The Salt

Biography

Who were the Salt? That's a question one might just as well and reasonably have asked in 1968, when they released their one record of any note, "Lucifer" b/w "A Whole Lot of Rainbows." Actually, they weren't so much a group as an idea for a group, conceived by Joey Levine -- of "Yummy Yummy Yummy" and "Chewy Chewy" renown -- and built around a single, "Lucifer" b/w "A Whole Lot of Rainbows." If the single on Cotillion had charted, the resulting group reportedly would have included Marc Bellock (who had written "Try It," the "notorious" Standells single with Levine) and David Lucas.

"Lucifer" sounded like an imitation of Sgt. Pepper's instrumentation and mix, with elements of "Hello Goodbye" and other Beatles songs drifting through, while "A Whole Lot of Rainbows" is closer to the Mamas & the Papas (or, perhaps more accurately, Spanky & Our Gang), mixed with Blood, Sweat & Tears-style horns and some cool Farfisa organ, with odd tempo changes and modulations that sort of anticipate the work of ELP on the same Cotillion label, plus some scatting at the end that sounds an awful lot like Micky Dolenz's work in a similar vein with the Monkees. They would disappear, unheralded and unnamed -- with Lucas ending up producing Blue Öyster Cult -- into the hazy mists of the receding Summer of Love. Both sides of the Salt's only single re-emerged in 2004 on Rhino Handmade's Come to the Sunshine: Soft Pop Nuggets from the WEA Vaults and Hallucinations: Psychedelic Pop Nuggets from the WEA Vaults. ~ Bruce Eder, All Music Guide