RICHARD BARNES
Take To The Mountains (RPM CD)
Scratch the surface of early '70s Britain and beneath the beige acrylics, flock wallpaper and
badly-made cars you find a glittering seam of delicate, thoughtful male vocalists for whom it truly
was forever autumn.
You could feasibly file Richard Barnes somewhere between Clifford T Ward
and those first two gorgeous Colin Blunstone solo albums. An ex-member of The Quiet Five and fellow
traveller of the ubiquitous Tony Hazzard, Barnes was a stapled staple of the teen mags of the day
with his sensitive good looks, profoundly decent demeanor and a voice which, for the most part,
sounded stolid, heroic and winningly apologetic.
RPM's compilation of Barnes' sole LP
and its contemporaneous singles could be the album which fans of Scott Walker's TV series probably
wish he'd made instead of all those weird, angst-ridden, existential downers. However, what was
aimed squarely down the middle of the road in '71 pays ample dividends 37 years later thanks
to some luscious, considered arrangements typical of the era and a thoughtful choice of material
('It's Getting Better', 'Homeward Bound', 'Coldwater Morning').
If Barnes bashfully avoids Elton John's bluesy phrasing on
'Your Song', he positively excels on a lovely, unexpected version of 'High Flying Electric Bird'
by The Battered Ornaments – and pulls out all of the stops and then some on 'Tomorrow Never Comes'
by Kris Ife and the godlike Mark Wirtz.
Good God, what a vocal. It ends on an effortlessly sustained high G,
proving that Barnes quietly possessed a range beyond human comprehension.
www.rpmrecords.co.uk
Marco Rossi
COUNTRY FUNK
Country Funk (Fall Out CD)
Now THIS is what I call an overlooked classic that never was. I've never heard of these funky
cowboys myself, and now that I have, their place alongside my Buffalo Springfield, Moby Grape
or not-too-psychedelic-Grateful Dead records is as secure as it can be. Not that I know much more
about them now, because the enclosed "original press release, 1970" isn't too informative, but the 12
originals included make up for the lack of info pretty well.
It's suggested that this might be one of the most misleading album titles ever, but after hearing
some of the tracks such as 'Poor boy', 'When I'm without you' or 'Another miss', delivered by way
of Stephen Stills being backed by the Whitten-era Crazy Horse, I actually happen to think that these
might as well be the very essence of the mentioned "subgenre". On a bit more conventional, and just
as Stills-related side, you'll find him halfway between the 'Springfield and
CSN in 'Poor me', and the opening omnibus 'Apart of me', sounds like the best Stills/Young
colaboration that had never happened. The pair of 'Phoebe (Mourning pink)' and 'Really my friend'
is like The Byrds still trying to make up their mind whether they should take another psychedelic trip,
or the country road instead, and the Nick Drake-reminiscent baroque folk opening of 'If I find my way
(Song of love)' turns into another country flavoured ballad of the Gene Clark kind.
I'm not sure which one, but Beck is supposed to have sampled one of the tracks
on "Odelay", so with it's recent deluxe edition re-release, the timing
for the country to be funked up once again is pretty close to perfect.
www.soundlinkmusic.com
Garwood Pickjon
DAUGHTERS OF ALBION
Daughters of Albion (Fallout CD)
What's that statistic about Dark Side Of The Moon again? One in every three households contains
a copy, something like that?
The original '68 vinyl Fontana label album by Daughters Of Albion must be the polar opposite.
There are probably only about three households in the world which contain a copy, and I've ballsed up
the statistical purity of this by having two copies in my house. One isn't even mine.
Anyway, the point I'm aiming at is that no Shindig-friendly household could fail to be improved
by adding Daughters Of Albion to the sonic ambience, and this reissue provides everyone with the means
to do so. If blindingly confident Californian sunshine pop, frequently derailed by sumptuous
production indulgences, floats your boat then you'd best be hoisting your sails forthwith.
Greg Dempsey and Kathy Yesse – now there's the definitive name
for a hippy chick – were the unjustly obscure Daughters in question, but the crack performances behind
them came from the variously legendary Jesse Ed Davis, Chuck Blackwell, Carl Radle and Leon Russell,
the last of whom was also responsible for the bonkers production.
Psych aficionados are directed straight to the astounding 'Well Wired'
– which sounds as though stray cats were invited to walk across the mixing desk – and the Laugh-In
humour of '1968 John Flip Lockup' is truly peculiar, but you could in essence "drop the needle"
anywhere on this album and still be sure of hitting a golden seam of solid, hooky, lustrous pop.
