’S LEGENDARY TEA CHEST TAPES!

• SIX TRACKS FROM A PLANNED BUT NEVER COMPLETED COLLABORATION ALBUM. ALTERNATE TAKES NEVER BEFORE RELEASED.

• SLEEVENOTES BY THE JOE MEEK SOCIETY’S CRAIG NEWTON. TAPE RESTORATION AND MASTERING BY WESTERN STAR’S ALAN WILSON & MARTIN NICHOLS.

During the 60s, Glenda Collins and The Riot Squad both found a home at Joe Meek’s legendary 304 Holloway Road studio. Ms Collins was briefly paired with the Riots by Meek for a planned collaborative album of cover versions, primarily featuring soul and R&B tracks which had been hits for other artists.

Recorded in late 66/early 67, titled ‘It’s A Riot!’, and, according to the tape boxes, possibly to be released under the name Glenda, Nero and The Riots, the album itself was never completed, and unknown until the Tea Chest Tapes’ recent restoration and transfer. The album’s six tracks are less heavily processed and more laid back than much of Meek’s work, and with Glenda’s now mature, soulful voice to the fore, these live, single take recordings hint at a new approach the production maestro may have been exploring, eschewing his usual reverb-laden, heavily overdubbed sound for something more rootsy. If so, he was once again a year or more before the curve, foreshadowing the back-to-basics approach which would be adopted by so many artists in the wake of psychedelia’s over-saturation.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE ONE
1 Dancing In The Street (Take 2)
2 Mockingbird (Take 5)
3 Lover Come Back To Me (Take 5)

SIDE TWO

1 Can I Get A Witness (Take 1)
2 You’re Nobody Til Somebody Loves You (Take 2)
3 I Who Have Nothing (Take 2)