A psychedelic ode to street walkers! Buried on the b-side of a heavy version of Peggy Sue with a good drum break.
Don’t know a thing about the American Express. “When the City Sleeps” was written by Mani and Fournier.
I’m sure there’s a tie to some other group, but who? Not the American Express from Wisconsin who cut “You & Me” / “You’re Going To Be The One” on the Teen Town label, produced by Jon Hall.
Max Waller connects this to Ed Fournier of the Challengers and Dave Mani – see his comment below for more info.
Delta # in the dead wax dates this to February 1969.
But I want to hear their version of Peggy Sue too! Ill-advised or not 😉
No connection found to the Wisconsin outfit and, yes, Mani-Fournier does ring a bell. Did some digging …
Turns out to be The Challengers’ Ed Fournier with a guy called Dave Mani. They wrote several songs together around 1967-1969 for the Challengers but also for other artists they were behind – often produced by Challenger Richard Delvy, e.g. Free-For-All and Wednesday’s Children.
So, this American Express might have been another Los Angeles-based group under their control, may have been a Challengers offshoot (they’d had plenty – see wikipedia), or perhaps it was just a studio project.
Yes, I located acetates by Free For All by Delvy
Also another acetate by Ed Fournier and Dave Mani.