The Marquis of Kensington

The Marquis of Kensington was actually Robert Wace, the former manager of The Kinks. The funny thing is, his one and only single release (recorded for Immediate Records in 1967), "The Changing of the Guard," is a nostalgia-drenched piece that sounds a bit like Ray Davies' vamping of the British establishment on Arthur, sort of the Kinks-meet-Noel Coward. Mike Leander was the producer, and the single was thought of well enough by director Peter Whitehead to end up on the soundtrack of his 1967 documentary Tonite Let's All Make Love In London, along with songs by Chris Farlowe, Vashti, and the Small Faces. That the whole thing was a joke can be discerned from the single's B-side, "Reverse Thrust," a backwards instrumental credited to "The Marquis of Kensington's Minstrels," which is a true rarity (for whatever it's worth), never reissued on any Immediate collection known to this writer. ~ Bruce Eder