Henry Stuart Hazlitt

Austrian School
Henry Hazlitt
Born	(1894-11-28)November 28, 1894 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Died	July 9, 1993(1993-07-09) (aged 98)
Nationality	American
Field	economics literary criticism philosophy
Opposed	John Maynard Keynes
Influences	Benjamin Anderson, Frédéric Bastiat, David Hume, William James, H.L. Mencken, Ludwig von Mises, Herbert Spencer, Philip Wicksteed
Influenced	Steve Forbes, Milton Friedman, Ron Paul, George Reisman, Murray Rothbard, Paul Samuelson, Peter Schiff, Thomas Sowell, Walter E. Williams

Henry Stuart Hazlitt (November 28, 1894 – July 9, 1993) was an American economist, philosopher, literary critic and journalist for such publications as The Wall Street Journal, The Nation, The American Mercury, Newsweek, and The New York Times, and he has been recognized as a leading interpreter of economic issues from the perspective of American conservatism and libertarianism.^[1]

Biography[link]

A great-great-great nephew of British essayist William Hazlitt,^[2] Henry Hazlitt was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and raised in Brooklyn, New York. He grew up in relative poverty, his father having died when Hazlitt was an infant. His early heroes were Herbert Spencer and William James, and his first ambition was for an academic career in psychology and philosophy. He attended New York's tuition-free City College, but left after only a short time in order to support his twice-widowed mother.^[3]

Hazlitt started his career at The Wall Street Journal as secretary to the managing editor when he was still a teenager, and his interest in the field of economics began while working there. His studies led him to The Common Sense of Political Economy by Philip Wicksteed which, he later said, was his first "tremendous influence" in the subject.^[4] Hazlitt published his first book, Thinking as a Science, at the age of 21. During World War I, he served in the Army Air Service in Texas, after which he returned to New York, residing at Washington Square Park for many years.^[5]

In the early 1920s, he was financial editor of The New York Evening Mail, and it was during this period, Hazlitt reported, that his understanding of economics was further refined by frequent discussions with former Harvard economics professor Benjamin Anderson who was then working for Chase National Bank in Manhattan. Later, when the publisher W. W. Norton suggested he write an official biography of their author Bertrand Russell, Hazlitt spent "a good deal of time," as he described it, with the famous philosopher both in New York City and London.^[6] Lord Russell "so admired the young journalist's talent" that he had agreed with Norton's proposal,^[7] but the project ended after nearly two years of work when Russell declared his intention to write his own autobiography.^[6]

During the interwar decades, a vibrant period in the history of American literature, Hazlitt served as literary editor of The New York Sun (1925–1929), and as literary editor of the Left-leaning journal, The Nation (1930–1933). In connection with his work for The Nation, Hazlitt also edited A Practical Program for America (1932), a compilation of Great Depression policy considerations, but he was in the minority in calling for less government intervention in the economy. After a series of public debates with socialist Louis Fischer, Hazlitt and The Nation parted ways.^[8]

In 1933, Hazlitt published The Anatomy of Criticism, an extended "trialogue" examining the nature of literary criticism and appreciation, regarded by some to be an early refutation of literary deconstruction.^[7] In the same year, he became H. L. Mencken's chosen successor as editor of the literary magazine, The American Mercury, which Mencken had founded with George Jean Nathan.^[9] Due to increasing differences with the publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, Sr., he served in that role for only a brief time, but Mencken wrote that Hazlitt was the "only competent critic of the arts that I have heard of who was at the same time a competent economist, of practical as well as theoretical training," adding that he "is one of the few economists in human history who could really write."^[10]

In 1929, Hazlitt married Valerie Earle, daughter of the noted photographer and Vitagraph film director William P. S. Earle. They were married by the pacifist minister, John Haynes Holmes, but later divorced.^[11] In 1936, he married Frances Kanes, the author of The Concise Bible,^[12] with whom he later collaborated to produce an anthology of the Stoic philosophers, The Wisdom of the Stoics: Selections from Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius (1984). They were married until Frances' death in 1991.^[13]

From 1934 to 1946, Hazlitt was the principal editorial writer on finance and economics for The New York Times, writing both a signed weekly column along with most of the unsigned editorials on economics, producing a considerable volume of work.^[5] Following World War II, he came into conflict with Arthur Hays Sulzberger, publisher of The New York Times, over the newly established Bretton Woods system which created the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Hazlitt opposed the Bretton Woods Agreement, primarily fearing the risk of inflation. After agreeing not to write on the topic, he looked for another venue for his work, deciding on Newsweek magazine, for which he wrote a signed column, "Business Tides," from 1946 to 1966.^[10]

