Featuring members of the Brogues and the Ratz, the Family Tree made this one 45 for the Mira label before releasing several singles and an lp on RCA and a final 45 on Paula. The RCA records have a polished English pop quality to the production, while this earlier Mira record has more of an Northern California garage sound.

You could say “Prince of Dreams” is heavily influenced by Dylan, while “Live Your Own Life” is reminiscent of the Beau Brummels, but this doesn’t take away from the quality of both songs.

Bob Segarini from Stockton, California was in a group called Us who made demos for the Autumn label that were never released. He then went into the Ratz, which included Gary Grubb better known as Gary Duncan of Quicksilver Messenger Service.

Duncan left the Ratz for the Brogues, who also included bassist Bill Whittington. The Brogues released two great 45s I’ll cover here someday. With members Rick Campbell and Eddie Rodrigues entering the draft, the Brogues broke up. Bill Whittington and Segarin formed the Family Tree, with Mike Olsen on keyboards and Newman Davis on drums. Mike Dure joined on guitar by the time of this recording, as he is co-writer of “Live Your Own Life” with Segarini.

Bob Segarini:

The Family Tree’s first record was for Mira, the people that did “Hey Joe” by the Leaves. Mira put out a single, “Prince of Dreams”, in ’66, and we had a lot of gigs and stuff.

We went into Gold Star [Studios] with [engineer] Doc Siegel and recorded for a week towards an album for Mira. We cut eight tracks; they were sort of produced by Sonny Bono, who was working in Studio B with Phil Spector on something.

Brian Wilson was doing the Smile album when we were in there. In fact, members of the Family Tree played things [on the Smile sessions] like the saw, hammer, and nail, and I believe I played the electric drill. We were there when they had the fire in the bucket, and they all had the little firemen’s hats on.

The Mira LP never materialized, but the demos from that session led to the contract with RCA. The band went through several personnel changes, and I’m not sure if Mike Olsen (who later changed his name to Lee Michaels) played on the Mira sessions. Bob Segarini went into Roxy and then the Wackers, and continues to make music to this day.

Source: Bob Segarini quoted by Ritchie Unterberger in his notes on Roxy.

Special thanks to JG for sharing the 45 scans and music.