Looking Glass

The Looking Cup (never to be confused using the similarly named New Jersey-based music group of “Brandy” fame) were a singing trio who bridged the gap between early-’60s pop/rock and mid- to later-’60s sunlight pop, without ever seeing the success that their finest work must have earned them. The group hailed from California, and experienced a lineup change and two name adjustments throughout a five-year documenting career. They arrived of Sacramento as the Tri-Lites, composed of Mona Witry, Ron Andre, and Bonnie Andre (aka Bonnie Donato). The group got out a set of singles — one of these for the Kapp label — without the achievement, and Witry was afterwards changed by Bonnie Andre’s sister, Linda Donato. Her entrance, subsequently, also heralded a name transformation to Western world Winds, and a change to a folkier audio. By 1966, the folk-rock increase was completely swing as well as the music business completely bloom in California. These were agreed upon to Valiant Information, the southern California-based label that was also the house from the Association, and, on the label’s insistence, they transformed their name once again, to the even more enigmatic and possibly trippy Looking Cup, which seemed easier to embody the path where music was heading. Their just Valiant discharge, the upbeat and soft “Silver precious metal and Sunlight (How Beautiful Can be Our Appreciate)” (using a B-side of “EASILY Never Love Once again”), was type of midway between your Angels and Spanky & Our Gang, and may have even been a industrial jingle about the summertime before the Summertime of Appreciate. It found the group through the pens from the Addrisi Brothers, the performing/songwriting siblings who had been also under agreement to Valiant, and whose “Under no circumstances My Appreciate” was going to nationally in the hands from the Association a season later. Renowned sunlight pop/psychedelic manufacturer Curt Boettcher could also been mixed up in recording, though that is only the best supposition; the record gets the same type of polish that he could provide to a documenting, although single’s overall audio wouldn’t get this to among Boettcher’s even more ambitious productions. The tune, which originated being a jingle created for a spiritual youth camp, under no circumstances charted nonetheless it did prosper more than enough locally in California in order that when Warner Bros. Information later assimilated the Valiant label, the Searching Cup weren’t jettisoned. They do one record for Warner, “Like ISN’T Everything,” prior to making a jump towards the Uni label for just two singles. Unfortunately, the trio by no means saw any nationwide achievement or any enduring impact despite satisfying harmony performing and a possibly appealing picture, and both Ron and Bonnie Andre and Linda Donato may actually have gone the music business behind. In addition they never recorded a lot more than four tunes for just about any one label, producing the assembly of the compilation very challenging, and left out only twelve released tunes, hardly enough for today’s compilation. In 2004, nevertheless, “Metallic and Sunlight (How Beautiful Is usually Our Like)” was resurrected on Rhino Handmade’s Arrive to sunlight: Soft Pop Nuggets from your WEA Vaults, providing the trio its biggest (and, actually, just) shot at nationwide publicity since 1968.