The New Breed and Glad with Timothy B. Schmit
Timothy B. Schmit is best known for having been the bass player and sometime lead vocalist of two successful country rock bands from the '70's. He was first a member of Poco, replacing Randy Meisner in that band in 1969. At the end of the '70's, Schmit went on to even greater success with the late-career (and later the reunited) Eagles -- again replacing Randy Meisner, strangely enough. But in his pre-Poco teens, Schmit was the lead singer and bass player for a Sacramento, California quartet who were first known as The New Breed, and then as Glad. This band achieved local success in West Coast markets, but failed to break through to a national audience. After Schmit left his early band to join Poco, its other members -- Ron Floegel (rhythm guitar), Tom Phillips (lead guitar), and George Hullin (drums) -- formed a separate country rock band called Redwing, who recorded five albums between 1971 and 1975. Mr. Schmit currently continues to be active as both a member of the Eagles and as a solo artist; his 2022 solo album Day By Day is often reminiscent of Poco.
The New Breed released four singles between 1965 and 1967, and released one full-length album under the name Glad in 1969. Most of the material does not resemble Schmit's work with his later country rock bands, but much of it is interesting as psychedelic pop-rock from its time period. Commercial availability of The New Breed and Glad recordings has been intermittent at best.
Schmit and his New Breed bandmates began performing together in their early teens. The New Breed's first single from 1965 is a find, and not only because of its A-side. The A-side track is titled "Green Eye'd Woman", and it was a regional hit on the U.S. West Coast. The song was written by rhythm guitarist Ron Floegel, and the lead vocal was sung by Schmit. Not to be confused with the Sugarloaf song "Green-Eyed Lady", which it predates, "Green Eye'd Woman" was a catchy blue-eyed soul tune with a basic blues-rock foundation, reminiscent of Van Morrison and Them, with an engaging vocal turn by the young Schmit. But the truly remarkable thing about this single is its B-side, "I'm In Love", which was written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney but never recorded by the Beatles. The New Breed's version was good enough to have been recorded by the early Fab Four, coming across as a slightly Americanized take on the Merseybeat sound that could almost be mistaken for a Please Please Me outtake. Good stuff.
The New Breed recorded three more singles that were less impressive attempts to find a style. For their second single, The New Breed made a passable attempt at baroque pop, covering the Randy Newman-penned ballad "I've Been Wrong Before" (previously recorded by Cilla Black and by Dusty Springfield) on the A-side, and the Zombies ballad "Leave Me Be" on the B-side. For single #3, they unexpectedly proffered a fuzzy psychedelic novelty ("Want Ad Reader") backed by a dull psych instrumental ("One More For The Good Guys"). The fourth single was an improvement over the third, featuring a slightly psychedelized cover of the Beau Brummels' "Fine With Me" on the A-side (a rendition which is preferable to the Brummels original), and a band-written folk-rocker titled "The Sound Of The Music" (no relation to Julie Andrews) on the B-side.
When the band finally was able to release a full-length album in 1969, their name had been changed (against their will) to Glad, at the suggestion of Terry Melcher. On that album, titled Feelin' Glad, the band seemed to have found the sound they were searching for on those four earlier singles, as the album contained elements of baroque pop ("A New Tomorrow", "Two Worlds"), blue-eyed soul ("Shape Of Things To Come"), psychedelia ("Johnny Silver's Ride", "Love Needs The World"), and folk-rock ("Bedtime Story", "Let's Play Make Believe"), all of it painted with mild psychedelic colors by producer Eirik W. Wangberg. The album generally has a mellow Southern California type of vibe, with a mostly innocent personality. Faster tempos help "Sweet Melinda" and "Pickin' Up The Pieces" stand out from the rest of the tracks. Rhythm guitarist Ron Floegel was the principal songwriter. Listeners who hope to find early signs of Schmit's country-rock future will not be entirely disappointed, as "Silly Girl" and "No Ma, It Can't Be" now serve as precursors of the Poco sound. Although the album does sound like a logical culmination of the preceding New Breed singles, Feelin' Glad does have a slightly "manufactured" feel to it, as if many key decisions were made by the record label (something that the band criticized in the lyrics of "Johnny Silver's Ride"). But, so what? This band deserved to have at least one full-length major label album to their name -- or under some name -- and it may as well have been as pleasant, well-produced, and well-arranged as this one.