According to Hazlitt, the greatest influence on his writing in economics was the work of Ludwig von Mises, and he is credited with introducing the ideas of the Austrian School of economics to the English-speaking layman. In 1938, for example, he reviewed the recently published English translation of Mises’s influential treatise Socialism for The New York Times, declaring it "a classic" and “the most devastating analysis of socialism yet penned."^[14] After the Jewish economist's emigration to the United States from Nazi-dominated Europe in 1940, Hazlitt arranged for Mises to contribute editorials to The New York Times, and helped to secure for Mises a teaching position at New York University. Along with the efforts of his friends, Max Eastman and John Chamberlain, Hazlitt also helped introduce F. A. Hayek's The Road to Serfdom to the American reading public. His 1944 review in The New York Times caused Reader's Digest, where Eastman served as roving editor, to publish one of its trademark condensations, bringing the future Nobel laureate's work to a vast audience.^[15]

Unlike many other writers of his generation from the political right, Hazlitt never experienced a period when he was a socialist or communist, or a significant change in his classical liberal political views. He was the founding vice-president of the Foundation for Economic Education. Established by Leonard Read in 1946, FEE is considered to be the first "think tank" for free market ideas. He was also one of the original members of the classical liberal Mont Pelerin Society in 1947.^[16]

With John Chamberlain (and Suzanne La Follette as managing editor), Hazlitt served as editor of the early free market publication The Freeman from 1950 to 1952, and as sole editor-in-chief from 1952 to 1953, and its contributors during his tenure there included Hayek, Mises and Wilhelm Röpke, as well as the writers James Burnham, John Dos Passos, Max Eastman, John T. Flynn, Frank Meyer, Raymond Moley, Morrie Ryskind and George Sokolsky.^[17] Prior to his becoming editor, The Freeman had supported Senator Joseph McCarthy in his conflict with President Harry Truman on the issue of communism, "undiscriminatingly" according to some critics, but upon becoming editor, Hazlitt changed the magazine's policy to one of support for President Truman.^[18]

The Freeman is widely considered to be an important forerunner to the conservative National Review, founded by William F. Buckley, Jr., which from the start included many of the same contributing editors.^[19] Hazlitt himself was on the masthead of National Review, either as a Contributing Editor or, later, as Contributor, from its inception in 1955 until his death in 1993. There were differences between the journals: The Freeman under Hazlitt was more secular and presented a wider range of foreign policy opinion than the later National Review.^[18]

Even prior to her success with The Fountainhead, the novelist Ayn Rand was a friend of both Hazlitt and his wife, Frances, and it was Hazlitt who introduced Rand to Mises, bringing together the two figures who would become most associated with the defense of pure laissez-faire capitalism.^[20] The two became admirers of Hazlitt and of one another.^[21]

Hazlitt became well known both through his articles and by frequently debating prominent politicians on the radio, including: Vice President Henry A. Wallace, Secretary of State Dean Acheson, and U.S. Senators Paul Douglas and Hubert H. Humphrey, the future Vice President.^[5] In the early 1950s, he also occasionally appeared on the New York television current events program Longines Chronoscope, interviewing figures such as Senator Joseph McCarthy and Congressman Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr., along with coeditor William Bradford Huie.^[22] At the invitation of philosopher Sidney Hook, he was also a participating member of the American Committee for Cultural Freedom in the 1950s.^[23]

When he finally left Newsweek in 1966, the magazine replaced Hazlitt with three university professors: "free-market monetarist Milton Friedman of the University of Chicago, middle-of-the-roader Henry Wallich of Yale, and Keynesian Paul A. Samuelson of M.I.T."^[5] His last published scholarly article appeared in the first volume of The Review of Austrian Economics (now, The Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics) in 1987.

Hazlitt died at the age of 98.

He was awarded an Honorary Doctoral Degree at Universidad Francisco Marroquín in Guatemala.

Economics and Philosophy[link]

"The times call for courage. The times call for hard work. But if the demands are high, it is because the stakes are even higher. They are nothing less than the future of liberty, which means the future of civilization."^[24]

Economics in One Lesson (1946) has been called Hazlitt's "most enduring contribution,"^[24] with a million copies sold and available in ten languages,^[25] it is considered an "enduring classic" in conservative, free market and libertarian circles.^[26] Ayn Rand called it a "magnificent job of theoretical exposition," while Congressman Ron Paul ranks it with the works of Frédéric Bastiat and F. A. Hayek.^[27] Hayek himself praised the work, as did fellow Nobel Prize laureate Milton Friedman, who said that Hazlitt's description of the price system, for example, was "a true classic: timeless, correct, painlessly instructive."^[5] In his book Basic Economics, Thomas Sowell also compliments Hazlitt, and Sowell's work has been cited as "following" in the "Bastiat-Hazlitt tradition" of economic exposition.^[28] In 1996, Laissez Faire Books issued a 50th anniversary edition with an introduction by publisher and presidential candidate Steve Forbes.^[29]

