Harpers Bizarre - Come to the Sunshine: The Complete Warner Brothers Recordings (2021)

Short-lived sunshine pop group Harpers Bizarre weren't around for long, but for a brief window in the late '60s, they recorded and released new material at a rapid clip. The group scored only a few hits, but their best work ranks alongside the Association, the Left Banke, Chad & Jeremy, and other champions of baroque psychedelia from this specific pocket of rock & roll history. Come to the Sunshine collects the band's first four albums as well as several B-sides and non-album tracks from each session. The group's first and biggest hit was a cover of Simon & Garfunkel's "59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)," which producer Lenny Waronker and Harpers Bizarre reworked under the heavy influence of the Beach Boys' "Good Vibrations." Layered vocal harmonies and chamber pop instrumentation gave the band's version of the song a unique appeal, and those elements earmarked much of their early output. Harpers Bizarre released two albums in 1967, their debut Feelin' Groovy and its follow-up Anything Goes. Both were overflowing with giddy Tin Pan Alley melodies, playful arrangements of strings and woodwinds, and the softer side of AM radio pop songwriting. The group often worked with songwriters Harry Nilsson and Randy Newman, and their influence creeps in more by the time of third album The Secret Life of Harpers Bizarre. Lazy, strolling pop tunes like "I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise" take on the same unserious approach as Nilsson's output from that time, adding in ambitious orchestral arrangements to enhance the band's commercial appeal. By the time of 1969's Harpers Bizarre 4, they had all but abandoned their naïve, squeaky-clean sound from just a few years earlier. Instead, their last album (not including subsequent partial reunions in the '70s) was a set of greasy rock & roll and hippy takes on soul, complete with slide guitar from Ry Cooder. The quick evolution from the lighthearted fun of the first album to the acid-dazzled bliss of songs like "Witchi Tai To" in just two years is even more striking when placed in the chronological context of their complete discography on Come to the Sunshine. Almost all of the late-'60s acts later classified as sunshine pop never rose much beyond relative obscurity, but Harpers Bizarre left behind a wealth of incredible songs that morphed quickly between styles. Come to the Sunshine exposes a catalog full of hidden gems in every phase of the band's fast-burning career. ~ Fred Thomas