Peacock - Sun Was In Your Eyes (1971)

The man behind this one off single is Roger Peacock, a singer who had been in the music business since the early sixties fronting British beat bands such as The Cheynes, Mark Leeman Five and Dave Anthony's Moods as well as cutting a solo single for Columbia records in 1965, an r&b, Georgie Fame-alike song  called "Everybody's Talkin' 'Bout My Baby" b/w "Time Have Changed". Peacock relocated to Italy in 1969 joining The Primitives then The Godfather.

Roger Peacock singing in The Primitives

It was during the early 1970's that he hooked up with his old friend Lally Stott who wrote and produced both sides of this solo record. The A-side, "Just A Lonely Man" vocally sounds quite different to his earlier solo single and he appears to have picked up a bit of an Italian accent. It's a decent enough pop ballad but the B-side is the real killer. "Sun Was In Your Eyes" is a slow burning Abbey Road style ballad, bass pumped up to the max, double tracked acoustic guitar, multi layered vocals a'la "Sun King", the song picks up the pace a little by the last chorus when the tambourine and Leslie speaker effect electric guitar kick in. This song gave me goosebumps the first time I heard it on the wonderful "Mr Toytown Presents Volume 3" a couple of years ago and is one I've wanted to share on this blog but had to wait until I had my own copy, on the Spanish Accion label with a picture sleeve of Peacock sporting a rather mean looking horseshoe moustache in front of a Union Jack flag background. A British copy of the single exists on the Famous record label and was also released in October 1971.

Roger Peacock never released any more records after this (to my knowledge) and would settle in the Indian, hippy haven of Goa. He died in a car accident in 2007.

Listen to the killer, "Sun Was In Your Eyes"....