Fat Mattress (album)

Fat Mattress
Studio album by
Fat Mattress
Released 15 August 1969
Recorded 1968–1969
Genre
Length 35:30
Label Polydor, Atco
Producer Fat Mattress
Fat Mattress chronology
Fat Mattress
(1969) 		Fat Mattress II
(1970)
Singles from Fat Mattress
  1. "Magic Forest"
    Released: 1969

Fat Mattress is the debut self-titled studio album by English rock band Fat Mattress, released on 15 August 1969.

Background

Fat Mattress was formed in late-1968 by vocalist Neil Landon and guitarist and vocalist Noel Redding, who was then playing bass with the popular psychedelic rock band The Jimi Hendrix Experience. Landon and Redding had already written a number of songs for Landon's cancelled solo project and, with the recruitment of bassist Jim Leverton and drummer Eric Dillon, completed writing and began recording their first material. The self-titled debut was completed the next year, and was released in the United Kingdom by Polydor Records on 15 August and in the United States by Atco Records in October. In promotion of the album, the band also released their debut single, "Magic Forest", which reached number 11 in the Netherlands.

Fat Mattress was later reissued in 1992 by Sequel Records featuring five new songs, all of which were later included on the 2000 compilation album The Black Sheep of the Family: The Anthology (which also contained three more previously unreleased songs); Castle Communications subsequently re-released the 15-track reissue on 5 March 1996 under the title One. The album was reissued again on 29 June 2009 by Esoteric Recordings with eight bonus tracks, all of which had already appeared on The Black Sheep of the Family anthology.

Reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source Rating
allmusic

The debut album by Fat Mattress was a minor commercial success, charting at number 134 on the American Billboard 200 albums chart (then known as the Pop Albums chart). The album was described, in a review for allmusic, by critic Richie Unterberger as "passable, pleasant late-'60s psychedelia with a far lighter touch than the hard bluesy psychedelic rock Redding played with Hendrix." Unterberger went on to suggest that the album is "often like an amalgam of the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, Moby Grape, and Love, with some passing nods to British psychedelia by Traffic [...], the Move, and the Small Faces; there's even a bit of a Monkees-go-spacy feel to 'I Don't Mind.'"

Track listing

Original LP
No. Title Writer(s) Lead vocalist(s) Length
1. "All Night Drinker" Neil Landon, Jim Leverton Landon and Leverton 3:18
2. "I Don't Mind" Landon, Noel Redding Redding and Landon 3:51
3. "Bright New Way" Landon, Leverton Leverton 3:48
4. "Petrol Pump Assistant" Landon, Redding Landon 3:01
5. "Mr. Moonshine" Landon, Redding Landon and Redding 4:04
6. "Magic Forest" Landon, Leverton Leverton and Landon 3:05
7. "She Came in the Morning" Landon Landon 3:47
8. "Everything's Blue" Redding Landon 2:50
9. "Walking Through a Garden" Redding Redding 3:20
10. "How Can I Live" Landon, Redding Landon, Redding, and Leverton 4:26
Total length: 35:30
1992 and 1996 reissues
No. Title Writer(s) Lead vocalist(s) Length
11. "Little Girl in White" Redding Redding 4:08
12. "Margarita" Landon, Leverton Leverton and Landon 4:14
13. "Which Way to Go" Leverton Leverton 3:03
14. "Future Days" Leverton Leverton and Landon 4:02
15. "Cold Wall of Stone" Jeanette Jacobs, Landon, Leverton Landon 2:36
Total length: 54:33
2009 reissue
No. Title Writer(s) Lead vocalist(s) Length
11. "Naturally" Landon, Leverton   3:02
12. "Iridescent Butterfly" Landon Landon 3:42
13. "Magic Forest" (mono single version) Landon, Leverton Leverton and Landon 2:57
14. "Little Girl in White" Redding Redding 4:08
15. "Eric the Red" Landon, Leverton, Redding none 2:57
16. "Black Sheep of the Family" Steve Hammond   4:29
17. "Hall of Kings" Landon   5:34
18. "Which Way to Go" (performed by Jim Leverton) Leverton Leverton  

Personnel

Release history

Region Date Label Format Catalog Ref.
United Kingdom 15 August 1969 Polydor LP 583,056
United States October 1969 Atco LP SD 33-309
Canada 1969 Polydor LP 543,075
Germany 1969 Polydor LP 184,305
United Kingdom 1992 Sequel CD 1019
United Kingdom 5 March 1996 Castle CD NEX196
United Kingdom 29 June 2009 Esoteric CD 2134