Masterful.
www.soundlinkmusic.com
Marco Rossi
FAIRWEATHER
Beginning From An End (Esoteric CD)
Chart-toppers Amen Corner ('If Paradise Was Half As Nice' etc) split into two factions in late
1969. The brass section formed Judas Jump and a big future was forecast, but their
career was short and disappointing. The rest of the group, including vocalist/guitarist/heart-throb
Andy Fairweather-Lowe and keyboard wizard Blue Weaver, formed Fairweather, and inevitably an even bigger
future was forecast… and just as inevitably their career was short and disappointing too.
They did manage to score a debut hit with 'Natural Sinner', a very commercial song
with a bigger hook than Abu Hamza, but having easily put away this open goal (and here's where I mix
football codes as well as metaphors) they then proceeded to fumble the touchdown pass by recording
a mediocre debut album.
To be blunt, it's another case of a pop band chasing artistic freedom and then proving
that they should have stuck to the pop stuff. The album is full of plodding, over-produced, Band influenced,
Soul/Gospel stodge. They don't change tempo until track six 'Sit And Think', an acoustic trinket marred
by Fairweather-Lowe's irritating slurred vocals. In fact, his voice—weak,
reedy and usually overdubbed several times—rapidly becomes wearing, but the main minus point with the record
is the over-egging of the pudding. Listen to 'I Hear You Knocking', which features a guest appearance
on guitar by Dave Edmunds. Dave's own version kept everything simple and he was rewarded with a #1 hit.
By contrast, Fairweather relentlessly batter the life out of the song (and then re-inspect the corpse
several times, just to make sure), and it ends up an almost unlistenable mess.
Their trampling all over of 'Tutti Frutti' is, if anything, even worse.
After a couple more flop 45s (included on this re-issue) they called it a day.
Fairweather-Lowe had a few solo hits before becoming session guitarist for the stars, while Weaver's CV
includes The Strawbs and The Bee Gees. This album though, despite Esoteric's usual top notch presentation,
resides in the drawer labelled "Very Disappointing".
www.esotericrecordings.com
Mick Capewell
HEAVEN
Brass Rock No. 1 (Esoteric CD)
Brass Rock? Aw Gawd! More than even prog rock or heavy metal, brass rock is the bastard child
of '60s music. Too rock for jazz buffs, too simple for prog snobs and too many Goddamn horns
for metal slobs, brass rock didn't even have the cool quotient of the Miles Davis/ Mahavishnu Fusion
crew. The notion of taking a loud rock group and adding a brass section to
make them…well…louder, probably seemed like a good idea at the time, especially when American pioneers
of the style like Chicago and Blood Sweat & Tears were racking up the hits, but doesn't it say
something when those groups are nowadays remembered for wimp-out work-outs like 'If You Leave Me Now'
and 'You've Made Me So Very Happy' rather than their "horny" excursions? You see, the truth is that
brass rock doesn't work, and Heaven are a quintessential example.
Heaven hailed not from paradise but Portsmouth, and in 1970 they unleashed their Pompey
crimes onto the unsuspecting hordes at the Isle of Wight Festival, managing in the process to hook
themselves up with festival compere Rikki Farr, who landed them a deal with CBS. Brass Rock No 1
is the result. A double vinyl's worth of material (gulp), of which 80% is practically unlistenable.
Gruff, Edgar Broughton gargling a mixture of blancmange and razor blades stylee vocals are summarily
dispensed with to allow the brass to parp and riff away in whatever key they see fit, while the rest
of the group play concurrent solos in full wah-wah and fuzz modes. It's an
over-crowded God-awful mess with not one second's worth of memorable music. Endurance is the key word
rather than enjoyment. To encounter one track in the middle of a label sampler might be tolerable,
but a whole hour of this stuff in one sitting? Frankly I reckon that members
of the SAS would run screaming at the very thought.
But then...track nine 'Dawn' begins and a strange thing happens. They actually
begin playing a tune! With a different vocalist, and acoustic guitars,
and flutes and bird song sound effects and things…and it's lovely! And the beginning of the final
track 'Got To Get Away' continues the mood with some soothing cellos, not unlike the string interludes
on Jasper's Liberation album. Heaven can't resist blasting back into burple-parp mode
for the 'big finish' of course, but if only…if only.
