Cel De Bauwer, drummer, and Luc Smets (keyboardist/singer) had gained some international recognition for their work with Pebbles. Pebbles ended their career in 1971. They formed Shampoo by enlisting the talents of Giorgio Chitschenko (Mad Curry sax), Francois Maes (sax) and Rudy Pinlie (bass). The band didn’t succeed in their homeland of Belgium but Francis Dreyfus signed them to his French Motors record label. Their only album was released in 1972. The optimistically named “Volume One”, which was produced by guitarist De Vriendt took some time to get used to. While it wasn’t a great album, it did have enough good segments to be worth the effort. Pebbles was a pop-oriented group, but Shampoo had more in common than Mad Curry’s jazz-rock tendencies. These guys clearly loved quality pop music, however. The album’s opener, ‘Brother’, was an exceptional piece of pop-psych. Even their jazz-rock moves had distinct pop elements. Check out “Keep The Day Cool”. Smets was actually quite good as the lead singer of the band. Although he did have an accent, it was not too pronounced or annoying. The entire band was first-rate musicians with Chitschenko, Maes and their jazz-tinted solos. from http://badcatrecords.com
