2) The DC Blossoms: I Know About Her (1966)

The DC Blossoms seem one of those groups whose potential place in music history got knocked out of the ground by bad luck and timing. Even their limited output of what seems to be 2 singles ( from 1962 and 1966) is sometimes lumped in with the more famous Blossoms from Los Angeles, whose line-up included Darlene Love and who can be heard on many of Phil Spector’s recordings from  1962-64.The DC Blossoms started life in Washington as the Tropicals in 1958 and in 1962 made one record  ‘I’m in Love’, for the Okeh label  as the Blossoms, a four piece vocal group comprising sisters Jacqui and Vicki Burton, Jeannette Talley and Roberta Miller. The single sank without trace, the group lost their recording contract and it was not until 1966 they got another opportunity when the group –now a trio following Roberta Miller’s departure -  signed to a new  Washington-based soul  record label, Shrine, started  by Berry Gordy’s ex-wife  Raynoma Berry Singleton. It was at this stage they added the DC to their name to differentiate themselves from  Darlene Love’s outfit.

One  two-sided single, I Know about Her/Oh Boy , was issued but sold no better than their first effort. In a further saga of disaster Shrine collapsed in 1967, having issued only 25 singles, and in 1968 a fire during the riots following Martin Luther King’s death destroyed the record company warehouse and unsold stock. No more was heard from the DC Blossoms , who might well have said “Sod this for a game of soldiers” and taken up alternative careers. They did, however, leave in I Know About Her a gem of a record, which is one more than many groups with a more extensive back catalogue than 2 singles .It shows an unusual blend of high and low harmonies, a studio drummer rolling round his kit like a man possessed and what suspiciously sounds like a bum note from the horn section towards the end. The sum result is a rather haunting track that leaves me, at least, wishing they had managed to do a whole album.