Jellybread - 65 Parkway 1970

Formed at England’s Sussex University by pianist Pete Wingfield, Jellybread was originally completed by Paul Butler (guitar/vocals), John Best (bass), and Chris Waters (drums). In 1969 the quartet secured a recording contract with the exemplary Blue Horizon Records label and although largely unadventurous, their albums offered a highly competent grasp of black music, including both blues and soul. They provided stellar accompaniment on Lightnin’ Slim's London Gumbo and B.B. King in London, but the unit dissolved in 1971 with the departure of Wingfield and Waters. Newcomers Rick Birkett (guitar, ex-Accent) and Kenny Lamb (drums) joined for Back to Begin Again, but Jellybread broke up when the set failed to make commercial headway. However, Wingfield enjoyed success as a solo artist, session pianist, and member of Olympic Runners. AMG.

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Kris Kristofferson - The Silver Tongued Devil And I 1971

By the time Monument came to release Kristofferson's second album, The Silver Tongued Devil and I, in July 1971, he was the author of four songs that had topped the country or pop charts for others. Kristofferson himself had not yet reached the charts with a recording of his own, but his spectacular success as a songwriter made The Silver Tongued Devil and I a much-anticipated record. One consequence of this was that Monument was willing to spend more money; three of the album's songs boasted strings and another a horn section. But the key, of course, was still the songwriting, and though there were several excellent songs, the album could not live up to its predecessor, which was the culmination of years of writing. Typically for a second album, Kristofferson reached back into his catalog, presenting his own treatments of "Jody and the Kid" and "The Taker," which had been hits for Roy Drusky and Waylon Jennings, respectively. In his newly written material, Kristofferson continued to examine the lives of society's outcasts, but the antiestablishment tone of some of Kristofferson was gone along with much of the wry humor, and in their place were touches of morbidity and sentimentality. Kristofferson retained his gift for intimate love songs, and the album's most memorable selections turned out to be "Loving Her Was Easier (Than Anything I'll Ever Do Again)" (which became a semi-standard) and "When I Loved Her." And even if his observations seemed less acute, his talent for wordplay often rescued the songs from banality. On its way to becoming a gold record, The Silver Tongued Devil and I reached the pop Top 20, Kristofferson's career high on that chart, and the country Top Five; thus, Kristofferson made the transition from being a successful songwriter to a successful recording artist. AMG.

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Stoneground - Stoneground 1971

The self-titled debut from the East Bay groovers Stoneground is a solid effort blending accomplished straight-ahead rock & roll with a distinct bluesy vibe similar to many of the group's San Fran contemporaries. The band's revolving-door personnel centered on a Concord, CA, trio featuring Luther Bildt (guitar), Tim Barnes (guitar), and Mike Mau (drums). Through Bay Area music mogul Tom Donohue, the trio hooked up with former Beau Brummels leader Sal Valentino (vocals). In turn, John Blakely (guitar/bass) arrived via Donohue, and by the time both Valentino and Blakely had settled in, Stoneground was also sporting a quartet of female vocalists. While Annie Sampson, Lydia Phillips, and Deirdre LaPorte were virtually unknown, Lynne Hughes had been in a seminal version of Dan Hicks' Hot Licks as well as in the short-lived Tongue and Groove. The band continued to expand when it toured England in the Medicine Ball Caravan (1970) tour, picking up future Jefferson Starship and Hot Tuna member Pete Sears (keyboards) in the process. With occasional help from former Mystery Trend member Ron Nagle (keyboards/percussion/inspiration), the sprawling combo that would contribute to Stoneground (1971) was intact. Part of the band's quaintly indefinable sound can be attributed to the inclusion of more than half a dozen different lead vocalists on the album's ten tracks. While Valentino supplied a majority of the originals, the disc is highlighted by some truly exemplary cover tunes as well. These include a gospel-rock reading of Rev. Gary Davis' "Great Change Since I Have Been Born" and the refined East Bay funk rendition of the Kinks' "Rainy Day in June," as well as the slide guitar blues of John D. Loudermilk's "Bad News." Arguably, best of all is the rousing "Don't Waste My Time," which shows off the full force of Stoneground's cohesiveness. The power ballad "Brand New Start" is masterfully driven by Sampson's gospel inflections. The Valentino compositions -- "Looking for You," the quirky "Added Attraction (Come and See Me)," and "Stroke Stand" (which is notable for an ensemble vocal) -- bear repeated listens and hint at this group's truly great potential. AMG.