Another of his enduring works is The Failure of the New Economics (1959), a detailed, chapter-by-chapter critique of John Maynard Keynes's highly influential General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, about which he paraphrased a quote attributed to Samuel Johnson, that he was "unable to find in it a single doctrine that is both true and original. What is original in the book is not true; and what is true is not original."^[29] Hazlitt also published three books on the subject of inflation, including From Bretton Woods to World Inflation (1984), and two influential works on poverty, Man vs. The Welfare State (1969), and The Conquest of Poverty (1973), thought by some to have anticipated the later work of Charles Murray in Losing Ground.^[30]

His major work in philosophy is The Foundations of Morality (1964), a treatise on ethics defending utilitarianism, which builds on the work of David Hume and John Stuart Mill. Hazlitt's 1922 work, The Way to Will-Power has been described as a defense of free will or "individual initiative against the deterministic claims of Freudian psychoanalysis."^[7] In contrast to many other thinkers on the political right, he was an agnostic with regard to religious beliefs.^[31]

In A New Constitution Now (1942), published during Franklin D. Roosevelt's unprecedented third term as President of the United States, Hazlitt called for the replacement of the existing fixed-term presidential tenure in the United States with a more Anglo-European system of "cabinet" government, under which a head of state who had lost the confidence of the legislature or cabinet might be removed from office after a no-confidence vote in as little as 30 days. (Shortly following FDR's death, presidential term limits were enacted.) His 1951 novel, The Great Idea (reissued in 1966 as Time Will Run Back) depicts rulers of a centrally-planned socialist dystopia discovering, amid the resulting economic chaos, the need to restore market pricing system, private ownership of capital goods and competitive markets.

Hazlitt was a prolific writer, authoring 25 works in his lifetime.

In 1981, President Ronald Reagan in his speech before the Conservative Political Action Conference (or "CPAC") named Hazlitt as one of the "[i]ntellectual leaders" (along with Hayek, Mises, Friedman, Russell Kirk, James Burnham and Frank Meyer) who had "shaped so much of our thoughts..."^[32]

Ludwig von Mises said at a dinner honoring Hazlitt: "In this age of the great struggle in favor of freedom and the social system in which men can live as free men, you are our leader. You have indefatigably fought against the step-by-step advance of the powers anxious to destroy everything that human civilization has created over a long period of centuries... You are the economic conscience of our country and of our nation."^[29]

The Henry Hazlitt Foundation[link]

From 1997 to 2002 there was an organization called The Henry Hazlitt Foundation which actively promoted libertarian networking online, especially through its website Free-Market.Net. This organization was named in honor of Hazlitt because he was known for introducing a wide range of people to libertarian ideas through his writing and for helping free-market advocates connect with each other. It is important to note that the foundation was started after Hazlitt's passing and had no official connection with his estate.

Books[link]

• Thinking as a Science, 1916
• The Way to Will-Power, 1922
• A Practical Program for America, 1932
• The Anatomy of Criticism, 1933
• Instead of Dictatorship, 1933
• A New Constitution Now, 1942
• Freedom in America: The Freeman (with Virgil Jordan), 1945
• The Full Employment Bill: An Analysis, 1945
• Economics in One Lesson, 1946
• Economics in One Lesson (Spanish), 1946
• Will Dollars Save the World?, 1947
• Forum: Do Current Events Indicate Greater Government Regulation, Nationalization, or Socialization?, Proceedings from a Conference Sponsored by The Economic and Business Foundation, 1948
• The Illusions of Point Four, 1950
• The Great Idea, 1951 (titled Time Will Run Back in Great Britain, revised and rereleased with this title in 1966.)
• The Free Man's Library, 1956
• The Failure of the 'New Economics': An Analysis of the Keynesian Fallacies, 1959
• The Critics of Keynesian Economics (ed.), 1960
• What You Should Know About Inflation, 1960
• The Foundations of Morality, 1964
• Man vs. The Welfare State, 1969
• The Conquest of Poverty, 1973
• To Stop Inflation, Return to Gold, 1974
• The Inflation Crisis and How to Resolve It, 1978
• From Bretton Woods to World Inflation, 1984
• The Wisdom of the Stoics: Selections from Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius, with Frances Hazlitt, 1984
• The Wisdom of Henry Hazlitt, 1993
• Is Politics Insoluble?, 1997
• Rules for Living: The Ethics of Social Cooperation, 1999 (an abridgment by Bettina Bien Greaves of Hazlitt's The Foundations of Morality.)