Feelin' Glad was released on CD in Japan and South Korea (Big Pink 744) in 2021. To the best of my knowledge, this was the first time the album has been reissued on CD in any country. However, the New Breed were given two compilation treatments during the decades since their existence. The first was an LP titled Want Ad Reader, issued in 1985. The second was a CD titled The New Breed Wants You!, released in 2007. Both compilations collected A- and B-sides from the four pre-Glad singles, plus nine tracks which were recorded in 1965 for a full-length Breed album which was never released. The Wants You CD is the more complete compilation, featuring five Glad bonus tracks from Feelin' Glad, and other New Breed rarities (including three video clips). The CD also benefits from excellent sound remastering, and a booklet of pictures and liner notes so thick that it barely fits inside the jewelcase. The compilations' nine previously unreleased tracks from the intended album -- eight of which are handily collected on Side One of the Want Ad Reader LP -- are mostly cover songs filtered through a garage-psych ethos, revolving around an almost concept-album-like theme of women. There are covers of two songs titled "Woman", one from the Beau Brummels (the best of the intended album tracks) and one from the Zombies (almost as good). They also give the youthful-sounding garage-psych treatment to Roy Orbison's "Pretty Woman", the Kinks/Who's "Bald-Headed Woman", and two Little Richard songs (doing a better job with "Miss Ann" than with "The Girl Can't Help It"). The lads stumbled badly over Billy Boy Arnold's "I Ain't Got You", but did well with Lulu's "I'll Come Running Over". The intended album's one band-written original, "She's Gone", finds the New Breed doing a pretty good imitation of the Everly Brothers. It sounds like the unreleased album was recorded quickly on a limited budget, and it's unlikely that it would have been a big success if it was released, but a few of the tracks might have eventually shown up on Nuggets box sets. The Wants You CD also offers alternate versions of two of the band's single A-sides: "Fine With Me" (which sounds too much like the Beau Brummels version) and "I've Been Wrong Before" (with a more distant vocal).
The Wants You CD also contained three MPEG video files. The first is the most interesting, showing black-and-white footage of the band -- billed simply as "The Breed" -- lip-syncing and miming "Green Eye'd Woman" on an episode of a kitschy 1967 TV variety show called Malibu U., which was hosted by Ricky Nelson. Unless my disc was defective, the other two videos had no audio. The second video apparently shows about one minute of home video footage of the band members playing volleyball with members of another Sacramento band called Public Nuisance in 1966. The third video shows two minutes of color footage of the band performing a concert at an outdoor stadium at Sacramento City College in 1967, but there's no sound to be heard.
Note: The song "Want Ad Reader" was included on the 2007 various artists compilation box set titled Love Is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-1970.
The New Breed "Green Eye'd Woman" (b/w "I'm In Love") (Diplomacy #22) 1965
Track Listing:
a. Green Eye'd Woman
b. I'm In Love
The New Breed "I've Been Wrong Before" (b/w "You'd Better Leave Me Be") (Mercury 72556) 1966
Track Listing:
a. I've Been Wrong Before
b. You'd Better Leave Me Be
The New Breed "Want Ad Reader" (b/w "One More For The Good Guys") (World United WU001A) 1966
Track Listing:
a. Want Ad Reader
b. One More For The Good Guys
The New Breed "Fine With Me" (b/w "The Sound Of The Music") (World United WU-003) 1967
Track Listing:
a. Fine With Me
b. The Sound Of The Music
Glad "Feelin' Glad" (ABC ABCS-655) 1969
Track Listing:
1. A New Tomorrow
2. Say What You Mean
3. Bedtime Story
4. Pickin' Up The Pieces
5. Shape Of Things To Come
6. Love Needs The World
7. Sweet Melinda
8. Let's Play Make Believe
9. No Ma, It Can't Be
10. Two Worlds
11. Johnny Silver's Ride
12. Silly Girl
The New Breed "Want Ad Reader" (Cicadelic Records CICLP-985) 1985
Track Listing:
Side One - The Unreleased Album!
1. Woman
2. Pretty Woman
3. I Ain't Got You
4. Bald-Headed Woman
5. She's Gone
6. The Girl Can't Help It
7. She's A Woman
8. I'll Come Running
Side Two - The Hits!
9. Green-Eyed Woman
10. I'm In Love
11. I've Been Wrong Before
12. Leave Me Be
13. Miss Ann
14. The Sound Of The Music
15. Want Ad Reader
16. One More For The Good Guys
The New Breed "The New Breed Wants You!" (Frantic 4343) 2007
Track Listing:
1. Green Eye'd Woman
2. Want Ad Reader
3. I'm In Love
4. One More For The Good Guys
5. Fine With Me (First Version)
6. Woman (Beau Brummels Song)
7. Bald Headed Woman
8. I'll Come Running Over
9. I've Been Wrong Before (alt. vocal)
10. Woman (Zombies song)
11. She's Gone
12. I Ain't Got You
13. The Sound Of The Music
14. The Girl Can't Help It
15. Oh, Pretty Woman
16. Leave Me Be
17. Fine With Me
18. Miss Ann
19. I've Been Wrong Before
Bonus Glad Tracks:
20. Johnny Silver's Ride (Mono Edit)
21. Pickin' Up The Pieces (Mono 45)
22. Shape Of Things To Come
23. A New Tomorrow
24. Say What You Mean
Bonus New Breed Video Clips:
