The Battered Ornaments

The Battered Ornaments had their origins in the unexpected musical aspirations of Pete Brown. Best known as a poet among the British beats of the early/mid-'60s, Brown knew something of jazz and blues, and even played an instrument -- the trumpet -- with some modest degree of facility. He was still primarily a writer, but he gravitated toward music and devised a presentation of poetry, jazz, and avant-garde music that entailed the presence of a band -- toward that then, he put together a group called the First Real Poetry Band with a lineup, as he recalled in a 2000 essay, that included John McLaughlin (guitar), Binky McKenzie (bass), Laurie Allen (drums), and Pete Bailey (percussion). The group performed at the top London clubs of the period, and added to Brown's recognition among the literati, sufficiently so that he ended up being approached by Cream -- then a hot blues-based power trio who had run through much of their best blues repertory on their debut album and was now looking to write original material, to assist them with the songwriting. Bassist Jack Bruce and guitarist Eric Clapton didn't need help where music was concerned, but lyrics were another matter, and Brown and Bruce soon found a harmonious working relationship. And when Cream took the airwaves and the listeners on both sides of the Atlantic by storm, with the singles "Sunshine of Your Love" and "White Room," not to mention a brace of LP tracks off of their album Disraeli Gears, Brown suddenly emerged as a major background figure in the British pop music world. It was around this same time that the First Real Poetry Band got recorded by a friend of Brown's, and there was talk of a possible commercial release. Meanwhile, Brown carried his songwriting activities forward on behalf of the Graham Bond...