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Bert Sommer - The Road To Travel 1968

Major labels were taking all kinds of chances on untested talent in the late '60s, but although his name may have been unfamiliar to most in the industry, Bert Sommer was hardly untested. By the release of The Road to Travel, his 1968 debut, he had already written five songs for the Vagrants (founded by a pre-Mountain Leslie West, Sommer's schoolmate) and sung lead vocals on the Left Banke's single "Ivy, Ivy" through a friendship with that band's Michael Brown. The Road to Travel shows that his well of inspiration had not yet run dry. With help from a conglomeration of friends and studio professionals, Sommer proved he was facile in a variety of styles -- orchestral pop, acoustic folk, and some of the most sensitive singer/songwriter material heard before the style had fully flowered (with apologies to Tim Buckley). All of this was delivered in Sommer's plaintive voice, although he was more convincing when he really let go than when he tried to rein it in. Anachronistically, he began the LP with the words "And when it's over" (the title of the opener), moving quickly on the song from eerie Baroque pop to bombastic, brass-led art rock. That was a mere taste of what was to come, encompassing the hippie-dippie end of folk on "Jennifer" (the song Sommer gained raves for at Woodstock), straightforward sunshine pop for "Things Are Goin' My Way," and a curiously aggressive falsetto take on art rock for "Tonight Together." Sommer's power as a songwriter and performer was clear, but he was incredibly difficult to pin down. That may be what doomed The Road to Travel, but it has an undeniable flair. AMG.

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Street - Street 1968

Street was a psychedelic rock group from New York, NY, USA, late 1960s to the early 1970s. They were fronted by female singer Anya Cohen and were managed by record producer Rick Shorter. They released a self-titled album and a couple of singles. Their first single went by the name of Anya's Street. Its titles reappeared on their lone LP as Street. 

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Pepeu Gomes - Na Terra A Mais De Mil 1979

Pepeu Gomes is a virtuoso guitarist/mandolinist who had noted participation in the '70s revival of choro in the band Os Novos Baianos. His solo career has been troubled by the hardships that prevent instrumental musicians in Brazil from developing their discoveries, but his recorded material is enough to make clear his uncanny, creative talent.

Coming from a family of musicians, Pepeu Gomes had nine brothers, including the drummer/cavaquinista/guitarist/composer Jorginho Gomes and Carlinhos Gomes. Among his earliest influences figures the pau elétrico -- the seminal Brazilian electric guitar invented by Dodô in 1941, in Salvador, BA. Gomes formed his first group at 11, the Cats, together with a variable number of brothers. Under the name Os Minos, sponsored by a clothing factory, they recorded a single for Copacabana and played in São Paulo, on the TV shows of Eduardo Araújo and Ed Carlos. In 1968, he became strongly influenced by Jimi Hendrix and formed the professional group Os Leifs with brothers Jorginho and Carlinhos and his friend, Lico. In early 1969, Gilberto Gil, just freed from imprisonment, was preparing a farewell show with Caetano Veloso, as they were sentenced to exile, when Gil saw Pepeu Gomes on TV. Immediately taken by Gomes' virtuosic interpretation, Gil invited him, with Os Leifs, to accompany him and Caetano Veloso on their Barra 69 show. Os Novos Baianos, who was until then an unknown group formed by Moraes Moreira, Galvão, Paulinho Boca de Cantor, and Baby Consuelo (today Baby do Brasil), saw Os Leifs at Barra 69 and proposed that they play together due to their strong instrumental background. So, Os Leifs joined Os Novos Baianos in their opening in the Southeast with the show Desembarque Dos Bichos Depois do Dilúvio in 1969, after the presentation of the same show in Salvador, BA, the previous year. This was followed by the first Os Novos Baianos LP, Ferro Na Boneca. Gomes then departed from Os Leifs and joined the Enigmas, accompanying them to Rio for a long underground season with Os Novos Baianos at the Cimento Armado, soon to be the Teatro Tereza Raquel. In 1972, after a stint with João Gilberto the previous year, Os Novos Baianos and Gomes discovered the importance of researching their Brazilian roots, resulting in the recording of the anthological album Acabou Chorare (Som Livre). The solo in "Tinindo Trincando" is a result of that search for a genuine Brazilian guitar solo and the beginning of the elaboration of Gomes' own personal style. The album, mixing the group's heavily countercultural looks and philosophy with a modern synthesis between rock and the traditional choro, contributed to the revival of the Brazilian genre in the '70s, bringing many youngsters into its ranks. Continuing to work with Os Novos Baianos, Gomes led the trio A Cor do Som, formed initially by his brother, Jorginho, on guitar and friend, Dadi Carvalho, on bass. In 1978, Gomes recorded his first solo album, Geração do Som, with a peculiar blend of choro, samba, frevo, and rock. The cover of the album presents his invention, the guibando, a two-fretboard instrument that combined an electric guitar and a mandolin. The instrument amazed John McLaughlin when Gomes accompanied Gilberto Gil at the Montreux Festival (Switzerland). AMG.