See also[link]

• Classical liberalism
• Laissez Faire
• Libertarianism
• Mont Pelerin Society
• Utilitarianism

Notes[link]

Articles[link]

• Henry Hazlitt: A Giant of Liberty, Ludwig von Mises Institute, 1994. ISBN 978-0-945466-16-1.
• Henry Hazlitt: an Appreciation, Foundation for Economic Education, 1989, pp. 8–9.
• Interview with Henry Hazlitt
• "Henry Hazlitt: The People's Austrian" in Randall Holcombe, edit., The Great Austrian Economists (2009; originally published as 15 Great Austrian Economists, 1999), pp. 167–179.
• Richard M. Ebeling and Roy A. Childs, Jr., "Henry Hazlitt: An Appreciation," Laissez Faire Books, November 1985.
• Bettina Bien Greaves, "Henry Hazlitt: A Man for Many Seasons," The Freeman, November, 1989.
• Henry Hazlitt, "The Early History of FEE," The Freeman, March 1984 (article is excerpted from his remarks at the Leonard E. Read Memorial Conference on Freedom, November 18, 1983.)
• Llewellyn H. Rockwell, "Henry Hazlitt: Journalist of the Century," The Freeman, May, 1995.
• Murray N. Rothbard, "Henry Hazlitt Celebrates 80th Birthday," Human Events, November 20, 1974, reprinted in The Libertarian Forum, December 1974.
• George Selgin, Don Boudreaux, and Sanford Ikeda:, "An Interview with Henry Hazlitt", Austrian Economics Newsletter, Spring, 1984.
• "Reason Interview: Henry Hazlitt", Reason, December, 1984
• Hans F. Sennholz, edit., The Wisdom of Henry Hazlitt, Foundation for Economic Education, 1993)

See Bibliography of Henry Hazlitt for complete list.

External links[link]

• Henry Hazlitt at the Open Directory Project
• En lärdom (första kapitlet i Economics in One Lesson, på Svenska) av Henry Hazlitt
• Honorary Doctoral Degrees at University Francisco Marroquín in Guatemala
• Henry Hazlitt Quotations
• A film clip "Longines Chronoscope with Henry Hazlitt (October 17, 1951)" is available for free download at the Internet Archive [more]

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The Foundations were a British soul band, active from 1967 to 1970. The group, made up of West Indians, White British, and a Sri Lankan, are best known for their two biggest hits, "Baby Now That I've Found You" (a Number One hit in the UK Singles Chart and Canada, and subsequently Top 10 in the US), written by Tony Macaulay and John MacLeod; and "Build Me Up Buttercup" (a number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 1 in Canada), co-written by Macaulay with Mike d'Abo, at the time the lead vocalist with Manfred Mann. The group was the first multi-racial group to have a number 1 hit in the UK in the 1960s.^[1]

The Foundations are notable for being one of the few label acts to successfully imitate what became known as the Motown Sound. In terms of line-up and musical style, they anticipated the sound of the more successful Hot Chocolate. They were in a similar musical vein as Love Affair, who also topped the UK charts in 1968 with their version of Robert Knight's "Everlasting Love". The Foundations signed to Pye, at the time one of only four big UK record companies (the others being EMI with its HMV, Columbia Records, and Parlophone labels; Decca; and Philips who also owned Fontana).^[2]

Biography[link]

Origins[link]

The Foundations drew much interest and intrigue due to the size and structure of the group. Not only was there a diverse ethnic mix in the group, but there was also diversity in ages and musical backgrounds. The oldest member of the group was Mike Elliott, who was 38 years old. The youngest was Tim Harris, who, at 18, was barely out of school. The West Indian horn section, which consisted of Jamaican-born Mike Elliott and Pat Burke, both saxophonists and Dominican-born Eric Allendale on trombone. They were all highly experienced musicians who came from professional jazz and rock-and-roll backgrounds. Mike Elliott had played in various jazz and rock and roll bands including Tubby Hayes and Ronnie Scott,^[3] the Cabin Boys (led by Tommy Steele's brother, Colin Hicks), and others. Pat Burke, a professional musician, was from the London Music Conservatorium. Eric Allendale had led his own band at one stage as well as having played with Edmundo Ros and being a former member of the Terry Lightfoot^[4] and Alex Walsh bands. Alan Warner, the guitarist, was also an experienced musician for his age, having played with numerous semi-pro groups from the age of 16.^[5] Bassist Peter Macbeth was a former teacher. Tony Gomez, the keyboard player, was a former clerk, while Clem Curtis had been an interior decorator and professional boxer.

The story of the origins of the Foundations can be somewhat surprising and a bit confusing as to who was responsible for choosing the band's name, and various sources give slightly different accounts of their beginnings. One version is that they were originally called The Ramong Sound,^[5][6] or The Ramongs, and there were two lead singers, Clem Curtis and Psychedelic shock rocker Arthur Brown.^[7] Other variations on this are that after they dropped the "Ramong" from their name, they were then called The Foundation Squad or The Foundation Sound.^[5] Apparently, Arthur Brown was only a temporary member for about one month, and by the time the Foundations had signed to Pye, he had left the group.

