Song:Golf Girl
Album:Canterbury Tales: The Best Of Caravan
Caravan was a progressive rock group that came out of The Canterbury Scene in England along with groups like The Soft Machine and Camel. And like those groups, Caravan had a very strong cult following. Caravan came out of the breakup of the mid-60s group The Wilde Flowers. When Robert Wyatt and Kevin Ayers left to form The Soft Machine, the remainder of The Wilde Flowers became Caravan. There was Pye Hastings on gutiar, Richard Sinclair on bass, his cousin Dave Sinclair on keyboards and Richard Coughlan on drums. Caravan signed with Verve Records when MGM was trying to establish a British prescense. But after one album, MGM closed their British office. In the wake of that, Caravan got a new manager in Terry King and a young producer named David Hitchcock and they signed with Decca. Their 1970 Decca debut album If I Could Do It All Over Again, I'd Do It All Over You was a mix of progressive rock and jazz and with Decca's distribution did fairly will on college campuses. Golf Girl is from their 1971 album In The Land Of Grey And Pink and it was as close to a hit single as Caravan would ever get. But they toured a lot and acquired a significant cult following. Dave Sinclair left in 1971 to join Robert Wyatt's new group Matching Mole. He was replaced by Stephen Miller of Delivery and his jazz oriented direction. But he left and so did Richard Sinclair to form Hatfield And The North. Violist Geoff Richardson was brought in and Dave Sinclair returned. Then Miles Copeland became their manager and he tried to break them in the US. The 1975 album Cunning Stunts did well but Caravan left Decca and by the late 70s, their brand of music was passe as punk rock took over. Decca originally released Canterbury Tales on 2LPs in 1976. They released it in 1994 in an expanded edition on 2CDs. Caravan reformed in 1990 and they still tour and record today. Here's Caravan performing Golf Girl on the BBC 1971.
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