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Mungo Jerry - In The Summertime 1970

The title-track is still one of the most beguiling (if casually sexist) hits of its era, but the other 14 songs are even more interesting: Jesse Fuller-influenced jug band ("San Francisco Bay Blues," "See Me") and Tampa Red-style kazoo blues ("Maggie"), as well as the influence of Piano Red ("Mighty Man") and credible instrumental blues-rock ("Mother Fucker Boogie"). The hit "Johnny B. Badde" is here, and the band also covers rock & roll standards like "Baby Let's Play House," done in a surprisingly authentic manner for 1970. One of the CD reissue's two bonus tracks, "Tramp," busts up the mood a bit, with its fiddle accompaniment and a decidedly mournful tone, but the other, the hard-driving Howlin' Wolf-style "Mungo's Blues," which offers a tastefully lean Hubert Sumlin-influenced guitar solo, fits in perfectly with the existing album. The transfers are clean and bright, and the annotation is extensive. AMG.

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Dave Mason - It's Like You Never Left 1973

After a protracted legal battle with Blue Thumb Records, Dave Mason finally signed to Columbia and released the hopefully titled It's Like You Never Left, his first new studio solo album in more than three years. Mason received prominent vocal assistance from Graham Nash, who helped turn tracks like "Every Woman" into singers' showcases. (Other guests included Stevie Wonder and George Harrison.) The songs had all the catchiness, but not as much of the individual flavor of Mason's best work. The modest commercial acceptance the album enjoyed made it apparent that he would have to rebuild some career momentum. (Originally released by Columbia Records as Columbia 31721, It's Like You Never Left was reissued on CD by One Way Records as One Way 26077 on July 18, 1995.) AMG.

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The New Colony Six - Breakthrough 1966

Breakthrough was one of the very finest American garage LPs, fusing Midwestern guitar-organ pop with the raunch of British Invasion groups and stressing well-written original material. It is also extremely rare and, should you locate an original copy, extremely expensive. But take heart -- ten of the 12 tracks have been reissued on Sundazed's At the River's Edge CD. The two other songs are routine, dispensable covers of the Yardbirds' "Mr. You're a Better Man than I" and the McCoys' "Hang On Sloopy," so you shouldn't fret about their absence from your collection. AMG.

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Rufus Harley - A Tribute To Courage 1967

Just when you thought you'd heard it all, along comes a jazz bagpipe player. Make no mistake folks, this is more than a joke -- whatever you might think, the cat can play. At first it sounds like some sort of weird organ, but a couple of minutes later you can't mistake it for anything but what it is. Like an organ, though, the bagpipe turns out to be remarkably suited for jazz. With little effort, one man can make an absolute ocean of sound. The groove here is nothing special, a solid soul-jazz feeling. Side one is all bagpipe. Side two is the leader on a number of different instruments. A talented fellow. AMG.

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The Paul Butterfield Blues Band - In My Own Dream 1968

The Paul Butterfield Blues Band's In My Own Dream -- their fourth official release -- marked the point where the band really began to lose its audience, and all for reasons having nothing to do with the quality of their music. They'd gotten past the loss of Michael Bloomfield in early 1967 (which had lost them some of their audience of guitar idolaters) with the engagingly titled (and guitar-focused) Resurrection of Pigboy Crabshaw. In My Own Dream has its great guitar moments, especially on "Just to Be with You," but throughout the album, Elvin Bishop's electric guitar shares the spotlight with the horn section of Gene Dinwiddle, David Sanborn, and Keith Johnson, who had signed on with the prior album and who were more out in front than ever. More to the point, this album represented a new version of the band being born, with shared lead vocals, and the leader himself only taking three of the seven songs, with bassist Bugsy Maugh singing lead on two songs, Bishop on one, and drummer Phillip Wilson taking one. What's more, there was a widely shared spotlight for the players and more of a jazz influence on this record than had ever been heard before from the group. This was a band that could jam quietly for five minutes on "Drunk Again," building ever so slowly to a bluesy crescendo where Bishop's guitar and Mark Naftalin's organ surged; and follow it with the title track, a totally surprising acoustic guitar-driven piece featuring Sanborn, Dinwiddle, and Johnson. The playing is impressive, especially for a record aimed at a collegiate audience, but the record had the bad fortune of appearing at a point when jazz was culturally suspect among the young, an elitist and not easily accessible brand of music that seemed almost as remote as classical. "Get Yourself Together" was almost too good a piece of Chicago-style blues, a faux Chess Records-style track that might even have been too "black" for the remnants of Butterfield's old audience. It also anticipated the group's final change of direction, when it blossomed into a multi-genre blues/jazz/R&B/soul outfit, equally devoted to all four genres and myriad permutations of each. AMG.

