Camel - Rain Dances 1977

The band's fifth release, Rain Dances is Camel at its best, offering the most consistent and representative package in their saga. The addition of Caravan-cofounder Richard Sinclair proves profitable, as do a few colorist touches by Brian Eno on "Elke." Mel Collins' woodwinds are among the highlights, especially on "Tell Me" and the title track. From beginning to end, this project flows gracefully. AMG.

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Fleetwood Mac - Kiln House 1970

Fleetwood Mac was still primarily a blues band on this, their first album after the departure of founder/nominal leader Peter Green. But the remaining members, Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, Jeremy Spencer, and Danny Kirwan (plus McVie's wife, Christine, not yet officially part of the group) started broadening the band's use of blues into other contexts, and adding new influences in the absence of Green's laser-like focus. Jeremy Spencer's fascination with American rock & roll manifests itself on the album opener, "This Is the Rock" (which crosses paths with Elvis Presley's Sun Records sides), whilst "Hi Ho Silver" is a higher-wattage shouter covering the same territory that Spencer explored with the band (sans Green) on "Someone's Gonna Get Their Head Kicked in Tonight," only with a little more subtlety and grace; and his tribute to Buddy Holly, "Buddy's Song," even outdoes the classic Joe Meek/Mike Berry "Tribute to Buddy Holly" as a memorial to the late rock & roll star -- and it was always too good and sincere to be mistaken for part of any oldies revival. "Jewel Eyed Judy" and "Earl Gray" are two superb showcases for Danny Kirwan, the former as a vocalist and player and the latter as a composer and guitarist in tandem with Spencer, in what was a pretty good successor to the Green-era instrumental hit "Albatross." "One Together" shows off a harmony-vocal side to this band that was something new in 1970, on one of the prettiest tunes they ever had to work with. And Kirwan gets the spotlight once again as a guitarist on the hard-rocking "Tell Me All the Things You Do." The album ends with the lyrical, relaxed McCartney-esque folky pop of "Mission Bell," which seemed to point the way toward their future direction. None of this may be as intense as the music they cut with Peter Green running the show, but in its relaxed way Kiln House represents the same virtuoso blues-rock outfit having a little fun while making a record -- think of it as roughly Fleetwood Mac's equivalent to the Rolling Stones' Between the Buttons. AMG.

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Badfinger - Wish You Were Here 1974

Wish You Were Here is a glistening, powerful rock record that stays true to power pop while sounding as contemporary as any mainstream rock band of the mid-'70s. It was the kind of record that could have been a hit, but due to a series of legal and managerial entanglements, it was pulled from stores before it had a chance to find its audience. Despite its relative obscurity, most die-hard Badfinger fans maintain that the group shines brilliantly on Wish You Were Here and they're correct. For one, it's easily the most cohesive album the group ever recorded -- a nice by-product of working with one talented producer (in this case, Chris Thomas) for an entire album instead of piecing a record together. Also, the showcases each band member at a peak of songwriting. As the band's most prolific and gifted composer, Ham naturally has the strongest presence, and while each of his songs stands as proof that he was a consummate pop craftsman -- particularly the elegant "Dennis," the hard-hitting "Just a Chance," and the Abbey Road-esque "Meanwhile Back at the Ranch." Joey Molland has a strong showing with the stately ballad "Love Time" and "Should I Smoke," his complement to "Ranch." What is surprising is that Mike Gibbins' two contributions are of the same caliber, as is Tom Evans' electric-piano laden "King of the Load," since they were in a bit of a slump prior to this album. Thomas ties the record together with a clean, professional production that keeps the rockers energetic without losing their melodic edge, while preventing the sentimental numbers from seeming syrupy. All of this results in a classy, catchy pop record, possibly the best Badfinger ever released. It could have been a hit, too, but we'll never know. AMG.

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B.J. Thomas - Most Of All 1970

There are Bacharach/David songs here -- “(They Long to Be) Close to You” had then been recently popularized by the Carpenters, but there are no new songs written expressly for B.J. Thomas. Instead, there’s a shift toward solid, generic, professional writers who could write toward the sound of the times without quite delivering memorable tunes. That said, they’re hardly unpleasant tunes. but, then again, the point of Thomas’ career at this point was to be pleasant, and in that regard, Most of All succeeds very well, trumping Everybody’s Out of Town. Part of its success is that the songs are designed to be pleasing soft rock -- there’s none of Bacharach/David’s neo-vaudeville, instead there’s subdued, symphonic Joe South soul in “No Love at All,” and a bit of trippy post-hippie pop in Chip Taylor’s “Circle Round the Sun” -- sounds that fit well with the dripping sentiments of “I Don’t Know Any Better.” Thomas never pushes forward on this material; he settles into its shag carpet, and if there’s not much distinction in that sound, there is at least a bit of period comfort. AMG

