Happy New Year 2023!

One more year is gone, and what a year! Anyway, more to come yes!!! Thanks to all visitors, new ones and those who come frequently for some time.  B., Alfred, Mauro Filipe, Vasily, E.W., Snakeboy, Mara, Pete, George, Bill (24hrDejaVu), Spunkie, T.G., Terry A., Zapata, and so many more. So, thanks for sharing life around!!! Happy New Year 2023!

Grateful Dead - American Beauty 1970

With 1970's Workingman's Dead, the Grateful Dead went through an overnight metamorphosis, turning abruptly from tripped-out free-form rock toward sublime acoustic folk and Americana. Taking notes on vocal harmonies from friends Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, the Dead used the softer statements of their fourth studio album as a subtle but moving reflection on the turmoil, heaviness, and hope America's youth was facing as the idealistic '60s ended. American Beauty was recorded just a few months after its predecessor, both expanding and improving on the bluegrass, folk, and psychedelic country explorations of Workingman's Dead with some of the band's most brilliant compositions. The songs here have a noticeably more relaxed and joyous feel. Having dived headfirst into this new sound with the previous album, the bandmembers found the summit of their collaborative powers here, with lyricist Robert Hunter penning some of his most poetic work, Jerry Garcia focusing more on gliding pedal steel than his regular electric lead guitar work, and standout lead vocal performances coming from Bob Weir (on the anthem to hippie love "Sugar Magnolia"), Ron "Pigpen" McKernan (on the husky blues of "Operator"), and Phil Lesh (on the near-perfect opening tune, "Box of Rain"). This album also marked the beginning of what would become a long musical friendship between Garcia and Dave Grisman, whose mandolin playing adds depth and flavor to tracks like the outlaw country-folk of "Friend of the Devil" and the gorgeously devotional "Ripple." American Beauty eventually spawned the band's highest charting single -- "Truckin'," the greasy blues-rock tribute to nomadic counterculture -- but it also contained some of their most spiritual and open-hearted sentiments ever, their newfound love of intricate vocal arrangements finding pristine expression on the lamenting "Brokedown Palace" and the heavenly nostalgia and gratitude of "Attics of My Life." While the Dead eventually amassed a following so devoted that following the band from city to city became the center of many people’s lives, the majority of the band's magic came in the boundless heights it reached in its live sets but rarely managed to capture in the studio setting. American Beauty is a categorical exception to this, offering a look at the Dead transcending even their own exploratory heights and making some of their most powerful music by examining their most gentle and restrained impulses. It’s easily the masterwork of their studio output, and a strong contender for the best music the band ever made, even including the countless hours of live shows captured on tape in the decades that followed. AMG.

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Mad River - Mad River 1968

The dark side of the psychedelic experience, sounds like a soundtrack to a bad trip with its bleak, enigmatic lyrics, swirling, somewhat dissonant arrangements, and relentlessly minor melodies. The longer tracks meander at times, but the hell-bent jerking tempos of "Merciful Monks" and "Amphetamine Gazelle, " as well as the chilling closing lullaby "Hush Julian, " still pack a punch. The 1985 British reissue of this LP (on Edsel) adds extensive liner notes and restores the album to its correct speed (the original master ran too fast). AMG.

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Sly & The Family Stone - Dance to the Music 1968

Sly & the Family Stone came into their own with their second album, Dance to the Music. This is exuberant music, bursting with joy and invention. If there's a shortage of classic material, with only the title track being a genuine classic, that winds up being nearly incidental, since it's so easy to get sucked into the freewheeling spirit and cavalier virtuosity of the group. Consider this -- prior to this record no one, not even the Family Stone, treated soul as a psychedelic sun splash, filled with bright melodies, kaleidoscopic arrangements, inextricably intertwined interplay, and deft, fast rhythms. Yes, they wound up turning "Higher" into the better "I Want to Take You Higher" and they recycle the title track in the long jam "Dance to the Medley," but there's such imagination to this jam that the similarities fade as they play. And, if these are just vamps, well, so are James Brown's records, and those didn't have the vitality or friendliness of this. Not a perfect record, but a fine one all the same. AMG.

