Biography
Formed as a fleeting ensemble, the Blue Men received top billing on one of producer Joe Meek’s most peculiar projects, the album I Hear a New World. That recording evoked the atmosphere of alien existence through cutting-edge effects of its era and whimsical melodies. Emerging from the earlier skiffle outfit the West Five, the musicians supplied instrumental support to I Hear a New World, a work shaped far more by Meek’s idiosyncratic imagination than by their own contributions. When the four-track I Hear a New World, Pt. 1 EP appeared in 1960, it carried the Blue Men’s name, though only a handful of copies reached the public. The remaining material intended for the full I Hear a New World LP stayed unreleased at the time, yet the complete set—including those four EP tracks—finally surfaced on the I Hear a New World CD during the 1990s. The same musicians backed Peter Jay & the Blue Men on the 1960 single “Just Too Late”/“Friendship,” and they issued another Meek-helmed 45 that year under the billing Rodd, Ken & the Cavaliers.