Ike & Tina Turner - Outta Season 1969

One of eight albums that were issued in this landmark year; this one is among the lesser-known or noticed. It contained routine soul and R&B numbers sung with little variety or emotion by Turner, and produced and arranged with almost no variety or flair. It was more a collection of singles than an actual album but was rushed out among the raft of Ike and Tina products that glutted the market. It has since been deleted, and deservedly so. AMG.

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Stevie Wonder - Music of My Mind 1972

With a new contract from Motown in his hand, Stevie Wonder released Music of My Mind, his first truly unified record and, with the exception of a single part on two songs, the work of a one-man band. Everything he had learned about musicianship, engineering, and production during his long apprenticeship in the Snakepit at Motown Studios came together here (from the liner notes: "The sounds themselves come from inside his mind. The man is his own instrument. The instrument is an orchestra.") Music of My Mind was also the first to bear the fruits of his increased focus on Moog and Arp synthesizers, though the songs never sound synthetic, due in great part to Stevie's reliance on a parade of real instruments -- organic drum work, harmonica, organs and pianos -- as well as his mastery of traditional song structure and his immense musical personality. The intro of the vibrant, tender "I Love Every Little Thing About You" is a perfect example, humanized with a series of lightly breathed syllables for background rhythm. And when the synthesizers appear, it's always in the perfect context: the standout "Superwoman" really benefits from its high-frequency harmonics, and "Seems So Long" wouldn't sound quite as affectionate without the warm electronics gurgling in the background. This still wasn't a perfect record, though; "Sweet Little Girl" was an awkward song, with Stevie assuming another of his embarrassing musical personalities to fawn over a girl. AMG.
 

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Carole King - Writer 1970

Writer is the most underrated of all of Carole King's original albums, in that it was completely ignored when it came out in 1971 and didn't really start to sell until Tapestry whetted everyone's appetite for her work. It's an album of its time, in both King's life and career, and the music of its era -- singer/songwriters were still something new, and in 1970, it was assumed that anyone in rock had to tend toward the extrovert and flashy to attract attention. Thus, Writer has a somewhat louder sound than the relatively lean, introspective strains of Tapestry that followed. "Spaceship Races," which opens the record, features Danny Kootch Kortchmar playing full-out electric guitar, chopping and crunching away with his amp turned way up, and King belting out a number behind his bluesy licks that makes her sound like Grace Slick and the song come off like a pounding (and good) Jefferson Airplane number of the same era, with a great vocal hook at the end of the verses. "No Easy Way Down," with its soulful instrumental and backing arrangement, calls to mind not only her own "Natural Woman" as done by Aretha Franklin, but also (in terms of New York white women belting out soul) Laura Nyro at her best, and it's also a great tune with a killer performance by King, whose wailing voice is extraordinarily powerful here. "Child of Mine" is the closest that the album gets to the voice that she found on Tapestry, while "Goin' Back" gives a more personal and elegant take to a song that is otherwise thoroughly identified with the Byrds; and "To Love" has King diving into country music, which she pulls off with exceptional grace, the song's title referring to a beguilingly innocent and free-spirited chorus that, once heard, stays with you. Even the least interesting of the songs here, "What Have You Got to Lose," is unusual in the context of King's overall work, with its heavy acoustic rhythm guitar, soaring backing vocals, and King's bold near-falsetto on the choruses. And that's just Side One of the original LP -- Side Two opens a little more slackly with the beautiful, reflective, but slightly too languid "Eventually," and the delightful "Raspberry Jam," which offers a soaring guitar showcase for Kortchmar (whose playing intersects the sounds of Roger McGuinn and David Crosby off of the Byrds' "Eight Miles High"), and a head-spinning, swirling organ from Ralph Schuckett weaving below and around King's piano, plus one of King's most playful vocals on record. The album ends on a special high note, King's singer/songwriter-styled reinterpretation of "Up on the Roof," which anticipates the sound she would perfect for Tapestry, emphasizing words and their feeling and meaning as much as music, and expressing herself principally through her voice and piano, moving the band out of the way. Ironically enough, if Writer had been released by almost any other artist, it would command a near-top rating and probably be a fondly remembered period cult item today; instead, for all of its merits, it must stand in the shadow of King's more accomplished and distinctive work that followed -- but even slightly "off-brand," under-developed Carole King music from 1970 is still worth hearing today. AMG.

