Monday 29 October 2007

Spin and twirl with The Rock Flowers!

"Spin My Record, Watch Me Twirl!"


(The dolls in their glory!)


This week is a combination of a few of my favourite things; things such as Girl Groups, Bubblegum, Lost Gems...and Debra Clinger! Wahey! Man, if I was a doll collector as well ^__^ Haha!



So yea, The Rock Flowers - whattatheyallabout? Well, in a long and indeed great tradition of toy and music markerting link-ups Mattel lauched a set of dolls to compete with the then popular Dawn dolls by rival firm Topper Corp. The Rock Flower then kinda melded their own niche, concentrating on a "hippy rocker" image together with a plastic single that came with each doll. They were produced en masse from about 1970/71 to 74 and were quite the popular girls on the block! The original trio that made up the Rock Flowers Heather, Lilac and Rosemary but were also later joined by Iris and a certain Doug! By 1974 the dream was over, and Mattel resorted to selling the remaing dolls minus record and shoes - funnny! Well I guess it complimented the hippy vibe!

Now as well as the singles that came with each doll, 2 LP's were released consecutively in '71 and '72 featuring the vocal talents of Rindy Dunn, Debra Clinger and Ardie Tillman. What was stange about these LP's is that bearing in mind their issuing as part of a marketing masterplan, the only reference to the dolls was the name of the group itself! Anyhow the Lp's and singles are a utter fantastic collection of bubblegum girl sounds, with a bit 'o a rockin' edge! Produced by the man behind the Partride Family (Mr. Wes Farrell) and written by Toni Wine, Ellie Greenwich (brill!) and Carol Bayer. So great that Jeff Barry wrote for The Archies, and Ellie for The Rock Flowers! The girls went on to tour with Tom Jones before splitting. I will probably feature more of the wonderful Debra Clinger and her sisters in the future, but for now enjoy!





The 2 seperate downloads below include the first self-titled LP and the second called Naturally as well as 4 more songs in addition! Which = 26 in total! Wahey!













5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for these lost gems!

pinkychickennose said...

hello!

i was wondering how can i listen to the songs in the first download? everytime i click on the link its giving me an error page. :D

thanks for your time.

pamela

Anonymous said...

Link doesn't work, can you please update it, I have been looking for a free download of this for AGES ...

Thank you.

L said...

Thank you so much! I loved my rock flower dolls and I loved the plastic records that my 3 year old niece couldn't scratch! Memories...ahhh! Wish you had active link for the songs...

Anonymous said...

I've been looking for the Rock Flowers self titled album for years now and was happy to find it at your site, but i was disappointed that the link is dead.

Please activate the link, i really like this group. You can also email me the link at jgc314@gmail.com

Thanks a lot in advance