Fortunes - Here Comes That Rainy Day Feeling Again 1971

A fairly typical British Invasion quintet inspired by the bouncy, harmony-driven sound of Merseybeat, The Fortunes are probably best-known in the U.S. for their oldies radio staple "You've Got Your Troubles." Formed in Birmingham, England, in 1963 as the Cliftones, the group was originally a vocal trio consisting of Rod Allen (bass, lead vocals), Glen Dale (guitar, vocals), and Barry Pritchard (guitar, vocals). However, with the explosion of the Beatles and the Merseybeat sound, the group quickly rethought its direction, adding keyboardist David Carr and drummer Andy Brown, and changing their name to the Fortunes (though their first single, "Summertime, Summertime," was oddly credited to both groups). The band found its niche crafting melancholy, orchestrated ballads similar to Peter & Gordon, the Moody Blues, or the Zombies (and in fact, toured with the former two). Their second single for Decca, "Caroline," was adopted as theme music by the famed U.K. pirate station Radio Caroline upon its release in early 1964, yet never charted despite all the heavy airplay. Two more non-charting singles followed, but the group hit its stride in 1965 with "You've Got Your Troubles," which hit the U.S. Top Ten and went all the way to number two in the U.K. Their self-titled debut album was released that year, and the follow-up single "Here It Comes Again" duplicated its predecessor's success in Britain, though not in the States. "This Golden Ring," the follow-up to "Here It Comes Again," was a decent-sized hit in the U.K. (though it didn't reach the Top Ten), but problems set in after that. Glen Dale left the band in the summer of 1966 seeking a solo career and was replaced by Scottish guitarist Shel MaCrae. Unfortunately for the reconstituted band, psychedelia was becoming the dominant sound of British pop music, and the squeaky-clean Fortunes were unable to make the transition. A pair of 1966 singles flopped, and the group lost their contract with Decca the following year. They switched over to United Artists and continued recording singles, paying the bills by singing an American Coca-Cola jingle. David Carr elected to leave the band in the summer of 1968, but they continued undeterred as a four-piece. Surprisingly, the group's 1970 single "That Same Old Feeling" (a cover of a Pickettywitch number) hit the lower reaches of the charts in America. The Fortunes switched labels again, this time to Capitol, where they hooked up with producers/songwriters Roger Greenaway and Roger Cook. The Fortunes staged an unexpected comeback in 1971 with the single "Here Comes That Rainy Day Feeling Again," which hit the U.S. Top 20. The follow-up "Freedom Come, Freedom Go" flopped stateside, but returned the group to the British Top Ten, a feat repeated by its follow-up, "Storm in a Teacup." George McAllister made the Fortunes a quintet once again, but no further singles-chart success was upcoming, and the group eventually contented themselves with simply playing the British club circuit. Rod Allen continues to lead a nostalgia-oriented version of the Fortunes featuring guitarist Michael Smitham, drummer Paul Hooper, and ex-Badfinger keyboardist Bob Jackson. Barry Pritchard passed away on January 11, 1999. Shel MaCrae died on November 23, 2022, at the age of 77. AMG.

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Elf - Carolina County Ball 1974

The early-'70s rock outfit Elf is best-known as the group that gave singer Ronnie James Dio his start and he would eventually set his sights on a tougher, metallic sound, fronting the likes of Rainbow, Black Sabbath, and his own solo band, Dio. The group went through several name changes in the late '60s (the Electric Elves, the Elves), before settling simply on Elf and issuing a self-titled debut recording for Epic in 1972, produced by Deep Purple bassist Roger Glover. The group's best-known lineup consisted of Dio (who was at this time going by his real name, Ronald Padavona, and also doubling on bass), guitarist David Feinstein, guitarist/keyboardist Micky Lee Soule, and drummer Gary Driscoll. The album went largely unnoticed, as did the group's subsequent two other releases, L.A./59 (issued under the title Carolina Country Ball outside of the U.S.) and Trying to Burn the Sun, as the group guested on Roger Glover's 1974 album The Butterfly Ball and the Grasshopper's Feast. Through their affiliation with Glover, Elf was brought to the attention of former Purple leader/guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, who invited the entire group (sans their guitarist) to join forces as the prog metal outfit Rainbow, resulting in the release of a self-titled effort in 1975. Slowly but surely, however, Rainbow turned out to be nothing more than a solo vehicle for Blackmore rather than a true band and the former Elf members left the group one by one before Dio was the last one remaining until eventually leaving the group himself in 1978. AMG.

