THE COMMON PEOPLE: 'bordering at times on the psychedelic'

I'm delighted to post what I suspect are the only two contemporary articles ever written about the enigmatic Common People. Both come from the reliably mindblowing World Countdown, and appeared in the summer of 1969, to coincide with their fascinating album. The first seems simply to be a reproduction of Capitol's press release, while the second is a gushing interview by Dodie Smith, the paper's latter-day editor (who came from Liverpool, and appears to have vanished without trace). It's interesting to learn how explicitly Christian their world view was, having gone through a biker / garage phase before a 'spiritual type sojourn in the desert', where they 'existed on bread and water for long periods of time'. Most intriguing is the fact that they tore down their rehearsal space and put everything in it 'in an immense box which they had constructed, and buried it in the ground'. Enjoy!

World Countdown 6:3 (June 27th 1969)

World Countdown 6:4 (July 10th 1969)

Incidentally, the portrait of Denny is credited to Nik Raceivic, who went on to make some interesting electronic albums in the 70s...