IT'S A RIOT

Description

Glenda Collins (born 16 December 1943) is an English pop singer, mainly active in the 1960s. Collins was discovered by Carroll Levis, whose promotion earned her a contract with Decca Records. She released three singles on Decca that failed to chart and were dropped by the label. Her father-manager then recorded a few demos with her and introduced her to independent producer Joe Meek, who signed her. Meek featured the house bands The Tornados and also The Outlaws with guitarist Ritchie Blackmore on some of her tracks. She released a total of eight singles with Meek, issued on the HMV Pop and Pye labels, none of which appeared in the UK Singles Chart. After Meek’s suicide in 1967, she recorded sporadically, but his death effectively ended her career and she retired at the end of the 1960s after a few years on the cabaret circuit. In the 60s, Glenda Collins and The Riot Squad found a home at Joe Meek’s legendary 304 Holloway Road studio. Ms. Collins was briefly associated with the Riot Squad by Meek for a planned collaborative album of covers, featuring mainly soul and R&B tracks that had been hits for other artists. Recorded in late 66/early 67, titled “It’s A Riot!”, and, according to the tape boxes, possibly to be released under the name Glenda, Nero and The Riots, the album itself was never completed and remained unknown until the recent restoration and transfer of the “Tea Chest Tapes”. The album’s six tracks are less heavily treated and more relaxed than much of Meek’s work, and with Glenda’s now mature and moving voice to the fore, these live, single-take recordings hint at a new approach to production the maestro may have been exploring, avoiding his habit of a reverb-heavy, heavily layered sound for something more rooted. If so, he was once again a year or more ahead of the curve, foreshadowing the back-to-basics approach that would be adopted by so many artists in the wake of psychedelia’s oversaturation.