Guide to British Music of the 1960s
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Zoot Money - Keyboards/vocals, Andy Somers - guitar, Pat Donaldson - bass guitar, Colin Allen - drums
Dantalion's Chariot evolved out of Zoot Money & the Big Roll Band. The band's name came from references to a devil Duke Dantalion in a medieval witchcraft book. The first gig was August 1967 as the Windsor National Blues Festival. The band was well-known for an amazing light show which was accentuated by the fact that the band all wore white robes with their equipment also painted white.
Madman Running Through the Fields was released in September 1967. Money admitted later that the track was the results of LSD trips. Record label EMI disapproved of the band's psychedelic direction and dropped the band. However, they did appear in the film Popcorn. CBS label Direction Records signed the band and they started work on their debut LP consisting of original songs by Money and Somers. The label rejected the songs and instead released a number of older tracks and credited the album Transition to Zoot Money.
When the band broke-up in August 1968, Money
joined Eric Burdon in The New Animals. Somers went to Soft Machine before
joining Eric Burdon & the New Animals, the Kevin Ayers Band and, finally, the
Police with whom he achieved massive global success. Somers later changed his
surname to Summers. Colin Allen joined John Mayall's Bluebreakers.
Zoot Money died 8 September 2024.