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Be Bop Deluxe - Axe Victim 1974

When Be Bop Deluxe's first album was released during the glam rock wave in 1974 and the band (then comprised of Bill Nelson and Ian Parkin on guitars, Robert Bryan on bass, and Nicholas Chatterton-Dew on drums) turned up on the back of the record cover in heavy makeup, it was viewed as being in the David Bowie mold, which certainly took in Nelson's thin but confident tenor vocals and the uptempo rock approach, and even ballads like "Adventures in a Yorkshire Landscape" that sounded a lot like Bowie's "Rock 'n' Roll Suicide." But it was already obvious that Nelson was an unusually lyrical guitar slinger, and in fact the tunes often took a back seat to his sometimes jazzy, sometimes metal-ish excursions. He was, as he sang, "an axe victim," but at the same time, Be Bop Deluxe's musical identity was uncertain. AMG.

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The Wild Magnolias - They Call Us Wild 1975

New Orleans legends the Wild Magnolias released their second album, THEY CALL US WILD, in Europe in 1975, but it didn't come out in the States until the '90s, when the band finally went national. Today they're thought of as an old-school Mardis Gras party band, but these early recordings reveal a greasier, murkier sound that owes something to the swamp-funk shadings of late-'60s/early-'70s Dr. John, as well as the slightly jazzy West Coast funkateers in War. AMG.

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A Band Called O - Within Reach 1976

A Band Called O were a band from Jersey, Channel Islands. Originally known as "The Parlour Band", playing progressive rock, they renamed to "A Band Called O" for two albums on CBS/Epic and later to "The O Band" for a further albums with UA. Despite issuing five albums, on three major labels, and being championed by John Peel, for whom they recorded four Peel Sessions, they had no chart success; but were a popular live act, who toured Britain and Europe. 

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David Bowie - Station to Station 1976

Taking the detached plastic soul of Young Americans to an elegant, robotic extreme, Station to Station is a transitional album that creates its own distinctive style. Abandoning any pretense of being a soulman, yet keeping rhythmic elements of soul, David Bowie positions himself as a cold, clinical crooner and explores a variety of styles. Everything from epic ballads and disco to synthesized avant pop is present on Station to Station, but what ties it together is Bowie's cocaine-induced paranoia and detached musical persona. At its heart, Station to Station is an avant-garde art-rock album, most explicitly on "TVC 15" and the epic sprawl of the title track, but also on the cool crooning of "Wild Is the Wind" and "Word on a Wing," as well as the disco stylings of "Golden Years." It's not an easy album to warm to, but its epic structure and clinical sound were an impressive, individualistic achievement, as well as a style that would prove enormously influential on post-punk. AMG.

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Johnny Rivers - New Lovers And Old Friends 1975

Johnny Rivers is a unique figure in the history of rock music. On the most obvious level, he was a rock star of the 1960s and a true rarity as a white American singer/guitarist who made a name for himself as a straight-ahead rock & roller during the middle of that decade. Just as important behind the scenes, his recordings and their success led to the launching, directly and indirectly, of at least three record labels and a dozen other careers whose influence extended into the 1970s, 1980s, and beyond. AMG.

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ZZ Top - Tres Hombres 1973

Tres Hombres is the record that brought ZZ Top their first Top Ten record, making them stars in the process. It couldn't have happened to a better record. ZZ Top finally got their low-down, cheerfully sleazy blooze-n-boogie right on this, their third album. As their sound gelled, producer Bill Ham discovered how to record the trio so simply that they sound indestructible, and the group brought the best set of songs they'd ever have to the table. On the surface, there's nothing really special about the record, since it's just a driving blues-rock album from a Texas bar band, but that's what's special about it. It has a filthy groove and an infectious feel, thanks to Billy Gibbons' growling guitars and the steady propulsion of Dusty Hill and Frank Beard's rhythm section. They get the blend of bluesy shuffles, gut-bucket rocking, and off-beat humor just right. ZZ Top's very identity comes from this earthy sound and songs as utterly infectious as "Waitin' for the Bus," "Jesus Just Left Chicago," "Move Me on Down the Line," and the John Lee Hooker boogie "La Grange." In a sense, they kept trying to remake this record from this point on -- what is Eliminator if not Tres Hombres with sequencers and synthesizers? -- but they never got it better than they did here. AMG.