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Lynyrd Skynyrd - One More From The Road 1976

Double live albums were commonplace during the '70s, even for bands that weren't particularly good in concert. As a travelin' band, Lynyrd Skynyrd made their fame and fortune by being good in concert, so it made sense that they released a double-live, entitled One More from the Road, in 1976, months after the release of their fourth album, Gimme Back My Bullets. That might have been rather quick for a live album -- only three years separated this record from the group's debut -- but it was enthusiastically embraced, entering the Top Ten (it would become one of their best-selling albums, as well). It's easy to see why it was welcomed since this album demonstrates what a phenomenal catalog of songs Skynyrd accumulated. Street Survivors, which appeared the following year, added "That Smell" and "You Got That Right" to the canon, but this pretty much has everything else, sometimes extended into jams as long as those of the Allmans, but always much rawer, nearly dangerous. That catalog, as much as the strong performances, makes One More from the Road worth hearing. Heard here, on one record, the consistency of Skynyrd's work falls into relief, and they not only clearly tower above their peers based on what's here; the cover of "T for Texas" illustrates that they're carrying on the Southern tradition, not starting a new one. Like most live albums, this is not necessarily essential, but if you're a fan, it's damn hard to take this album off after it starts. AMG.

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Soft Machine - Bundles 1975

In the extensive discography of Soft Machine, albums from the band's mid-to late-'70s jazz-rock period are sometimes afforded the least respect. Fans all have their favorite LPs representing a particular "classic" lineup -- as well as opinions about other albums signifying that Soft Machine's best days were behind them. Some feel it was all over when Robert Wyatt left after Fourth (or stopped singing after Third), and it's probably even possible to find somebody somewhere who lost interest when Hugh Hopper replaced Kevin Ayers after Volume One. However, nearly everyone agrees that the band's heyday was over by the time the three late-period Soft Machine albums on Harvest were released. And yet, these albums have much to recommend them. The first, Bundles, had the feeling of a new beginning for Soft Machine, for reasons including the label switch from Columbia to Harvest and even the LP's name -- not merely a number like Six or Seven this time around. But the biggest change came from the addition of hotshot guitarist Allan Holdsworth to the lineup, the first time in the band's history that an electric guitarist would be given such a prominent soloing role. Like three other members of the Softs' Bundles incarnation -- reedman Karl Jenkins, drummer John Marshall, and bassist Roy Babbington -- Holdsworth had played in Nucleus along with trumpeter Ian Carr, and like those three Nucleus alumni, Bundles introduced him to his largest audience thus far. Holdsworth wasted no time in making an impression. Playing single-note runs on "Hazard Profile, Pt. 1" (based on Jenkins' Nucleus composition "Song for the Bearded Lady," first heard on We'll Talk About It Later) so insanely fast that even air guitarists might have trouble keeping up, Holdsworth seemed to be a viable Brit entry into the fusion guitarist sweepstakes dominated by the likes of John McLaughlin and Al di Meola. Holdsworth provided the band exactly the jolt it required; contrast Bundles with Seven, the comparatively lackluster final Columbia LP, which had the same lineup as Bundles minus the guitarist. Jenkins could be a rather mild and unassertive reed player, leaving it to the ever-reliable Mike Ratledge's keyboards to take up the slack. But by the time of Bundles, Ratledge himself was beginning to retreat; he had apparently decided to mothball his old fuzz organ, favoring full-chord fills when comping and analog synth for his solo on "Hazard Profile, Pt. 5." Given Ratledge's diminishing role, the decision to add Holdsworth to the band came none too soon. Aside from the guitarist, Soft Machine's most incendiary player on Bundles turned out to be drummer Marshall, powerful on the straightaway and atmospheric while taking center stage on "Four Gongs Two Drums." As for the material itself, principal composer Jenkins -- who had been gradually taking over the conceptual reins since his first appearance on Six -- had the ability to write sleek and streamlined jazz-rock that still managed to recall the band's past, particularly in his penchant for odd rhythmic permutations ("Bundles") and ethereal, minimalist-influenced keyboard ostinatos ("The Floating World") that harked back to Ratledge's tape experimentation on Third. Bundles might not have been classic Soft Machine in most people's books, but the band's new guitarist, new label, and new outlook seemed to signal a fresh start. As it turned out, Holdsworth would leave before Soft Machine's next LP. And, more significantly for any band claiming the Soft Machine name, so would Ratledge, the group's sole remaining original member. And yet the band's story was not over, and there was still some good music to follow. [Several of the strongest tracks from Bundles can also be heard on Tales of Taliesin: The EMI Years Anthology 1975-1981, which also includes selections from Softs, Alive & Well: Recorded in Paris, and Land of Cockayne.]

