Saturday, 31. October 2009, 06:37:57
Coven was a band started in 1968 to help the hippies bring Satanism to the masses
Composed of vocalist Jinx Dawson (a native of Indianapolis, Indiana who began studying opera and the occult in the late 1960s), bassist Oz Osborne (not to be but often is confused with Ozzy Osbourne of Black Sabbath), Chris Neilsen on guitar, Rick Durrett and later John Hobbs on keyboards and drummer Steve Ross.
A late 60s psych rock band, more than a little on the folksy side, they interspersed their acid rock songs (full of strong female vocals, harmonies and a frisco-sounding boogie–sunshine pop), with creepy chanting & odd instrumentals. Jinx, Ross, and Osborne formed Coven in Chicago and in 1967 to 1968 they toured on concert bills with
Jimmy Page's Yardbirds, the Alice Cooper Band, and Vanilla Fudge, among many others.
Jinx began and ended each Coven concert with the
sign of the horns, being the first to introduce this hand sign into rock pop culture. They were signed to Mercury Records, where they put out their first album, "Witchcraft Destroys Minds and Reaps Souls" in 1969. The music on the album was underground rock but what made it distinctive was the heavy emphasis on diabolical subject matter, which was unusual for the time. According to Jinx, "The satanic thing actually was something we were interested in and were studying at the time. When you're younger, you're looking for answers, and a lot of members of the band were looking into the same books at the same time. We studied it, we practiced it."
Their debut LP is noteworthy for historical reasons. Bassist Oz Osborne performs on this album, whose opening track is "Black Sabbath," while John "Ozzy" Osbourne of Black Sabbath was allegedly busy playing bass in Magic Lanterns, hitting the Top 30 in 1968 with "Shame, Shame" (Ozzy listed as Mike Osbourne with Magic Lanterns!). That the group Black Sabbath formed in 1969 when this album was issued seems to indicate that Witchcraft Destroys Minds and Reaps Souls may have had a little influence on the more popular heavy metal band. Also notable is the fact that the majority of the songwriting on this album is by guitarist Jim Donlinger, who a year later in 1970 would move on to drummer Michael Tegza's reincarnation of H.P. Lovecraft, known simply as
Lovecraft on its Reprise recording.
With an elaborate package released on Mercury in 1969, the lyrics are all included in a second gatefold (in script for that added occulty effect 'natch), while the first gatefold is a photo of a "black mass", showing members of the group displaying the sign of the horns as they prepared for a Satanic ritual over the naked altar. This is the
first photographed use of the Horned Hand Salute and the Inverted Cross in rock music pop culture, Coven being one of the first occult rock bands (perhaps the first, depending on how exactly you define it - there were certainly other psych rock bands that had some occult influences on some of their songs but as far as a band wholely devoted to it Coven may indeed be the 1st.) and thus pioneers in that genre.
Jinx Dawson's vocals are distinctive and tunes like "White Witch of Rose Hall" (based on the story of Annie Palmer) and "Wicked Woman" do a good job of showcasing it. With the "evil" prayers during "Coven in Charing Cross," Coven get a bit heavy-handed; the group goes over the top trying to push the black magic stuff. "Pact With the Devil" is written "Pack With the Devil" on the label, and the 13-plus minute "Satanic Mass" (which takes up the bulk of side 2 of the record) is more of a curiosity piece than musical adventure, but is noteworthy for being
the world's first ever recording of a black mass. (Before even Anton LaVey got around to recording his Satanic Mass.) "Choke, Thirst, Die," which ends side one, is actually one of the best performances on the record, though it also suffers from its excesses, with Jinx Dawson acting like a satanic Ruby Starr when she should have gone in the Wendy O. Williams punk/metal warrior direction. All in all a good record but with Black Sabbath emerging one year later doing everything much, much better its no wonder its now more of a historical novelty.
Unwanted publicity came to the band in the form of a sensationalistic Esquire magazine issue entitled "Evil Lurks in California" (Esquire, March 1970), which linked counterculture interest in the occult to Charles Manson and the Tate-La Bianca murders, while also mentioning the Witchcraft album and its Black Mass material. As a result of this unwanted publicity, Mercury withdrew the album from circulation.
Good luck returned to Jinx Dawson when Tom Laughlin asked her to record the "One Tin Soldier" song for his Billy Jack movie. It was written by Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter, and originally released in 1969 by the Canadian group "The Original Caste". Coven's recording charted three times, first in 1971 (#26), in 1973 (#79), and a re-entry of the original version in 1974 (#73) on the Billboard Magazine's Hot 100, and was a top 10 hit in Cashbox. The song was named #1 Most Requested Song in 1971 and 1973 by American Radio Broadcasters. Coven released a self-titled album in 1972 which featured "One Tin Soldier" along with "Nightengale" penned by Jinx Dawson which charted as a hot pick on Billboard & Cashbox; a third album, Blood on the Snow, was put out on Buddah Records in 1974.
One of the 1st music videos ever made directly for an album title song was produced for "Blood on the Snow" by Jinx and the Coven with Disney Studios (a full seven years before MTV started in 1981.)
Coven - Witchcraft Destroys Minds and Reaps Souls (1969)
in comments...
They even used him in the infomercial hocking the thing. Best things on it as far as content are Alice Cooper's 'You and Me', Bill Conti's 'Gonna Fly Now' (the theme from 'Rocky'), and 'Beth' by Kiss. 
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