This definitive new edition combines all 17 tracks from the UK and US versions of The Zombies’ 1965 debut album, remastered in its original mono mix. Begin Here (Mono Remastered) is the next chapter in the series of Zombies reissues via the band’s own label Beechwood Park Records, with the same team as Odessey and Oracle - again being overseen by Matthew and Jamie White, mastering by Reuben Cohen at Lurssen Mastering, and brand-new liner notes by the legendary David Fricke.
Begin Here, the British debut album by the Zombies, was released by Decca Records on April 9th, 1965. The LP, issued only in mono, was 14 tracks of beat-boom R&B and dynamic songwriting by one of the hottest young groups in the country. The band reprised “Summertime” and “It’s Alright With Me” and cut a new Argent tune that was instant lightning. Released on July 24th, “She’s Not There,” the Zombies’ debut U.K. single – with White’s “You Make Me Feel Good” on the flip – was Top 20 by September. It did even better in America, peaking at Number Two in Billboard that December.
“She’s Not There” was unlike anything else fired over the Atlantic in that British Invasion year: driven by an elliptical drum figure in the verses; turning into a runaway frenzy in the choruses; and distinguished by Argent’s solo on a Hohner Pianet, an early, electric piano with the Baroque timbre of a harpsichord. “I had this idea of a melody on a blues scale,” explains Argent, who adapted the opening lyric (“Well, no one told me about her”) from the title of a John Lee Hooker song, “Nobody Told Me” on the 1963 LP The Big Soul of John Lee Hooker. “In my vocals, a little more control might have been a good idea,” Blunstone contends. “But I remember Rod and I talking about this: If you sing with all your heart and the right feeling, it can’t be wrong. Rod had faith in me. He has often said he learned to write songs by writing for my voice. And I learned to sing by singing his songs.”
There is no greater example on Begin Here than “The Way I Feel Inside” – Blunstone, a natural, vocal marvel with no formal music education, singing acapella for nearly half the song. The Zombies were on their first U.K. tour, on a bill with the Searchers, Dionne Warwick and the Isley Brothers, when Argent had the idea for the tune. “We got off the bus for a coffee break,” he says. “I went into the loo, found a bit of paper and sketched the melody, the words and what I thought were the right chords.” Argent realized later the chords “made the melody sound mundane.” Jones had “the bright idea of Colin singing it alone until I join in [on organ] at the end. And Colin was bang in tune,” hitting and holding each note with immaculate pitch and tender, confessional force.
The Zombies spent two more years at Decca – a succession of exhilarating, innovative singles, all written by Argent and White, that struggled to be heard. The next time the Zombies made an album, Odessey & Oracle (re-released and remastered in mono for the first time last year) it was produced by the band for another label in a very different pop age. What happened in between is a story to be continued on the album that should have been: Continue Here. – David Fricke