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Damon - Song Of A Gypsy 1968

Singer/songwriter Damon (just Damon, no last name) put out an extremely obscure, folk-tinged psychedelic album in 1969, Song of a Gypsy, of which only 100 copies were pressed. Such is its rarity that mint copies have gone for as much as $1000 or more. There's a droning, slightly raga-modalish flavor to the melodies and guitar lines, with a gypsy touch in the percussion and questing, spiritual lyrics. The gypsy element of Song of a Gypsy is not just an extrapolation from the title, but a deliberate action on Damon's part, who came to think of himself as a gypsy while wandering around California in the late '60s. After one 45, "Song of the Gypsy"/"Oh What a Good Boy Am I," the LP was recorded by Damon and other musicians in Los Angeles, its existence barely even suspected by most psychedelic collectors for years. In the late '90s, it had something of a renaissance, with the title track appearing on one of the Love, Peace & Poetry compilations of rare psychedelia, and the LP getting reissued in both CD and vinyl editions. Around this time, Damon returned to recording with a similar but less strange album, Gypsy Eyes. Song of a Gypsy was reissued by Now-Again in 2013, just in time for a Damon track to feature on HBO's vampire hit True Blood. AMG.

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Tranquility - Silver 1972

Second and last album by this British folk rock band released in 192. The álbum features tentacks strongly inspired by progressive folk and psychedelic rock. Both of their two albums are highly collectable. 

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Yves & Serge & Victor - Cagibi 1975

Recorded in a Cagibi in just two weeks, Yves & Serge & Victor's album is nonetheless a true folk/rock gem tinged with psychedelia. It also proves that constraints are also our strengths, for example, using a packet of rice as a percussion instrument. Distributed confidentially (300 copies) to the musicians' entourage, this album has in fact never received the recognition it deserves. He is one of the best of the genre (at least in France) but above all one of the most 'American', as we are so close here to Californian productions - others will no doubt think of Neil Young and his related groups. Even if it does not have the palm of originality, Cagibi has an undeniable charm - this mixture of spontaneity, fragility and clumsiness, as touching as it is characteristic of the best private pressings - and does not fail to move. Isn't that ultimately the main thing? "somewherethereismusic#

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Goldenrod - Goldenrod 1969

The below instrumental album is full of extended and improvised jamming by this Los Angeles-based trio. It only contains four tracks. They had some mystical titles, such as "Karmic Dream Sequence" and "Descent Of The Cyclopeans". All three band members met while playing behind The Fifth Dimension and they had earlier played with Ballroom who were a pre- The Millennium-Sagittarius band. All three became top LA session men. Jerry Scheff went on to play with The Millennium and Ben Benay appeared in Funzone in the seventies. 
 

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Ry Cooder - Chicken Skin Music 1976

Ry Cooder has always believed in the "mutuality in music," and this may be no more evident in his career than with his fifth album, Chicken Skin Music (a Hawaiian colloquialism, synonymous with goosebumps). Even more than usual, Cooder refuses to recognize borders -- geographical or musical -- presenting "Stand By Me" as a gospel song with a norteño arrangement, or giving the Jim Reeves country-pop classic, "He'll Have to Go," a bolero rhythm, featuring the interplay of Flaco Jimenez's accordion and Pat Rizzo's alto sax. Elsewhere, he teams with a pair of Hawaiian greats -- steel guitarist and singer Gabby Pahinui and slack key guitar master Atta Isaacs -- on the Hank Snow hit "Yellow Roses" and the beautiful instrumental "Chloe." If Cooder's approach to the music is stylistically diverse, his choice of material certainly follows suit. Bookended by a couple of Leadbelly compositions, Chicken Skin Music sports a collection of songs ranging from the aforementioned tracks to the charming old minstrel/medicine show number "I Got Mine" and the syncopated R&B of "Smack Dab in the Middle." Also included is Appalachian songwriter Blind Alfred Reed's "Always Lift Him Up," complete with a Hawaiian gospel tune, "Kanaka Wai Wai," woven into the instrumental section. As he explains in the album's liner notes, Cooder understands the connection between these seemingly disparate styles. This is not merely eclecticism for its own sake. Chicken Skin Music is probably Ry Cooder's most eccentric record since his first, but it's also one of his most entertaining. AMG.

