J.J.Cale - Naturally 1971

J.J. Cale's debut album, Naturally, was recorded after Eric Clapton made "After Midnight" a huge success. Instead of following Slowhand's cue and constructing a slick blues-rock album, Cale recruited a number of his Oklahoma friends and made a laid-back country-rock record that firmly established his distinctive, relaxed style. Cale included a new version of "After Midnight" on the album, but the true meat of the record lay in songs like "Crazy Mama," which became a hit single, and "Call Me the Breeze," which Lynyrd Skynyrd later covered. On these songs and many others on Naturally, Cale effortlessly captured a lazy, rolling boogie that contradicted all the commercial styles of boogie, blues, and country-rock at the time. Where his contemporaries concentrated on solos, Cale worked the song and its rhythm, and the result was a pleasant, engaging album that was in no danger of raising anybody's temperature. AMG.

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Axe - Music 1969

Psychedelic progressive band from Northampton, UK. They were formed as Crystalline, becoming Axe in 1969. Although they are documented as existing through to 1974, during their lifetime they never got further than an acetate/demo of their album, and a few live recordings. All known recordings were released decades later.

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Santana - Caravanserai 1972

Drawing on rock, salsa, and jazz, Santana recorded one imaginative, unpredictable gem after another during the 1970s. But Caravanserai is daring even by Santana's high standards. Carlos Santana was obviously very hip to jazz fusion -- something the innovative guitarist provides a generous dose of on the largely instrumental Caravanserai. Whether its approach is jazz-rock or simply rock, this album is consistently inspired and quite adventurous. Full of heartfelt, introspective guitar solos, it lacks the immediacy of Santana or Abraxas. Like the type of jazz that influenced it, this pearl (which marked the beginning of keyboardist/composer Tom Coster's highly beneficial membership in the band) requires a number of listenings in order to be absorbed and fully appreciated. But make no mistake: this is one of Santana's finest accomplishments. AMG.

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C.K. Strong - C.K. Strong 1969

Originally this extraordinary heavy-psychedelic-blues rock album was recorded in L.A., in 1969.
The album contains 8 original cuts of 42 mins playing time, and presents the "NEW" dark, haunted and aggressive progress in electric music of the end-sixties.
The band name was a creation, to credit the two founding members, so the C (Carey) K (Kewley) Strong caravan began in the summer of 69, a bit later Geoff Westen, the second guitarist joined and the creative unit CK(W) Strong was born.
There was a big hope, that this extremely talented group will breakthrough, as the liner notes on the cover express: "Hearing is believing, but even then, you'll come away shaking your head in disbelief...everything original, everything ebullient and everything "strong" in modern-day record production.
Miss Carey is worth the price of admission, even if she didn't sing. A radiating, well-endowed blonde, her pyromagnetic caroling scans three octaves. To these ears she's at least the equal of Janis Joplin.
Our guess is that C.K. Strong will be one of the major chart acts of '69." Lynn Carey, who also contributed to the cult-soundtrack of "Valley Of The Dolls", left the group shortly before the production of the second album started, to evolve into a solo career as "Mama Lion", Jefferson Kewley later joined the Alice Cooper Band and toured also with Jerry Garcia, together with Geoff Westen both performed with Mac Davis.
Westen performed also with the underground psychedelic band, "The Other Half", but soon became owner of Oz Studios in L.A. This re-issue is carefully re-mastered and expresses freshly the natural and open sound of this amazing production, contains a bio and cool "unseen" photos from the musiciansarchives, this is a must-have album.

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Caetano Veloso - Bicho 1977

Just prior to the recording of Bicho, Caetano Veloso was invited to take part in the Negro Festival of Art and Culture in Lagos, Nigeria. Veloso was so knocked out by the music he heard that he scrapped his original plans for the album to record something more redolent of his experiences in Lagos. Veloso himself refers to Bicho as "sweet melodies on a hot rhythm," and he's absolutely right. A marvelous record. For the record, bicho is the Portuguese word for beast. AMG.