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Donovan - Barabajagal 1969

Donovan was in a tremendously creative phase during the latter part of 1968, owing to both a tour of the United States (which yielded a live album) and the chemical and social stimulation of his surroundings. Amid all of that activity and his subsequent recordings, his European performances, and the slightly late catch-up of his British career to his American success, Donovan's work blossomed in several different directions on the resulting album, Barabajagal. He still sounded like a folkie, but on the title track as well as "Superlungs My Supergirl," he was backed by the Jeff Beck Group and an outfit that included Big Jim Sullivan and John Paul Jones, respectively. With Barabajagal, Donovan intermingled soft, lyrical, spaced-out folk, hard psychedelia, children's songs, anthems to free love, and even antiwar sentiments ("To Susan on the West Coast Waiting"). The result was the most challenging album then issued by Donovan, but also one of his most successful. AMG.

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Traffic - Heaven Is in Your Mind 1969

Rehearsed and written at a cottage in the Berkshire countryside, Traffic's debut was former child prodigy Steve Winwood's first foray into the headier territory after a stint playing R&B-fueled rock & roll with the Spencer Davis Group. Rounded out by drummer Jim Capaldi and multi-instrumentalists Chris Wood and Dave Mason, Traffic's 1967 debut, Mr. Fantasy, was originally released in the U.S. under the title Heaven Is in Your Mind.

The record includes experimentation with vaudeville-inspired numbers ("Berkshire Poppies"), flamenco-flavored fantasy ("Dealer"), and sitar-drenched meditations ("Utterly Simple"). Winwood's inspired organ playing and soulful singing poke out on cuts like "Coloured Rain." In keeping with the band's unorthodox approach to composition and arrangement, "Giving to You" offers a funky groove sandwiched between tidbits of an overheard conversation about the relative merits of jazz. AMG.

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Jesse Ed Davis - Keep Me Comin' 1973

Originally issued in 1973 by Epic, Keep Me Comin' was Oklahoma guitar firebrand Jesse Ed Davis' (who began his career at 16 with Conway Twitty in 1964) third and last album for the label. It featured a killer band featuring drummer Jim Keltner, keyboardist Jim Gordon, and bassist Bob Glaub with a slew of side players featured in various places on horns (Clifford Scott, George Bohannon, Jerry Jumonville, and Howard Johnson among them), and backing vocals and notable cameos by Merry Clayton, Bonnie Bramlett, Leon Russell, and many others. The music walks a line between electrified blues ("Big Dipper"), Southern fried rocked up R&B ("She's a Pain" and "Where Am I Now"), greasy funk (Andre Williams' "Bacon Fat") freaky soul-jazz ("Natural Anthem" and "6:00 Bugalu"), country-rock ("Ching, Ching China Boy" -- a song about the racial epithets tossed his way when he was young -- and "Keep Me Comin'"). In other words, from all appearances, it's an all-over-the-place mess. Interestingly, that is exactly what most of the music press thought and it sank like a stone. Hearing it over 30 years later, there is an undeniable appeal to this music. Davis may have been self-destructive, but he was wildly adventurous musically, and he had the chops to pull it off. He could play with anyone, and his approach was deeply roadhouse blues and soul jazz. His approach to funky was relaxed and natural, and nothing feels forced here at all. If anything, this may be the best of his studio records for Epic because the groove from track to track is constant, loose, and organic. "6:00 Bugalu" in particular is monstrously funky, the horn section is just popping, and the bassline is pure bad nasty! Davis' chunky rhythm fills and changes get underneath all tinny and nasty. His solo, with a full-on phase shifter, is economical, tight, and in the cut. There are certain production elements that don't date so well, but these are such minor considerations that they don't even matter. If anything, Keep Me Comin' is a record that really deserves to be reconsidered for its sheer musical merit. If anything, Davis' forgotten legacy, includes sessions with Russell, Bob Dylan, Gary Lewis & the Playboys, Ry Cooder, Taj Mahal, and John Trudell, to name a handful; he was George Harrison's guitarist at the Concert for Bangladesh as an ill Eric Clapton's replacement. Davis' work deserves to be reconsidered and this set is part of the evidence. AMG.

