Dr. Strangely Strange

Dr. Strangely Strange were an experimental Irish folk group, formed in Dublin in 1967 by Tim Booth (born 6 September 1943, County Kildare, Ireland), vocals and guitar, and Ivan Pawle (born 17 August 1943, England) bass and keyboards.

Booth and Pawle soon teamed with multi-instrumentalist Tim Goulding (born 15 May 1945, Hatch Street, Southside, Dublin), vocals and keyboards, at that time an aspiring painter, and percussionist/vocalist Caroline "Linus" Greville, and began living and rehearsing in a house owned by Goulding's girlfriend, backing vocalist "Orphan Annie" Mohan, which its tenants nicknamed "The Orphanage". The Orphanage became a springboard for a new generation of Irish rock, helping launch the careers of Thin Lizzy's Phil Lynott, Gary Moore and others. After signing with the Incredible String Band's producer and manager Joe Boyd, Dr. Strangely Strange debuted in 1969 with Kip of the Serenes. The album was produced by Boyd. (Read more at Wikipedia)

Links to Peel
Dr. Strangely Strange were closely associated with Peel favourites Incredible String Band and their producer Joe Boyd, so it may be surprising that they were "one-session wonders" on Top Gear and never appeared on Night Ride, which often featured folk and acoustic artists in session. But Kip of the Serenes, released at the same time as Nick Drake's debut LP Five Leaves Left, was negatively reviewed in Melody Maker ("creeping ennui sets in with numbing effect"), and Peel may have shared this view, as no show plays can be found in currently available tracklistings.

Peel was a bit more enthusiastic about the band's second LP, Heavy Petting, on which they were augmented by musicians such as Gary Moore and Brendan "Brush" Shiels of Skid Row, and Fairport Convention drummer Dave Mattacks. It received some good reviews in the music press, and the band's sole session includes three songs from this album. They split up in 1971, without having achieved any commercial success, and according to Sheila Ravenscroft in Margrave Of The Marshes (ref.) she and/or Peel later donated a Dr. Strangely Strange LP to a local playgroup, together with an album by the highly obscure Public Foot The Roman. The band reformed in the 1990s, in the wake of the revival of interest in Incredible String Band and other "psychedelic folk" artists, and released a third album in 1996, but there is no evidence of Peel having played anything from it on his shows.

Sessions

 * Number of sessions? Any commercial release of sessions?

1. Recorded: YYYY-MM-DD. First broadcast: DD Month YYYY. Repeated: DD Month YYY 2. Recorded: YYYY-MM-DD. First broadcast: DD Month YYYY. Repeated: DD Month YYY etc
 * Song title / Song Title / Song Title / Song Title
 * Song title / Song Title / Song Title / Song Title

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Other Shows Played
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 * DD Month YYYY: Song (single/album) Label