Happens – David Hemmings

Hey, if Albert Finney could cut an album, and Richard Harris could actually score a hit record, why shouldn't David Hemmings have gone and tried adding "pop singer" to his resume? At least Hemmings had starred in movies with Gene Vincent and Jerry Lee Lewis, giving him a greater hipness-by-association factor than most of his thespian colleagues, and he had performed in a few London folk groups before striking it big as an actor, so he had some actual experience in front of a microphone. In 1967, MGM Records signed Hemmings to a record deal, and flew him to Hollywood to cut sessions with producer Jim Dickson and arranger Jimmy Bond; Dickson brought along his friends Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman from the Byrds to play on the project (along with noted jazz drummer Ed Thigpen), and an unreleased Gene Clark track (produced by Leon Russell) was salvaged for the album, with Hemmings overdubbing a new vocal over Clark's scratch track. With a back story like that, one might imagine that Happens must be some great lost masterpiece of 1960s folk-rock, but that certainly isn't the case. It's not a Golden Throats-type embarrassment, either -- Hemmings has a good-if-not-great voice and a clear sense of what to do with it, and McGuinn adds plenty of his patented Rickenbacker raga on several tracks, while Bond's arrangements are excellent, period studio craft. However, though Hemmings is an okay singer, he was a much better actor, and whoever suggested he contribute stream-of-consciousness verse while the band jammed behind him should have been pink-slipped early in the proceedings -- "Good King James," "War's Mystery," and "Talkin' L.A." all sink into the shallow well of the ridiculous by the time Hemmings brings them to a hyper-dramatic close. Too bad, since his versions of Clark's "Back Street Mirror," Tim Hardin's "Reason To Believe," and Bill Martin's "After the Rain" are all pretty solid faux-hip folk-rock stuff -- if he hadn't tried so hard to express himself, the guy could have made a pretty good album. ~ Mark Deming, All Music Guide