Alan Warner of The Foundations: The Story Behind “Build Me Up Buttercup” and a Lifetime of Timeless Music

Tony Mantor's : Almost Live..... Nashville

In this episode of Almost Live Nashville, host Tony Mantor sits down with Alan Warner, original member of The Foundations, to explore the story behind their iconic hit 'Build Me Up Buttercup'

Key takeaways

• The Foundations were pioneers as one of the first multiracial bands to achieve international success in the late 1960s.
• Alan Warner initially joined a band based on its mixed-race lineup and innovative soul, ska, and reggae fusion.

Main topics

• Formation of The Foundations as a multiracial band
• The journey from London clubs to international chart success

Notable quotes

"I knew that it was going to go to number one." – Alan Warner on the early confidence in 'Baby Now That I Found You'.

Conclusion

Alan Warner reflects with gratitude and joy on The Foundations' remarkable journey, emphasizing

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) Hi, I'm Tony Mantour. Thanks for joining us today. Welcome to Almost Live Nashville, where music, entertainment, and great conversations come together. If you haven't already, tap follow. This way you stay up to date, never missing the great conversation and guests coming your way. Speaker 1 (0:17) Joining us today is Alan Warner of the Legendary Foundations, the iconic group behind timeless classics like Build Me Up Buttercup and Baby Now That I Found You. Their music has brought joy to audiences around the world for generations and remains as beloved today as ever. We're going to look back at an incredible career, the stories behind the songs, and the legacy that continues to inspire music fans everywhere. It's a true pleasure to have you join us today. Speaker 2 (0:48) My pleasure. Speaker 1 (0:50) You and the Foundations enjoyed an incredible run during the late 60s, creating songs that have become timeless classics and continue to resonate with audiences around the world. Can you take us back to the beginning? How did the band first come together and what inspired its formation? Speaker 2 (1:08) Sure, yeah. Basically, Speaker 1 (1:10) I was doing Speaker 2 (1:11) like a freelance, well, what I called freelance at the time. I was trying to get into the session business. I put an advert in and I was starting to get calls, you know, and I was getting a few gigs here and there. But then also I was getting into the more of the soul kind of stuff, soul and R &B and Tumblr. And I thought, hang on a minute, you know, I'd like to be in one of these kind of bands, you know. So I kind of put that aside and then put an advert in for, you know, to join a soul band. I got a... couple of calls and I went along for an audition for a band. They were doing quite a lot of work as well, a lot of clubs and stuff in and around London. Passed Speaker 1 (1:56) the Speaker 2 (1:56) audition and I thought, well, that's that for the moment. But then I then got Speaker 1 (2:00) another call Speaker 2 (2:00) from another band. They were called the Ramones, which was soul and bit of ska and reggae and stuff. as well. And they said, you know, we'd like you to come along for an audition and out of curiosity, I'll go along to this one as well. Speaker 1 (2:15) Okay. And Speaker 2 (2:16) now the thing is with this one, they didn't have any work, but they had big ideas. And also they were a mixed race band as well. Speaker 1 (2:25) Okay. Speaker 2 (2:25) Whereas the other one, they were all, you know, black guys, you know. So I thought, well, yeah, this is quite interesting, you know. And, you know, we had a run through, went through a few songs and so on. And that's it. I decided to join them. And so I rang up the other guys and I said, sorry, decided to join this other band. Anyway, we started rehearsing, bringing up all these different ideas, different songs. We was managing at the time, unlike Speaker 1 (2:55) a lot of the other bands in Speaker 2 (2:56) the Speaker 1 (2:57) UK, Speaker 2 (2:57) we had access to a lot of the US ones which were quite so known. We had all the obvious ones like My Girl and Midnight Hour and so on, but we had quite a lot of ones as well. So we sounded a bit more original that way. Speaker 1 (3:12) Right. Speaker 2 (3:13) And so that's how it all started anyway. Speaker 1 (3:16) Now, you just mentioned... This band, when it was first formed, was a multiracial band. Yeah. The Foundations were one of the first successful multiracial bands to achieve major international success at a time when that was far from common. When you joined the group, did you realize you were breaking new ground and making history? Or did it simply feel like a group of talented musicians coming together for one goal? That's great music. Speaker 2 (3:43) It was a bit of both, really. We didn't sort of know of any other bands that were mixed like that. It was a bit of both, really, to be honest. Speaker 1 (3:53) As the foundations grew from playing smaller venues to becoming an internationally recognized band, what were some of the biggest lessons you learned along the way? What was that transition like from those early days of trying to make it to suddenly performing on major stages, recording hit records, and how did that transition go for you from start? to finish well Speaker 2 (4:17) it was there were personnel changes but it was still ended up being a multiracial okay Speaker 1 (4:23) i Speaker 2 (4:23) mean rod stewart came down one night you know and uh out of curiosity he had already kind of decided anyway to go another way because he was at that time into the soul stuff as well you know right we had a great session we had a laugh you know and all the rest of it but then we then decided it'd be nice to have two lead singers one black and one white guy okay Speaker 1 (4:48) now Speaker 2 (4:49) the one that we already had was a guy called uh clem curtis Speaker 1 (4:53) and Speaker 2 (4:54) then someone that we knew who ran a music shop she recommended a white guy called arthur brown so arthur brown turned up and he had an absolutely fantastic voice first thing he he tried out with us was a thing called uh i put a spell on you right It's almost like an operatic sort of voice. We thought, wow, you know, this is going to work great. You know, the black guy had a really good voice. You know, we had the best of both worlds. So this went on for about three months, I suppose. We'd done a few gigs here and there, a few clubs and things. But then Arthur Brown decided to go off and do his own thing. Well, that's quite well documented. He became famous for the Arthur Brown, Crazy World of Arthur Brown. Speaker 1 (5:44) Right. Speaker 2 (5:44) And I suppose his most famous one was Fire. Speaker 1 (5:48) Yeah, yeah. Speaker 2 (5:50) So we carried on then. We just decided to carry on with just the one singer. Speaker 1 (5:55) Yeah. Speaker 2 (5:56) And then we... We was actually running a club in London. It was down in the basement called the Butterfly Club. And we used to actually live there and rehearse there. We opened it up as like a sort of a meeting place with a bar. We couldn't sell alcoholic drinks, but we sold snacks and soft drinks and stuff. and then we just carried on and progressed with our songs and yeah Speaker 1 (6:27) and Speaker 2 (6:28) then uh oh this was in like um what would you call it a office block yeah Speaker 1 (6:34) and Speaker 2 (6:35) the guy upstairs there was a guy called ron fairway he came down one night and he thought oh this sounds interesting okay Speaker 1 (6:43) he Speaker 2 (6:44) had connections in the music business but he said let me have a word with um It was like he was working for someone who actually owned the building, funnily enough. And he said, let me bring him down as well, check us out. It turned out there was a guy called Barry Class, and he was really eager to get into other things other than his other business interests. So he'd already got a couple of bands that he'd signed up. Speaker 1 (7:10) And