The Foundations actually did come together in Bayswater, London in January 1967. They practiced and played in a basement club called the Butterfly Club, which they ran.^[8] While managing the club themselves, they played music nightly, and handled the cooking and cleaning. They would get to bed around 6 or 7 a.m., sleep until 4 p.m., get up and begin again to get ready to open at 8 p.m. Sometimes they barely made enough money to pay the rent, let alone feed themselves. At times, they lived off the leftovers and a couple of pounds of rice.^[9] They stayed there until they were eventually forced out by a protection racket gang and then had to move next door to a dingy unused mini-cab office.^[10]

Career from 1967[link]

While the biography on Allmusic states that Barry Class was the first to discover them,^[1] Alan Warner, the original founding member and lead guitarist of The Foundations and former Ramongs member states that it was actually Fairway who saw them in the dingy office and then introduced them to Class.^[10] Either way, both Fairway and Class teamed up to become their managers.^[11] Class took care of the business management, while Fairway went out promoting and trying to secure gigs for the group.^[10]

When they were at the top spot with "Baby, Now That I've Found You", Fairway commented to Melody Maker that most management would pull them out of the "bargain priced dates" that were booked for some time. He expressed gratitude to everyone for their support, and said that they would fulfill every engagement for which they had signed.^[3]

Not long after "Baby, Now That I've Found You" became a hit, rock historian Roger Dopson describes what followed as a "behind the scenes struggle",^[3] where Fairway was "pushed out" and his partner, Barry Class, remained as sole manager of the group. Fairway later attempted to sue the band, alleging that he was wrongfully dismissed, though the band said that he had resigned of his own accord.^[12] Dopson also noted that Fairway also leaked a story to the media saying that the Foundations had broken up which only served to keep the Foundations name in the news headlines.^{[3] [13]} Fairway and Class eventually introduced them to Pye A&R man Tony Macaulay.^[10] The day Macaulay came to hear them play, he was suffering from what he described as the worst hangover of his life. The band was playing so loud he could not judge how good they were, but he decided to give them a chance.^[3] He would later comment in the book, 1000 UK #1 Hits by Jon Kutner and Spencer Leigh, that he woke up that morning with a stinking headache, and when he got to the studio and heard The Foundations, he thought they were pretty terrible. He decided his hangover was to blame, and so he gave them the benefit of the doubt.^[14]

At first they found progress quite slow, and one of their sax players, Pat Burke, had to drop out of the band and take another job while they went through a rough patch. He did rejoin them again later in 1967.^{[15] [16]}

They did a couple of tours backing The Toys and later Motown Records' Edwin Starr.^[10] Curtis doubted if this group called The Toys was the original Toys let alone American. They were noticed by Brian Epstein who added them to the roster of his NEMS Agency but the contract became void when he died.^[17]

When "Baby Now That I've Found You" was first released it went nowhere. Luckily the BBC's newly founded BBC Radio 1 were looking to avoid any records being played by the pirate radio stations and they looked back at some recent releases that the pirate stations had missed. "Baby, Now That I've Found You" was one of them. The single then took off and by November was number one in the UK Singles Chart.^[2] This was the ideal time because of the soul boom that was happening in England since 1965 and with American R&B stars visiting the UK, interest and intrigue in The Foundations was generated. Their second single released in January 1968, "Back On My Feet Again", did not do as well but made it to #18 in the UK,^[2] and #29 in Canada. Also in January 1968 they were invited to put down some tracks for John Peel's radio show. One of the tracks that they laid down was a cover of ? and the Mysterians garage classic 96 Tears.^[18][19] On the same day PP Arnold was in the studio with Dusty Springfield and Madeline Bell as her backing vocalists.^[18]

Around this time after the release of their second single, there were tensions developing between the band and their songwriter/producer, Tony Macaulay. He would not allow them to record any of their own songs.^[1] In an interview, the band's organ player, Tony Gomez, told NME Magazine in an interview that he, Peter MacBeth, and Eric Allendale had some ideas that they wanted to put together. Curtis later recalled that Macaulay was a problem. "Tony Macaulay was very talented, but could be difficult to get on with. When we asked to record some of our own material - just as B sides, we weren't after the A side - he called us 'ungrateful' and stormed out of the studio."^[3] The group felt that Macaulay had reined in their "real" sound, making them seem more pop-oriented than they were.^[1] Tony Macaulay was later to recall, "I was never close to The Foundations. I couldn't stand them, and they hated me! But the body of work we recorded was excellent."^[3]

A third single, also released in 1968 "Any Old Time (You're Lonely and Sad)", reached #48.^[2]

Curtis and Elliott leave group[link]