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Compost - Life Is Round 1973

Compost was an American jazz fusion band that released two albums for Columbia Records. Its members were Bob Moses, Harold Vick, Jumma Santos, Jack Gregg, and Jack DeJohnette. The band was formed in 1971 as a cooperative, with the members splitting the proceeds of a contract DeJohnette negotiated with Columbia Records to make four records. De Johnette recalled in a 2011 interview that the name suited the band's makeup as "a potpourri of mixes of things: Jazz, rock, some soul and some free-form things", which resulted in "good compost music". After recording their first album, Take off Your Body, they performed as a group in New York several times, notably as the opening band for Yes on February 19, 1972, at the Academy of Music. They were offered the opportunity to continue as an opening band for Yes's Fragile Tour but were unable to do so because of the lack of sponsorship by their record company to cover their expenses. After their second album the band was released from the contract with Columbia. Both records were later rereleased in compact disc format by Wounded Bird Records.
Their second album, Life Is Round, also featured Roland Prince and Ed Finney on guitar as well as singers Jeanne Lee and Lou Courtney.

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Carlos Santana & Buddy Miles - Live! 1972

From December 1971 to April 1972, Carlos Santana and several other members of Santana toured with drummer/vocalist Buddy Miles, a former member of the Electric Flag and Jimi Hendrix's Band of Gypsys. The resulting live album contained both Santana hits ("Evil Ways") and Buddy Miles hits ("Changes"), plus a 25-minute, side-long jam titled "Free Form Funkafide Filth." It was not, perhaps, the live album Santana fans had been waiting for, but at this point in its career, the band could do no wrong. The album went into the Top Ten and sold a million copies. AMG.

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Alice Coltrane - Lord of Lords 1973

Lord of Lords, released in 1973, was Alice Coltrane's final album for Impulse! It was the final part of a trilogy that began with Universal Consciousness and continued with the expansive World Galaxy. Like its immediate predecessors, the album features a 16-piece string orchestra that Coltrane arranged and conducted, fronted by a trio in which she plays piano, Wurlitzer organ, harp, and timpani with bassist Charlie Haden and drummer Ben Riley. Riley was familiar with the setting because he had been part of the sessions for World Galaxy. The first two pieces, "Andromeda's Suffering" and "Sri Rama Ohnedaruth" (titled after the spiritual name for her late husband, John Coltrane), are, in essence, classical works. There is little improvisation except on the piano underneath the wall of strings. They are scored for large tone clusters and minor-key drone effects, but also engage in creating timbral overtones. They are quite beautiful, yet have little or nothing to do with jazz except for the seemingly free passages toward the end of the latter track, but even these feel scored, because of the control of tension and dynamic. "Excerpts from The Firebird," which uses the organ to open the piece, features the strings playing almost (because with Alice Coltrane, she interpreted in her own way) directly from Igor Stravinsky's score. The droning organ is so gorgeous underneath those reaching strings that it's breathtaking. As to why she chose this piece as the centerpiece for her own album, she claimed that Stravinsky came to her in a vision and passed something on to her in a glass vial, a liquid that she drank! Riley and Haden appear in earnest on the title track, a long modal piece where drones, rhythms, and time signatures are registered through the direction of Coltrane's piano and harp, creating a blissful kind of tension and dynamic. It cracks open at about six minutes, and Coltrane (on the organ), Haden, and Riley engage in some lively improvisation, with the strings offering trilling high-end swooping in the background. The set ends with Coltrane's transformation of a gospel hymn called "Going Home." Her harp introduces Riley's brushes and the strings, which in turn offer a root chord for her to play the melody and improvise upon it on the organ. Here the blues make their presence known. It offers a kind of understanding for the listener that Coltrane, no matter where this musical direction was headed (even as it went further toward the Cosmic Music she and her late husband envisioned together), continued to understand perfectly where her musical root was. The interplay between the three principals is lively and engaging, based on droning blues chords, and her soloing -- even amid flurries of notes -- comes right back to the root, and she quotes quite directly from Delta blues riffs and other gospel songs. Haden's bass is a beautiful anchor here (although mixed a bit low), and the strings offer a lovely response to her organ and harp. Riley's cymbals are shimmering shards of light throughout, ending Lord of Lords on a very high note. While it's true that Alice Coltrane's later Impulse! music may not be for everyone, even those who followed her earlier, more jazz-oriented recordings on Impulse!, it was obvious from the beginning that she was seeking to incorporate Indian classical music's drone center into her work, and was literally obsessed with the timbral, chromatic, and harmonic possibilities of strings. She succeeds here, in ending her Impulse! period with elegance, grace, and soul. AMG.