Lovely presentation by Esoteric of course, and if names like If, Mogul Thrash and
Blodwyn Pig float your musical boat then by all means try a slice of Heaven, but I suspect that most
may find this album to be purgatory.
www.esotericrecordings.com
Mick Capewell
THE HUMAN BEAST
Volume One (Sunbeam CD)
This is the stuff. Once you discover that this Edinburgh trio's music was described at the time
as 'electro-flagellation', your interest can't help but be piqued.
There is, however, no discernible whipping on Fallout's reissue of the band's
sole album, originally released by Decca in 1970 – the Volume One
appellation seems to have been sadly over-optimistic. What you do get, however, is like a high-fibre
vitamin drink distilled from minced Edgar Broughton Band, The Open Mind, May Blitz, Kingdom Come
and Third World War.
While most rock guitarists of the time weren't averse to a bit of wah-wah,
The Human Beast's Gillies Buchan sounds as though he never went anywhere without his pedal:
it's as though he had wah-wah shoes. A classy player nevertheless with a fondness for eastern tonalities,
his idiosyncratic approach is reason enough in itself to investigate an album which has long been
a legendary artefact among hard psych collectors.
Lovers of Histoire De Melody Nelson should also be cheered by the bone-dry
production and the honest spaciousness between the instruments: the only overdub I could detect was
a splash of acoustic guitar on the headily atmospheric 'Maybe Someday'. The gentle vocals and tough,
stoner rock backing track of 'Reality Presented As An Alternative', meanwhile, now sound like the very
template for Queens Of The Stone Age.
Great ensemble performances too: Listen to them deftly tuck away the jazz-rock
intricacies of 'Naked Breakfast' in a manner which belies the fact that the whole album was recorded
in a single 12-hour stint.
www.soundlinkmusic.com
Marco Rossi
JONESY
Ricochet (1972-73) (El CD)
As a prog hound for at least 34 years and counting, I can't believe I haven't stumbled across Jonesy before. I think a couple
of enlightened Afghan-coated seers may have tried to sell them to me in the mid-'70s, but I didn't
even give them a chance because the name 'Jonesy' suggested a matey and unpretentious pub rock band,
at a time when I was solely in the market for unfriendly and pretentious.
More fool me in every sense. Ricochet (1972-73) proves that Jonesy
were blessed with an abundance of tasty prog attributes – lopsided time signatures, lengthy compositions
boasting several 'movements', wheezing Mellotron, you name it.
The Mellotron probably accounts for the fact that Jonesy are most often compared
to King Crimson, although they display little of that band's compellingly scary, black-hearted vibe.
'1958' and 'No Alternative' admittedly employ a stop-start structure akin to the middle section
of '21st Century Schizoid Man' (and its identikit sibling, 'Pictures Of A City'),
but if anything early Yes are a more pertinent touchstone. Just listen to that upfront, rattling bass,
then take on board those sweetly platitudinous lyrics and that unmistakable air of positivity.
'Questions And Answers' even borrows its scuttling rhythm pattern from Time And A Word's 'Then'.
Nothing wrong with any of this, of course – besides which there's enough
individuality in Jonesy's oeuvre to earn them validity in their own right, not least because
of Andy Bown's distinctive trumpet playing. Greatcoat-clad prog gastronomes should be forming
a disorderly queue forthwith.
www.elrecords.co.uk
Marco Rossi
THE LEGEND
The Legend (Fall Out CD)
Except for an occasional this-or-that-psych comp appearance, this is my first ever long-playing
encounter with The Legend, and I think I figure why they opted for a name change before they continued
as Dragonfly, but I can also see a reason good enough for this to be re-issued. With
their sole LP ('69 or '68 depending on the source) sounding a bit dated for the time of it's release
(whatever it was), I'm sure there's at least a song or two that must have gained a legend-ary status
in the mind of some geeky collector fan. Of the several (mostly forgettable) covers included, it's only
Dylan's 'Baby blue' that manages to capture the environmental vibe of the moment,
kind of suggesting the band's forthcoming sound. The same goes for the first pair of non-album
single sides ('Portrait of youth', 'Enjoy yourself'), sounding like punchy Who covers of The Byrds'
imaginary '67 tunes, unlike the last single, pairing up a toytown-ish ditty of a questionable content
('I love the little girls') and a blue-eyed soul number, which any of us could do without ('I know').
Of the album tracks well worth the mention, 'Zeppelin's good Friday' is as good as Rubber Soul-ful Beatlisms
can get, 'Yesterday's child' is an obvious nod towards 'Broken arrow', being a pretty cool piece
of chamber-pop on it's own right, while 'Sunny day' is like another ode to summer that John Sebastian
had forgotten to write.