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Joe Walsh - Barnstorm 1972

Barnstorm, Joe Walsh's first solo album after leaving the James Gang, garnered him fame not only as a guitarist but also as a songwriter. While it's true that Walsh established himself as a late-'60s/early-'70s guitar hero on the Gang's more boogie-oriented rock numbers, it's Walsh's love of lushly textured production and spacy, open-ended songs featuring both acoustic and electric guitars that is showcased here on this wildly adventurous and forgotten, unqualified masterpiece. Recorded at the Caribou Ranch in Nederland, Colorado, Barnstorm reflects the big sky and wide-open spaces. Accompanied by bassist Kenny Passarelli and drummer Joe Vitale, Walsh freely indulges himself with fat guitars and keyboards, beautiful choruses, country tinges, and pastoral pop hooks, as evidenced by the glorious opener "Here We Go." This segues, via the sound of a spooky lonesome wind, into the hauntingly beautiful psychedelic country tune "Midnight Visitor," with elegantly woven acoustic guitars, fat carnival organ sounds, and -- of course -- the sound of the wind before it slips out the back door. And so it goes, with the nearly Baroque psychedelic suite of "One and One" sliding seamlessly into "Giant Bohemoth" (sic) and the rollicking "Mother Says." Everywhere on the album's front half, reverie and American mythological archetypes and history weave together, displacing the listener from the here and now. The openly pastoral country-tinged rock of the album's second half signifies Walsh's considerable gifts as a songwriter who uses his guitar as a dreamy, mercurial narrative device, as signified by the masterpiece "Birdcall Morning" -- one of the greatest rock & roll love songs of the early '70s. It is actually mirrored by the sadness and organic bluesy quality of "Home" and the unabashed pop/rock romanticism of "I'll Tell the World," complete with glorious four-part backing harmonies and a crunching guitar crescendo. Speaking of crunch, Barnstorm was also the first place that Walsh's classic nugget "Turn to Stone" ever appeared. In its original version, the guitars have far more edge, sinew, and raw power than on their subsequent re-recordings. Rather than let it end there, Walsh tips the scales back one more time to the mysterious in the acoustic guitar-and-harmonica moment "Comin' Down." It's another love song which evokes the notion of the past as a way of creating a hopeful present. And as it whispers to a close, it leaves the listener literally stunned at what has just transpired in the space of 35 minutes. AMG.

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Fat Mattress - Fat Mattress II 1970

In the manner of many second albums, Fat Mattress' sophomore outing was similar to, but also inferior to, their debut. Again, Noel Redding didn't take as much as a leadership role as some listeners might have expected given his prior stardom as bassist in the Jimi Hendrix Experience. In fact, he's less of a presence on this record, at least as a composer, his contributions in that regard limited to three songwriting co-credits. And again, the mood is breezy folk-rock-psychedelia with a dash of early progressive rock, though some of the songs on side one in particular have a heavier feel than most of the first album. The songs aren't even up to the debut's modest standard, however, and the lingering feeling is that of a tolerable but fairly anonymous '60s-turning-into-'70s band with a Transatlantic feel. There's a bit of jazzy influence à la Traffic in songs like "Roamin'" and "At the Ball," and there are some pleasant vocal harmonies. But there's not a single standout tune, and though Redding and his bandmates were no doubt straining to avoid being the answer to a trivia question as to what one of the members had done after playing in one of the world's biggest groups, that's what this music ends up being. AMG.

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Jack Bruce - Out of the Storm 1974

Out Of The Storm is Jack Bruce yet again taking a different path. No one can accuse this man of being redundant as he leaves behind the hard rock of Whatever Turns You On from his 1973 work with West, Bruce & Laing and takes on Steely Dan with a track like "Keep On Wondering." The problem with West, Bruce & Laing is that they should have been the back-up band providing Jack Bruce the vehicle to express his artistry. "Keep It Down" would have been a tremendous track for WBL, and Lou Reed/Alice Cooper guitarist Steve Hunter provides the tasteful licks which Leslie West would've used a sledgehammer to find. The title track is real introspection with more "I" references than found on a page in a Marie Osmond autobiography. Bruce uses the rock format to sing the poetry that he and long time collaborator Peter Brown have crafted here. When played next to his other albums, from Things We Like to Monkjack, as well as the aforementioned Leslie West collaborations, the indellible voice of Jack Bruce is found to belong, not to a chameleon, but to a true changeling. In an industry that resists change, his music evolves in relentless fashion, switching formats as efficiently and quickly as he switches record labels. While Eric Clapton achieves the acclaim, it is Jack Bruce who delivers a novel and totally original title like "One" with a vocal that moves from cabaret to blues to soul. The man has one of the most powerful and identifiable rock & roll voices, and his body of work is overpowering. "One" has the drums of Jim Gordon and another venture into the Procul Harum sound Bruce has toyed with over various albums in different ways. Out Of The Storm is another excellent chapter with Steve Hunter showing proficiency and remarkable restraint. Robin Trower, Mick Taylor, Leslie West, Eric Clapton and so many other guitar greats have put their sound next to Jack Bruce's voice, and this is Steve Hunter aiding and abetting, but not getting in the way of Bruce's creative pop/jazz. AMG.
 