Original vocalist Curtis left in 1968, because he felt that a couple of the band's members were taking it a bit too easy, thinking that because they had now had a hit, they did not have to put in as much effort as they had previously.^[1] Saxophonist Mike Elliott also left around this time and was never replaced. Curtis hung around and helped them audition a replacement singer. They auditioned 200 singers. It was reported in a New Musical Express article in 1968 that Curtis while being interviewd at a festival had mentioned that they were trying out Warren Davis to replace him. He said he wouldn't leave the band until they found a replacement.^[20] He had become friendly with Sammy Davis, Jr. and was encouraged to try his luck in the United States. He moved to the US for a solo career on the club circuit, encouraged by the likes of Wilson Pickett and Sam & Dave, playing Las Vegas with the Righteous Brothers. His successful replacement was Colin Young.

New lead singer[link]

With Young the band had two more big hits; "Build Me Up Buttercup" which was their third hit in 1968 and "In the Bad Bad Old Days (Before You Loved Me)" which was a hit in April 1969,^[2] and reached #23 in Canada May 5 that year.

At the height of their popularity, the Foundations management were in negotiations and a UK TV company for a television series that would star members of the band. They had turned down a number of offers to appear in films because of script unsuitability.^[21]

Bassist Peter Macbeth left the band in 1969, to join the group Bubastis with Bernie Living,^[22][23] and was replaced by Steve Bingham.

Beginning of 1970 to the breakup in late 1970[link]

After a successful run of hits, The Foundations broke off with their management and a Bill Graham sponsored tour to support The Temptations at the newly opened Copacabana club. This ended up in disaster and the band came back to the UK in low spirits. It had been previously reported in a publicity sheet around early December 1969 that the band had broken away from their manager Barry Class. Jim Dawson who was formerly their agent and Mike Dolan took over the group's affairs.^[24] The group's final hits were "Born to Live, Born to Die" which was written by Eric Allendale and Tony Gomez.^[25] and "My Little Chickadee", a US only hit which barely made the hot 100. Another member joined the band in 1970. Paul Lockey who had been with Robert Plant in Band Of Joy joined as their bass guitarist.^[26]

"My Little Chickadee" proved to be the band's last hit. In spite of releasing "Take A Girl Like You", the title song to the Oliver Reed and Hayley Mills film, and a heavy blues rock song "I'm Gonna Be A Rich Man", the band split in late 1970.^[27]

1971 to the end of the 1970s[link]

The last record released in the early 1970s as The Foundations was a single "Stoney Ground" b/w "I'll Give You Love" MCA MCA 5075 1971.^[28] By that time the original band had already split up and Alan Warner had been a member of Pluto since joining and helping to form the English progressive rock band in 1970.^[10] There would be two more singles released as The Foundations in the mid to late 1970s.

When Curtis returned to the UK, he formed a new version of the group with little success in spite of releasing several singles, but later had a lucrative spell on the 1960s nostalgia circuit. Curtis' re-formed Foundations have on several occasions and among the many musicians to be part of latter day Foundations were Bill ^[29] and John Springate, the latter becoming a member of The Glitter Band,^[30] Derek "Del" Watson, Paul Wilmot (all members of the band "ELEGY") and Roy Carter who later on joined Heatwave.^[31]

Also in the 1970s there would be a collaborative attempt between two former members of the Foundations. Original Foundations trombonist Eric Allendale attempted to work with original Foundations Foundations drummer Tim Harris.^[32]

In the mid 1970s, while Clem Curtis and The Foundations were on the road, there was also another Foundations line up that was led by Colin Young who were on the road at the same time, who were playing basically the same material. This eventually led to court action which resulted in Curtis being allowed to bill his group as either The Foundations or Clem Curtis & The Foundations. Young was allowed to bill himself as The New Foundations or Colin Young & The New Foundations.^[3]

Also in the mid 1970s, Young and his group, The New Foundations, released a lone single on Pye, "Something For My Baby" / "I Need Your Love".^[3] There were actually two more singles released in the late 1970s as the Foundations. They were "Where Were You When I Needed Your Love" / "Love Me Nice And Easy" and "Closer To Loving You" / "Change My Life" on the Summit and Psycho labels.^[33] These featured Curtis as the lead singer.

Various sources erroneously state that there was an early 1970s English line up that had nothing, or little to do with, the original Foundations. However, Curtis has been leading a new line up of the Foundations since coming back to the UK and reforming the group in the early 1970s.

1980s to present[link]

In or around the late 1980s Curtis and Alan Warner teamed up to recut "Baby, Now That I've Found You" as well as other hits of The Foundations.^[3]

There has also been another line up formed in 1999 that included Young (vocals), Alan Warner (Guitar), Steve Bingham (bass), Gary Moberly (keyboards), Tony Laidlaw (sax) and Sam Kelly then Steve Dixon (drums). This version of the group was reformed due to the popularity of the film There's Something About Mary and the interest created resulting from the 1968 hit "Build Me Up Buttercup" being featured in the film. Some time later Young left this version of the group and was replaced by Hue Montgomery (aka Hugh Montgomery).