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B.F. Trike - B.F. Trike 1971

Originally known as Hickory Wind with the same line-up, this trio went to Nashville early in 1971 and laid down tracks for a proposed RCA LP. It didn't happen. Eventually Rockadelic issued it - you'll need deep pockets for the limited vinyl version which disappeared all too quickly, so get the CD if this genre is to your tastes.
Musically it's quite varied but right 'in' with the heavy rock/psych school of the time. Launched by the fuzz-psych rework of Time And Changes it continues with some brisk and catchy rockers, characterised by excellent not-too-heavy drumming that swings rather than just being solid or pedestrian. Fluid fuzzed leads (the outstanding Lovely Lady), the odd lighter moment (Sunshine), and an irresistible cool boogie-rocker Six O'Clock Sleeper, absolutely tailor-made for Z.Z.Top, provide contrast and demonstrate their versatility. With perhaps the exception of the sentiments in Be Free, it has stood the test of time remarkably well and Mike McGuyer is totally justified in standing proudly by it. 

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The Pretty Things - S.F. Sorrow 1968

Who could ever have thought, going back to the Pretty Things' first recording session in 1965 -- which started out so disastrously that their original producer quit in frustration -- that it would come to this? The Pretty Things' early history in the studio featured the band with its amps seemingly turned up to 11, but for much of S.F. Sorrow the band is turned down to seven or four, or even two, or not amplified at all (except for Wally Allen's bass -- natch), and they're doing all kinds of folkish things here that are still bluesy enough so you never forget who they are, amid weird little digressions on percussion and chorus; harmony vocals that are spooky, trippy, strange, and delightful; sitars included in the array of stringed instruments; and an organ trying hard to sound like a Mellotron. Sometimes one gets an echo of Pink Floyd's Piper at the Gates of Dawn or A Saucerful of Secrets, and it all straddles the worlds of British blues and British psychedelia better than almost any record you can name. The album, for those unfamiliar, tells the story of "S.F. Sorrow," a sort of British Everyman -- think of a working-class, luckless equivalent to the Kinks' Arthur, from cradle to grave. The tale and the songs are a bit downbeat and no amount of scrutiny can disguise the fact that the rock opera S.F. Sorrow is ultimately a bit of a confusing effort -- these boys were musicians, not authors or dramatists. Although it may have helped inspire Tommy, it is, simply, not nearly as good. That said, it was first and has quite a few nifty ideas and production touches. And it does show a pathway between blues and psychedelia that the Rolling Stones, somewhere between Satanic Majesties, "We Love You," "Child of the Moon," and Beggars Banquet, missed entirely. [This CD reissue on Snapper adds four valuable songs from their 1967-1968 singles ("Defecting Grey," "Mr. Evasion," "Talkin' About the Good Times," and "Walking Through My Dreams"). This version of "Defecting Grey" is the original, long, uncut five-minute rendition, and not of trivial importance; it's superior to the shorter one used on the official single.] AMG.

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John Hanlon - Floating 1973

This was John’s very first album. Many of the songs were short and catchy and more like folk music. Some are quite beautiful. While it demonstrates his potential as a songwriter, both John and Mike Harvey the arranger/producer were clearly still learning the ropes with this album. Their best was yet to come. Thanks B.!

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Alex Bevan - No Truth To Sell 1971

Bevan began his musical career playing the French horn with his teacher Ruffier at Chambers Elementary School. In 1965, while at Shaw High School in East Cleveland, he acquired a six-string classical guitar. He played local night clubs and various coffeehouses in the Cleveland area such as "La Cave" and "Faragher’s Back Room". His first position in a group was as a backup musician with Irish folk singers Gusty & Sean at Fagan's Beacon House in the Flats of Cleveland, Ohio. While a student at the University of Akron, Bevan was introduced to his first producer, Eric Stevens, who signed him to Big Tree Records. His first album, No Truth to Sell, was released with the single "Linda’s Song", which got some airplay. Between 1971 and 1976, Bevan performed as an opening act for such headliners as the Earl Scruggs Review, Pure Prairie League, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Jerry Jeff Walker, Jimmy Buffett, Livingston Taylor, Billy Joel and others. Thanks to B.!

