One more year is gone, and one more to come yes!!! Thanks to B., Bertrand (the MFP AKA LRR), Adriana, Mauro Filipe, Bill (24hrDejaVu), Marios (Rockasteria), Mara B. Stone, Vasily, Chris (DariusChrisGoesRock), Spunkie, KDNYfm, , Edgar Puddings, Patrick, George, Gkapageridis, Bob (bamabob), Lawrence David, Roldo, Pedro RochaCrimson, Entremimente, Las Marias , Marcelo, Lágrima Psycadelica, Mr. JJ, Baby GrandPa, Simon, Justin Thyme, Jason, Frank, Pascal Georges, Chico ,Steve , Zapata, Caixo, Carioca Brasil, OldRockerBr, and so many more, and to all this blog followers,....thanks for sharing life around!!! Happy New Year 2016! Take care and enjoy. :)

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 round the world; where the later efforts from bands likethe 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.

listen here

Buy @ Amazon: USA - FR - UK

The Who - Tommy 1969

The full-blown rock opera about a deaf, dumb, and blind boy that launched the band to international superstardom, written almost entirely by Pete Townshend. Hailed as a breakthrough upon its release, its critical standing has diminished somewhat in the ensuing decades because of the occasional pretensions of the concept and because of the insubstantial nature of some of the songs that functioned as little more than devices to advance the rather sketchy plot. Nonetheless, the double album has many excellent songs, including "I'm Free," "Pinball Wizard," "Sensation," "Christmas," "We're Not Gonna Take It," and the dramatic ten-minute instrumental "Underture." Though the album was slightly flawed,Townshend's ability to construct a lengthy conceptual narrative brought new possibilities to rock music. Despite the complexity of the project, he and the Who never lost sight of solid pop melodies, harmonies, and forceful instrumentation, imbuing the material with a suitably powerful grace. AMG.

listen here

Buy @ Amazon: USA - FR - UK

The Kinks - Lola Versus Powerman And The Moneygoround, Part One 1970

"Lola" gave the Kinks an unexpected hit and its crisp, muscular sound, pitched halfway between acoustic folk and hard rock, provided a new style for the band. However, the song only hinted at what its accompanying album Lola Versus the Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One was all about. It didn't matter that Ray Davies just had his first hit in years -- he had suffered greatly at the hands of the music industry and he wanted to tell the story in song. Hence, Lola -- a loose concept album about Ray Davies' own psychosis and bitter feelings toward the music industry. Davies never really delivers a cohesive story, but the record holds together because it's one of his strongest set of songs. Dave Davies contributes the lovely "Strangers" and the appropriately paranoid "Rats," but this is truly Ray' show, as he lashes out at ex-managers (the boisterous vaudevillian "The Moneygoround"), publishers ("Denmark Street"), TV and music journalists (the hard-hitting "Top of the Pops"), label executives ("Powerman"), and, hell, just society in general ("Apeman," "Got to Be Free"). If his wit wasn't sharp, the entire project would be insufferable, but the album is as funny as it is angry. Furthermore, he balances his bile with three of his best melancholy ballads: "This Time Tomorrow," "A Long Way From Home," and the anti-welfare and union "Get Back in Line," which captures working-class angst better than any other rock song. These songs provide the spine for a wildly unfocused but nonetheless dazzling tour de force that reveals Ray's artistic strengths and endearing character flaws in equal measure. AMG.