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Arlo Guthrie - Amigo 1976

With Amigo, Arlo Guthrie's ninth album, he cemented his place as an important artist in his own right. Like Woody, Arlo has always tempered his sense of tradition and what's important, with a playfulness and sense of humor. The opener, "Guabi, Guabi," a traditional African tune, is as quirky and lighthearted as it is straightforward, whereas "Grocery Blues" is typical if humorous and effective Guthrie novelty song. On the other hand, what places Amigo a slight notch above his previous work is the strength of his original material. "Massachusetts" is a gorgeous paean to his home state, while "Darkest Hour," an evocative tale of love, lust, power, and intrigue, is folk storytelling at its finest. However, it's at the end of the first half of the record that Arlo does the memory of his father most proud. "Victor Jara," the story of the martyred Chilean folk singer and activist, is one of the best and most moving topical songs of the decade, while "Patriot's Dream" is a stirring call to arms to the fading protest movement of the '60s. While side two may lack the sheer power of the first, it possesses a certain charm of its own. "My Love" and "Ocean Crossing" are tender love songs, "Manzanillo Bay" is a lovely, south-of-the-border travelogue and there's even a respectable cover of the Rolling Stones' "Connection" to close the album. His last studio recording for three years, Amigo is a passionate, touching, and funny collection of songs, and remains the pinnacle of Arlo Guthrie's career, as well as a perfect illustration of his many sides and strengths. AMG.

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The Asylum Choir - Look Inside The Asylum Choir 1969

This delightful psychedelic artifact is an eclectic, ironic romp through musical styles and show business references, starting with "Welcome to Hollywood." It does show you what Leon Russell was up to before he became a Southwest superstar, and it is also a curiosity in its own right. AMG.

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Tyrannosaurus Rex - Unicorn 1969

The third Tyrannosaurus Rex album, and their debut U.S. release, Unicorn was also the first to steadfastly state the game plan that Marc Bolan had been patiently formulating for two years -- the overnight transformation from underground icon to above-ground superstar. Not only does it catch him experimenting with an electric guitar for the first time on record, it also sees Steve Peregrin Took exchange his bongos for a full drum kit, minor deviations to be sure, but significant ones regardless. And listen closely: you can hear the future. The opening "Chariots of Silk" sets the ball rolling, as slight and lovely as any of Bolan's early songs, but driven by a tumultuous drum roll, a pounding percussion which might be the sound of distant gunfire, but could as easily be a petulant four-year-old, stamping around an upstairs apartment. Either way, it must have been a rude awakening for the bliss-soaked hippy acid-heads who were the duo's most loyal audience at the time -- and, though the album settled down considerably thereafter, that initial sense of alarm never leaves. By the time one reaches the closing of "Romany Soup," a nursery jingle duet for voice and whispered secrets, you feel like you've just left the wildest roller coaster on earth. If the peaks are astonishing, however, the troughs are merely comparative. "Pon A Hill" is certainly more remarkable for the backing chorus of absurd twitters than for a fairly standard Bolan melody. But "Cat Black," a song that had been around since before Bolan joined John's Children, comes on like a lost Spector classic, with apoplectic percussion and a positively soaring, wordless chorus. "She Was Born to Be My Unicorn," meanwhile, drifts by on piping Hammond and tympani, while "Warlord of the Royal Crocodiles" is no less resonant than such a title demands. Reprising his role on the duo's first album, DJ John Peel reappears to read a brief children's story, but that truly is the only real point of contact between Unicorn and its predecessors. Indeed, in a moment of pure prescient enthusiasm, Melody Maker's review tagged the once painstakingly eclectic acoustic duo "electrified teenybop" and, had things not gone horribly awry between Bolan and Took during their first U.S. tour that same year, all that T Rex was to achieve in the first years of the next decade might have instead fallen into place during the final years of the '60s. Because again, you can already hear the storm brewing. AMG.