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The Steve Miller Band - Sailor 1968

Most definitely a part of the late-'60s West Coast psychedelic blues revolution that was becoming hipper than hip, Steve Miller was also always acutely aware of both the British psychedelic movement that was swirling in tandem and of where the future lay, and how that would evolve into something even more remarkable. The result of all those ideas, of course, came together on 1968's magnificent Sailor LP. What was begun on Children of the Future is more fully realized on Sailor, most notably on the opening "Song for Our Ancestors," which begins with a foghorn and only gets stranger from there. Indeed, the song precognizes Pink Floyd's 1971 opus "Echoes" to such an extent that one wonders how much the latter enjoyed Miller's own wild ride. Elsewhere, the beautiful, slow "Dear Mary" positively shimmers in a haze of declared love, while the heavy drumbeats and rock riffing guitar of "Living in the U.S.A." are a powerful reminder that the Steve Miller Band, no matter what other paths they meandered down, could rock out with the best of them. And, of course, this is the LP that introduced many to the Johnny "Guitar" Watson classic "Gangster of Love," a song that would become almost wholly Miller's own, giving the fans an alter ego to caress long before "The Joker" arose to show his hand. Rounding out Miller's love of the blues is an excellent rendering of Jimmy Reed's "You're So Fine." At their blues-loving best, Sailor is a classic Miller recording and a must-have -- especially for the more contemporary fan, where it becomes an initiation into a past of mythic proportion AMG. 

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The Pretty Things - Parachute 1970

If S.F. Sorrow is the Pretty Things' Sgt. Pepper, Magical Mystery Tour, and Yellow Submarine wrapped in one, then Parachute is their more succinct White Album and Abbey Road. It's not just a time line comparison. The Pretties made this fascinating LP in the same studio as the Fab Four, London's Abbey Road, with Beatles engineer Norman Smith producing. "The Good Mr. Square" replicates the three-part harmony the Beatles were so proud of on "Because." Two songs later, the group assembles a brief, interconnected three-song suite like the famous ones on side two of Abbey Road. Bassist Wally Allen's vocals on tracks such as "Sickle Clowns" have the same throaty, mad anguish that John Lennon exhibited on "Yer Blues" and "Happiness Is a Warm Gun." If S.F. Sorrow is hard rock grandeur, then Parachute is its more bitter twist, the dream dying and the witching hour upon us. Yet, if this isn't as much of a triumph, the creative neurons are still firing throughout a multi-varied, cohesive LP. Like S.F. Sorrow, it's a surprisingly palatable concept LP. This time the topic is a generation caught between the conflicting calls of (rural) peace, love, and boredom, and (urban) sophistication, sex, and squalor in a harsh world. Somehow the departure of the band's main creative force, Dick Taylor, didn't diminish the writing and inspired variety. Allen stepped up big time into the collaborator role with singer Phil May. The harmonies remain a strong point on an otherwise rock-inclined record, and the nasty edge of perfectly balanced bombast in the best songs have been a lost art ever since. (There are 18 minutes of good stuff tacked on the Snapper edition, taken from singles.) AMG.