listen here

Buy @ Amazon: USA - FR - UK

David Bowie - The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars 1972

Borrowing heavily from Marc Bolan's glam rock and the future shock of A Clockwork Orange, David Bowie reached back to the heavy rock of The Man Who Sold the World for The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. Constructed as a loose concept album about an androgynous alien rock star named Ziggy Stardust, the story falls apart quickly, yet Bowie's fractured, paranoid lyrics are evocative of a decadent, decaying future, and the music echoes an apocalyptic, nuclear dread. Fleshing out the off-kilter metallic mix with fatter guitars, genuine pop songs, string sections, keyboards, and a cinematic flourish, Ziggy Stardust is a glitzy array of riffs, hooks, melodrama, and style and the logical culmination of glam. Mick Ronson plays with a maverick flair that invigorates rockers like "Suffragette City," "Moonage Daydream," and "Hang Onto Yourself," while "Lady Stardust," "Five Years," and "Rock 'n' Roll Suicide" have a grand sense of staged drama previously unheard of in rock & roll. And that self-conscious sense of theater is part of the reason why Ziggy Stardust sounds so foreign.Bowie succeeds not in spite of his pretensions but because of them, and Ziggy Stardust -- familiar in structure, but alien in performance -- is the first time his vision and execution met in such a grand, sweeping fashion. AMG.

listen here

Buy @ Amazon: USA - FR - UK

Bloodstone - Bloodstone 1972

Best known for the hit ballad "Natural High" from the 1973 album of the same name, Bloodstone have been credited as an important force in black music's transition from the smooth, vocal-based R&B of the early '60s to the tougher, dance-oriented urban funk and rock-influenced soul of the '70s. The group's U.K. debut album, Bloodstone, found the unit's sound already fully developed, matching driving, Sly Stone/late-period Jimi Hendrix-style grooves and wah-wah-infused guitar with vocals that alternately tap into James Brown-ish guttural groans and the band's own melodic, doo wop roots. Interestingly, this combination often ends up sounding like a missing link between P-Funk and early Three Dog Night. Highlights include the stomping funk raver "Lady of the Night," the dramatic, gospel-infused slow jam "Dumb Dude," and the booty-shaking, Isaac Hayes-like "Take These Chains." Also of note isBloodstone's unique take on Bobby Russell's pop-country classic "Little Green Apples" (first a hit forRoger Miller and later recorded by everyone from novelty hitmaker Sheb Wooley to crooner Vic Damone to reggae legend Dennis Brown), which adds a heaping helping of sex to the normally staid song's inherent romance. Though all the tracks on Bloodstone have been released in various forms elsewhere, hearing these recordings in their original setting is highly recommended for anyone interested in the history of funky soul music. AMG.

listen here

Buy @ Amazon: USA - FR - UK

Bob McAllen - McAllen 1971

It's actually one of the more pro-sounding and well-rounded private press s-sw albums you can find. Bob McAllen writes good songs and does fine guitar arrangements and deserves any genre fan's attention, especially on a couple of tracks where all the cogs interlock in a way that makes for truly terrific listening.

listen here

Buy @ Amazon: USA -FR - UK

Dr. Music - Sun Goes By 1972

Douglas Riley began playing music with the R&B group the Silhouettes in Toronto. Throughout the late '60s and '70s he worked in Canadian television as a musical director and arranger for various music and variety shows, including Music Machine and The Wolfman Jack Show. The jazz group Dr. Music began on The Ray Stevens Show, touring and recording after the show was cancelled in 1970. The band's albums include Dr. Music (1972), Dr. Music II (1973) and Dr. Music Circa 1984 (1985).Riley released the solo album Freedom in 1990. AMG.