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Jefferson Airplane - Crown Of Creation 1968

Crown of Creation appeared ten months after their last album, After Bathing at Baxter's, and it doesn't take the same kind of leap forward that Baxter's did from Surrealistic Pillow. Indeed, in many ways, Crown of Creation is a more conservative album stylistically, opening with "Lather," a Grace Slick original that was one of the group's very last forays (and certainly their last prominent one) into a folk idiom. Much of what follows is a lot more based in electric rock, as well as steeped in elements of science fiction (specifically author John Wyndham's book The Chrysalids) in several places, but Crown of Creation was still deliberately more accessible musically than its predecessor, even as the playing became more bold and daring within more traditional song structures. Jack Casady by this time had developed one of the most prominent and distinctive bass sounds in American rock, as identifiable (if not quite as bracing) as John Entwistle's was with the Who, as demonstrated on "In Time," "Star Track," "Share a Little Joke," "If You Feel" (where he's practically a second lead instrument), and the title song, and Jorma Kaukonen's slashing, angular guitar attack was continually surprising as his snaking lead guitar parts wended their way through "Star Track" and "Share a Little Joke." The album also reflected the shifting landscape of West Coast music with its inclusion of "Triad," a David Crosby song that Crosby's own group, the Byrds, had refused to release -- its presence (the only extant version of the song for a number of years) was a forerunner of the sound that would later be heard on Crosby's own debut solo album, If I Could Only Remember My Name (on which Slick, Paul Kantner, and Casady would appear).  The overall album captured the group's rapidly evolving, very heavy live sound within the confines of some fairly traditional song structures, and left ample room for Slick and Marty Balin to express themselves vocally, with Balin turning in one of his most heartfelt and moving performances on "If You Feel." "Ice Cream Phoenix" pulses with energy and "Greasy Heart" became a concert standard for the group -- the studio original of the latter is notable for Slick's most powerful vocal performance since "Somebody to Love." And the album's big finish, "The House at Pooneil Corners," seemed to fire on all cylinders, their amps cranked up to ten (maybe 11 for Casady), and Balin, Slick, and Kantner stretching out on the disjointed yet oddly compelling tune and lyrics. It didn't work 100 percent of the time, but it made for a shattering finish to the album. AMG.

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Procol Harum - Grand Hotel 1973

Procol Harum's first album for Chrysalis, Grand Hotel, found the band returning to the grandeur of earlier works such as Shine on Brightly and Salty Dog. Robin Trower's replacement Mick Grabham is capable, even powerful, but not nearly as distinctive as his predecessor; consequently, the material tends to rely more on ornate arrangements than guitar riffs, making this somewhat more dignified than either of their previous studio albums, Home and Broken Barricades. Brooker and lyricist Keith Reid stepped up with strong material, notably the title track, "Toujours L'Amour," and "Fires (Which Burnt Brightly)." While the keyboard and orchestra-based arrangements harken back to earlier triumphs, the lyrics deal less with whaling stories than with social commentary; "A Souvenir of London" is about social diseases, with "T.V. Caesar" about the pervasive influence of television. AMG.

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Blues Project - Planned Obsolescence 1968

One of the first album-oriented "underground" groups in the United States, the Blues Project offered an electric brew of rock, blues, folk, pop, and even some jazz, classical, and psychedelia during their brief heyday in the mid-'60s. It's not quite accurate to categorize them as a blues-rock group, although they did plenty of that kind of material; they were more like a Jewish-American equivalent of British bands like the Yardbirds, who used a blues and R&B base to explore any music that interested them. Erratic songwriting talent and a lack of a truly outstanding vocalist prevented them from rising to the front line of '60s bands, but they recorded plenty of interesting material over the course of their first three albums before the departure of their most creative members took its toll. The Blues Project was formed in Greenwich Village in the mid-'60s by guitarist Danny Kalb (who had played sessions for various Elektra folk and folk-rock albums), Steve Katz (a guitarist with Elektra's Even Dozen Jug Band), flutist/bassist Andy Kulberg, drummer Roy Blumenfeld, and singer Tommy Flanders. Al Kooper, in his early twenties but already a seasoned vet of rock sessions, joined after sitting in on the band's Columbia Records audition, although they ended up signing to Verve. Early member Artie Traum (guitar) dropped out during early rehearsals; Flanders would leave after their first LP, Live at the Cafe Au-Go-Go (1966).

