There are plenty of good reasons why the Memphis-based rock band Zuider Zee never hit it big. Take their name, for example, which came from a Dutch bay that was dammed and turned into dry land, as mentioned in the children’s book Hans Brinker. (Not that the group’s earlier monikers—Thomas Edisun’s Electric Light Bulb Band; Black Brown Orange and Gray; Fair Murphy Wormwood—were any better.)
There’s also the affinity that Zuider Zee’s singer, guitarist, and chief songwriter Richard Orange had for the British music of his era. Orange was enamored by Beatles-style songcraft as well as the sultry-sweet androgynous sounds of T. Rex and other glam rock bands burning up the English charts in the early ’70s. This put Zuider Zee distinctly out of step with their peers, the blues-rock and boogie bands that were gigging around the American South at the time.