i know what you’re thinking, and i’m thinking it too: a sour milk sea? gross.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goAysx5Zwp8

george harrison wrote this lovely ode to spoiled dairy during the white album time period.  ah, that magical, prolific time when there were so many songs and only two albums to hold them. this, like a number of other lovely songs ended up on the cutting room floor (or ended up on other lps.) however, sour milk sea was recorded by harrison’s friend and apple recording artist jackie lomax.

and what a lineup you get when you’re an apple records artist in 1968: george harrison and eric clapton on guitars, paul mccartney on bass, ringo starr on drums, and nicky hopkins on keyboards (the latter played on an amazing array of works in the 1960s-80s and got screwed out of royalties on just about every single one of the works, thanks to his status as a session man.) not too shabby.

sadly for lomax, a great song and a great lineup does not guarantee fame and fortune, especially when you’re depending on the clunky money hemorrhage that was apple corps  in the late 1960s.  a fascinating (and now sadly out of print) account of the time by the “house hippie” recounts the mismanagement and utter insanity that took place in the house that john, paul, george and ringo built. in short, the single did okay but did not propel him to worldwide renown. (hell, apple floundered james taylor’s early career; if james taylor couldn’t get big while there in the early 1970s with songs like carolina in my mind and something in the way she moves, no one could.)

too bad, too. it’s a great song, and lomax provides a fine delivery, a loopy cross between george and marc bolan meets old musichall. the instrumentation is what sells it to me, especially hopkin’s wild piano.

but considering what happened to his career, i wouldn’t be surprised if lomax had a few moments of sour grapes.