The Flower Pot Men were an English pop group created in 1967 as a result of the single, "Let's Go to San Francisco", recorded by session musicians, becoming a major UK Top 20 and Continental Europe hit in the autumn of 1967. The group's sound was characterised by rich, three-part vocal harmonies. History The Flower Pot Men were a studio recording construct created by John Carter and Ken Lewis, originally the main songwriters of The Ivy League. They notably were featured as backup vocalists for early Who albums and for the first recording of a song that Sagittarius covered, "My World Fell Down". Ken Lewis departed as a result of his lack of interest in touring, and Carter joined him soon after to create a musical songwriting duo. "Let's Go to San Francisco" "Let's Go to San Francisco" was written and recorded by John Carter and Ken Lewis, a songwriting team known as Carter & Lewis. The composition, psychedelic in nature, took vocal and instrumental inspiration from The Beach Boys. The name The Flower Pot Men was derived from the BBC children's show Flower Pot Men, with the obvious psychedelic era puns on flower power and "pot" (cannabis). In the US, they were commonly deemed The Flower Men on radio airplay to avoid the drug reference. The duo licensed the recording to Deram Records, who had a hit but no group to promote it. Carter and Lewis, having no interest in going on the road to promote the record, created the group from a hand-picked collective of recording studio session musicians and vocalists. Led by vocalist Tony Burrows, who had been in the Ivy League with Carter and Lewis, the band also included Billie Davis's backing band, and for a while (though not for recordings) later Deep Purple members Jon Lord, who replaced Billy Davidson on keyboards in January 1968, and Nick Simper on bass. Carter and Lewis continued to write, record and produce most of the band's subsequent recordings over the next three years. Other records The follow-up to "Let's Go to San Francisco" was the similar-sounding "A Walk in the Sky", released in November 1967. It was not a hit in the UK, but reached No. 4 in the Netherlands and also proved popular in Germany. Carter and Lewis continued writing and recording new material, but Deram wanted another hit to rival the success of "Let's Go to