1. The Breed on Malibu U.
2. New Breed vs. Public Nuisance
3. The Breed Live At Hughes Stadium
The New Breed released four singles between 1965 and 1967, and released one full-length album under the name Glad in 1969. Most of the material does not resemble Schmit's work with his later country rock bands, but much of it is interesting as psychedelic pop-rock from its time period. Commercial availability of The New Breed and Glad recordings has been intermittent at best.
Schmit and his New Breed bandmates began performing together in their early teens. The New Breed's first single from 1965 is a find, and not only because of its A-side. The A-side track is titled "Green Eye'd Woman", and it was a regional hit on the U.S. West Coast. The song was written by rhythm guitarist Ron Floegel, and the lead vocal was sung by Schmit. Not to be confused with the Sugarloaf song "Green-Eyed Lady", which it predates, "Green Eye'd Woman" was a catchy blue-eyed soul tune with a basic blues-rock foundation, reminiscent of Van Morrison and Them, with an engaging vocal turn by the young Schmit. But the truly remarkable thing about this single is its B-side, "I'm In Love", which was written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney but never recorded by the Beatles. The New Breed's version was good enough to have been recorded by the early Fab Four, coming across as a slightly Americanized take on the Merseybeat sound that could almost be mistaken for a Please Please Me outtake. Good stuff.
The New Breed recorded three more singles that were less impressive attempts to find a style. For their second single, The New Breed made a passable attempt at baroque pop, covering the Randy Newman-penned ballad "I've Been Wrong Before" (previously recorded by Cilla Black and by Dusty Springfield) on the A-side, and the Zombies ballad "Leave Me Be" on the B-side. For single #3, they unexpectedly proffered a fuzzy psychedelic novelty ("Want Ad Reader") backed by a dull psych instrumental ("One More For The Good Guys"). The fourth single was an improvement over the third, featuring a slightly psychedelized cover of the Beau Brummels' "Fine With Me" on the A-side (a rendition which is preferable to the Brummels original), and a band-written folk-rocker titled "The Sound Of The Music" (no relation to Julie Andrews) on the B-side.
When the band finally was able to release a full-length album in 1969, their name had been changed (against their will) to Glad, at the suggestion of Terry Melcher. On that album, titled Feelin' Glad, the band seemed to have found the sound they were searching for on those four earlier singles, as the album contained elements of baroque pop ("A New Tomorrow", "Two Worlds"), blue-eyed soul ("Shape Of Things To Come"), psychedelia ("Johnny Silver's Ride", "Love Needs The World"), and folk-rock ("Bedtime Story", "Let's Play Make Believe"), all of it painted with mild psychedelic colors by producer Eirik W. Wangberg. The album generally has a mellow Southern California type of vibe, with a mostly innocent personality. Faster tempos help "Sweet Melinda" and "Pickin' Up The Pieces" stand out from the rest of the tracks. Rhythm guitarist Ron Floegel was the principal songwriter. Listeners who hope to find early signs of Schmit's country-rock future will not be entirely disappointed, as "Silly Girl" and "No Ma, It Can't Be" now serve as precursors of the Poco sound. Although the album does sound like a logical culmination of the preceding New Breed singles, Feelin' Glad does have a slightly "manufactured" feel to it, as if many key decisions were made by the record label (something that the band criticized in the lyrics of "Johnny Silver's Ride"). But, so what? This band deserved to have at least one full-length major label album to their name -- or under some name -- and it may as well have been as pleasant, well-produced, and well-arranged as this one.