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Sly & The Family Stone - There's A Riot Goin' On 1971

It's easy to write off There's a Riot Goin' On as one of two things -- Sly Stone's disgusted social commentary or the beginning of his slow descent into addiction. It's both of these things, of course, but pigeonholing it as either winds up dismissing the album as a whole, since it is so bloody hard to categorize. What's certain is that Riot is unlike any of Sly & the Family Stone's other albums, stripped of the effervescence that flowed through even such politically aware records as Stand! This is idealism soured, as hope is slowly replaced by cynicism, joy by skepticism, enthusiasm by weariness, sex by pornography, thrills by narcotics. Joy isn't entirely gone -- it creeps through the cracks every once and awhile and, more disturbing, Sly revels in his stoned decadence. What makes Riot so remarkable is that it's hard not to get drawn in with him, as you're seduced by the narcotic grooves, seductive vocals slurs, leering electric pianos, and crawling guitars. As the themes surface, it's hard not to nod in agreement, but it's a junkie nod, induced by the comforting coma of the music. And damn if this music isn't funk at its deepest and most impenetrable -- this is dense music, nearly impenetrable, but not from its deep grooves, but its utter weariness. Sly's songwriting remains remarkably sharp, but only when he wants to write -- the foreboding opener "Luv N' Haight," the scarily resigned "Family Affair," the cracked cynical blues "Time," and "(You Caught Me) Smilin'." Ultimately, the music is the message, and while it's dark music, it's not alienating -- it's seductive despair, and that's the scariest thing about it. AMG.

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Sandy Hurvitz - Sandy's Album is Here at Last 1968

The teenage Hurvitz, prior to becoming Essra Mohawk, made this hit and miss recording for Frank Zappa's Bizarre label. Zappa was the project's original producer, before various disagreements saw him replaced by Ian Underwood. The results suggest that Underwood was narcoleptic, or a perpetual absentee -- it's hard to credit his input with a title so lofty as producer. Hurvitz's songs -- long, formless, intense creations -- may in all likelihood be of the very finest, but it's impossible to tell. All the cuts seem to have been recorded through a dense, woolen sock, and each is nearly impenetrable as a result. Apart from the occasional intrusion of a small band, and a flautist, it's essentially a solo recital -- just Hurvitz and her piano -- but even the songs most bare of instrumentation are clouded and marred by the rotten production job, which also succeeds in making Hurvitz' lyrics completely unintelligible. The song titles -- "Arch Godliness of Purplefull Magic," "Tree of Trees," and "The Sun" -- point towards a bright, sparkling imagination, but the sound quality of Sandy's Album means that even that cannot be verified. AMG. 

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Jeff Beck - Truth 1968

Despite being the premiere of heavy metal, Jeff Beck's Truth has never quite carried its reputation the way the early albums by Led Zeppelin did, or even Cream's two most popular LPs, mostly as a result of the erratic nature of the guitarist's subsequent work. Time has muted some of its daring, radical nature, elements of which were appropriated by practically every metal band (and most arena rock bands) that followed. Truth was almost as groundbreaking and influential a record as the first Beatles, Rolling Stones, or Who albums. Its attributes weren't all new -- Cream and Jimi Hendrix had been moving in similar directions -- but the combination was: the wailing, heart-stoppingly dramatic vocalizing by Rod Stewart, the thunderous rhythm section of Ron Wood's bass and Mickey Waller's drums, and Beck's blistering lead guitar, which sounds like his amp is turned up to 13 and ready to short out. Beck opens the proceedings in a strikingly bold manner, using his old Yardbirds hit "Shapes of Things" as a jumping-off point, deliberately rebuilding the song from the ground up so it sounds closer to Howlin' Wolf. There are lots of unexpected moments on this record: a bone-pounding version of Willie Dixon's "You Shook Me"; a version of Jerome Kern's "Ol' Man River" done as a slow electric blues; a brief plunge into folk territory with a solo acoustic guitar version of "Greensleeves" (which was intended as filler but audiences loved); the progressive blues of "Beck's Bolero"; the extended live "Blues Deluxe"; and "I Ain't Superstitious," a blazing reworking of another Willie Dixon song. It was a triumph -- a number 15 album in America, astoundingly good for a band that had been utterly unknown in the U.S. just six months earlier -- and a very improbable success. AMG.

