Cherry Beat - Recording Sessions (Part Five - The Band's Fourth Album)

Mid - Late January 1974
After the overwhelming success of the band's third album, and their two recent hit singles "Shake Rattle and Die", and "Cocoa Star Rookies", the band continued to record new songs in their rock and roll vein, often mixing their music style with blues rock, hard rock, boogie rock, pop rock, and power pop.

The band's intention was for their next album to take most of the year to record, and then release it as a double album. Since they were planning to release their next album in December, the plan was that their next album would be a Christmas one, so the last few songs the band would record for their fourth album would be Christmas themed.

17th January 1974
This was the band's first official recording session for their fourth album. The band members of Cherry Beat would use their music supervisor and producer Chudley Maron as a spare musician to a greater extent than on their third album in which the band played nearly all the instruments themselves. They would employ session musicians to a greater extent for this album so they would have fewer overdubs to record.

On this day the band recorded two original compositions. "The Caravan Song" and "Can't Stop the Jive" were both early 60's american styled rock and roll songs written primarily by Peter McDonald, with input from Sam Whitby. Both songs would be released as a double single, marking the first time a composition primarily by Peter McDonald would be released as an A-Side. Up until then, all the A-Sides were written solely or predominantly by Sam Whitby, since he was proven to have been the stronger half of the McDonald-Whitby partnership in the band's early years.

Both of these songs were not recorded inside the studio. Instead they were recorded outside on the deck of the back of studio. As the back of the building had a large deck, it was perfect for the band to record their rockier numbers. However "The Caravan Song" and "Can't Stop the Jive" were two of the few songs Cherry Beat recorded outside, that weren't recorded live. As Peter described it "We wanted these two songs to sound as if they were recorded live, which is why we decided to record them outside. We did however record earlier takes of these songs in the studio, since we didn't want to accidentally repeat the same event that The Beatles had done back in January 1969".

1st February 1974
The band members were in the studio recording two more compositions. "Back on Top" was one of two compositions the band's music supervisor and producer Chudley Maron had written for the group to record. The band refused to record it for their third album, because they wanted their third album to be composed entirely of their own songs. However the band members were pleased to have been offered new compositions by their producer, and agreed to record it for their fourth album. "Bright and Cherry" was a Peter McDonald and Sam Whitby composition, which had been written primarily by Peter.

12th February 1974
The band members were in the studio recording two more original compositions. "Mary-Anne" was a composition written solely by Peter McDonald, while "Sexy Young Hips" was a composition written solely by Sam Whitby.