Feelin' Glad was released on CD in Japan and South Korea (Big Pink 744) in 2021. To the best of my knowledge, this was the first time the album has been reissued on CD in any country. However, the New Breed were given two compilation treatments during the decades since their existence. The first was an LP titled Want Ad Reader, issued in 1985. The second was a CD titled The New Breed Wants You!, released in 2007. Both compilations collected A- and B-sides from the four pre-Glad singles, plus nine tracks which were recorded in 1965 for a full-length Breed album which was never released. The Wants You CD is the more complete compilation, featuring five Glad bonus tracks from Feelin' Glad, and other New Breed rarities (including three video clips). The CD also benefits from excellent sound remastering, and a booklet of pictures and liner notes so thick that it barely fits inside the jewelcase. The compilations' nine previously unreleased tracks from the intended album -- eight of which are handily collected on Side One of the Want Ad Reader LP -- are mostly cover songs filtered through a garage-psych ethos, revolving around an almost concept-album-like theme of women. There are covers of two songs titled "Woman", one from the Beau Brummels (the best of the intended album tracks) and one from the Zombies (almost as good). They also give the youthful-sounding garage-psych treatment to Roy Orbison's "Pretty Woman", the Kinks/Who's "Bald-Headed Woman", and two Little Richard songs (doing a better job with "Miss Ann" than with "The Girl Can't Help It"). The lads stumbled badly over Billy Boy Arnold's "I Ain't Got You", but did well with Lulu's "I'll Come Running Over". The intended album's one band-written original, "She's Gone", finds the New Breed doing a pretty good imitation of the Everly Brothers. It sounds like the unreleased album was recorded quickly on a limited budget, and it's unlikely that it would have been a big success if it was released, but a few of the tracks might have eventually shown up on Nuggets box sets. The Wants You CD also offers alternate versions of two of the band's single A-sides: "Fine With Me" (which sounds too much like the Beau Brummels version) and "I've Been Wrong Before" (with a more distant vocal).
The Wants You CD also contained three MPEG video files. The first is the most interesting, showing black-and-white footage of the band -- billed simply as "The Breed" -- lip-syncing and miming "Green Eye'd Woman" on an episode of a kitschy 1967 TV variety show called Malibu U., which was hosted by Ricky Nelson. Unless my disc was defective, the other two videos had no audio. The second video apparently shows about one minute of home video footage of the band members playing volleyball with members of another Sacramento band called Public Nuisance in 1966. The third video shows two minutes of color footage of the band performing a concert at an outdoor stadium at Sacramento City College in 1967, but there's no sound to be heard.
Note: The song "Want Ad Reader" was included on the 2007 various artists compilation box set titled Love Is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-1970.
The New Breed "Green Eye'd Woman" (b/w "I'm In Love") (Diplomacy #22) 1965
Track Listing:
a. Green Eye'd Woman
b. I'm In Love
The New Breed "I've Been Wrong Before" (b/w "You'd Better Leave Me Be") (Mercury 72556) 1966
Track Listing:
a. I've Been Wrong Before
b. You'd Better Leave Me Be
The New Breed "Want Ad Reader" (b/w "One More For The Good Guys") (World United WU001A) 1966
Track Listing:
a. Want Ad Reader
b. One More For The Good Guys
The New Breed "Fine With Me" (b/w "The Sound Of The Music") (World United WU-003) 1967
Track Listing:
a. Fine With Me
b. The Sound Of The Music
Glad "Feelin' Glad" (ABC ABCS-655) 1969
Track Listing:
1. A New Tomorrow
2. Say What You Mean
3. Bedtime Story
4. Pickin' Up The Pieces
5. Shape Of Things To Come
6. Love Needs The World
7. Sweet Melinda
8. Let's Play Make Believe
9. No Ma, It Can't Be
10. Two Worlds
11. Johnny Silver's Ride
12. Silly Girl
The New Breed "Want Ad Reader" (Cicadelic Records CICLP-985) 1985
Track Listing:
Side One - The Unreleased Album!
1. Woman
2. Pretty Woman
3. I Ain't Got You
4. Bald-Headed Woman
5. She's Gone
6. The Girl Can't Help It
7. She's A Woman
8. I'll Come Running
Side Two - The Hits!
9. Green-Eyed Woman
10. I'm In Love
11. I've Been Wrong Before
12. Leave Me Be
13. Miss Ann
14. The Sound Of The Music
15. Want Ad Reader
16. One More For The Good Guys
The New Breed "The New Breed Wants You!" (Frantic 4343) 2007
Track Listing:
1. Green Eye'd Woman
2. Want Ad Reader
3. I'm In Love
4. One More For The Good Guys
5. Fine With Me (First Version)
6. Woman (Beau Brummels Song)
7. Bald Headed Woman
8. I'll Come Running Over
9. I've Been Wrong Before (alt. vocal)
10. Woman (Zombies song)
11. She's Gone
12. I Ain't Got You
13. The Sound Of The Music
14. The Girl Can't Help It
15. Oh, Pretty Woman
16. Leave Me Be
17. Fine With Me
18. Miss Ann
19. I've Been Wrong Before
Bonus Glad Tracks:
20. Johnny Silver's Ride (Mono Edit)
21. Pickin' Up The Pieces (Mono 45)
22. Shape Of Things To Come
23. A New Tomorrow
24. Say What You Mean
Bonus New Breed Video Clips:
1. The Breed on Malibu U.
2. New Breed vs. Public Nuisance
3. The Breed Live At Hughes Stadium
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