Known as Alan Warner's Foundations, this group is on tour in 2012 either in their own right or with The New Honeycombs, Terry Rice-Milton of Cupid's Inspiration, Billie Davis and Keith Powell.

Curtis still appears at venues and tours as Clem Curtis & The Foundations as he has done during the past four decades.

There is a bogus American group using the Foundations name and includes original Foundations hits as part of their repertoire. This group has no connection with the group that recorded the hits on Pye.^{[citation needed]}

Former personnel[link]

The Foundations[link]

• Clem Curtis: lead vocals - born 28 November 1940,^[34] Trinidad, West Indies.
• Colin Young: lead vocals - b. 12 September 1944, Barbados, West Indies - replaced Clem Curtis in 1968.
• Arthur Brown: vocals - b. 24 June 1942 Whitby, Yorkshire, Member for approximately one month in 1967
• Alan Warner: lead guitar - b. 21 April 1947,^[34] Paddington, west London.
• Peter Macbeth: bass guitar - b. Peter McGrath, 2 February 1941,^[34] Marylebone, North London.
• Steve Bingham: bass guitar - b. 4 April 1949, Solihull, Warwickshire.
• Tim Harris: drums - b. 14 January 1948,^[34] St John's Wood, North London - Died 2007
• Tony Gomez: keyboards - b. 13 December 1938,^[34] Colombo, Ceylon - (now Sri Lanka).
• Pat Burke: tenor saxophone/flute - b. 9 October 1937,^[34] Kingston, Jamaica, West Indies.
• Mike Elliott: tenor saxophone - b. 6 August 1929,^[34] Jamaica, West Indies. - Left in 1968
• Eric Allandale: trombone - b. Eric Allandale Dubuisson, 4 March 1936,^[34] Dominica, West Indies — died 23 August 2001.
• Paul Lockey: bass guitar^[35] - joined in 1970 for nine months

Guests[link]

• Mike D'Abo :piano - b. Michael David D'Abo, 1 March 1944, Betchworth, Surrey. Co-wrote and guested on "Build Me Up Buttercup" contributing piano.
• John Mcleod: piano

Clem Curtis & The Foundations[link]

• Clem Curtis: vocals
• James Colah: keyboards
• Michael J. Parlett: saxophone
• Alan Warner: guitar ^[3]
• Roy Carter: bass guitar ^[36]
• George Chandler: backing vocals
• Valentine Pascal: electric guitar

1970s line-up[link]

• Clem Curtis: Vocals
• Bill Springate: guitar
• John Springate: Vocals
• Del Watson: Bass
• Paul Wilmot : Drums
• John Paul: ? ^[37]

1977 line-up[link]

• Clem Curtis: Vocals
• Leroy Carter
• John Savile
• Valentine Pascal
• Georges Delanbanque ^[38]

Discography[link]

Summary of single releases

From the bands beginning to their breakup near the end of 1970, the Foundations released ten singles in the UK including two versions of the same song. A good deal of the songs on the singles were composed by Tony Macaulay and John Macleod. They had four significant hits from these plus a minor hit with one of their own compositions, "Born To Live, Born To Die" and another minor hit with "My Little Chickadee" in the United States. There were other titles announced that were either never recorded or were never released. They were "Our Love Went Thataway",^[39] "Tear Jerker, Music-worker, You" which was to be released around the same time as "Better By Far" by Lulu and "No Place On Earth Could Find You" ^[40][41] In 1971 the single "Stoney Ground" was released. It is believed that this single was actually by Colin Young and his new backing band Development. It seems quite likely as the Colin Young and Development debut single "Any Time At All" pre-dates "Stoney Ground". In the mid and late seventies there were two more singles released under the Foundations name. They were "Where Were You When I Needed Your Love" and "Closer To Loving You" which featured the Northern Soul classic "Change My Life" as the B side. These last two singles to bear the Foundations name featured Clem Curtis once more as the lead vocalist.

Summary of album releases

During the 1960s the Foundations recorded and released four LPs in the United Kingdom. Before the release of their debut album, it was originally announced, in the October 1967 of Beat Instrumental Monthly that the debut album's title was to be Sound Basis.^[9] However, when it was released on Pye, it had the title of From The Foundations. The American version of this album, which was released on the UNI label, was given the title of Baby, Now That I've Found You. This album featured Curtis on lead vocals. The next release was in 1968. It was a live LP called Rocking The Foundations, and also featured Curtis on lead vocals plus two instrumentals "The Look of Love" and "Coming Home Baby". Also in 1968, another LP was released on the Marble Arch label. This featured re-recordings of their previous hits and songs, but with Young on vocals instead of Curtis. It also featured a version of "Build Me Up Buttercup". There was also an American album called Build Me Up Buttercup. This was a compilation of Foundations tracks. Side one consisted of tracks from their Rocking The Foundations album; and side two consisted of "Build Me Up Buttercup", the B side of that single, plus some earlier Foundations tracks. The group's last LP release was in 1969, which featured their hit "In The Bad Bad Old Days", and the minor US hit "My Little Chickadee". Since then there have been various compilations of the Foundations songs, released on both the Golden Hour and PRT labels.

