The music on the album evokes late period Beatles with Billay doing a fine Lennon snarl on LP opener "Sincerely Yours". "Take Me Back" is a pure Raspberries-esque ballad with some fine George Harrison influenced slide guitar. "Talking Out Of Turn" sounds like it came straight off Emitt Rhodes' Mirror album and the guitar solo sounds uncannily like the one on "Hotel California" by the Eagles, pre-dating it by a good five years! "Lady" is a gentle McCartney style acoustic ballad with string section added by co-producer Tom Sellers (known for his top 20 hit cover of the Who's "Overture From Tommy" as the Assembled Multitude in 1971). Closing track "Hades" is an epic, Christmas themed ballad with massive orchestration, clocking in at over 6 minutes and an unlikely choice for a single release.
The LP was re-released in 1977 under the name "Billay" on the infamous tax scam label, Tiger Lily. In true Tiger Lily style, it was released without the band's knowledge.
Not a lot of info can be found about what happened to the band after the album came out but a YouTube search brought up a great power popper by Billay/Sleepy Hollow called "I Surrender" and the artwork attached to the video shows Sleepy Hollow plus another new member and appears to be a collection of recordings dating from 1974-1998. If anyone knows of these recordings I would be grateful of any details.
Hi Pete,
ReplyDeleteMy name is Richie - I am the son of Rich Billay - I have some info on the band and some questions for you as well - would you mind emailing me richieberetta(at)gmail.com
thanks!
I lived next door to Richie in Kew Gardens in the mid 1970's He was teaching music at Queens College then.
DeleteHE was my friend, I'd like to know how he is.
DeleteYou should gather all sources, publicly available or not, and work towards a Wikipedia entry for the band Sleepy Hollow. They created some great music.
Deletehttps://m.soundcloud.com/billay-sleepy-hollow
ReplyDeletegreat blog btw