After leaving the Beatmen in 1967, Dežo Ursiny formed the Soulmen with Vlado Mally and Fedor Freso. The group didn’t stay together long, but in December they won the first beat festival competition in Prague, and recorded this excellent EP before splitting up in 1968.
“I Wish I Were” is my favorite track from their one EP, an original and exciting song with a great beat, vocals and a fine guitar solo. Their other songs, “Baby Do Not Cry”, “Wake Up!”, and “A Sample of Happiness” show a heavy influence by Cream, but are still well-crafted.
I’m sure there’s more information about them on the back of the EP sleeve, if someone can translate the essentials.
After the Soulmen, Ursiny started again with the New Soulmen, showing a change in his style towards progressive rock and jazz that would continue into the 70’s and 80’s. He died from cancer on May 2, 1995, in Bratislava.
This EP was recorded in late 1967, but it was release in 1968…
These tracks are also available on their LP (in stereo of course)…
den0iZer, if you’ve ever seen an LP of THESE Soulmen from Slovakia, then you either need to contact your optician or you must be living in a parallel universe… 😉
In other words: there is NO regular vinyl album neither by the Soulmen nor by the Beatmen. The first album by Dezo Ursiny was Provisorium from 1973. That said, there were two Ursiny CD compilations in the 1990s which both contain lots of previously unreleased bonus material as well as this very EP. Additionally, this whole EP in full stereo is included on the very scarce CD compilation “Big beat sedesatych let 1968-70”, released by Panton in 1993.
If there is still someone who would like the text to be translated, then I can do it. Just tell me.
I’m a huge fan of The Soulmen and The Beatmen, I see you have the mp3s posted up on this site, do you think it would be possible to mail them to me? Or is it superprivate? 🙂 I would love to have this music.
just open the particular mp3 and press ctrl-S. that’s it