UK singles[link]

• "Baby, Now That I've Found You" / "Come On Back to Me" - Pye 7N 17366 - 1967 - UK #1, US #11
• "Back On My Feet Again" / "I Can Take Or Leave Your Loving" - Pye 7N 17417 - 1968 - UK #18
• "Any Old Time (You're Lonely And Sad)" / "We Are Happy People" - Pye 7N 17503 -1968 - UK #48
• "Build Me Up Buttercup" / "New Direction" Pye 7N 17636 - 1968 - UK #2, US #3
• "In the Bad Bad Old Days (Before You Loved Me)" / "Give Me Love" - Pye 7N 17702 - 1969 - UK #8
• "Born to Live, Born to Die" / "Why Did You Cry" - Pye 7N 17809 1969 - UK #46
• "Baby, I Couldn't See" / "Penny Sir" - Pye 7N 17849 - 1969
• "Take A Girl Like You" / "I'm Gonna Be A Rich Man" - Pye - 7N 17904 - 1970
• "I'm Gonna be a Rich Man" / "In The Beginning" Pye 7N 17956 - 1970
• "Stoney Ground" / "I'll Give You Love" - MCA MKS 5075–1971
• "Where Were You When I Needed Your Love" / "Love Me Nice And Easy" - Summit SU 100
• "Closer To Loving You" / "Change My Life" - Psycho P 2603–1978
• "Baby Now That I've Found You" / "Build Me Up Buttercup" - Old Gold OG9407 - (1979 Re-release)
• "Baby Now That I've Found You" / "Build Me Up Buttercup" - Flashback FBS 6 - (1979 Re-release)
• "Baby Now That I've Found You" (1989 Re Mix) / "Build Me Up Buttercup" - PRT PYS 24 - 1989
• "Build Me Up Buttercup" - CD single - (1998 Re-release) - UK #71

^{[2] [33]}

UK albums[link]

• From the Foundations - Pye NSPL 18206 - 1967
• Rocking the Foundations - Pye NSPL 18227 - 1968
• The Foundations - Marble Arch MALS 1157–1968
• Digging the Foundations - Pye NSPL 18290 - 1969
• Golden Hour of the Foundations (Greatest Hits) - GH 574 - 1973
• Back to the Beat - PRT DOW7 - 1983
• Best Of - PRT PYL 4003–1987

UK EPs 7"[link]

• "It's All Right" - Pye NEP24297 - 1968
• "Mini Monster" - Pye PMM.103

UK EPs 12"[link]

• "Baby, Now That I've Found You" - Pye Big Deal BD 107 - (4 tracks)
• "Baby, Now That I've Found You" - PRT Pyt 24 - 1989 - (3 tracks incl remix)

UK CDs[link]

• Golden Hour Of The Foundations - Knight Records KGH CD 104 - 1990
• Strong Foundations - The Singles and More - Music Club - MCCD 327 - 1997
• Build Me Up Buttercup - Castle Select SELCD 527 - 1998
• Baby, Now That I've Found You - Sequel Records - NEECD 300 - 1999
• Build Me Up Buttercup (The Complete Pye Collection) [Remastered] - Castle - 2004

US singles[link]

• "Baby Now That I've Found You" / "Come On Back To Me" - Uni 55038 - 1967
• "Back On My Feet Again" / "I Can Take Or Leave Your Loving" - Uni 55058 - 1968
• "Any Old Time (You're Lonely And Sad)" / "We Are Happy People" - Uni 55073 -1968
• "Build Me Up Buttercup" / "New Direction" - Uni 55101 - 1968
• "In The Bad Bad Old Days (Before You Loved Me)" / "Give Me Love" - Uni 55117 - 1969
• "Born To Live, Born To Die" / "Why Did You Cry" - Uni 55162 - 1969 - UK #46
• "My Little Chickadee" / "Solomon Grundy" - Uni 55137 - 1969
• "Take A Girl Like You" / "I'm Gonna Be A Rich Man" - Uni 55210 - 1970
• "Stoney Ground" / "I'll Give You Love" - Uni 55315 - 1971
• "Build Me Up Buttercup" / "Baby, Now That I've Found You" - Eric 192 (Re-release)

US albums[link]