With roots originating all the way back to 1963, the four members that would form Spooky Tooth played together in the British blues mod band The V.I.P.'s in Carlisle, England which most notably is the early act that also launched a fledgling Keith Emerson before he went on to form The Nice and later ELP. The four members of Luther Grosvenor (lead guitar), Mike Harrison (harpsichord, vocals), Greg Ridley (bass) and Mike Kellie (drums) released several EPs and singles as The V.I.P.'s but never really decorated the charts with hits and when the mod and beat scenes started to morph into the world of psychedelic rock, the four members wisely shifted gears and released a flower power freak out album as the band Art in 1967 but after one album the band moved on again and became Spooky Tooth the same year.
After recruiting a fifth member in the form of American keyboardist Gary Wright, the band set out on the English club scene and after quickly capturing the attention of Island records commenced to record Spooky Tooth's debut album It's All About which arrived in May of 1968. Taking a cue from fellow Brits, Traffic, Spooky Tooth crafted a psychedelia-tinged slab of catchy pop rockers with Baroque piano influences, bluesy guitar riffing and a major leap up from the amateurish sounds of Art. The most notable improvement was the psychedelic soul smoothness of lead singer Mike Harrison who found his match in his harmonic double newbie Gary Wright. The two would alternate vocals and eventual Wright would wrest control.
A veritable treasure trove of catchy psychedelic pop records It's All About featured seven original compositions and three covers including the Janis Ian track "Society's Child," Bob Dylan's "Too Much of Nothing" and the classic J.D. Loudermilk song "Tobacco Road." The album was graced with the production techniques of Jimmy Miller who worked with The Spencer Davis group and would become the legendary force behind The Rolling Stones, Motorhead and Blind Faith. Sounding virtually nothing like the band Art which featured four of the members in Spooky Tooth, the songwriting skills of Gary Wright became a prominent aspect of the band's ability to distinguish itself from many of the other British blues based psych bands of the era however the Traffic similarities from the 1967 "Mr. Fantasy" album are undeniable. From: https://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=27640
