Seatrain - Watch 1973

Roots-fusion combo Seatrain formed from the ashes of the Blues Project -- following the exits of the New York-based group's other members. Flutist/bassist Andy Kulberg and drummer Roy Blumenfeld relocated to Marin County, CA, forming a new lineup with vocalist Jim Roberts, ex-Mystery Trend guitarist John Gregory, former Jim Kweskin Jug Band violinist Richard Greene, and saxophonist Don Kretmar. Though the group's 1968 album, Planned Obsolescence, was issued under the Blues Project name out of contractual obligations, the sextet immediately rechristened itself Seatrain to release a self-titled 1969 LP highlighted by their unique blend of rock, bluegrass, folk, and blues. A series of roster changes plagued the group in the months to follow, however, and in 1970 Seatrain -- now comprising Kulberg, Roberts and Greene in addition to keyboardist Lloyd Baskin, drummer Larry Atamanuik, and former Earth Opera guitarist Peter Rowan -- released their second album, also eponymously-titled, scoring a minor hit with the single "13 Questions." The George Martin-produced Marblehead Messenger followed a year later, with Greene and Rowan soon exiting to join Muleskinner; Roberts and Atamanuik left Seatrain as well, with the latter eventually resurfacing in Emmylou Harris' Nash Ramblers. The remaining duo of Kulberg and Baskin recruited guitarist Peter Walsh, keyboardist Bill Elliot, and drummer Julio Coronado for one final LP, 1973's Watch. AMG.

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Jimmy Carter & Dallas County Green - Summer Brings the Sunshine 1973

Jimmy Carter and the Dallas County Green were an American band from the 1970s. "Don't let the postcard-generic cover art fool you, Summer Brings The Sunshine stands head and shoulders above nearly any major label country rock album crowding mid-'70s record bins. The album is a blend of country rock, folk, and West Coast rock influences, featuring harmonies reminiscent of The Mamas & The Papas, and guitar work evoking the Allman Brothers and the Grateful Dead.

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Tommy James & The Shondells - Gettin’ Together 1967

The title track to the Tommy James & the Shondells album Gettin' Together -- resplendent in its Spencer Davis Group-meets-Every Mother's Son flavors -- reached the Top 20 in September of 1967, the fourth chart song for the group that year. Ritchie Cordell and Bo Gentry follow up the I Think We're Alone Now project with light pop material initiated on "It's Only Love," the hit from the Shondells' second effort, only this time around with a bit more maturity to it, not to mention riffs culled from the Top 40 of 1966 and 1967 radio. There's nothing here on the level of "Mirage" or "Mony Mony," but the album still has merit. Songwriter G. Illingsworth brings one co-write, a very '60s-sounding "There's So Much Love All Around Me" -- he would return with three more collaborations on Mony Mony listed as G. Illingworth. The pretty "Real Girl" by Darlene and Darla Landen also fits in very well with its surroundings. Ritchie Cordell writes or has a hand in half of the 12 songs, and boy are they compact -- "Some Happy Day" clocks in at two minutes and 16 seconds, the interesting Cordell solo piece "Sometimes I'm Up, (Sometimes I'm Down)" clocks in at under two minutes at one minute and 55 seconds, and the Tommy James/Mike Vale composition "Wish It Were You" (one of four titles the singer and bassist helped put together) is a mere two minutes and one second long. The duo's "You Better Watch Out" lifts liberally from the Yardbirds' summer of 1966 hit "Over, Under, Sideways, Down" and gives a hint as to where the band was heading creatively -- not to mention which groups were truly influencing the Shondells' music. Despite the quintet's growth, this album and that which followed, Mony Mony, were teen-oriented bordering on bubblegum, though "Some Happy Day" here does have the experimentation started by "Mirage" and is one of the more clever pieces. "Love's Closin' in on Me" is an up-tempo and fun excursion by producers Gentry and Cordell along with Tommy James and Mike Vale. Short and sweet confection is the rule coloring the third of four albums with Ritchie Cordell's participation. On their own a little over a year later, James and the boys would write, arrange, and produce the classic "Crimson & Clover" 45 rpm and long-player with only one outside song, "Do Something to Me," by the songwriters who wrote the second track on this LP, Calvert, Marzano, and Naumann. The creative sparks on Gettin' Together are a good study in the evolution of a pop star as well as a unique look at '60s record production. It's a listenable and important piece to the Shondells' puzzle. AMG.