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Maquina! - En Directo 1972

Founded by Jordi Batiste (bass, flute), Enric Herrera (organ), Lluís "Luigi" Cabanach (guitar), and Santiago "Jackie" García Cortés (drums) as Sisa's backing band, "Máquina!" is maybe the very first underground rock group to have recorded in Franco’s Spain, their first single dating back to early 1969.

Their first LP in 1970 had striking artwork depicting a clock coming out from a croissant, meaning that it was time to wake-up in Spain: The album was called "Why? Máquina!" and it was clearly so rebellious under a dictatorship that fellow group "Tapiman" (founded by ex-Máquina drummer J. Mª Vilaseca, "Tapi", and Barcelona crosstown rivals/friends) answered them with a track called "Don’t Ask Why". The five-piece group developed a high-energy Hammond-driven psych/prog rock with two lead guitarists, with many extraordinary musical moments given the context of those years.

Two years later, the band recorded with a different line-up (both guitarists having left, and including Carles Benavent on bass). It was a live album with a much different bluesier sound complete with a brass section (and almost all new material) reminiscent of Chicago Transit Authority. 

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The Beach Boys - Pet Sounds 1966

The best Beach Boys album, and one of the best of the 1960s. The group here reached a whole new level in terms of both composition and production, layering tracks upon tracks of vocals and instruments to create a richly symphonic sound. Conventional keyboards and guitars were combined with exotic touches of orchestrated strings, bicycle bells, buzzing organs, harpsichords, flutes, Theremin, Hawaiian-sounding string instruments, Coca-Cola cans, barking dogs, and more. It wouldn't have been a classic without great songs, and this has some of the group's most stunning melodies, as well as lyrical themes which evoke both the intensity of newly born love affairs and the disappointment of failed romance (add in some general statements about loss of innocence and modern-day confusion as well). The spiritual quality of the material is enhanced by some of the most gorgeous upper-register male vocals (especially by Brian and Carl Wilson) ever heard on a rock record. "Wouldn't It Be Nice," "God Only Knows," "Caroline No," and "Sloop John B" (the last of which wasn't originally intended to go on the album) are the well-known hits, but equally worthy are such cuts as "You Still Believe in Me," "Don't Talk," "I Know There's an Answer," and "I Just Wasn't Made for These Times." It's often said that this is more of a Brian Wilson album than a Beach Boys recording (session musicians played most of the parts), but it should be noted that the harmonies are pure Beach Boys (and some of their best). Massively influential upon its release (although it was a relatively low seller compared to their previous LPs), it immediately vaulted the band into the top level of rock innovators among the intelligentsia, especially in Britain, where it was a much bigger hit. AMG.

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John Hiatt - Overcoats 1975

John Hiatt is better at imitating Howlin' Wolf than he is James Taylor, and that he tries both here as well as Bob Dylan and Ben E. King is some indication of his ambition, if not his accomplishment. Conversely, be began to become more himself on his second album, at least on such songs as "I'm Tired of Your Stuff" and "I Killed an Ant With My Guitar," if not on the more lugubrious numbers, such as "Distance" or on the ones that sounded like publishing demos for a more popular singer, such as "Down Home." AMG.

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Moon Martin - Shots From A Cold Nightmare 1978

Shots From a Cold Nightmare is a catchy batch of radio-flavored rock &roll, even though Martin's songs can seem to get a little too serious when it comes to the perils of infidelity, which is what most of them are about. While Martin comes through on the somewhat creepy-sounding "Paid Killer," the well-written "Night Thoughts," and on "Victim of Romance," there are still a couple of the album's songs that were bettered by other artists. "Cadillac Walk" sounds more stimulating coming from Mink DeVille on his self-titled release from 1977, and Robert Palmer managed to make a Top 20 hit out of "Bad Case of Loving You" a year after it appeared on Martin's album. Although Palmer and DeVille improved upon these two cuts, Shots From a Cold Nightmare remains one of Martin's most pleasing efforts, equal to 1979's Escape From Domination in its accommodating vocal form, but much stronger than both of his releases from the '80s, Street Fever and Mystery Ticket, which fail to relinquish the same amount of Martin's personality or distinctness both lyrically and vocally. AMG.

