‘Psychedelic Technicolor Dream’ was an oddity from the off. While Calvin White’s soaring lead should have propelled the New York vocal trio’s first single ‘Forget It’ far beyond number ten on the Billboard R&B chart, anyone expecting some loose and louche sound strangeness on its flip was quickly disabused of that notion. Instead producer Teddy Vann got White to relay a fantastical tale of orange skies, pink balloons and purple moons (even if the roses were still red and the grass was still green). A dramatic reprieve from heartbreak – or was it just a dream? – partially conveyed by Andrea Bolden and Lozine Wright’s close backing harmonies, the whole shebang underscored by yearning strings. A great study in miniaturist heart-tugging that may have even a subliminal influence on Bill Nelson’s great 1980 near-miss ‘Do You Dream In Colour?’, Vann was seemingly keen to not let such a good tune go to waste. He penned new lyrics for the same backing track to help launch the solo career of his wife Estelle Bennett (months after the Ronnettes’ split). But while ‘The Naked Boy’ [‘The Year 200’, LAURIE 1968] was an equally accomplished B-side, Vann’s greatest coup was still around the corner: 1973’s unstoppable ‘Santa Claus Is A Black Man’, voiced by his five-year old daughter Akim. The Sandpebbles (pictured here as C & The Shells) briefly prospered too, reaching 22 on the US charts with follow-up ‘Love Power’, their only mainstream hit, a song that soared higher still when appended to Luther Vandross original ‘Love Power’ in 1991.