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The Id - The Inner Sounds of the ID 1967

The lone album by the Id, 1967's The Inner Sounds of the Id, came together when producer Arnold Sukonick decided to make a concept album centered around Freud's notion of the Id. He gathered up a tightknit crew of studio vets who included guitarist Jerry Cole and bassist Glenn Cass and set them loose to come up with songs. What they came back with doesn't have much to do with the Id, but it does have all sorts of garage rock toughness, psychedelic frippery, and left-field weirdness to make it a prime example of late-'60s indulgence. While most of the songs could probably have had a home on the soundtrack of a biker movie, or in the case of the pounding dance track "The Rake," a particularly lurid nightclub scene, some have a nice bit of folk-rock jangle, Stones-y sneer, almost bubblegummy hooks ("Baby Eyes") or, in many cases, enough sitar to make Ravi Shankar blush. It's a weird balance of tones and subgenres, one that makes space for both the bratty put downs of "Just Who" and the theatrical Baroque punk of "Butterfly Kiss." Not to mention the epic title track which meanders through many long minutes of sitar picking and off-beat jamming with over-the-top narration by Shindig! producer Jack Good layered on top before breaking out into a reprise of "The Rake." It's a truly silly, totally charming mock psychedelic excursion that's somehow topped in the weirdness stakes by the album's shining moment of brilliance "Boil the Kettle, Mother." This gem is a biker rock rave-up with Cole shredding his fingers and speaker cones as the vocalist delivers a devilishly hissy, wacky incantation. It's a wonder that song hasn't shown up more on garage rock or psychedelic compilations over the years as it has more pizazz than 99-percent of the songs that can traditionally be found there. Perhaps it wasn't in demand due to the reputation the album seems to have collected over the years as some kind of psychedelic cash-in instead of the obscuro classic it is. Sure, it was a cynical move by the producer to make hay while the psychedelic sun shined, and the Id aren't really a band, but more a diversion for the studio cats. The results bely their origins and all that should be judged in the end is the music, and The Inner Sounds of the Id is a gas from beginning to end. AMG.

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Ramases - Space Hymns 1971

Although Ramases' debut album is best known today for featuring the infant 10cc as accompanying musicians (the 1990 Repertoire reissue even flags their involvement on the front cover), it is, in fact, deserving of considerably more attention than even that merits. Insistent, percolating rhythms float across a lightly funky soundscape, building with an intensity that ebbs and flows with every track and begging comparison with some of the other, darker folk devils that danced around the fringes of the early-'70s British underground. Comus, Gravy Train, and Dr. Strangely Strange all inhabit similar musical caverns, even as they strained toward new peaks of uniqueness, and Ramases shares that ambition -- and occasionally even surpasses it. The opening "Lifechild" sets the scene, one of two songs (the other is "Balloon," later in the set) that all but strap you aboard the spacecraft blasting off from Roger Dean's excellent sleeve design. From there, the journey does occasionally stray into territory that 10cc would enlarge upon -- or that they had already visited via their earlier Hotlegs excursions: "Oh Mister" is certainly the disinherited second cousin of "Um Wah Um Who," while "And the Whole World" could easily have become one of those insidious little ballads that Kevin Godley used to sing so sweetly. Again, however, it is misleading to emphasize such connections -- Space Hymns was Ramases' show from start to finish, a mass of musical eccentricities that spend the entire album colliding with one another, without once disintegrating into chaos or nonsense. A beautifully atmospheric album, then, Space Hymns remains one of the most musically and lyrically intriguing releases of an age where darkness and atmosphere genuinely meant something to their exponents. . AMG.

