LPCDreissues: Looking forward to the past

A minor, if reasonably interesting, late-Sixties psychedelic group, Houston's FEVER TREE is most famous for their single "San Francisco Girls". Its dramatic melody melted with utopian lyrics and searing fuzz guitar. Most of the band's best material, ironically, was written by the musicians' over-30 husband-wife production team, Scott and Vivian HOTZMAN, who had previously written material for Tex RITTER and the "Mary Poppins" soundtrack. These odd bedfellows produced some fairly distinctive material with more classical-baroque influences and orchestral string arrangements than were usually found in psychedelic groups. Their pretty, wistful ballads (Enhanced on their first album by arranger David ANGEL, who had also worked on LOVE's classic "Forever Changes".) endure better than their dirge-like fuzz grinders, which epitomize some of the more generic aspects of heavy psychedelia. Releasing four albums (The third of which, "Creation", included guest guitar by future ZZ TOP axeman Billy GIBBONS.), their records grew weaker and more meandering with time, and the group disbanded in 1970.