Jimmy Campbell

An obscure folk-rock musician active during the late 1960s, Campbell placed a modest catalog of albums and several obscure singles into circulation, among them the languid "Lyanna" and the demanding "Don't Leave Me Now." He first drew notice as a singer/songwriter on the folk club circuit and soon secured a contract with the interesting Fontana label, known for issuing cutting-edge folk-rock and psychedelic music. One album and three singles appeared on that imprint before he moved abruptly to Vertigo. The resulting LP took its place in the label's sequence directly between the largely forgotten Dr. Strangely Strange and Black Sabbath's Paranoid; titled Half Baked, it remains his best-known release, and its title track stands as his most recognized recording. The label placed the song on The Vertigo Annual, one of the earliest promotional collections devoted to new artists, in the evident hope that its performance would lift the album. Because of the artist's relative obscurity, the LP received an unusually large pressing. When the single failed to connect, surplus copies of Half Baked flooded the market, ensuring the record never attained notable scarcity among collectors. Campbell subsequently formed Rockin' Horse, whose 1971 album for Philips has since become an object of collector interest that remains difficult to locate. The band carried on without him and delivered another self-titled LP for RCA, while he himself completed one further solo album before withdrawing from recording.