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Camel - Moonmadness 1976

Abandoning the lovely soundscapes of Snow Goose, Camel delved into layered guitar and synthesizers similar to those of Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here on the impressive Moonmadness. Part of the reason behind the shift in musical direction was the label's insistence that Camel venture into more commercial territory after the experimental Snow Goose, and it is true that the music on Moonmadness is more akin to traditional English progressive rock, even though it does occasionally dip into jazz-fusion territory with syncopated rhythms and shimmering keyboards. Furthermore, the songs are a little more concise and accessible than those of its predecessor. That doesn't mean Camel has abandoned art. Moonmadness is indeed a concept album, based loosely on the personalities of each member -- "Chord Change" is Peter Bardens, "Air Born" is Andy Latimer, "Lunar Sea" is Andy Ward and "Another Night" is Doug Ferguson. Certainly, it's a concept that is considerably less defined than that of Snow Goose, and the music isn't quite as challenging, yet that doesn't mean that Moonmadness is devoid of pleasure. In fact, with its long stretches of atmospheric instrumentals and spacy solos, it's quite rewarding. AMG.

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Miles Davis - E.S.P. 1965

ESP marks the beginning of a revitalization for Miles Davis, as his second classic quintet -- saxophonist Wayne Shorter, pianist Herbie Hancock, bassist Ron Carter, and drummer Tony Williams -- gels, establishing what would become their signature adventurous hard bop. Miles had been moving toward this direction in the two years preceding the release of ESP and he had recorded with everyone outside of Shorter prior to this record, but his addition galvanizes the group, pushing them toward music that was recognizably bop but as adventurous as jazz's avant-garde. Outwardly, this music doesn't take as many risks as Coltrane or Ornette Coleman's recordings of the mid-'60s, but by borrowing some of the same theories -- a de-emphasis of composition in favor of sheer improvisation, elastic definitions of tonality -- they created a unique sound that came to define the very sound of modern jazz. Certainly, many musicians have returned to this group for inspiration, but their recordings remain fresh because they exist at this fine dividing line between standard bop and avant. On ESP, they tilt a bit toward conventional hard bop (something that's apparent toward the end of the record), largely because this is their first effort, but the fact is, this difference between this album and hard bop from the early '60s is remarkable. This is exploratory music, whether it's rushing by in a flurry of notes or elegantly reclining in Hancock's calm yet complex chords. The compositions are brilliantly structured as well, encouraging such free-form exploration with their elliptical yet memorable themes. This quintet may have cut more adventurous records, but ESP remains one of their very best albums. AMG.

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Bob Berry - Heavy Berry 1971

American multi-instrumentalist (mainly guitar, bass, keyboards, but also drums, etc) and singer-songwriter with progressive rock leanings, who also produced ska and punk bands, particularly for Asian Man Records. Rare private press.

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Eddie Mottau - No Moulding 1976

Boston-born guitarist Eddie Mottau has enjoyed a five-decade career that has carried him across a dozen or more crazes, waves, and other trends in music. From a boyhood interest in folk music, he formed a team with his friend Joe Hutchinson as Two Guys from Boston, who got to record a single for Scepter Records with Paul Stookey, of Peter, Paul & Mary, as producer. The duo eventually became the psychedelic folk-rock band Bo Grumpus, who relocated to New York to be recorded by Felix Pappalardi. That group -- which for a time assumed the name Jolliver Arkansaw -- lasted until 1970. Mottau returned to Paul Stookey's orbit, playing guitar and serving as co-producer of the latter's first post-Peter, Paul & Mary solo album, Paul And. That project led to his crossing paths with John Lennon, which resulted in his working with Lennon's live band, and to a gig playing with Lower East Side music rebel David Peel. Mottau recorded and released his first solo album, No Turning Around (MCA) -- produced by Stookey -- in 1973. And he was back working again with Lennon the following year, on Walls and Bridges, and again in 1975 on Rock 'n' Roll. Another solo album, No Moulding, followed in 1977. Mottau continues to play and record, but out of New Hampshire -- where he has lived since the 1980s -- rather than New York City. AMG.

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Gary Burton Quartet - A Genuine Tong Funeral 1967

One of vibraphonist Gary Burton's most intriguing recordings, A Genuine Tong Funeral (Carla Bley's suite which musically depicts attitudes toward death) was called by its composer a "Dark Opera Without Words." Burton's classic Quartet (which also includes guitarist Larry Coryell, bassist Steve Swallow and drummer Bob Moses) is augmented by six notable all-stars: soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy, trumpeter Mike Mantler, Gato Barbieri on tenor, trombonist Jimmy Knepper, Howard Johnson on tuba and baritone and Bley herself on piano and organ. The music is dramatic, occasionally a little humorous, and a superb showcase for Gary Burton's vibes. AMG.

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