Susan Jacks

[3Favorites]

I have most of her recordings. I have the first two albums on vinyl: "Which Way You Going, Billy?" and "Poppy Seeds." I have the "Ghost" LP as well. I also have the Retrospective CD and I bought a CD of 4 of her solo albums on Amazon shortly after she died. I also have the Mercury singles, "Never Let Him Go" and "You're a Part Of Me." I recently recorded them on to CD and then created MP3s of them. I liked both of those singles a lot and I was hoping she would make an album for Mercury, as I liked what she was releasing very much. Turns out there was an album, "Dreams," although I didn't know it at the time. For some reason I understand that it was withdrawn. Never knew the reason why. The 4CD which includes "Dreams" and "Ghost" is very good.

 

[David A]

I am one of those who has seen, and remembers, you (Harry) talk of and otherwise extoll the talents of the Poppy Family and Susan's vocals.

I admit to a cursory glance; I do not know why, but growing up in western PA I just do not remember much about them (the geography may be irrelevant, but it's where I lived at this time in music). Of course I know the song "Which way you going, Billy" and remember it all over the radio - but the band themselves just didn't "pop" for me. Who knows why. I was fast becoming a Carpenters devotee' at this time and maybe I just tuned them out. Dunno.

After listening to "Where Evil Grows" I remembered that one as well.

I am curious, Harry, why Wikipedia would refer to them as a "Canadian psychedelic pop group"...? I am not familiar with the totality of their catalog but from the few I have listened to, "psychedelic" doesn't seem to fit?

Lastly, as others have said here, I feel a bit more Agnetha in her vocals than Karen, but regardless, she has a soothing, beautiful voice and in retrospect I'm surprised I didn't know more about them at the time. From what I've read, their time as the "Poppy Family" was actually fairly short-lived, as they began recording separately in 1971 and were divorced, it seems, in 1973.

 

[Harry]

There are a few tracks that I'd consider bordering on "psychedelia",
There's No Blood In Bone
Where Evil Grows
Shadows On My Wall
Someone Must Have Jumped
...and maybe a few others. I think the latter two are mostly Terry Jacks vocals.

Their time was the early 70s. Psychedelia was a think then and many music tunes were created with the effects of drugs. The fact that they used Indian percussion (tabla) also points to that "kind" of music.