Arrival: Friends

This is one of those songs I have always known without knowing what it was called or who recorded it.

Friends was written and first recorded by Terry Reid, who toured the US in support of Cream as a teenager and then supported the Rolling Stones.

Jimmy Page wanted Reid to be the singer for his proposed group the New Yardbirds, which became Led Zeppelin, but his commitments with the Stones meant he couldn't take up the offer. Reid suggested that Page should look at Robert Plant as an alternative.

Arrival were a London-based vocal group most of whose members came from Liverpool and whose finest hour was the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival.

Friends and its follow up I Will Survive (not the Gloria Gaynor song) both made the charts, but the hits dried up after that and Arrival's members later worked as session singers or session musicians.