THE LEE KINGS - THE SUNSPOTS/STOP THE MUSIC GP 9911 (-66) MONO SWEDEN

Not sure if to call this The Lee Kings debute album, a sampler of 45 cuts or a two band compilation. I guess all three will do. It is a collection of 45 cuts and The Lee Kings was certainly the poster band with at the time two big Scandinavian hits - "L.O.D." and "Stop The Music" - while Sunspots hadn't done that well and this was way for the label to flaunt them. Starting with The Lee Kings - I do like their two aforementioned hits, both catchy and melodic with a garage quality, the "Sticks And Stones" cover charming in a tinny kind of way, but the rest rather bad. "Like A Rolling Stone" has to be one of the worst Dylan covers ever (does the singer really know the words or is he just mimicking?) and the idea of doing "Que Sera Sera" in a "La Bamba" style (inspired by P.J. Proby?) doesn't work for me, but maybe there are lovers of truly odd garage out there who can appreciate. The low quality of most of the cuts surprising considering where some of the members went after band breakup early 1968. Guitarist Bjarne Möller played with Hansson & Karlsson, Bengt Dahlen became member of Fläsket Brinner and singer Lenne Broberg went on to a prosperous solo carreer. The Sunspots one the other hand certainly one or the rarer Swedish bands on vinyl. Apart from this they only released two singles, of which you get two A-sides and one flip here. Only things I know about them are they were from Stockholm, split 1967 due to military service, the guitarist's name was Roffe Färdig and the singer called "Sonne" (with all certainty the Anders Personne who's credited for all three tracks). To my ears they come out tighter than TLK, still garage but collected with more energy. "Sonne" may not have been the best Swedish vocalist, but I've heard worse and it fits. My favorite of theirs is the uptempo rocker "She Said That She Loves Me" with good guitar background and hard working drums. LP worth collecting for "L.O.D.", "Stop The Music" and three out of four from one of the obscurer Swedish groups. This was the only vinyl issue, but all Lee Kings cuts can be found on the German 2002 thirty track CD "Bingo/Stop The Music + Singles" (Rock-In-Beat-Records (RB 020). Premiere Swedish had label as shown here, thick unflexible vinyl and thin fully laminated cover with top opening. (SCÄ*) (CCÖ*) (ÖGÄ*) (SÖNÄ*)