Winter Harvest (1968) is the third studio album of Dutch beat group The Golden Earrings (from The Hague), who would (in 1969) slightly change their name to become Golden Earring.
Personnel:
Barry Hay - vocals
George Kooymans - guitar, vocals
Rinus Gerritsen - bass
Jaap Eggermont - drums
Miracle Mirror was the first Golden Earrings album to be released in the United States (to very little commercial success, by Capitol Records) and it also marks the arrival of the band's new singer: Barry Hay,...
Winter Harvest (1968) is the third studio album of Dutch beat group The Golden Earrings (from The Hague), who would (in 1969) slightly change their name to become Golden Earring.
Personnel:
Barry Hay - vocals
George Kooymans - guitar, vocals
Rinus Gerritsen - bass
Jaap Eggermont - drums
Miracle Mirror was the first Golden Earrings album to be released in the United States (to very little commercial success, by Capitol Records) and it also marks the arrival of the band's new singer: Barry Hay, who replaced Frans Krassenburg in the Summer of 1967, prior to the recording sessions.
In the latter half of 1967 The Golden Earrings recorded and released two stand-alone singles. Sound Of The Screaming Day, released in July, contains vocals from both Frans Krassenburg and his successor, Barry Hay, whereas the B-side (the moody She Won't Come To Me) marks Hay's début as the band's lead vocalist. Recorded at Phonogram in Hilversum, but edited and mixed at London's Kingsway Studios, the single hit #4 in the Dutch charts.
Hay and George Kooymans shared vocal duties on the October 1967 single, Together We Live, Together We Love, a 'flower power' tune, with a B-Side entitled I Wonder Preview Together We Live, Together We Love.
After those two singles it was time for a new studio album. Recorded at GTB Studios in The Hague, mastered at Phonogram Studios in Hilversum and yet again produced by the band's manager, Fred Haayen, Miracle Mirror was released on Polydor in January 1968.
There is not a single cover song on the album: all twelve tracks are written by either George Kooymans (guitar) or Rinus Gerritsen (bass, piano), but remarkably, only one track on the album was written by the two of them together: Kooymans and Gerritsen had been a tighter songwriting unit on previous albums. The dark, moody, mysterious Gerritsen-penned I've Just Lost Somebody was released as a single in April 1968 and peaked at #7 in The Netherlands (the B-side was also an album track: The Truth About Arthur).
RPM International (a Universal Music Group label) released a collectors' CD edition of Miracle Mirror in 2009, which contains the original album (twelve songs) plus five bonus tracks: the two singles from late 1967 mentioned above, their respective B-sides, plus - a minor chronology error - a song called Remember My Friend, the B-side of the November 1968 hit single Just A Little Bit Of Peace In My Heart. It also appears on the Golden Earrings' next studio album, 1969's On The Double, which would turn out to be the last under the moniker of The Golden Earrings.
In many ways, Miracle Mirror marks the 'end of the beginning' for the band that would become Golden Earring. Generally regarded in The Netherlands as a band with huge international potential, the band decided to handle the business side of things much more professionally and to focus on an international career. They formed their own production company, Red Bullet and - in July 1968 - scored their first Dutch #1 single, with a party tune they would soon dismiss themselves, the somewhat goofy Dong-Dong-Di-Ki-Di-Gi-Dong. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.
