Brotherhood Of Man United We Stand CD

Tony Hiller assembled Brotherhood of Man as his own spin on the 5th Dimension, or perhaps the Southern California soft pop of Roger Nichols. Either way, Hiller's Brotherhood of Man -- a coed group of professional singers top-lined by studio pro Tony Burrows (later a singer with the First Class, among many other studio-bound bubblegum sensations) and Sue & Sunny, a pair who had a single prior to this group, backed by anonymous Brit session men -- are a prime example of how peace and love were turned into MOR fodder at the turn of '60s, and not necessarily in an unpleasant way. With all these layered harmonies, sweetly trilling strings, and soft insistent melodies, United We Stand is the furthest thing from unpleasant, even if there is a heavier than expected quotient of fuzz guitars that give this a swinging mod sheen lacking from some of the squarer SoCal sounds. Not that United We Stand is hip -- looking back, it seems impossible that anyone above 12 or under 30 was sucked into this -- but it does unwittingly capture its time with its fuzz tones, paisley harmonies, and songs about singing in the sunshine as you love one another in the land of love. Yes, the songs on United We Stand are that cheerfully over the top, sometimes seeming like latter-day parodies of hippie homogenization, but the chief attributes of the record are Hiller's lush production and happily commercial melodies, which really do help make this a prime piece of pop archeology. That's not the same thing as making the album good, but this is a rare album from a studio-crafted one-hit wonder where the album tracks actually follow through effectively on the sound of the hit.

The 2008 RPM reissue offers even more soft pop hits, as it adds 13 bonus tracks to the original 11-track album. All these are singles that followed the release of the LP, including the six songs issued as Sue & Sunny singles and the B-side to "Sing in the Sunshine." By and large this material isn't as hippy-dippy as the United We Stand LP, as it dips into very very soft MOR pop, cleaned-up Gamble & Huff, and bubblegum. Sometimes the Sue & Sunny material gets a bit too syrupy, but there are some excellent trashy treasures here, including the blaring cinematic "Reach Out Your Hand," Sue & Sunny's bouncy bubble-soul single "Freedom," and the dreamy "California Sunday Morning," which occupies that vast uncharted territory between Glen Campbell and the Jackson 5. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Although this does an admirable job of cross-licensing almost all the British Brotherhood of Man 1970s chart singles from the Deram and Pye labels, American consumers might be kind of disappointed by it. In the States, the group's most known for "United We Stand," and while that's here, many of the 17 tracks date from later than when Tony Burrows was the most important of this outfit's singers during the early-'70s "United We Stand" period. No dates, annoyingly, are given in the package, but it does include their 1976-1978 U.K. hits "Save Your Kisses for Me," "My Sweet Rosalie," "Oh Boy," "Angelo," "Figaro," and "Beautiful Lover." "United We Stand" and its smaller follow-up single, "Where Are You Going to My Love," were actually not-bad, soul-influenced light pop. But the Pye-era hits are innocuous, if very successful, mainstream pop trifles with mildly catchy tunes, sometimes with something of a Latin disco feel. Those do prove that much of Britain was listening to something very far from punk and new wave in the late '70s. ~ Richie Unterberger

Tony Hiller assembled Brotherhood of Man as his own spin on the 5th Dimension, or perhaps the Southern California soft pop of Roger Nichols. Either way, Hiller's Brotherhood of Man -- a coed group of professional singers top-lined by studio pro T

2008 expanded reissue of this album, originally released in 1970. In the beginning, Tony Hiller created The Brotherhood of Man. Formed in the recording studio and launched into a world at war over Vietnam, peace certainly woMojo (Publisher) (p.123) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "[T]he funky plastic-Phillyisms of 'Reach Out Your Hand' are super....There are some hidden gems here."