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Aliotta Haynes Jeremiah - Slippin' Away 1977

This trio was originally composed of bassist Mitch Aliotta, drummer Ted Aliotta, and guitarist Skip Haynes. Ted left after their debut album to be replaced by pianist John Jeremiah. They scored a popular regional hit in the Chicago, Illinois area in 1971 with the single and album "Lake Shore Drive," a homage to the famed lakefront highway in Chicago and (some believe) also to LSD, a hallucinogen.

"Lake Shore Drive", the album, was re-released on compact disc in 1996 for its 25th anniversary on a 2-CD set, along with some of their other songs. The single 1992 Quicksilver "Lake Shore Drive" CD is missing 2 of the songs from the Original 1971 Big Foot release: "Leaving Chicago" & "Long Time Gone" - aka "Long Time Coming".]
The initials "LSD" are occasionally used in Chicago vernacular to refer to the highway (although it is sometimes referred to as the Outer Drive to distinguish it from Inner Lake Shore Drive, which extends from Ohio St. to Hollywood Av.). Outside of the Chicago area, the initials are known only as the name of the drug. Skip Haynes claims LSD had no drug references whatsoever, unlike "The Snow Queen," which references the up- and downsides of cocaine usage.
The band appeared in a 1978 made-for-TV movie, "Sparrow," playing a rock band whose lead singer is electrocuted while performing onstage. Keyboardist John Jeremiah died December 5, 2011, in Chester, Illinois. Mitchell A Aliotta, of Aliotta Haynes Jeremiah and Rotary Connection, died on July 21, 2015, aged 71. 

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Cressida - Cressida 1970

Cressida was known as a British progressive rock group for the obvious reason that this is exactly what they were, but this album shows what set them apart from most of the competition -- they were fun. The songs may have been serious and complex, and the mix of organ and Mellotron with classical-style acoustic guitar and melodies derived from classical and folk traditions may have intersected with the Moody Blues and King Crimson. But their approach was so upbeat and cheerful (even songs with titles like "Depression") that the stuff had the ambience of finely crafted pop/rock -- a lot like the first Bee Gees album, which is not surprising since Ossie Byrne, who produced that record, also produced this one. The beautiful melodies, the vocals by lead singer Angus Cullen (which fall midway between Paul McCartney and Justin Hayward), the subtle and unpretentious yet complex keyboard embellishments by Peter Jennings, the guitar virtuosity (running the gamut from classical on "Winter Is Coming Again" to blues on "Time for Bed"), and the cheerful ambience of the material make this a highly seductive album and a must-own for psychedelic and progressive rock enthusiasts. Even the running times are restrained, barely topping five minutes anywhere on the record. Yet, for all of that accessibility, there's nothing art rock-lite about Cressida -- this band plays hard and works at it; the resulting album is simply polished in all the right ways and inventive in the most accessible way imaginable. And one track, "Down Down," is such a hauntingly beautiful song that it's almost worth the price of the CD by itself. Reissued variously by Polygram International, Repertoire Records of Germany, and Akarma Records of Italy, the latter edition in a re-creation of the original record sleeve. AMG.

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Sam Samudio - Hard and Heavy 1971

Sam the Sham pulled the plug on the Pharoahs toward the end of the '60s and set out playing blues on his own, grinding away to little notice until Atlantic head honcho Ahmet Ertegun decided to give him a shot in 1971. Unlike many of the acts Ertegun signed at the time, Sam the Sham had a reputation as a novelty singer -- and rightly so, given the silliness that fueled "Wooly Bully" and "Ju Ju Hand" -- so he might not have seemed an easy fit for Atlantic, but Sam, who began using his last name Samudio at the time of the 1971 release of Hard and Heavy, possessed a forceful, bluesy growl, and the garage stomp of the Pharoahs wasn't too far removed from the Tex-Mex rock & roll of the Sir Douglas Quintet. Clearly, Ertegun heard the promise that lay within Samudio and he poured a lot of energy into Hard and Heavy, hiring producer Tom Dowd -- who was riding high on the success of his work with the Allman Brothers and Derek & the Dominos -- and bringing in the Dixie Flyers (featuring Jim Dickinson) and the Memphis Horns, while finding a guest spot for Duane Allman. Half the record consisted of originals, half of covers of classic blues, rock & roll, and Randy Newman, all comprising a wide-ranging vision of American music. At times, the Memphis Horns are a bit too splashy -- their refrains on "Homework" recall Blood, Sweat & Tears -- and sometimes the grooves are a little too densely packed, leaving very little room for anybody to breathe, but there's also an appeal in how Hard and Heavy is overstuffed. The ridiculous number of musicians does indeed give the album a hard, heavy feel, something that gives such driving workouts as "Relativity" or Tex-Mex two-steps as "Don't Put Me On" some real grit. Throughout it all, Samudio displays some impressive vocal chops -- it's not a surprise that he can belt out "Lonely Avenue," but he digs into the marrow of Newman's "Let's Burn Down the Cornfield" -- and the unwieldy supergroup is always impressive, kicking out this earthy rock & roll with guts and no small amount of pizzazz. All in all, Hard and Heavy holds its own with its early-'70s peers -- the aforementioned Dowd-produced Allman and Clapton LPs, the pair of records Doug Sahm cut for Atlantic a few years later -- so why isn't it better known? Well, there was no promotion for it, and after it faded away, Samudio returned to novelties and then retired from active rock & roll duty. [The 2013 Real Gone reissue -- the first time the album has appeared on CD, also includes a non-LP single of "Me and Bobby McGee" featuring Duane Allman on guitar -- allows this little-heard gem the opportunity to finally get some overdue attention.] AMG.