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The Joachim Kühn Group - Bold Music 1969

The title Bold Music says everything and nothing, this is a challenging and ambitious avant-jazz date that features Joachim Kühn tackling everything from piano to alto sax to antelope horn. It's nevertheless most audacious for tempering its outré leanings with soulful, melodic grooves and insistent rhythms that make the music more accessible and more idiosyncratic. Working in collaboration with bassist/cellist Jean-François Jenny-Clark, drummer Stu Martin and percussionist Jacques Thollot, Kühn fuses improvisational skronk and sound-library smoothness to make a record that occupies both extremes of the MPS label sound at the same time. Somehow, Bold Music is both free and easy, and that's a rare feat indeed. AMG.

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Ray Charles - Hallelujah I Love Her So! 1957

Ray Charles was the musician most responsible for developing soul music. Singers like Sam Cooke and Jackie Wilson also did a great deal to pioneer the form, but Charles did even more to devise a new form of Black pop by merging '50s R&B with gospel-powered vocals, adding plenty of flavor from contemporary jazz, blues, and (in the '60s) country. Then there was his singing; his style was among the most emotional and easily identifiable of any 20th century performer, up there with the likes of Elvis and Billie Holiday. He was also a superb keyboard player, arranger, and bandleader. The brilliance of his 1950s and '60s work, however, can't obscure the fact that he made few classic tracks after the mid-'60s, though he recorded often and performed until the year before his death. AMG.

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Yays & Nays - Yays & Nays 1968

Imagine if one of those middling wholesome boy-girl combos of the commercial folk revival circa 1963 had suddenly been transported five years in the future. Then imagine they found they needed to adapt themselves to late-'60s trends as best as possible if they wanted to make an album, regardless of how awkward they might have sounded. That's about what you get with this mighty obscure LP, in which the three-man, three-woman combo fuse rather catchy early-'60s style troubadour "gotta travel on" folk-pop (with a hint of country) with more contemporary folk-pop-rock arrangements, some of which even verge on garage rock rawness. It sounds kind of ridiculous much of the time, especially when the lead vocals are delivered by a macho dude who seems to be trying to blend Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley, but just ends up sounding like the square guy trying to crash a suburban party that can't decide whether to be a hootenanny or a love-in. For all that, though, the songs have their catchy elements, never more so on the most garage-folk-rockish cut, "Gotta Keep Travelling." Other cuts show some surprising stylistic versatility, with hints of sentimental early-'60s pop/rock surfacing in "Contrary Mary" and "Easy Woman" (which could almost pass for a Lee Hazlewood-Nancy Sinatra duet tune if not for the inferior vocals), and pure early-'60s commercial hootenanny folk ("Call Me a Dog"). It wasn't remotely like what was happening in the pop scene at the time of its release, but that's part of what makes it such an interesting if flawed curiosity, and certainly makes it stand out in a sea of far more predictable obscure LP releases from the same era. AMG.

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Bonnie Raitt - Bonnie Raitt 1971

The astounding thing about Bonnie Raitt's blues album isn't that it's the work of a preternaturally gifted blues woman, it's that Raitt doesn't choose to stick to the blues. She's decided to blend her love of classic folk blues with folk music, including new folk-rock tunes, along with a slight R&B, New Orleans, and jazz bent and a mellow Californian vibe. Surely, Bonnie Raitt is a record of its times, as much as Jackson Browne's first album is, but with this, she not only sketches out the blueprint for her future recordings, but for the roots music that would later be labeled as Americana. The reason that Bonnie Raitt works is that she is such a warm, subtle singer. She never oversells these songs, she lays back and sings them with heart and wonderfully textured reading. Her singing is complemented by her band, who is equally as warm, relaxed, and engaging. This is music that goes down so easy, it's only on the subsequent plays that you realize how fully realized and textured it is. A terrific debut that has only grown in stature since its release. AMG.

