The Hobbits

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Between 1967 and 1969 Jimmy Curtiss worked with The Hobbits in New York. This was presumably more a studio project than a performing live band. One of the rare live appereances took place at "The Bitter End Cafe" in 1967. The Hobbits perform "Daffodil Days" "Treats" and the song "Deep In The Heart Of Love" who was not on the LP "Down To Middle Earth". You finde some rare Videos from that Live-Performance at the LIVE section of this website. Despite the band's name, apparently taken from the universe of Middle Earth, which was very popular in hippie circles at the time, Tolkien's creatures never appear in the songs of The Hobbits, even though the first album is called „Down To Middle Earth" and the last "Back From Middle Earth". There are three LPs and  two singles by the Hobbits. "Strawberry Children" /bw "Pretty Young Thing" even appeared as a licence release on Festival Records in New Zealand and Australia.

 

The third album was never offically released in 1969. Only pomotional copys are known.  It gets his first official release on CD in 2004 by English record label radioactive.The first two albums, released on Decca in New York in 1967 and 1968 respectively, offer a mixture of sunshine pop and soft psychedelia.

Not unlike the music bands such as The Cowsills or Jay & The Americans. There are excellent vocal harmonies, especially on the second album "Men And Doors" (1968). A second female studio singer, Gini Eastwood, and a flamenco guitar player were added to the usual line up of bass, drums, guitars, and keyboards, resulting in a special flavour all over the whole recordings. Both most outstanding psych pop songs written by Jimmy Curtiss are included here as well: "The Journey" and "Strawberry Children".

The cover artwork of both albums reflects this intended "psychedelic style as well.  A little oddity aside: the German branch of Universal Records released a double CD "The Get Easy! Sunshine Pop Collection" at the end of 2003 - two years after the sunshine pop revival. This collection includes "Sunny Day Girl" from the first Hobbits LP.

 

The third album "Back From Middle Earth" picks up the thread from the first Hobbits LP thematically. The record already appeared on Jimmy Curtiss' own label Perception Records in 1969 under the name of The New Hobbits. The band is a totally different one. Only Jimmy Curtiss himself remained.

 

 

Almost known "Line Up": Heather Hewitt, Jimmy Curtiss, Tony Luizza, Zok Russo, Gini Eastwood

 

 

 

For more informations just click on the cover.