Music Reissues Weekly: Evie Sands - I Can’t Let Go

Over 1965 to 1968 Brooklyn's Evie Sands issued a string of singles with classic top sides. Amongst them were “Take Me For a Little While,” “I Can't Let Go,” “Picture me Gone” and “Angel of the Morning.” For reasons which are tackled in the essay coming with I Can’t Let Go – the first-ever collection of Sands’ seven-inch A- and B-sides – all either charted low, or not at all.

This is extraordinary and, from the perspective of 60-ish years later, inexplicable. These were fabulous soul-inclined pop records, and fabulous songs – as recognised by the extensive assortment of other, subsequent versions, all recorded in Sands’ shadow. “Take Me For a Little While” was covered by Dusty Springfield. In 1968, Vanilla Fudge took their rendering of the song into the US Top 40. “I Can't Let go” was taken up by The Hollies. Another hit. “Picture me Gone” became a soul perennial and, with Madeline Bell’s 1967 carbon-copy version, was a UK dance-floor filler. “Angel of the Morning” was US smash for Merrillee Rush & the Turnabouts and, in the UK, for PP Arnold.

In terms of the songs she recorded, there is no doubt of Evie Sands’ significance. It goes further though. Her singles were often brilliant and punch out of the speakers like hits. Yet, there it is – the absence of heavy and sustained chart statistics to back this up. I Can’t Let Go, then, can be seen to right a wrong. The idea of a singles-only collection is straightforward, clean – simple. However, until now, such a release has been missing. This 26-track CD, running from her 1963 debut 45 to 1970, is a gem. Also out is a more selective, best-of-inclined, 15-track album. I Can’t Let Go plugs massive gap.

In music-business terms, there were solid foundations. She was on Leiber and Stoller’s Blue Cat label. Top-notch songwriters/producers Al Gorgoni and Chip Taylor were on board with her. Her vocal delivery was direct, soulful and she did not sound like anyone else. There was support in the trade press: in its review of “Picture me Gone” Cash Box said “Evie Sands should skyrocket up the charts”; the same paper declared that her “Angel of the Morning” “could prove to be a chart topper.” In January 1966, the Los Angeles music paper KRLA Beat offered an insight into where she was coming from musically: “R&B is her favorite type of music. She likes Ramsey Lewis, Nancy Wilson, Otis Redding and [she] said Jackie Wilson was the biggest influence on her style.”

The story is told in the booklet – Sands has been interviewed. Born in Brooklyn in 1946, at age 14 she decided she was going to sing. After entering radio-station talent contests, her first single was issued in June 1963. This – “The Roll” / “My Dog” – and its February 1964 follow-up – “Danny Boy I Love You” / “I Was Moved so” – were fun dance-pop sides where the voice was more striking than the songs. And it was her voice which attracted the interest of Gorgoni and Taylor, who took her to Blue Cat, the sister label of Leiber and Stoller’s flourishing Red Bird.

After two singles with Red Bird she then went to Philadelphia’s Cameo, debuting for the label with June 1966’s “Picture me Gone.” Further change came with an autumn 1968 shift to the West Coast: the September 1968 single “Shadow of the Evening” was her first for LA’s A&M. The final single collected on I Can’t Let Go is May 1970’s “Take Me For a Little While,” an A&M-period re-recording of what she had released back in 1965. This, tacitly or maybe overtly, was a recognition that Evie Sands was a pace setter who had not received enough due. The flip side of this version of “Take Me For a Little While” was “It's This I am, I Find,” the first of her own compositions to hit vinyl.

A&M issued her debut album Any Way That You Want Me in 1970: it was first reissued in 2013 by the hip Rev-Ola label, an acknowledgment of Sands’ standing. As were her 1999 and 2006/7 live and studio collaborations with Scotland’s Belle and Sebastian and BMX Bandits. That repute had been confirmed in 1979, when Dusty Springfield contributed backing vocals to a track on Sands’ Suspended Animation album. Her last album was 2020’s Get Out Of Your Own Way.

On I Can’t Let Go, the A&M-period tracks are softer and, indeed, more LA sounding than what was recorded earlier on the other side of the US. There is less of a soul influence than on the Blue Cat and Cameo sides: hints of occupying a territory akin to that of Bobbie Gentry, and intimations towards the style Helen Reddy would adopt over 1971 and 1972. In contrast, the vibrant Blue Cat and Cameo tracks veer between a Motown undertone and an Uptown Soul character. Some of the arrangements are genuinely radical: “I Can’t Let go” is instrumentally driven by the combination of a bass guitar and a harpsichord. This was music designed to stand out.

Now, irrespective of the confounding aspects of the history, it – along with the cream of this collection – still stands out. I Can’t Let Go is a must: a diligent, treasure-packed tribute to one of Sixties’ America’s great vocal stylists.

• Next week: A Curious Mind - Outer Space! Horror! Death Discs! The Wild West! Demos! Three CDs of the unusual with Joe Meek
• More reissue reviews on theartsdesk
• Kieron Tyler’s website

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