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J.J. Cale - Troubadour 1976

Producer Audie Ashworth introduced some different instruments, notably vibes and what sound like horns (although none are credited), for a slightly altered sound on Troubadour. But J.J. Cale's albums are so steeped in his introspective style that they become interchangeable. If you like one of them, chances are you'll want to have them all. This one is notable for introducing "Cocaine," which Eric Clapton covered on his Slowhand album a year later. AMG.

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James Cotton - 100% Cotton 1974

The ebullient, roly-poly Chicago harp wizard was at his zenith in 1974, when this cooking album was issued on Buddah. Matt "Guitar" Murphy matched Cotton note for zealous note back then, leading to fireworks aplenty on the non-stop "Boogie Thing," a driving "How Long Can a Fool Go Wrong," and the fastest "Rocket 88" you'll ever take a spin in. AMG.

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Horses - Horses 1969

Not exactly the canyon rock Holy Grail its muso reputation would indicate, Horses' lone LP is nevertheless an intriguing curio -- more visceral and aggressive than its White Whale label origins might suggest, the record also boasts a psychedelic pop dimension far more defined and dominant than is common within the country-rock canon, no doubt an extension of songwriters/producers John Carter and Tim Gilbert's previous project, the Strawberry Alarm Clock. The problem is the songs themselves -- the memorable opener "Freight Train" notwithstanding, much of Horses is listless and uninvolving, with performances that settle for atmosphere over energy. Rev-Ola's exemplary 2003 CD reissue features remastered sound, comprehensive liner notes (which definitively prove that Horses singer Don Johnson was in fact not the future Miami Vice star), and both sides of the sole White Whale single by the Rainy Daze, a pre-Horses combo featuring Carter and Gilbert. AMG.

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Amon Düül II - Tanz der Lemminge 1971

There aren't many double art-rock albums from the early '70s that have stood the test of time, but then again, there aren't many albums like Tanz, and there certainly aren't many groups like Amon Düül II. While exact agreement over which of their classic albums is the absolute standout may never be reached, in terms of ambition combined with good musicianship and good humor, the group's third album, is probably the best candidate still. The musical emphasis is more on expansive arrangements and a generally gentler, acoustic or soft electric vibe; the brain-melting guitar from Yeti isn't as prominent on Tanz, for example, aside from the odd freakout here and there. You will find lengthy songs divided up into various movements, but with titles like "Dehypnotized Toothpaste" and "Overheated Tiara," po-faced seriousness is left at the door. The music isn't always wacky per se, but knowing that the group can laugh at itself is a great benefit. The first three tracks each take up a side of vinyl on the original release, and all are quite marvelous. "Syntelman's March of the Roaring Seventies" works through a variety of acoustic parts, steering away from folksiness for a more abstract, almost playfully classical sense of space and arrangement, before concluding with a brief jam. "Restless Skylight-Transistor Child" is more fragmented, switching between aggressive (and aggressively weird) and subtle passages. One part features Meid and Knaup singing over an arrangement of guitars, synths and mock choirs that's particularly fine, and quite trippy to boot. "Chamsin Soundtrack" exchanges variety for a slow sense of mystery and menace, with instruments weaving in and out of the mix while never losing the central feel of the song. Three briefer songs close out the record, a nice way to get in some quick grooves at the end. AMG.

