The “Golden Hits Of The 60s” 

Main MenuConcept Refinement The Author..Wayne JancikGolden Age Of The 50sGolden Age Of The 60s1970s and There After

 

ELECTRIC INDIAN

“KEEM-O-SABE”

(Bernard Binnick, Bernice Borisoff)

United Artists 50563

No. 16   September 27, 1969

.

.

.

“Bernie Binnick [co-founder of Swan Records) had this idea for a sitar instrumental,” Frank Virtue

(founding father of the VIRTUES) told Tony Cummings in The Sound of Philadelphia.   “It was around

the time all the kids were into that Indian stuff.   So he got together a bunch of musicians, a lot of theguys

who’re in MFSB now, and they put down this sitar thing called ‘Keem-0-Sabe.’   It was like funky Indian

music.   They leased the tape to United Artists Records.   It was a gimmick, but it was a stone smash.”

.

This “group” recorded an album’s worth of similar­ly inane instrumentals (Keem-0-Sabe, 1969) and even

did an Indian-flavored cover version of the overly recorded and charted (CHRIS KENNER, CANNIBAL &

THE HEADHUNTERS, The Midnighters, Wilson Pickett; later J.  Giels Band) “Land of 1,000 Dances”

(#95, 1969) as a follow-up 45.   But pop fans wearied quickly of Electric Indian’s brand of auditory

cotton candy.