I'm sure this re-issue won't get them any closer to a legendary status of any kind, but it IS
worth your dime.
www.soundlinkmusic.com
Garwood Pickjon
GRAM PARSONS WITH THE FLYING BURRITO BROTHERS
Live At The Avalon Ballroom: 1969 Archives Vol. 1 (Amoeba CD)
The first release on Amoeba Records, the imprint of the best and biggest record shop I've ever been in,
situated in the Haight in S.F and in Berkeley across the bay. (Carlsberg don't do record shops
but if they did they would be just like Amoeba.) This wonderful double disc release gathers together
the two nights, April 4th and 6th '69 that the Burritos opened for The Grateful Dead
at the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco. Recorded by the Dead's sound engineer Owsley Stanley
aka 'Bear' and languishing in the Dead's tape vaults with over 16,000 hours of mainly Dead material,
the notes by Dave Prinz tell of the torturous negotiations he had to go through to get a release.
This only happened when David Grisman traded his consent to Owsley releasing an Old &
In the Way box set in exchange for the release of the Burritos tape. (I can't understand why
the people who control this stuff hang on to it for so long. Since it's already forty years old,
don't they realise that if they hang on to it much longer either they or anyone who might want to buy
it will be dead.)
Recorded only a couple of months after the release of The Gilded
Palace Of Sin in February '69, these performances find the band at the top of their game with Gram
in great voice and blistering pedal steel solos from 'Sneaky' Pete Kleinow. A few songs 'Sin City',
and 'Hot Burrito' 1 and 2 are performed on each night but it's the songs they never recorded that make
this a must for fans. Scintillating versions of Mel Tillis' 'Mental Revenge' Cindy Walker's 'Dream Baby'
and the medley of 'Undo The Right'/'Somebody's Back in Town' show the band in great form.
As to be expected from the source tapes the sound is very good and this is highly recommended.
As a bonus two previously unreleased home recordings from the tapes of Gram's road manager Jimmi Seiter
of 'Thousand Dollar Wedding' and the Everly's 'When Will I Be Loved' hint at the gems that may be
forthcoming in future volumes.
www.amoebarecords.com
Pat Curran
JOHNNY RIVERS
Last Boogie in Paris: The Complete Concert (Shout CD)
Johnny Rivers has always shown excellent musical taste throughout his long career. Picking songs
that suited him perfectly, always having the pick of L.A's best sessionmen on his records, as well
as discovering and promoting the careers of both The Fifth Dimension and Jimmy Webb. After recording
Blue Suede Shoes in '73 with a band containing Jim Gordon (drums), Joe Osborn (bass), Dean Parks
(guitars), Jim Horn (sax), Chuck Findlay (trumpet), Michael Omartian (keyboards)and Herb Petersen
(banjo and harmony) Johnny invited most of the above to accompany him on a promotional tour of Europe.
Surprisingly only Joe Osborn and Michael Omartian declined being replaced by Jack Conrad (bass) and jazzman
Michael Melvoin. The last show of the tour at the Olympia Theatre in Paris was recorded for a live album
on May 23rd '73 and an album containing eight tracks was released in '74 on the Atlantic label.
Now thanks to the auspices of the good folks at Shout the entire show is available for our
delectation and delight.
This is a great party record. Johnny Rivers has always been an old
rocker at heart and this is basically the same kind of stuff that he performed at the Whiskey a Go Go,
which made his name, albeit with a bigger band, and what a band they are. Tight, slick but really cooking,
the ensemble run through a really varied repertoire of rock 'n roll:
'Sea Cruise', 'Long Tall Sally', 'Willie And The Hand Jive', 'Blue Suede Shoes'; soul:
'Barefootin', 'It's Alright', 'Knock on Wood'; Motown: 'Baby, I Need Your Lovin', 'Take Me In
Your Arms (Rock Me A Little While)'; a couple of his own hits including 'Summer Rain' and blues:
'Walkin' Blues' and a ten minute version of 'John Lee Hooker' which ends the concert and really gives
the band a chance to stretch and show their mettle. The original album was never a favourite of mine.
It had no flow, seemed truncated and I always thought it should have been a double. This release puts
the record straight so to speak and captures the man and his unique band at the top of their form.