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Ellie Pop - Ellie Pop 1968

Ellie Pop's sole 1968 LP has always been a bit of an enigma. Hailing from Roseville, Michigan, the band enjoyed some regional success, even playing Detroit's Grande Ballroom on a bill with Blood, Sweat & Tears and Iggy Pop. Made up of high school friends, the group's main lineup featured Bill Long on lead guitar, George Kouri (listed as George Dunn) on vocals and keyboards, Doug Kouri (as Doug Koun) on bass, and Len Gervasi (bass, vocals). Not listed but also members of the band at various times were Wayne Kolar on drums, Rick Chaff on keyboards and vocals, and Julian Evola on drums. Together, they played a hooky brand of guitar-centric melodic pop heavily indebted to the British Invasion style of the Beatles and the Kinks. While essentially a Detroit band, they somehow managed to grab the attention of New York record executive Bob Shad's Mainstream Records. Founded in 1964, Mainstream was home to a bevy of jazz artists, but also other rock and soul acts, including Big Brother and the Holding Company and fellow Midwesterners the Amboy Dukes. Ellie Pop were a perfect fit for the label's burgeoning roster of evocatively named psych-pop bands like the Bohemian Vendetta, the Jelly Bean Bandits, and the Tangerine Zoo. Although released in 1968, one gets the feeling that Ellie Pop might have been recorded a few years earlier (between the release of the Beatles' Help! and Revolver), just before acid and other psychedelic drugs really took over the scene. Songs like the opening "Seven North Frederick," "Winner Loser," and "Can't Be Love" showcase the band's knack for pairing warm group harmonies with an undercurrent of crackling Fender guitar and tube-amp soul swagger. You wouldn't really call this bubblegum pop, but cuts like "Whatcha Gonna Do" have a buoyant, AM radio charm. There's even a hint of fuzz-tone Indian classical music in the guitar solo at the start of "Caught in the Rain." Particularly compelling is "Remembering (Sunnybrook)," a jazzy, sun-dappled song about growing old and looking back on one's youth that displays some remarkably sophisticated time-signature and feel changes. Sadly, as with many of their Mainstream Records peers, Ellie Pop only stayed together for a short time after the release of their album. AMG.

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Kaleidoscope - Bernice 1970

Kaleidoscope were arguably the most eclectic band of the psychedelic era, weaving together folk, blues, Middle Eastern, and acid more often and more seamlessly than any other musicians. The California group were formed under the nucleus of multi-instrumentalists David Lindley and Chris Darrow in the mid-'60s. Adding fiddle, banjo, and various exotic string instruments such as the oud and saz to the traditional rock lineup, Kaleidoscope complemented their experimental sounds with taut and witty (if lyrically eccentric) songwriting. Other important members were Solomon Feldthouse, who specialized in the Turkish-style instruments, and Chester Crill, who, to make documentation just that much more difficult, sometimes used odd pseudonyms like Fenrus Epp. With the exception of their mawkish forays into old-timey music, Kaleidoscope's work holds up well. Their first three albums were their best, highlighted by the lengthy tracks "Taxim" and "Seven-Ate Sweet," which are groundbreaking fusions of Middle Eastern music and rock. Kaleidoscope were a popular live act, even incorporating some flamenco and belly dancers into their performances. But in commercial terms, their very eclecticism probably worked against them. Hit singles, too, were a difficult proposition for such a versatile group to come to grips with, although several of their 45s were pretty good. One of the best, "Nobody," was a most unusual fusion of R&B and psychedelia that found the group backing veteran rock and blues greats Larry Williams and Johnny "Guitar" Watson. Kaleidoscope's eclecticism may have been a by-product of numerous personnel changes throughout the last half of the '60s that would make the construction of a family tree a most unwieldy task. Darrow, in fact, only lasted a couple of albums; in 1970, shortly after their fourth album, they split up. Several of the group's more important contributors reunited for an album in 1975 (although Lindley played only a small part), and there was another reunion record in 1988. Co-founder Chris Darrow died on January 15, 2020 following a stroke. AMG.