listen here

Buy @ Amazon: USA - FR - UK

Ben E. King - What Is Soul 1967

his last new album for three years, What Is Soul? was actually the product of two years' work. In that sense, it nearly rivaled the preceding Seven Letters as a representative body of King's work -- except that at this point his back was to the wall, his chart action fading as he found himself increasingly marginalized in the changing music marketplace of the second half of the 1960s. King, like contemporaries such as Dee Clark and his one-time group the Drifters (soul pioneers all, who were getting pushed aside by the earthier sounds coming out of studios like Stax in Memphis), was losing his audience as the mid-'60s wore on. Yet the audience that he retained expected him to do the same songs -- and "Stand by Me," "Don't Play That Song," etc., were all fine numbers, but increasingly thought of as "oldies" rather than "soul" as it was defined from the mid-'60s onward. From early 1965 through the beginning of 1967, King had recorded material with less majestic, more earthily soulful arrangements, pushing his singing harder in the bargain, and all of that material was collected for this LP. The result was, with the notable exception of "Goodnight My Love" (a definite throwback to his early-'60s sound), his most fiercely contemporary album -- not that anyone was ever going to mistakeBen E. King for, say, Otis Redding or Wilson Pickett, to name just two labelmates on Atlantic who were burning up the charts just then, but he was at least in the competition. The material and arrangements are surprisingly suitable to King without too much of a difference in his own style, and one imagines that if this album could just have been widely heard, if might well have kept him off the oldies circuit for a few more years, and playing to late-'60s and early-'70s soul listeners instead. It's still worth hearing four decades on, as a harbinger of his more successful transformation in the 1970s. AMG.

listen here    new link

Buy @ Amazon: USA - FR - UK

Harvey Mandel - Righteous 1969

In the mold of Jeff Beck, Carlos Santana, and Mike Bloomfield, Mandel is an extremely creative rock guitarist with heavy blues and jazz influences. And like those guitarists, his vocal abilities are basically nonexistent, thoughMandel, unlike some similar musicians, has always known this, and concentrated on recordings that are entirely instrumental, or feature other singers. A minor figure most known for auditioning unsuccessfully for the Rolling Stones, he recorded some intriguing (though erratic) work on his own that anticipated some of the better elements of jazz-rock fusion, showcasing his concise chops, his command of a multitude of tone pedal controls, and an eclecticism that found him working with string orchestras and country steel guitar wizards. Mandel got his first toehold in the fertile Chicago white blues-rock scene of the mid-'60s (which cultivated talents like Paul Butterfield, Mike Bloomfield, and Steve Miller), and made his first recordings as the lead guitarist for harmonica virtuoso Charlie Musselwhite. Enticed to go solo by Blue Cheer producer Abe Kesh, Harvey cut a couple of nearly wholly instrumental albums for Phillips in the late '60s that were underground FM radio favorites, establishing him as one of the most versatile young American guitar lions. He gained his most recognition, though, not as a solo artist, but as a lead guitarist for Canned Heat in 1969 and 1970, replacing Henry Vestine and appearing with the band at Woodstock. Shortly afterward, he signed up for a stint in John Mayall's band, just after the British bluesman had relocated to California. Mandel unwisely decided to use a vocalist for his third and least successful Philips album. After his term with Mayall (on USA Union and Back to the Roots) had run its course, he resumed his solo career, and also formed Pure Food & Drug Act with violinistDon "Sugarcane" Harris (from the '50s R&B duo Don & Dewey), which made several albums. In the mid-'70s, when the Rolling Stones were looking for a replacement for Mick Taylor, Mandel auditioned for a spot in the group; although he lost to Ron Wood, his guitar does appear on two cuts on the Stones' 1976 album, Black & Blue. Recording intermittently since then as a solo artist and a sessionman, his influence on the contemporary scene is felt via the two-handed fretboard tapping technique that he introduced on his 1973 album Shangrenade, later employed by Eddie Van Halen,Stanley Jordan, and Steve Vai. AMG.

listen here

Buy @ Amazon: USA - FR - UK

Bakery - Momento 1971

Formed in Perth in 1970, this progressive rock outfit is generally regarded as one of the best of Australia’s early ‘70s underground bands. Bakery included ex-New Zealand Avengers’ rhythm section of Hank Davis (drums) and Eddie McDonald (bass) in their line-up, and their music blended hard rock and country with jazz, using complex arrangements.

