Love Street

• Reg Walker - lead vocals, drums
• Peter Yeates - lead guitar, vocals
• Bryan 'Rocky' O'Rourke - rhythm guitar, vocals
• Aidan Cranny - bass, vocals

Bio:

Love Street formed in Dublin in 1968. Bryan O'Rourke and Aidan Cranny had both been in Paper Sun, Reg Walter was ex The Others and Peter Yeates ex Nitty Gritty Band. They played many south Dublin halls and had a year long residency at Stella House.

Love Street appeared on RTE's Like Now performing a cover of Shocking Blue's "Venus" which created quite a lot of interest and eventually led to a single deal with Pye. "Venus" and Buffalo Springfield's "Rock'n'Roll Woman" were recorded at Trend Studios with John D'Ardis. Pye wanted "Venus" as the A-side naturally enough though the band's preferred the other track, and nowadays it's this B-side which attracts the attention of collectors. This version of "Rock And Roll Woman" is superb. It's perfectly balanced between rock and folkrock and contains a brilliant guitar break. Quite simply, it is better than the original.

The single was released on Pye in the UK in March 1970 but came out on the Rose label in Ireland. Rose was an Irish independent label which had signed a distribution deal with Pye. The head of Pye Ireland wanted to boost the Rose roster, so he arranged for the Irish release of Love Street's 45 to be on Rose.

The single was a success though it's not listed in the official Irish charts site www.irishcharts.ie (Irish chart data isn't hugely reliable before the 1970s). It did appear in the Spotlight charts for a number of weeks, peaking at #6. Unfortunately The Sands released a competing, inferior version at the same time on Major Minor Records and the two may have cancelled each other out. Nevertheless Pye were very satisfied with the singles performance and invitated the band to record an LP on Trend Studios new 8-track machine.

Sessions for the LP began in the early summer of 1970 but the band split within a few weeks due to personal differences. Pye then tried to recoup the recording costs from the individual band members! -- with no success, naturally enough. What Pye should have done is released another single from the LP recordings, though without a band to promote it this probably wouldn't have been feasible. Unfortunately the only acetate of the LP recordings was destroyed, and this LP is now lost apart from rough cassette recordings. It included another Buffalo Springfield cover ("On The Way Home") as well as Creedence ("Roosevelt and Ira Lee") and Chicken Shack ("Tears In The Wind") covers and a Reg Walker original ("She's Gone") among others.

Reg Walker later became the frontman for Ned Spoone, who planned to recorded a Love Street track for one of their B-sides but it never came to pass.

Aidan Cranny currently plays with a trad Irish band.

If anyone has a copy of the Rose edition of this single they'd be willing to part with, please get in touch!

Correction: I'm happy to report that Reg Walker is alive and well and living in Dublin, and has not joined the heavenly chour as previously reported. Reg did indeed suffer a serious accident in the '70s but he fully recovered from his injuries--ed.

Help!: We need your help to complete this entry. If you can tell us more about this band then please do! We welcome any corrections, missing details, connections to other bands, where are they now, etc. We also need photos, scans, copies of releases or live or demo recordings, and any other memorabilia gathering dust in the attic. If you can help, then please get in touch.