100 Greatest Song of the 60’s #36 The Leaves – Lemmon Princess

Released: 1966

The one universal true rule of showbusiness is that it isn’t fair. The Leaves have faded into almost total obscurity since what could be passed for as their heyday in and around 1966, although they’re one of the Nuggets crowd. A song of theirs though hasn’t: released and then re-released by quintet twice in that year, their rendition of Hey Joe currently hovers around the 15,000 streams mark, whilst the one by Jimi Hendrix boasts over 300 million. As the opening line went, not fair.

Formed by alumni of San Fernando Valley State College Bob Rhinehart and Jim Pons, in an early interview they dismissed the idea of being influenced by the British invasion, surf pop or anything else, Rhineheart declaring “There’s room for everything. There are songs about love and songs about car accidents. Ours is just solid rock, sort of happy rock.”

By the time their debut and only album All The Good That’s Happening arrived a year later they were locked into garage and psychedelic state of mind. Hey Joe is a frantic, manic stomp, but the closer Lemmon Princess, with it’s one spoken word intro, gothic organ and Haight-Astbury harmonies arguably was far more deserving of Lenny Kaye’s recognition. It’s never the players though, always the game.