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Dorival Caymmi - Eu Vou Para Maracangalha 1957

If one were to look for a geographical region in Brazil that resembles the Mississippi Delta in terms of producing a lion's share of influential performers, a good case could be made for the region of Bahia in Brazil's northeast. The list of Bahian performers is formidable: Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Gal Costa, Maria Bethania, etc. What links all of these people is the influence of Dorival Caymmi perhaps the single most important composer to come from this region.

Born in 1914, Cammyi composed popular songs that echoed the nation's Indigenous song forms: sambas, toadas (melancholy romantic tunes), modinhas (sentimental songs), songs and chants from fishermen, and singing from the Afro-Brazilian religion of candomble (practiced most widely in Bahia). In many ways Caymmi is a very conservative songwriter in that he relies on simple, beautiful melodies and sharply imagistic lyrics, the latter generally about the people and place, life and love in Bahia. Most importantly, Caymmi is a great storyteller in a folkloric tradition, a tradition that Americans might associate, with, say, Woody Guthrie. This is not to say that Caymmi resembles Guthrie -- he doesn't compositionally (although his writing is frequently poetic) or vocally -- but there is a similarity in the way he creates a sense of place and fills that place with mostly common, working folk, characters who are richly drawn and sensitively portrayed (a good example would be his songs that detail the hard life of fisherman). It is unsurprising to find that Caymmi's songs have become so beloved in that everyone is familiar with his music as if it were in the air they breathe -- perhaps it is. Caymmi is also well-known as the man who composed hit songs for the legendary Carmen Miranda, but it was during the heady days of tropicalia in the late '60s when performers such as Veloso, Gil, Elis Regina, and others began recording Caymmi's songs as a tribute to their Bahian heritage as a way to preserve (and in some cases update) Brazilian musical tradition. Believe it or not even a schlocky pop singer like Andy Williams recorded a Caymmi song. A true legend, Caymmi's influence lives on with his extraordinarily talented children, Nana, Danilo, and Dori all of whom have achieved great success in Brazil. AMG.

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Victoria - Victoria 1971

Though initially recorded in the late '60s and early '70s, the tracks that make up Victoria's sole release didn't see wide release until nearly 30 years later, seeing a further re-release on Shadoks in 2005. Consisting of a small limited-edition album and a variety of further cuts from tape and acetate, Victoria's appeal lies perhaps most in the sextet's ability to get a lot out of limited resources. Opening cut "Peace" is almost surprisingly lush and detailed, triumphant brass parts mixing in with the exultant rock & roll from the band. From there the 15 songs on the CD wend their way, ranging from gentle contemplation to fuller-bodied affairs, less fried psychedelia than the kind of widescreen pop that coexisted with it. The exact lineup of the band is unclear -- only four people are credited, not all of whom appear to have performed at the same time -- but one Greg Ruban was the core songwriter and arranger, and it's his ability to capture his band surprisingly well that ensures Victoria is more than simply a rare curio. In ways he simply reflects his time -- "Gevaro" sounds like a lost cut by contemporary Santana, while the proto-prog of "Village of Etaf (Prelude and Overture)" goes on a touch too long in the end. Throughout, singers Maureen Deidelbaum, Cherryl Simpson, and Sharon Barton -- or some combination of them -- acquit themselves well enough. One of their best efforts is one of the quietly wittiest -- "Never Knew Blues," the title of which is both somewhat descriptive (the descending blues influence is mostly heard in the verses) and an apt section of lyric. Intriguingly, some of the best tunes never made the original LP release -- "Mister Let Me Go" is a lovely piano-led country song à la the Band, while the autoharp-led "Wheels" feels almost like a cousin to the third Velvet Underground album thanks to the murky rhythm section and steady rumbling pace. AMG.

