Eclection

Eclection were a British based folk rock band, originally formed in 1967 in London by Norwegian born Georg Kajanus (then known as Georg Hultgreen), Canadian Michael Rosen, Australians Trevor Lucas and Kerrilee Male, and Briton Gerry Conway. They released one album on Elektra Records before singer Kerrilee Male left to be replaced by Dorris Henderson, but the group broke up in December 1969.

Rosen and Hultgreen met when Hultgreen who had grown up in Canada was playing songs in a Bayswater restaurant. They decided to form a group, and recruited Lucas, who had previously recorded in Australia, and in Britain as an accompanist to A. L. Lloyd, after seeing him perform at the 1967 Cambridge Folk Festival. Lucas in turn recommended Kerrilee Male, who had previously worked as a singer with Dave Guard, formerly of The Kingston Trio, on his Australian TV show Dave's Place. The four rehearsed together and acquired the name Eclection a back formation to describe their "eclectic" style and origins at the suggestion of Joni Mitchell, who was playing folk clubs in England at the time and who was a friend of Rosen's girlfriend. The group then added drummer Gerry Conway, a member of Alexis Korner's backing group. Despite their backgrounds, the band regarded themselves as being a "progressive rock" group rather than playing "folk rock", a term which had not yet come into widespread use. The songs were recorded as rehearsed, with vocal harmonies and ornate orchestral arrangements overdubbed later. and We Five. Reviewer Richie Unterberger stated: "The combination of male female harmonies, optimistic lyrics with shades of romantic psychedelia, folk rock melodies, acoustic electric six and twelve string guitar combinations, and stratospheric orchestration couldn't help but bring to mind similar Californian folk pop rock of the mid to late 1960s. ""The musical direction of the group was probably closer to American folk rock than anything else. I must confess, having spent my formative musical years haunting the folk clubs in Montreal, Canada and watching all the current folk and folk/rock programs on TV, I was strongly influenced by this music. The most influential artists for me at the time were people like Dylan, the Byrds, Fred Neil, Simon and Garfunkel, the Beach Boys, the Mamas and the Papas, and Gordon Lightfoot. Pre Eclection, I was a purist fighting the acoustic battle versus the electric "demons" creeping into the scene. I remember being shocked when Dylan went electric. It is therefore ironic that I should end up a few years later playing an electric 12 string in Eclection."

After the album was released, the band began to perform at festivals and in clubs around Britain. Their second single, a version of American band Kaleidoscope's song "Please (Mark II)", was released in October 1968. However, that month Kerrilee Male decided to leave the band, and returned to Australia. Conway said:

The album Eclection was re issued on CD by Collector's Choice Music in November 2001. The title of psychedelic folk artist Prydwyn's 2009 album with Quickthorn, 'Solitude Owes Me a Smile', is a paraphrase of a line from Eclection's opening track 'In Her Mind'.