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Brush! - Brush! 1971

It's an eclectic mix of the following ingredients, and more: acid rock guitar fuzz, atonal electronic experiments, gentle pop grandeur, organ drones, raga-like jamming, avant-garde piano improv, Velvets/Dylan balladry, and West Coast/Woodstock Nation psych. They were never an actual group, but a loose association of Japanese hippies who recorded and released a self-titled album of songs in 1971, each with different personnel for each song. This band was noted for being one of the earliest musical acts by Japanese guitarist Masayoshi Takanaka, who was later noted for releasing many future jazz and jazz-funk albums in the 1980s.

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David Bowie - Aladdin Sane 1973

Ziggy Stardust wrote the blueprint for David Bowie's hard-rocking glam, and Aladdin Sane essentially follows the pattern, for both better and worse. A lighter affair than Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane is actually a stranger album than its predecessor, buoyed by bizarre lounge-jazz flourishes from pianist Mick Garson and a handful of winding, vaguely experimental songs. Bowie abandons his futuristic obsessions to concentrate on the detached cool of New York and London hipsters, as on the compressed rockers "Watch That Man," "Cracked Actor," and "The Jean Genie." Bowie follows the hard stuff with the jazzy, dissonant sprawls of "Lady Grinning Soul," "Aladdin Sane," and "Time," all of which manage to be both campy and avant-garde simultaneously, while the sweepingly cinematic "Drive-In Saturday" is a soaring fusion of sci-fi doo-wop and melodramatic teenage glam. He lets his paranoia slip through in the clenched rhythms of "Panic in Detroit," as well as on his oddly clueless cover of "Let's Spend the Night Together." For all the pleasures of Aladdin Sane, there's no distinctive sound or theme to make the album cohesive; it's Bowie riding the wake of Ziggy Stardust, which means there's a wealth of classic material here, but not enough focus to make the album itself a classic. AMG.

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Dee Dee Bridgewater - Dee Dee Bridgewater 1976

Dee Dee Bridgewater's self-titled album opens with a song that sounds closer to Gloria Gaynor than Ella Fitzgerald, throwing her jazz fans for a loop. This 1976 release explores R&B and funk territories, while still employing her strong, husky voice. She shows the amazing range and emotional expression that would make her "comeback" albums of the '90s so remarkable, while apparently having a lot of fun. While this album is out of character for her stylistically, it is still a fine addition to any fan's collection. AMG.

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Clarence Carter - The Dynamic Clarence Carter 1969

Clarence Carter was churning out classic Southern soul in the late '60s. Everything -- from soap opera-ish tales of deprivation to sexually suggestive boasts, country/soul ballads, and up-tempo wailers -- clicked. This isn't so much an album as a string of great singles, all of them sung with fire, conviction, and passion. AMG.

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First Friday - First Friday 1970

First Friday formed in South Bend in 1968 while band members were Notre Dame students, offering an appealing blues-rock sound.  One album was released in 1970 on Chuck Perrin’s Webster’s Last Word label; Perrin also served as producer.  With only 500 copies pressed, it has become an expensive collector’s item, especially without a proper reissue.  The band’s name originated with a stack of First Friday event flyers promoting a monthly mass event in the dorm chapel; the band used the flyers instead to promote themselves. While there are no other releases from First Friday, a second album was recorded in 1970 for King Records in Nashville, but not released.  A reunion CD from 1997 was also recorded, but not released.  The band reunites annually for performances. Guitarist Norm Zeller went to play with Undisputed Truth, Natalie Cole and others.  Zeller and Wallace performed on Chuck and Mary Perrin’s Next of Kin LP.

