The Foundations

The Foundations were a British soul band primarily active between 1967 and 1970. The group's background was West Indian, White British, and Sri Lankan. Their 1967 debut single "Baby Now That I've Found You" reached number one in the UK and Canada, and number eleven in the US. Their 1968 single "Build Me Up Buttercup" reached number two in the UK and number three on the US Billboard Hot 100. The group was the first multi-racial group to have a number one hit in the UK in the 1960s.They were one of the few British acts to imitate successfully what became known as the Motown Sound, and signed to Pye, at the time one of only four big UK record companies (the others being EMI, which included the His Master's Voice, Columbia and Parlophone labels, Decca, and Philips, which also owned Fontana).The Foundations attracted much interest because of the size and structure of the group, with members of diverse ethnic backgrounds, ages, and musical backgrounds. The oldest member of the group (at 38) was Mike Elliott, and the youngest was Tim Harris, who at 18 was barely out of school. The West Indian horn section consisted of Jamaican-born Elliott and Pat Burke, both saxophonists, and Dominican-born Eric Allandale on trombone. They were all highly experienced musicians who came from professional jazz and rock-and-roll backgrounds.The origins of the Foundations go back to an R&B and ska outfit called the Ramong Sound, aka Ramongs. The band had two lead singers, Raymond Morrison (aka Ramong Morrison) and Clem Curtis. Curtis had come to the group by way of his guitar-playing uncle, who was impressed by his nephew's voice and told him that there was a band called the Ramongs looking for singers. Curtis auditioned and joined the band, and rose from being a backing singer to sharing the lead with Raymond Morrison.At some stage Morrison was imprisoned for six months. In his absence, a friend of the band called Joan who ran a record store, suggested future psychedelic shock rocker Arthur Brown as a replacement. Brown was straight and clean living, and did not drink, smoke or take drugs. Decades later, Brown recalled when he walked into the Westbourne Grove bar for an audition, he saw Curtis holding a spear to the throat of the drummer, bent backwards over the bar. Brown and Curtis each performed solo numbers as well as duets and one of the band members recalled later that they had experimented with "underground-type music" when Brown was with them.

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.