Family Dogg BBC session?

[Gary C]

a friend of mine says he has a BBC session by the band Family Dog (Dogg??), is it worth me following it up? I must admit, I've never heard of them!

[Zab]

The Family Dogg had one hit in 1968 with a song called "Way Of Life". It was a strange combo led by Steve Rowland an American who produced Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky Mick and Tich and Albert Hammond who went on to have a fairly successful solo career.

As for whether its worth following up... I guess so, though interest in this session recording in Britain would be best described as "minimal", but they did have a decent following in Europe and appeared regularly on various TV shows over there, so perhaps there are some Family Dogg fanatics who would be thrilled to have this session.

[WilliamM]

Zab said:

The Family Dogg had one hit in 1968 with a song called "Way Of Life". It was a strange combo led by Steve Rowland an American who produced Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky Mick and Tich and Albert Hammond who went on to have a fairly successful solo career.

As for whether its worth following up... I guess so, though interest in this session recording in Britain would be best described as "minimal", but they did have a decent following in Europe and appeared regularly on various TV shows over there, so perhaps there are some Family Dogg fanatics who would be thrilled to have this session.

1969, I think they were all involved in too many other things to sustain the Dogg project

[Zab]

WilliamM said:

1969, I think they were all involved in too many other things to sustain the Dogg project

Indeed, I believe this was the case. Steve Rowland was a busy producer for various acts on Phonogram and Albert had his own solo career. Whats more, there was even an offshoot when Steve and Albert released their own single as Steve and Albert... This particular song, "Follow The Bouncing Ball" even exists on one of the b+w early 1970 TOTP telerecordings. A clip of this was shown in John Peels' comical "Rock Bottom" in 1992, a look at some of the more naff records from over the years, and they certainly looked ridiculous with strange make-up and Rowland believing he's some kind of rock God!

I haven't a clue who else was in the Family Dogg but the few clips and photos I've seen showed they were an ensemble of misfits. As the saying goes, "too many cooks"...

[Dale Rumbold]

Zab said:

I haven't a clue who else was in the Family Dogg but the few clips and photos I've seen showed they were an ensemble of misfits. As the saying goes, "too many cooks"...

I believe Mike Hazelwood (Hammond's songwriting partner) was also part of the band for a while, and of course Irene Sheer : she later represented Luxembourg in the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest with "Bye bye I love you", sung in French (although Radio Luxembourg used the English version as a power play)

[WilliamM]

there's actualy a small web site to them here

www.alexgitlin.com/fd.html

I've seen the bouncing ball clip, all very Jason King