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Goose Creek Symphony - Est. 1970 (1970)

If the Grateful Dead had come from Kentucky instead of San Francisco, they might have sounded much like these guys. "This song might sound kinda strange, but it's got more soul than Home on the Range," they accurately sing in "Talk About Goose Creek and Other Important Places," an eight-minute psychedelic showstopper complete with Beatles-style tape tricks. This album is a fun listen that can suck even a city slicker into a stoned, good-time, backhills vibe. AMG.

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Owen Gray - Fire And Bullets 1977

Owen Gray was Jamaica's first home-grown singing star, and the first Jamaican singer to achieve recognition (and stardom) doing something other than calypso music. He seemed destined for stardom at an early age -- born in Kingston in 1939, he showed an affinity for music and a love of singing very early in life, winning his first talent contest at the age of nine and also distinguishing himself in the local church choir, where he sang first tenor (and his mother played piano). His father was a career military man, but the younger Gray set his sights on music as a career early on, and by his teens he was an experienced singer and performer -- he attended the Alpha School, whose other alumni included such future legends as Tommy McCook and Dizzy Johnny Moore, and by 19 he was ready to turn professional. In a sense, Gray and his contemporaries could not have timed their lives and careers better, as Jamaica's musical life was ready to bloom -- the world was already listening to the sounds of calypso music in the late '50s, initially by way of Trinidad (and pioneering figures such as Sir Lancelot) and more recently by such island-descended figures as Harry Belafonte and Lord Burgess, and Jamaica, which was already moving toward independence from Great Britain, was about to experience a cultural renaissance as well. Gray's breakthrough came in 1960 when he recorded "Please Don't Let Me Go" with the Caribs (including guitarist Ernest Ranglin on his first recording session) for a young would-be record producer from England named Chris Blackwell, who had begun to dabble in Jamaican music in between deciding what he wanted to do with his life. Released in Jamaica, it hit the top chart spot on the island, and the record was also issued in England through the jazz label Esquire, and sold surprisingly well -- a fact undoubtedly noted by Blackwell, who began to suspect around this time that there were enough Jamaican émigrés in England to make a viable business of recording and releasing music aimed at them. Back in Kingston, Gray found himself in high demand, and his voice was quickly captured -- working in idioms from rock & roll to American-style R&B -- on tape by producers Leslie Kong, Prince Buster, Duke Reid, and, most importantly, Coxsone Dodd, who was just starting up his legendary Studio One label at the time; Gray's "On the Beach" (which featured local trombone virtuoso Don Drummond) was among the very earliest releases on that label. It was also a group of sides that he cut for Coxsone Dodd that resulted in Gray becoming the first solo Jamaican artist to have an LP of Jamaican popular music (as opposed to calypso music and folk songs) released in England -- the Esquire imprint Starlite Records combined a bunch of them in 1961 as Owen Gray Sings, which was also released in Jamaica; the album never sold even moderately well, but it was a beginning, and soon he had competing London labels issuing different tracks. With advance work like that going on without his direct input, he could hardly resist the opportunity to take the leap to the next career step, and cultivate a London audience from London, and in the spring of 1962 he moved there. 
Gray recorded for Melodisc, which had previously licensed some of his Jamaican sides, and he was soon established in London, finding a large and serious club audience. He toured Europe in 1964, doing mostly soul music, and also signed with Blackwell's now established Island Records label. By 1966 he was well known in England as a soul singer as well as for his ska and reggae sides, and made the switch to rocksteady easily enough, cutting sides for producer Sir Clancy Collins, and also licensing some songs to the new Trojan Records label -- his versions of the ballads "These Foolish Things" and "Always" reflected the soft ballad style for which he was known at the time. He enjoyed some further success fronting the Maximum Band (on the Fab Records imprint of Melodisc) with the ballad "Cupid," which charted in 1968. He also found favor with the early skinheads, thanks to a jump beat-driven tune called "Apollo 12" that was released in 1970, even as he continued to keep his hand in ballads with releases such as "Three Coins in the Fountain." Gray moved to the Pama label in 1968, releasing his sides on their Camel Records imprint, which included "Woman a Grumble" and his version of King Floyd's "Groove Me." By 1972 he was back with Island Records, where his reggae versions of the Rolling Stones' "Tumblin' Dice" and John Lennon's "Jealous Guy" were released to complete (and astonishing) indifference; strangely enough, one of his bigger successes around this time took place in Jamaica, where his "Hail the Man" -- a single praising the Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie -- was embraced by the burgeoning Rasta audience. Gray briefly tried basing himself in New Orleans -- not surprising since his early idols included Fats Domino -- and then returned to Jamaica, where he found fresh inspiration in the booming demand for roots reggae. During the mid-'70s, working with producer Edward "Bunny" Lee, he saw success on both sides of the Atlantic as a mainstay of the roots reggae movement. Since the 1970s Gray's career has waxed and waned, and he had returned to singing ballads by the 1990s. With the passing of his 40th anniversary as a professional musician in 1998, however, Gray had once more risen to stardom around the world, a fact confirmed by his international engagements and the release in 2004 of Shook, Shimmy & Shake: The Anthology, a double-CD set that spans a significant (though in no way nearly complete) chunk of his career. The new millennium has seen Gray continue to focus on ballads as well as gospel material, including 2004's Jesus Loves Me on the True Gospel label. In 2023, Gray was awarded the Jamaican Order of Distinction, in recognition of his contributions to the nation's music industry. Two years later, Owen Gray died on July 20, 2025 at the age of 86. AMG.

