Single on His Master’s Voice March 1969 by popular Wellington band formed 1967, disbanded 1971. Produced by Howard Gable.
Spinning, Spinning, Spinning (1968, #1) and The Grooviest Girl In The World (1969, #3) were the highest charting out of five Top 20 singles for The Simple Image 1968-69. See also Shy Boy, the B-side of Spinning, Spinning, Spinning.
In the core line-up were vocalist-guitarists Barry Leef, Ron “Cass” Gascoigne and Harry Lek. On drums was Alan Gordon, later replaced by Gordon Wylie (1968) then Wayne Allen (1969). In 1969 Doug Smith replaced Barry Leef who had left to work in Australia, and keyboardist Bruce Walker also joined.
The band worked in Australia from 1969, picking up a residency at prominent Sydney club the Whisky Au Go Go. Barry Leef, who had been with NZ band Retaliation in Sydney, rejoined The Simple Image.*
Barry Leef followed a long and successful musical career in Australia. After The Simple Image disbanded he sang in Perth rock band Bakery (formed by ex-members of NZ’s Avengers). The Barry Leef Band, first formed in the 1970s, was still playing live classic rock gigs well into the 2020s. As a session singer, Leef has recorded many familiar jingles for TV and radio. His website is at barryleef.com.au and his Facebook page is active with posts of recent performance videos (2024).
*My brief summary of the band’s personnel is gleaned from Bruce Sergent’s Simple Image page and AudioCulture’s illustrated history of the band. Both are essential reading if you want to dig further.
Single on Vogue by band from Cologne known also as The Tony Hendrik Five, led by prolific singer-songwriter-producer and label and studio owner born Dieter Lünstedt in Bad Bederkesa, 1945.
Further reading: Tony Kendrik articles at German and English Wikipedias.
Single on UBI November 1968. Released on Festival in Australia (1969).
It charted in metropolitan Australia March-May 1969 but only in Adelaide, according to Gavin Ryan’s capital city chart books. Looking at Gavin’s sources for his Adelaide charts for this period, that #3 position seems to be attributable solely to radio station 5AD’s surveys.
The Fun And Games were a six-piece band from Houston, Texas. Four of the founding members had been in a band in high school. The names Six Pents, The Sixpentz, and Fun and Games Commission were used before The Fun And Games.
The Grooviest Girl In The World was also on the band’s one album, Elephant Candy (1968) produced by Gary Zekley with most songs written by Zekley and Mitchell Bottler as well as a composition each from band members Joe Romano and his brother Rock Romano.
Rock Romano (b. 1945) is a visual artist, audio engineer and studio builder and owner who has been in numerous bands, notably a legendary Houston live party band Dr. Rockit and the Sisters of Mercy which he helped form at the end of the 70s. His life’s work has merited a detailed Wikipedia article.
Joe Romano (1949-2017), the band’s bass player, had a varied musical career. As the short biography at Discogs.com outlines, as well as writing and performing he became the music director for the Texas Theatre Foundation, writing three original musicals for children, and was later a contributing songwriter for Sesame Street and the Children’s Television Workshop.
Producer Gary Zekley (1943-1996) was co-composer of Yellow Balloon (1967, #25 USA, also released by Jan & Dean). He sang on and produced the single by The Yellow Balloon, a studio outfit formed for the recording. Zekley formed a band for a subsequent album The Yellow Balloon, later considered a lost sunshine pop classic and given wider release on CD in the 1990s.
Selected sources: 1. The Fun And Games Wikipedia article is short but it covers the essentials. 2. The Gary Zekley page at Spectropop.