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West, Bruce & Laing - Whatever Turns You On 1973

Adding a bit of Procol Harum's sound to the mix is exactly what the doctor ordered for this superior second outing from the decision by Jack Bruce and Leslie West to merge their talents. "Shifting Sands" and the Peter Brown co-written "November Song" are amazing expressions for these artists, who break out of what people expected from them to create something important. Bruce does his best Neil Young in this "Helpless" takeoff, and West's guitar adds the bite that was not part of Buffalo Springfield, but the album jacket is just plain terrible, like the Guess Who's Road Food taken to an extreme. Had this album found its way into the sublime cover to their first effort, Why Dontcha, they might've been taken more seriously by the critical elite of the day. The underground comic art by Joe Petagno is not the beautiful stuff he has produced since and is not the eye-catching Robert Crumb work that made Big Brother's Cheap Thrills so inviting. Perhaps you can't tell a book by its cover, but that's what marketing departments are for, and the debacle that is the packaging on Whatever Turns You On disguises the on-target music finally starting to jell. "Rock & Roll Machine" is West finding a groove and, yes, Mountain keyboard player Steve Knight could have improved this very good song and brought it to another level. Andy Johns' production is a bit smoother, but he still lacks the finesse of a Denny Cordell or a George Martin. There's none of the sparkles that the Beatles' "Revolution" contained, an element that made hard rock radio-friendly. Jack Bruce, on the other hand, is delivering solid album tracks -- the Brown/Bruce/West/Laing composition "Scotch Crotch" could've fit nicely on Disraeli Gears or Wheels of Fire, but not as one of those discs' 45 RPMs. And that's the same problem faced by the Why Dontcha album -- great musicians jamming out, but failing to find their way around the maze, failing to write a "Can't Find My Way Home" or a "Tales of Brave Ulysses." "Slow Blues" is a fluid West/Bruce vocal combo with piano and slide guitar -- superb fun for these guys, but not expanding beyond what they've given in the past. And while this album may be superior to the first, there's also a complacency, and maybe a feeling by the band that the world owed these journeymen something. For fans, it is a nice addition to the collection and great to listen to for a change of pace. For their careers, it sounds like men with a lot to give treading water. The nature of the record industry -- executives wanting three million units out of the box and artists wanting to record on their own terms -- wasn't the environment to allow a West, Bruce & Laing five or six more discs to catch a wave. It's too bad because there was something there. AMG.

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Deep Purple - Deep Purple 1969

This is a record that even those who aren't Deep Purple fans can listen to two or three times in one sitting -- but then, this wasn't much like any other album that the group ever issued. Actually, Deep Purple was highly prized for many years by fans of progressive rock, and for good reason. The group was going through a transition -- original lead singer Rod Evans and bassist Nick Simper would be voted out of the lineup soon after the album was finished (although they weren't told about it until three months later), organist Jon Lord and guitarist Ritchie Blackmore having perceived limitations in their work in terms of where each wanted to take the band. And between Lord's ever-greater ambitions toward fusing classical and rock and Blackmore's ever-bolder guitar attack, both of which began to coalesce with the session for Deep Purple in early 1969, the group managed to create an LP that combined heavy metal's early, raw excitement, intensity, and boldness with progressive rock's complexity and intellectual scope, and virtuosity on both levels. On "The Painter," "Why Didn't Rosemary?," and, especially, "Bird Has Flown," they strike a spellbinding balance between all of those elements, and Evans' work on the latter is one of the landmark vocal performances in progressive rock. "April," a three-part suite with orchestral accompaniment, is overall a match for such similar efforts by the Nice as the "Five Bridges Suite," and gets extra points for crediting its audience with the patience for a relatively long, moody developmental section and for including a serious orchestral interlude that does more than feature a pretty tune, exploiting the timbre of various instruments as well as the characteristics of the full ensemble. Additionally, the band turns in a very successful stripped-down, hard rock version of Donovan's "Lalena," with an organ break that shows Lord's debt to modern jazz as well as classical training. In all, amid all of those elements -- the orchestral accompaniment, harpsichord embellishments, and backward organ and drum tracks -- Deep Purple holds together astonishingly well as a great body of music. This is one of the most bracing progressive rock albums ever, and a successful vision of a musical path that the group might have taken but didn't. Ironically, the group's American label, Tetragrammaton Records, which was rapidly approaching bankruptcy, released this album a lot sooner than EMI did in England, but ran into trouble over the use of the Hieronymus Bosch painting "The Garden of Earthly Delights" on the cover; although it has been on display at the Vatican, the work was wrongly perceived as containing profane images and never stocked as widely in stores as it might've been. AMG.