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Plain Jane - Plain Jane 1969

One of many worthy but short-lived bands to surface in the post-psychedelic era around the turn of the 1970s, Plain Jane released just one album before returning to obscurity. The band gathers its influences from far and wide, from country rock and CSN&Y-type harmonies on “You Can’t Make It Alone” and “That’s How Much,” to second-generation psychedelia on “Mrs. Que” and “What Can You Do?” Meanwhile, taking its inspiration from the more pop-oriented side of the culture divide, the pastoral “Who’s Driving This Train” hints at Harper’s Bizarre and Simon & Garfunkel. AMG.

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Dale Hawkins - L.A., Memphis & Tyler, Texas 1969

Dale Hawkins, of course, is best known for "Suzie-Q" -- a Top 30 Billboard hit for him in 1957 that turned into a garage rock standard in the '60s. During that decade, Hawkins was relatively quiet as a record-maker, but he did behind-the-scenes work as a producer before resurfacing in 1969 with LA, Memphis & Tyler, Texas on Bell Records. Named after the three towns it was recorded in, it's a bit easy to overrate LA, Memphis upon its first listen because it comes as a shock that Hawkins was more than a rockabilly cat. He was an  early roots rocker, certainly, playing rockabilly but also touching back on its blues and country roots, plus hitting a bunch of stuff in between -- and don't forget the L.A. in the title, either, since he did give this album several splashes of snazzy showbiz pizzazz reminiscent of Sonny Bono. Those showbiz colors -- primarily the blaring horn charts and studio slickness achieved with heavy reverb and occasionally punctuated by flutes, fuzz guitars, and Mellotrons -- give this album a polish that makes it go down easy but also treads a bit close too kitsch, making this an artifact of a plaid-n-paisley era. But it's also a period piece in another way: it does capture the time when roots rock was forming in the music of the Band, the Sir Douglas Quintet, and Tony Joe White, and those really are the closest touchstones to Hawkins' work here. More than any other of his '50s peers -- with the notable exception of Ricky Nelson -- Hawkins could tap into that spirit, as this often remarkable, always entertaining album shows. Yes, there is a little bit of unintentional camp here, but that's part of what makes it entertaining, since it marks it as a late-'60s LP and makes the visionary stuff here -- the times when he knocks down borders between soul and rock, when he digs into funky, bluesy workouts that sound like all genres without belonging to any of them -- still sound vibrant and exciting decades later. AMG.

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