Their main strength was the variety of their music that could switch from gentle acoustic passages to booming heavy progressive assaults on the senses within the same song. Momento, which was released in 1971 on Australia’s Astor label (ALPS 1035) was the group’s second album, following the bizarre Rock Mass For Love (ALPS 1032), a live recording captured in a church. Rock journalist Ian McFarlane, writing in Freedom Train magazine, described the album as a European-influenced recording full of sprawling, moody progressive rock cuts like Faith To Sing A Song, the jazzy Living With A Memory and Holocaust.

The track which really kills off any remaining brain cells isThe Gift, an eight-minute barrage of bombastic riffs written by guitarist Peter Walker, which also features some arse-kicking solos and swirling hammond organ in the vein of Deep Purple and Leafhound. For an underground band, Bakery actually achieved fairly reasonable success. Both their 45s were minor hits, and their Rock Mass For Love narrowly missed the Australian Top 20, and on the strength of this, was subsequently released by Decca in the US.

listen here

Buy @ Amazon: USA - FR - UK

Tribe - Ethnic Stew 1974

The Tribe was a funk/disco band consisting of keyboardist/vocalist Earl Foster Jr., guitarist Edward Romias, bassist Robert Apodaga, drummer Benton Miles Little, and violinist Gelon Lau. They issued two albums on ABC, Ethnic Stew and Tribal Bumpin', over 1974-1975; both sold respectably, with the former reaching the Top 50 on the R&B album charts. They subsequently switched over to Farr for the 1976 12" single "Share It," and released another album, Dedication, in 1977. AMG.

listen here

Buy @ Amazon: USA - FR - UK

Norman Greenbaum - Petaluma 1973

Best-known for his 1970 hit "Spirit in the Sky," singer/songwriter Norman Greenbaum was born November 20, 1942, in Malden, MA. He began his musical career while a student at Boston University, playing area coffeehouses before relocating to the West Coast during the mid-'60s and forming a kind of psychedelic jug band dubbed Dr. West's Medicine Show and Junk Band. After issuing the 1966 single "The Eggplant That Ate Chicago," which fell just shy of reaching the Top 50, the group disbanded, and Greenbaumsubsequently formed a series of short-lived acts before finally returning to his solo career in 1968. A year later he issued his debut LP, Spirit in the Sky, releasing several unsuccessful singles before reaching the Top Three with the smash title track, which sold some two million copies. It proved to be Greenbaum's only hit, however, as follow-ups like 1970's "Canned Ham" and the next year's "California Earthquake" tanked; after the release of 1972's Petaluma, he retreated from music to focus on his California dairy farm, but returned to show business during the mid-'80s in a managerial capacity, also promoting a number of concerts. AMG.

listen here

Buy @ Amazon: USA - FR - UK

Art Taylor - A.T.'s Delight 1961

Although Art Taylor was one of the busiest modern second-generation jazz drummers, working in the studio with Coleman Hawkins, Donald Byrd, John Coltrane and many others, he only released five albums under his own name, of which A.T.'s Delight was the third. And a delight it is indeed, bright and percussive, and when conga player Carlos "Patato" Valdes joins Taylor and pianist Wynton Kellyand bassist Paul Chambers on three cuts (Thelonious Monk's "Epistrophy," "Move" and a Taylorcalypso-inflected original called "Cookoo and Fungi"), the rhythm pocket opens into a deep blue sea for the horn men (Stanley Turrentine on tenor sax and Dave Burns on trumpet). "Move" does exactly that, it moves, and at a blistering pace. Monk's "Epistrophy," thanks in part to Valdes, reveals its rumba roots, and has never sounded brighter. The seldom-covered Coltrane composition "Syeeda's Song Flute" seems likewise refreshed and revived. The lone Taylor original, the driving "Cookoo and Fungi," is as sharp and alert is a kitten waking from a nap in the spring sun, and Taylor's drum solo is crisp, efficient and slides seamlessly into the calypso-informed main theme. A.T.'s Delight is a solid outing, with a wonderfully nervous but completely focused energy. AMG.

listen here

Buy @ Amazon: USA - FR - UK