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Funkadelic - America Eats Its Young 1972

A double album and worth every minute of it, America Eats Its Young makes for a freaky, funky, and aware good time. Compared to the endless slabs of double-album dreck that came out around the same time from all sources, here Funkadelic brought life, soul, and much more to the party. With George Clinton credited only for arranging and producing, here the mad cast he brought together went all out. Bernie Worrell in particular now had a new importance, credited as co-arranger with Clinton as well as handling string and horn charts on a number of songs. His surging, never-stop keyboards, meanwhile, took control from the start, with his magnificent lead break on the opening "You Hit the Nail on the Head" making for one of the best performances ever on Hammond organ. Bootsy Collins (credited as William) is also somewhere in the crowd on bass and vocals, while old favorites like Eddie Hazel and Tiki Fulwood, among many others, can be found. Perhaps to fill in the time, a few numbers from the first Parliament album, Osmium, two years before cropped up, namely "Loose Booty" and the hilariously sleazy "I Call My Baby Pussycat," here performed with a noticeably slower, dirty groove. The straightforward social call to arms appears throughout, with one song title saying it all -- "If You Don't Like the Effects, Don't Produce the Cause." Other winners include the vicious title track, combining everything from mysterious, doom-laden voices and weeping wails to slow, sad music, and the concluding "Wake Up," while "Everybody Is Going to Make It This Time" is a lovely, gospel-informed ballad that heads for the skies and hearts. There are more mundane concerns as well, such as "There Was My Girl," a quirky weeper, and the weird if smoothly delivered "Miss Lucifer's Love," with more than one target in mind. AMG.

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It's A Beautiful Day - It's A Beautiful Day 1969

Although they are not one of the better-known San Francisco bands to have emerged from the ballroom circuit of the late '60s and early '70s, It's a Beautiful Day was no less memorable for their unique progressive rock style that contrasted well with the Bay Area psychedelic scene. Led by David LaFlamme (flute/violin/vocals) and his wife, Linda LaFlamme (keyboards), the six-piece unit on this album vacillates between light and ethereal pieces such as the lead-off cut, "White Bird," to the heavier, prog rock-influenced "Bombay Calling." One of the most distinct characteristics of It's a Beautiful Day is its instrumentation. The prominence of David LaFlamme -- former violin soloist with the Utah Symphony and original member of Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks -- adds refinement to It's a Beautiful Day's sound. Likewise, the intricate melodies -- mostly composed by the LaFlammes -- are structured around the band's immense virtuosity, a prime example being the exquisitely haunting harpsichord-driven "Girl With No Eyes." The noir framework, as well as lyrics such as "...she's just a reflection of all of the time I've been high," point rather candidly to the hallucinogenic nature of the song's -- if not the band's -- influences. The same can be said of the languidly eerie "Bulgaria." The almost chant-like quality of the track slowly crescendos into a hypnotic and dreamlike sonic journey -- led by LaFlamme's brilliant violin work. By virtue of being a Bay Area fixture in the late '60s, It's a Beautiful Day could also easily double as a hippie dance band -- which they can also execute with great aplomb -- as the wildly up-tempo "Time Is" amply proves. It's a Beautiful Day remains as a timepiece and evidence of how sophisticated rock & roll had become in the fertile environs of the San Francisco music scene. AMG.

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Boz Scaggs - Silk Degrees 1976

Both artistically and commercially, Boz Scaggs had his greatest success with Silk Degrees. The laid-back singer hit the R&B charts in a big way with the addictive, sly "Lowdown" (which has been sampled by more than a few rappers and remains a favorite among baby-boomer soul fans) and expressed his love of smooth soul music almost as well on the appealing "What Can I Say." But Scaggs was essentially a pop/rocker, and in that area, he has a considerable amount of fun on "Lido Shuffle" (another major hit single), "What Do You Want the Girl to Do," and "Jump Street." Meanwhile, "We're All Alone" and "Harbor Lights" became staples on adult contemporary radio. Though not remarkable, the ballads have more heart than most of the bland material dominating that format. AMG.

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La Revolución de Emiliano Zapata - La Revolución de Emiliano Zapata 1971

La Revolución De Emiliano Zapata is the Debut Album by the Mexican Psychedelic-Rock Band La Revolución De Emiliano Zapata.

