Album Review: The Family Affair (1968)


Chances are, you haven’t heard of The Family Affair. The UK band only released one album in 1968, and their solitary single, “Hanging Around,” apparently didn’t make much of a dent in the charts. The record has since become a bit of a collector’s item for sunshine pop aficionados and completists. Now the self-titled album from The Family Affair has been reissued on both vinyl and CD by Morgan Blue Town, allowing musicologists a fresh chance to discover these tunes from nearly 60 years ago. 

In an era defined by one-hit-wonders, The Family Affair didn’t even have the luxury of a hit. Their only single, “Hanging Around,” was recorded on July 28, 1967 at EMI Studios in London. To put things in context, The Beatles had just released Sergeant Pepper in May of 1967 and the British charts were chockablock with genuine hits that have stood the test of time: “Purple Haze” by Jimi Hendrix, “Bernadette” by The Four Tops, “Waterloo Sunset” by The Kinks, “Itchycoo Park” by Small Faces, and “Reflections” by The Supremes. In San Francisco, across the pond, The Summer of Love was in full swing. The sound of The Family Affair doesn’t quite resonate with the new sounds of 1967 and 1968. It feels closer to the garage rock of 1965 than the evolving sounds that were pouring out of every radio in London when the album was released. 


That’s not to say that The Family Affair album is bad. It’s toe-tapping and entirely inoffensive, but there’s nothing challenging about it. It feels like what it probably is: a group of friends trying to imitate the upbeat sounds that had been coming out of America during the mid-sixties--pleasant, but forgettable. Though the album has been categorized as both “sunshine pop” and “psychedelia,” it more heavily carries the hallmarks of garage rock with two-part harmony, achieved with both male and female lead vocals from “Linda and Johnny Cream.” I have been unable to determine the true identity of these two vocalists, so I don’t know if they were boyfriend and girlfriend, husband and wife, brother and sister, or simply two aspiring singers who were paired together for this recording project. Drums and organ come from Herman and Herbert Fernando, respectively (brothers, presumably), and guitar duties are handled by Sharon Gable. Most of these people have no credits outside of this one album. 

I was able to listen to The Family Affair album on both vinyl and CD to compare the quality of both. The vinyl record is a bit on the quieter side, but I noticed no pressing issues or unwelcome noise, save for a single pop on side B. A brief Google search reveals that modern Morgan Blue Town vinyl pressings have received mixed reviews, with some people complaining about heavy surface noise and skipping. The CD version sounds better—noticeably louder and exhibiting wider frequency range and more treble. As for liner notes, Morgan Blue Town/Secret Records provides only a brief promotional blurb and no information whatsoever about the source of the music or how it was mastered. 

The Family Affair is not a hidden gem, but it is worth a spin for those interested in exploring the forgotten fringes of late 1960s pop. 

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