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Dr. Feelgood - Be Seeing You 1977

The Nick Lowe-produced Be Seeing You, Dr. Feelgood's first album with guitarist John Mayo, was only slightly weaker than the group's previous records. Although Mayo was still working his way into the band's sound, Dr. Feelgood retained their tough, hard-rocking appeal. AMG.

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Billy Joe Royal - Down in The Boondocks 1965

Albums in the early '60s were often put out only after an artist had a couple of hits which could be packaged with other tunes. This is what appears to have been the case with Down in the Boondocks, with the album containing the title hit, as well as "I Knew You When," but some of the other songs here showed promise as well. Produced by Joe South, the record is well-worth seeking out. AMG. 

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Elton Dean's Ninesense - Oh! For The Edge 1977

British saxophonist Elton Dean was one of the key figures in British free jazz for decades. Closely affiliated with the Canterbury scene, Dean -- born in Nottingham on October 28, 1945 -- had a résumé far more varied and than that tag would describe. Dean began his professional career with Long John Baldry's Bluesology in 1967 -- the pianist in that band was Reginald Dwight, who found later stardom under the Elton John stage name formed by combining the "Elton" from Elton Dean and "John" from Long John Baldry. Dean left Baldry's outfit and helped to form the Keith Tippett sextet. They recorded two albums for the Vertigo label between 1967 and 1969. In 1969, Dean left the group to join Soft Machine. The lineup of Dean, Robert Wyatt, Hugh Hopper, and Mike Ratledge is now legendary as Dean played on the band's finest recording, Third. Dean left the band in 1972 after the recording of Fifth. Dean's résumé after Soft Machine was a frenzied blur of activity. While in the band he took part in the Centipede project, and after leaving he joined the Brotherhood of Breath in 1973, the Carla Bley Band in 1977, and Keith Tippett's Ark from 1978-1979. He also formed Soft Heap in 1978 and became a member of the London Jazz Composers' Orchestra in 1982. The 1990s saw Dean move through an astonishing number of projects, as he collaborated with everyone from Paul Rutherford and Annie Whitehead to Roswell Rudd, Marcio Mattos, and Keith Tippett's big band. As the 2000s began, Dean continued recording and touring, showcasing his highly idiosyncratic yet ingenious method of composition and complexly staggered harmonic and polytonal improvisational inventions. His vast number of unreleased recordings were also parceled out to various labels for release, adding to an already abundant archive. Although Dean had departed Soft Machine back in 1972 to pursue freer jazz contexts for his improvisational abilities, over the years he continued to perform and record with bands featuring other musicians from the Softs orbit, including Soft Works with bassist Hopper, drummer John Marshall, and guitarist Allan Holdsworth (heard on 2003's Abracadabra) and Soft Machine Legacy with guitarist John Etheridge replacing Holdsworth (heard on 2006's Soft Machine Legacy). Despite ill health, Dean had been planning to take part in a February 2006 tour with Soft Machine Legacy; however, he died on the eighth of that month at the age of 60, leaving behind a catalog of pioneering work in British jazz-rock, avant-garde jazz, free jazz, and creative improvisation spanning over 35 years. AMG.

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John Lennon & Plastic Ono Band - Shaved Fish 1975

At the time of its release, Shaved Fish didn't attract as much attention as any compilation of John Lennon's work would have either a few years before or a few years after. Lennon had just issued the somewhat disappointing genre album, Rock 'n' Roll, and was only a year from Walls and Bridges, not one of his strongest albums, and had also grown somewhat stale as a public figure. Drawing on his singles up to that point in his career, it shows a punkier, more defiant vision of Lennon's work than subsequent compilations, which would dwell on a broader cross-section of his output. "Happy Christmas" and "Imagine" are moments of peace in the company of artifacts from his political/agitprop ("Power to the People") and primal scream ("Mother") periods, and his attempts at topical songwriting ("Woman Is the Nigger of the World"), and "Whatever Gets You Through the Night," which was unique to this LP, was a better piece of mainstream rock & roll than any of the late-'50s numbers that he ground out for Rock 'n' Roll. This collection, which was the last LP release to come from Lennon in any form until Double Fantasy five years later, was the only compilation of his work released in Lennon's own lifetime and has since been supplanted by various posthumous assemblies of his music. AMG.

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