La Revolución De Emiliano Zapata started simply as a group of friends from Guadalajara, who wanted to play Covers of Songs they liked, as they wished, turning them to their own style and interests, of course heavily influenced by the Hippie Movement, which was at its full force in the country just above them (U.S.A. of course). As with any other Band, they started their career by playing a load of Birthday Parties and other things of that type. They seem to have managed to spark some light in the hearts of the people as they quickly became one of the Top Acts in the city and the areas that surrounded it. During a Radio Contest by Radio Ondas De La Alegria (Waves Of Happiness Radio), they received the biggest number of phone calls and thus received the prized audition with a Major Company (Polydor Records). Their First Album was a huge success, not only in Mexico but all over the world, getting some singles to the Top of the Charts. It doesn't sound like the Band is from Mexico as its sound is very close to the one being made by Garage Bands in San Francisco.

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Jerry Goodman & Jan Hammer - Like Children 1974

After the reportedly rancorous 1973 split of the original Mahavishnu Orchestra, which left the group's unfinished third studio album to languish in the vaults (the live Between Nothingness & Eternity was issued instead), violinist Jerry Goodman and keyboardist Jan Hammer formed a duo, and recorded the album Like Children, which arrived the following year. Hammer was the principal composer of the album's tracks, including album highlight "Country & Eastern Music," while Goodman penned "Topeka" and the closing "I Wonder," and another Mahavishnu alumni, bassist Rick Laird, wrote "Steppings Tones." Goodman and Hammer multi-tracked all the album's songs, with the violinist also playing viola and electric and acoustic mandolin and guitar, and the keyboardist handling bass, drums, and percussion in addition to his arsenal of pianos and synthesizers. The pair also sang. Like Children ranged from the appropriately titled fusiony blend of "Country & Eastern Music" to atmospheric new age and electronics, and even touches of funk, rock, and boogie. To some, Like Children suggested different directions that John McLaughlin's Mahavishnu ensemble might have taken if Hammer in particular had been allowed a greater compositional role in the group (the first two Mahavishnu albums, 1971's The Inner Mounting Flame and 1972's Birds of Fire, featured McLaughlin compositions exclusively). In fact, Between Nothingness & Eternity did include the Hammer composition "Andrea," and when the band's unreleased third album finally saw the light of day as The Lost Trident Sessions in 1999, it featured several tracks with writing credits aside from McLaughlin: not only the studio version of Hammer's "Andrea," but also versions of Goodman's "I Wonder" and Laird's "Steppings Tones." But the band was splitting apart despite these signs of collaboration that surfaced on disc decades later. At the time of its release in 1974, Like Children was the album that revealed something of what Jerry Goodman & Jan Hammer could accomplish as full creative partners, and a bit of what they might have added to Mahavishnu Orchestra had the group remained intact. As it turned out, they too would go their separate ways, and Like Children would be their only album as a duo. AMG.

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Jefferson Airplane - Surrealistic Pillow 1967

The second album by Jefferson Airplane, Surrealistic Pillow was a groundbreaking piece of folk-rock-based psychedelia, and it hit like a shot heard around the world; where the later efforts from bands like the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and especially, the Charlatans, were initially not too much more than cult successes, Surrealistic Pillow rode the pop charts for most of 1967, soaring into that rarefied Top Five region occupied by the likes of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and so on, to which few American rock acts apart from the Byrds had been able to lay claim since 1964. And decades later the album still comes off as strong as any of those artists' best work. From the Top Ten singles "White Rabbit" and "Somebody to Love" to the sublime "Embryonic Journey," the sensibilities are fierce, the material manages to be both melodic and complex (and it rocks, too), and the performances, sparked by new member Grace Slick on most of the lead vocals, are inspired, helped along by Jerry Garcia (serving as spiritual and musical advisor and sometimes guitarist). Every song is a perfectly cut diamond, too perfect in the eyes of the bandmembers, who felt that following the direction of producer Rick Jarrard and working within three- and four-minute running times and delivering carefully sung accompaniments and succinct solos, resulted in a record that didn't represent their real sound. Regardless, they did wonderful things with the music within that framework, and the only pity is that RCA didn't record for official release any of the group's shows from the same era when this material made up the bulk of their repertory. That way the live versions, with the band's creativity unrestricted, could be compared and contrasted with the record. The songwriting was spread around between Marty Balin, Slick, Paul Kantner, and Jorma Kaukonen, and Slick and Balin (who never had a prettier song than "Today," which he'd actually written for Tony Bennett) shared the vocals; the whole album was resplendent in a happy balance of all of these creative elements before excessive experimentation (musical and chemical) began affecting the band's ability to do a straightforward song. The group never made a better album, and few artists from the era ever did. AMG.

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