I Don't Know b/w Gone Away

In October 1965 RPM called ‘I Don’t Know’ the best record the Classics had made. American trade papers agreed. Vancouver radio, which had played ‘Aces High’ and ‘Till I Met You’, mostly let it pass.

The single came out in the United States on Barry De Vorzon’s Valiant Records in Los Angeles, the label that broke The Association the following year and put out The Collectors’ first single two years later. On the label the band became the Canadian Classics, a name that also set them apart from the Brooklyn group The Classics, who had a hit with ‘Till Then’ in 1963.

Both sides were written by Howie Vickers and Claire Lawrence, making this the first Classics single without a Tom Baird song. ‘I Don’t Know’ is fuzz-tinged pop with the harmonies pushed forward, and ‘Gone Away’ is a slower ballad.

RPM’s profile that October still listed the six players from the Jaguar singles: Vickers, Lawrence, Baird, Brian Russell, Glenn Miller and Gary Taylor. Over the next year that lineup came apart. Baird, Russell and Taylor left, Terry Frewer, Brian Newcombe and Ross Turney passed through, and by late 1966 Bill Henderson was on guitar with Miller back on bass. At the Torch Cabaret they were dropping covers for their own songs, and in early 1967 they became The Collectors.
-Robert Williston