The eclectic résumés of the musicians, who came from folk, jazz, blues, and rock backgrounds, were reflected in their choice of material. Blues by Muddy Waters and Chuck Berry tunes ran alongside covers of contemporary folk-rock songs by Eric Anderson and Patrick Sky, as well as the group's own originals. These were usually penned by Kooper, who had already built songwriting credentials as the co-writer of Gary Lewis' huge smash "This Diamond Ring," and established a reputation as a major folk-rock shaker with his contributions to Dylan's mid-'60s records. Kooper also provided the band's instrumental highlights with his glowing organ riffs. Though their live debut sounds rather tame and derivative, the group truly hit their stride on Projections (late 1966), which was, disappointingly, their only full-length studio recording. While they went through straight blues numbers with respectable energy, they really shone on folk- and jazz-influenced tracks like "Fly Away," Katz's lilting "Steve's Song," Kooper's jazz instrumental "Flute Thing" (an underground radio standard that's probably their most famous track), and Kooper's fierce adaptation of an old Blind Willie Johnson number, "I Can't Keep from Crying." A non-LP single from this era, the pop-psychedelic "N1o Time Like the Right Time," was their greatest achievement and one of the best "great hit singles that never were" of the decade. The band's very eclecticism didn't augur well for their long-term stability, and in 1967 Kooper left in a dispute over musical direction (he has recalled that Kalb opposed his wishes to add a horn section). Then Kalb mysteriously disappeared for months after a bad acid trip, which effectively ended the original incarnation of the band. A third album, Live at Town Hall, was a particularly half-hearted project given the band's stature, pasted together from live tapes and studio outtakes, some of which were overdubbed with applause to give the impression that they had been recorded in concert.

Kooper got to fulfill his ambitions for soulful horn rock as the leader of the original Blood, Sweat & Tears, although he left that band after their first album; BS&T also included Katz (who stayed onboard for a long time). Blumenfeld and Kulberg kept the Blues Project going for a fourth album before forming Seatrain, and the group re-formed in the early '70s with various lineups, Kooper rejoining for a live 1973 album, Reunion in Central Park. The first three albums from the Kooper days are the only ones that count, though; the best material from these is on Rhino's best-of compilation. Founding member Danny Kalb died on November 19, 2022, in Brooklyn, New York after a long illness; he was 80 years old. AMG.

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Neil Young - Neil Young 1968

On his songs for Buffalo Springfield, Neil Young had demonstrated an eclecticism that ranged from the rock of "Mr. Soul" to the complicated, multi-part arrangement of "Broken Arrow." On his debut solo album, he continued to work with composer/arranger Jack Nitzsche, with whom he had made "Expecting to Fly" on the Buffalo Springfield Again album, and together the two recorded a restrained effort on which the folk-rock instrumentation, most of which was by Young, overdubbing himself, was augmented by discreet string parts. The country & western elements that had tinged the Springfield's sound were also present, notably on the leadoff track, "The Emperor of Wyoming," an instrumental that recalled the Springfield song "A Child's Claim to Fame." Still unsure of his voice, Young sang in a becalmed high tenor that could be haunting as often as it was listless and whining. He was at his least appealing on the nine-and-a-half-minute closing track, "The Last Trip to Tulsa," on which he accompanied himself with acoustic guitar, singing an impressionistic set of lyrics seemingly derived from Bob Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited. But double-tracking and the addition of a female backup chorus improved the singing elsewhere, and on "The Loner," the album's most memorable track, Young displayed some of the noisy electric guitar work that would characterize his recordings with Crazy Horse and reminded listeners of his ability to turn a phrase. Still, Neil Young made for an uneven, low-key introduction to Young's solo career, and when released it was a commercial flop, his only album not to make the charts. (Several months after the album's release, Young remixed it to bring out his vocals more and added some overdubs. This second version replaced the first in the U.S. from then on, though the original mix remained available overseas.) AMG.

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