The Zombies was a British Invasion group. From 1962 to 1967, the group consisted of:
Colin Blunstone – lead vocals
Rod Argent – organ, vocals
Paul Atkinson – guitar, vocals
Chris White – bass, vocals
Hugh Grundy – drums
The group won a music competition sponsored by a London newspaper and were signed a recording contract with Decca in 1964.
“Rod Argent built the lyrics of ‘She’s Not There’ from a John Lee Hooker song, whose title ‘No One Told Me’ became the opening phrase of the Zombies song. The jazzy rock tune, which phased in and out of minor key, was a huge hit. It sold over one million copies.
The next US single was “Tell Her No”, the Beatlesque tune which repeats the word “no” 63 times. But the band only had mixed success in the next couple of years and broke up in December 1967.
Yet one track from the well-regarded, but marginally selling, album Odessey and Oracle, “Time of the Season”, “written by Argent, was released as a single and eventually became a nationwide hit.”
“After the Zombies disbanded, Rod Argent formed the band called Argent in 1969, with White as a non-performing songwriter.” Russ Ballard was the lead vocalist. Has anyone moved further alphabetically in a band than Rod Argent?
In the absence of the actual Zombies, one promoter hired four kids from Texas to tour America “pretending to be a defunct British psych-rock band.” Two of the band members would go on to form the group ZZ Top.
The real Zombies reformed with the same lineup in 1997 but broke up quickly. Argent & Blunstone fronted a band starting in 2000, which morphed into The Zombies by 2004. Rod Argent’s cousin Jim Rodford played in these lineups as well as with Argent.
LINKS
She’s Not There – The Zombies (1964 – #12 UK, #2 US Billboard, #2 in Canada) HERE or HERE or HERE.
Tell Her No – The Zombies (1965 – #6 US) HERE or HERE or HERE
Time of the Season – The Zombies (1969- #1 Canada, #3 for two weeks US Billboard) HERE or HERE or HERE
Hold Your Head Up – Argent (1972 – #5 UK, #5 US Billboard) HERE (single) or HERE (long version) or HERE (long version)
