While doing a bit of research on the Reggae label Trojan I came across a story on Brian's Mellotron told by Dennis 'Blackbeard' Bovell.

He said that by '73 Brian's Mellotron had ended up in the recording studio R.G. Jones in Wimbledon.

Here's an excerpt - from the book 'Bass Culture - When Reggae was King' by Lloyd Bradley[page 376-377] - of what Bovell said when asked about his dealings with Trojan in 1973:

'The studio we'd booked was R.G. Jones in Wimbledon, South London, and in it was a Mellotron
that had belonged to Brian Jones, the Rolling Stones guy. It was a huge great thing that
didn't take to transporting around so it was just left in the studio - Brian Jones was
dead by then - and at the end of the session, after we'd recorded all the stuff we'd
written for our demo, we had done some time left and we'd had a go on it.
Because of the string sounds on it, this was like the first synthesizer, I fancied fooling about with it,
and, not being able to afford an orchestra, we just had to try it.
We wanted to have a go at sending up all that cover version, stringsy reggae'

BTW the song in question was a cover of Hot Chocolate's 'Brother Louie' and was the first single released of UK based reggae group Matumbi.

As I know practically nothing about The Stones' instruments, I have no idea how much truth there is to this. I would be grateful if anyone could confirm or deny this story[I searched the archive, but couldn't find anything useful].

Link to His Majesty's great thread on the Mellotron: [www.iorr.org]

Interesting. So there's actually a song released, called "Brother Louie" recorded by the group Matumbi, featuring Brian's old mellotron? I'll see if I can find it on Soulseek.

Thanx for posting!

Brian created a more powerful soundscape with his mellotron on 'We Love You' than The Moody Blues (or early King Crimson) could have dreamed of. Stories had a hit w/ 'Louie' here in the States. Never heard any other versions.

LieB, you can find the song on compilations such as 'Empire Road - the Best of Matumbi' and the Trojan box; 'Soulful Reggae'

Information relating to Mick and Bill's Mellotron purchases circa 1967 are still held in the Streetly Electronics archives. Apparently there's nothing about Brian buying one, but as he clearly loved the instrument I would be very surprised if he didn't.

Mick donated his mellotron to the Hard Rock Cafe. You can see Mick's mellotron in the film Performance in Turner's music room. Bill still owns his and had it serviced by Streetly Electronics a few years ago.

I did read a comment in a book about recoding studios(I forget the name) that the mellotron the stones used at Olympic actually belonged to Keith. You can see a mellotron in the 5th Dimension/music room at Redlands circa Spring 1969.

The mellotron is just in front of Charlie...





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2008-03-15 08:01 by His Majesty.

<<Apparently there's nothing about Brian buying one.>>

I kinda thought my question would be a long shot.

Thanks for chiming in on this one, His Majesty.

Really cool pic btw

Quote
Sohoe
<<Apparently there's nothing about Brian buying one.>>

I kinda thought my question would be a long shot.

Thanks for chiming in on this one, His Majesty.

Really cool pic btw

All it means is they don't have a record of Brian Jones buying one, doesn't mean it didn't happen though. I'm not sure what kind of state their archives are in, but like most archives there tends to be holes in it, or missing files etc.

I bet Brian had one in his Cotchford Farm music room.

Photos from Olympic Sound Studios crica 1969 show that the Mellotron that used to sit below the control room window during 1967 - 68 is no longer there. Perhaps that's why we see one at Redlands, Keith wanted it back!?

If you want to hear the KING of the mellotron listen to Mike Pinder from the first 7 Moody Blues albums.