By the summer season of 1974, Cockney Insurgent have been primed to change into one of many greatest bands in Britain. Newest album The Psychomodo was tearing up the chart; two singles – Judy Teen and Mr. Comfortable – had made the Prime 10; they’d launched into a sell-out UK headline tour. Then the wheels got here off. Following the ultimate present, at Manchester’s Hardrock in late July, band chief/frontman Steve Harley was confronted by the band’s keyboard participant Milton Reame-James.
“He got here to me and stated that we [the rest of the group] wish to write songs for the subsequent album,” Harley advised Traditional Rock in 2004. “We have been doing reasonably nicely with me in cost, I believed, so what are they apprehensive about? We’ve all come out of obscurity into this.
“So I stated: ‘No, I’m not prepared. I’ve already written the brand new album… I’ve received one million concepts of my very own, my head’s stuffed with inventive pondering.’ Reame-James advised me: ‘We will write songs too’. I stated: ‘Nicely go and try this, then.’ It was a mutiny, and he took with him two beautiful younger fellas, [violinist] John Crocker and bassist Paul Jeffreys.”
Harley’s argument was that he’d initially shaped Cockney Insurgent on the understanding that he was the boss and sole songwriter.
All of the sudden left and not using a group, and fortified by a bottle of brandy, he started writing a vengeful riposte to his departed bandmates. He dug out the primary music he ever carried out, the unused Laid In The Shade, and rewrote the lyrics. Earlier than too lengthy he had the bones of Make Me Smile (Come Up And See Me).
Assembling a recent iteration of Cockney Insurgent, Harley took it into the studio and launched the music to co-producer Alan Parsons.
“I had no thought what it was all about,” Parsons says in the present day. “I assumed it was about Mae West and her well-known ‘Come up and see me’ quote. But it surely’s apparently about band primary.”
Harley voiced his sense of betrayal within the opening verse: ‘You’ve damaged each code, and pulled the insurgent to the ground.’ He went on to make a Biblical reference to Judas and his 30 items of silver, accusing his mutineers (Reame-James and Jeffreys joined Be-Bop Deluxe) of leaving Cockney Insurgent for the lure of higher cash: ‘You’ve spoilt the sport… For less than steel, what a bore.’
The newly assembled line-up started recording Make Me Smile at Abbey Highway in November ’74, throughout classes for Harley’s third album as captain, The Greatest Years Of Our Lives.
“That second band was very tight,” recollects Parsons, who reprised his position from The Psychomodo. “I believe Duncan Mackay on keyboards, particularly, made a giant distinction to us.”
Relative newcomer Mackay was nonetheless recovering from a short expertise with the Baker Gurvitz Military – “Ginger Baker and Adrian Gurvitz have been two of essentially the most disagreeable individuals I’d ever met” – when he joined Cockney Insurgent. The opposite new members Harley introduced in have been guitarist Jim Cregan (ex-Blossom Toes/Household) and bassist George Ford. Drummer Stuart Elliott was the one present member to stay loyal to Harley.
Mackay was conscious of Harley’s status for being headstrong, however preferred his perspective: “Right here was a man who completely believed in himself,” he explains. “He was outrageous in his feedback to the press, which meant they’d tons to put in writing about. So we received a lot of publicity, which clearly helped with the entire capturing match. I fairly admired Steve’s conceitedness in that he was going: ‘Fuck you lot. That is what I’m doing, and also you’d higher get on board.’”
Harley’s authentic imaginative and prescient for Make Me Smile was as a sluggish blues. Parsons felt it wanted somewhat pep. “We form of spruced it up a bit within the studio,” he says. “I keep in mind the vocal refrain particularly was very dirgy, so we received these lady backing singers and I stated: ‘C’mon, let’s make it extra rhythmic’. We had individuals like Tina Charles, Linda Lewis and Liza Strike, who sang on so many data. It simply made every little thing bouncier.”
Mackay added an impressed intro utilizing ascending notes, and Cregan delivered a exceptional acoustic guitar break. With its dramatic stop-start punctuation and Harley’s arch vocals giving technique to an infectious refrain, Make Me Smile felt particular to these concerned. On the finish of the session, EMI exec Bob Mercer popped into the studio, took one pay attention and declared merely: “Primary!”
“Everybody on the label, and Steve and the band, all thought it could be a success,” says Parsons. “All of us felt fairly good about it.”
And so it proved. Make Me Smile (Come Up And See Me) topped the UK singles chart in February 1975.
“We have been in LA – I believe it’d’ve been a tour with The Kinks – once we discovered,” says Mackay. “All of us jumped into the resort swimming pool totally clothed. We didn’t precisely get off the airplane residence and go straight to do Prime Of The Pops, however it was fairly shut. It was a wonderful finish to what was happening at that second in time.”
Parsons was on a snowboarding vacation in Austria when he heard the information. “Make Me Smile really took over at primary from Pilot’s January, which I’d additionally produced. I used to be vastly happy by that. I’ve by no means had two consecutive quantity ones since then. We unashamedly drank champagne in a membership all evening.”
Make Me Smile went on to promote greater than million copies and seem on many movie soundtracks. It successfully served as Harley’s pension proper up till his loss of life from most cancers in March 2024.
“It’s phenomenal,” he advised Traditional Rock. “I want I had ten of them. It’s big over a lot of the world. I hear it in all places I’m going.”
For Mackay, nonetheless, it’s a double-sided reminiscence. Cregan give up Cockney Insurgent in 1976. Lower than a yr later, the band had dissolved altogether, leaving Harley to as soon as once more forged round for replacements.
“It makes me really feel good that folks nonetheless love Make Me Smile,” Mackay says. “However we have been writing half the stuff. In the long run there’s no recognition of your contributions to these songs, which made Jim and I each go elsewhere. He went on to play with Rod Stewart, and I left and labored with 10cc and Kate Bush. So it was a bit shortsighted, as a result of what Steve had then was the proper Cockney Insurgent.”
The Greatest Years Of Our Lives: fiftieth Anniversary Version is out now.