A brief history of The Executives
1970-71: The end

On 15 February 1970, at Artie’s expense, and courtesy QANTAS, the band, now formally known as Inner Sense, flew back to Los Angeles, heading straight into Record Plant West to continue work on their album. By June, the band had recorded enough tracks for an album, to be titled Inner Sense.

In July, the band recorded music for the Warner Bros film Rabbit, Run, including two complete songs, ‘Hey Man’ (titled ‘Anything Happening?’ in the film) and ‘You’re Gonna Love Me’ (titled ‘Gonna Love Me’ in the film). Ray and Brian wrote ‘Hey Man’ and Ray wrote ‘You’re Gonna Love Me’.

‘Hey Man’, eloquently sung by Carole, featured over the opening credits of the film. The full, four-plus minute version of ‘You’re Gonna Love Me’, including an energetic minute-long drum solo by Rhys, was played during the film’s love scene. ‘You’re Gonna Love Me’ was a corker of a rocker sung with much gusto by Ray and may well be considered one of the band’s best tracks.

Coinciding with the film’s October release, Frank Day, who produced the recording session, arranged with Capitol Records to release ‘Hey Man’ and ‘You’re Gonna Love Me’ as a single. Growing concerned with the delayed release of the Inner Sense album, the band’s management team decided to sidestep Artie and secure release of the single elsewhere. To get around Artie contractually owning the band’s name, Frank devised a new artist name for the single, The Frank Day Habit.

The single received some regional attention, but failed to make the charts.

Festival Records released the same coupling in Australia two months later, but with no contractual issues to contend with, they credited both tracks to The Executives, being the name with which most Australians were familiar. Like in the USA, the single did not chart.

By August, Brian, Carole, Gary, Gino, Ray and Rhys had become increasingly frustrated with the “waiting game” surrounding the release of their album and related single. No sooner would Artie announce release dates, he’d cancel, requesting further overdubs or re-recorded parts. This cycle continued over the ensuing months, also hindering attempts by the band’s management to schedule tour dates to coincide with the album and single releases.

Out of boredom, the band started to splinter and explore other opportunities, although they reconvened periodically at Record Plant West at the request of Artie. In November, they recorded further vocal overdubs, but by then the momentum had slowed and the band was effectively in limbo.

By mid-1971, Inner Sense were no more. Brian, Carole, Gary, Gino, Ray and Rhys had all tired of Artie’s arduous, lengthy production and had each moved on to new endeavours. With no band, Artie had no choice but to cancel the releases.

However, all would not be totally lost. In order not to waste the album tracks entirely, Artie ended up arranging for a six piece, Chicano jazz-rock group called Brown Dust to record new lead vocals over the band’s backing tracks and release under their name (although a close listen reveals the harmonies of Ray and Carole still in place). The self-titled album, with a track sequence that mirrored the unreleased Inner Sense album, was released on Artie’s Family Productions label in April 1972.

Summarised extracts from the book "The Executives: Their Aim Was To Please You" (P)(C) 2015 Jaesen Jones. Buy the book for the full story!

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