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Nick Lowe - Jesus of Cool 1978

On the cover of his solo debut album Jesus of Cool, Nick Lowe is pictured in six rock & roll get-ups -- hippie, folkie, greasy rock & roller, new wave hipster -- giving the not-so-subtle implication that this guy can do anything. Nick proves that assumption correct on Jesus of Cool, a record so good it was named twice, as Lowe's American record label got the jitters with Jesus and renamed it Pure Pop for Now People, shuffling the track listing (but not swapping songs) in the process. As it happens, both titles are accurate, but while the U.K. title sounds cooler, capturing Lowe's cheerfully blasphemous rock & roll swagger, Pure Pop describes the sound of the album, functioning as a sincere description of the music while conveying the wicked, knowing humor that drives it. This is pop about pop, a record filled with songs that tweak or spin conventions, or are about the industry. Only a writer with a long, hard battle with the biz in his past could write "Music for Money" and much of Jesus of Cool does feel like a long-delayed reaction to the disastrous American debut of Brinsley Schwarz, where the band's grand plans at kick-starting their career came crumbling down and pushed them into the pubs. Once there, the Brinsleys spearheaded the back-to-basics pub rock movement in England and as the years rolled on the band got loose, as did Lowe's writing, which got catchier and funnier on the group's last two albums, Nervous on the Road and New Favourites of Brinsley Schwarz. In retrospect, it's possible to hear him inch toward the powerful pop of Jesus of Cool on the Dave Edmunds-produced New Favourites, plus the handful of singles the group cut toward the end of their career -- it's not far cry from the Brinsleys' stomping cover of Tommy Roe's "Everybody" to the shake and pop of Jesus -- but even with this knowledge in hand, Jesus of Cool still sounds like an unexpected explosion as it bursts forth with blindingly bright colors and a cavalcade of giddy pure sound. Lowe is letting his id run wild: he's dispensed with any remnants of good taste -- well, apart from the gorgeous "Tonight," the only time the album dips into ballads -- and indulged in a second adolescence, bashing out three-chord rockers and cracking jokes with both his words and music. This reckless rock and pop works not just because the tracks crackle with excitement -- not for nothing did Nick earn the name "Basher" in this period; he cut quickly and moved on, the performances sounding infectious and addictive -- but because it's written with the skill that Lowe developed in the Brinsleys. He knows how to twist words around, knows how to mine black humor in "Marie Provost," knows how to splice "Nutted by Reality" into a brilliant McCartney parody, knows how to pull off the old Chuck Berry trick of spinning a tune into two songs, as he turns "Shake and Pop" into the faster, wilder "They Called It Rock." That latter bit picks up a key bit about Jesus of Cool -- it's self-referential pop that loves the past but doesn't treat it as sacred. It is the first post-modern pop record in how it plays as it builds upon tradition and how it's all tied together by Lowe's irrepressible irreverence. It's hard to imagine any of the power pop of the next three decades without it, and while plenty have tried, nobody has made a better pure pop record than this...not even Nick (of course, he didn't really try to make another record like this, either). AMG.

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The Box Tops - Cry Like A Baby 1968

Searching for a hit to follow up the widely successful "The Letter," and at the end of their creative rope, in a burst of inspiration, songwriters Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham came up with the title track to this album within hours of the scheduled recording session. The song, a perfect slice of blue-eyed soul, subsequently became a hit for the Alex Chilton-fronted Box Tops. The rest of the album builds off of "Cry Like a Baby," but with less success. Songs like "The Trouble With Sam" and "Weeping Analeah" foreshadow the British Invasion style that Chilton would employ with Big Star, but the melody lines and instrumentation lack the gritty authenticity found on The Letter. And the normally outstanding writing team of Penn and Oldham, responsible for such soul classics as "Do Right Woman" and "A Woman Left Lonely," seem to have softened up their approach in order to make the Box Tops sound more pop. All in all, with the exception of "Cry Like a Baby," an album that could've potentially contained some real gems just doesn't. The 2000 Sundazed reissue adds five bonus tracks: the mono 45 version of "Cry Like a Baby," three non-LP songs from singles, and the previously unreleased "Take Me to Your Heart." AMG.

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