Jesamine - The Casuals (1968) New Stereo Recording By EVB (SHQ)
"Jesamine" is a song written by Marty Wilde and Ronnie Scott, published under the pseudonyms Frere Manston and Jack Gellar.
Initially recorded by Welsh band the Bystanders as "When Jezamine Goes", the version by English band the Casuals became a hit when it was released as a single in August 1968. It reached number two on the UK Singles Chart in October 1968.
Paul Weller has described "Jesamine" as one of his favourite records. It was one of the songs in his record collection that he discussed on the 8 February 1998 BBC Radio One edition of All Back to Mine, describing it as "a beautiful record", that he loved the melody, and found it "sad", "nostalgic" but "really inspiring". He included it in the 2003 compilation of songs that influenced him, Under the Influence.
The Casuals were a British pop group from Lincoln, Lincolnshire, England.
Originally formed in 1960 by John Tebb (piano and vocals) and Howard Newcomb (guitar), they added Don Fortune (drums) and Zenon Kowalski (bass), and became The Casuals in 1961. After turning professional, they moved to Italy and recorded a number of covers of well-known UK material.
Fortune and Kowalski left, and were followed by a series of replacements, culminating in Mick Bray (drums) and Ian Good (bass), from other well-known Lincoln groups, The Avengers and The Sultans.
In 1965, they won the TV talent show Opportunity Knocks three times, leading to a recording contract with Fontana Records who issued their debut single "If You Walk Out", which was unsuccessful.
In 1966, Alan "Plug" Taylor (bass) joined, and the band moved to Italy, where they signed with CBS in Milan to record Italian-language covers of British hit singles. These included a No. 1 Italian single covering the Bee Gees' "Massachusetts".
Good left in mid 1967, and was not replaced, but when Bray left later that year, Bob O'Brien joined on drums (ex-Glasgow group The Riot Squad).
In 1968, whilst still in Italy, The Casuals switched to Decca Records, who released the single "Jesamine" in May, which – following extensive airplay on BBC Radio One – eventually charted, so the band came back from Italy to promote the record, which reached No. 2 on the UK Singles Chart late in 1968.
It's a fabulous old pop song that I've been quietly working on for a few months now, hope you'll all enjoy the new stereo mix.
Not much footage of the group and this certainly wasn't the best of videos, but I felt it was good enough to show you what the group looked like, I will be working on their other chart record "Toy" in the near future.
Love & Peace
Eddy EVB @thesquaredisc