Play loud and enjoy.
www.shoutfactory.com
Pat Curran
THE SOUND OF FEELING
Up Into Silence (Sunbeam CD)
On this career-comprehensive compilation, The Sound Of Feeling are described as "one of the most far-out
vocal groups of all time", and you'd have to say that this is no idle boast.
Imagine how The Swingle Singers would have sounded had they been
formed by Owsley, and had they met at some kind of groovy sex, drugs and astrology party attended
by some of the finest jazz musicians on the West Coast.
Forgive me. I'm being overtly flip and reductive here, and I
genuinely wouldn't want to do this marvellous music an injustice. Formed by pianist Oliver Nelson
and fronted by twin sisters and vocal valkyries Alice and Rhae Bielfeldt, The Sound Of Feeling were
seriously out there, yet anchored by jazz-tutored chops way beyond the comprehension of most of their
rock and pop contemporaries.
At their most accessible ('My Favourite Things', 'Waltz Without Words',
'Who Knows What Love Is?') they sound like one of those sun-dappled "whole day compressed into three minutes"
montages in '60s films where a grinning couple drive off in an E-Type, make faces at zoo animals,
leap in and out of fountains and snog on the beach.
Elsewhere ('Circe Revisited', 'Phrases'), it's fucking full-on,
microtonal avant-garde – like Ornette Coleman with voices. Their version of 'Hurdy Gurdy Man'
is also extraordinary, sounding like the mind of a schizophrenic dimly remembering the song while being
assailed by warring voices.
Exhilaratingly weird and brainy – strongly recommended to those of you whose tastes run towards
the challenging and abstruse.
www.soundlinkmusic.com
Marco Rossi
VARIOUS ARTISTS
Lost Souls Vol. 1: Arkansas (Psych of the South CD)
You might think that since the dawn of the '80s, all the good '60s garage and psych had been
compiled and reissued more than once. You'd be wrong. This 79 minute long, 29 track comp
is choc full of great records you've never heard with a sprinkling of those you may well have.
Given these are recordings by local groups on bespoke labels, you might expect a definite lo-fi experience.
Although this is discernable to an extent on some, the sheer quality and performance of the majority
of the songs are quite amazing.
Along with local 45s, there's a smattering of acetates and master tape dubs such as the excellent
LD Mitchell & The Amalgamated Taxi Cab Service's 'Planet of Union' which serves to make this a rich
and satisfying experience. Styles range from garage rock and pop through more soulful expressions to psych.
Dating from '65 –'71, these recordings provide a rewarding overview of the aural soundscape of Arkansas
in the '60s, a state that does not perhaps immediately suggest the apparent richness of its scene
but which is convincingly delivered here.
My only gripe is the miniscule sized liner notes crammed into the CD insert. Even the sharpest-eyed
readers will be left blinking, Elmer Fudd-like to regain focus after the strain of absorbing them.
Otherwise, this is a great package and compiler Harold Orr, is to be congratulated. He is clearly
a man with a mission and I look forward to Volume 2 with relish.
www.psychofthesouth.com
Paul Martin
VARIOUS ARTISTS
Phantom Guitars: a cool collection of twangin' guitar instrumentals from the UK 1961-1964
(Psychic Circle CD)
In the hiatus that followed the end of the first flush of rock 'n' roll and preceded the advent of
the beat boom, there was The Shadows. Here we have a collection of 25 wannabe Han B Marvins stepping
on Brison echo units and vibrating their Bigbsby like tremelo arms for all they're worth.
Collectively it makes a jolly good sound as well. I don't know if this is the first time
British non-Shadows or Meek protégé guitar instro groups have been compiled but it's effective
in two ways at least. Firstly it highlights very clearly the differences between the British
and American models of the same genre, or why The Shadows were not The Ventures of Dick Dale et al.
There's a definite production style (maybe the way orchestration is so often included) that makes
the British stuff different.
Secondly, it is the only place I have heard a preponderance of that hybrid instrument the old Fender
six string bass. Pitched an octave lower than a lead guitar, it was too low to be a lead guitar,
but still to high to be a bass, it is most often associated with Duane Eddy or in the UK, Jet Harris.
Here it turns up as the lead instrument on a fair number of the inclusions, most notably and effectively
on Bobby Taylor's 'Temptation'.
Other 'who-were-theys?' include The Gimmicks, Group X, Rhet Stoller, The Planets, The Hunters and
The Phantoms. Everyone a little gem in its own way. The comp is great fun and offers an intriguing
aural insight into this style of music, that has thus far I believe, been overly ignored.
www.soundlinkmusic.com
Paul Martin