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Caravan - Waterloo Lily 1972

Before the recording of Waterloo Lily, David Sinclair departed Caravan to join forces with Soft Machine skinsman Robert Wyatt and form Matching Mole. With the subsequent arrival of former Delivery member Steve Miller and an overwhelming jazz influence, the edgier progressive rock and folk elements that were so prevalent on their previous albums are somewhat repressed. The band's performance level did not suffer in the transition. In fact, the addition of Miller only punctuates Caravan's previously honed improvisational skills. Beginning with Waterloo Lily's leadoff title track, there is a sound more akin to the jazzier efforts of Traffic. Miller's "Nothing at All" incorporates the jazz fusion even further as the long instrumental introduction more than hints at Steely Dan circa Katy Lied. The up-tempo staccato bop featuring Miller's electric piano accents, when juxtaposed with Pye Hastings' liquid-toned electric guitar could easily be mistaken for that of Walter Becker and Donald Fagan. The remainder of the album centers on a couple of pieces that evoke the sound and spirit of the previous Caravan outings. Most reminiscent of the classic sound is Hastings' epic "The Love in Your Eye" suite. The track recalls the laid-back intensity and phenomenal improvisational synergy of earlier tracks such as "For Richard" and "Where, but for Caravan Would I," while wisely incorporating Miller's formidable jazz chops to give the instrumental sections sustained substance throughout. The remastered CD offers three additional compositions circa the Waterloo Lily sessions. "Pye's June Thing" and "Ferdinand" are two of Hastings' acoustic demos. A considerably more complete "Looking Left, Looking Right" is a treasured recovery from the vaults. Originally vaulted due to the time limitations of vinyl, this track, along with "Pye's Loop" -- which acts as a coda to "Looking Left..." -- mark their debut release here. AMG.

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Savoy Brown - Looking In 1970

Savoy Brown's blues-rock sound takes on a much more defined feel on 1970's Looking In and is one of this band's best efforts. Kim Simmonds is utterly bewildering on guitar, while Lonesome Dave Peverett does a fine job taking over lead singing duties from Chris Youlden who left halfway through the year. But it's the captivating arrangements and alluring ease of the music that makes this a superb listen. The pleading strain transformed through Simmonds' guitar on "Money Can't Save Your Soul" is mud-thick with raw blues, and the comfort of "Sunday Night" is extremely smooth and laid back. "Take It Easy" sounds like it could have been a B.B. King tune as it's doused with relaxed guitar fingering. The entire album is saturated with a simple, British blues sound but the pace and the marbled strands of bubbly instrumental perkiness fill it with life. Even the Yardbirds-flavored "Leaving Again" is appealing with its naïve hooks, capped off with a heart-stopping guitar solo. This album along with Street Corner Talking best exemplify Savoy Brown's tranquilizing style. AMG.

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Carter Jefferson - The Rise Of Atlantis 1978

Tenor saxophonist Carter Jefferson made somewhat of a name for himself when trumpeter Woody Shaw chose him as a member of his first working quintet. Shaw is the producer of this album,Jefferson's fine debut (and evidently only) recording as a leader. Taking a cue from Shaw, the saxophonist sticks essentially to a quintet of trumpet and sax backed by all-star rhythm sections. Three of the tracks include hard bop trumpeter Terumasa Hino while the other three feature little-known Japanese trumpeter Shunzo Ono. Most of the tunes are firmly in the school of hard bop, the sort of music that Woody Shaw played so well. While there is not any new ground broken, it is all performed competently enough. While not as emotionally charged as his work with Shaw, Jefferson impresses with a fluid, mobile attack that shows a solid grasp of his material. If the groups seem to be sometimes merely going through the motions, there are nonetheless enough fine moments to make this a worthwhile purchase. AMG.

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The Strawbs - Strawbs 1969

The Strawbs had done an album with Sandy Denny handling many of the vocals, and had also done quite a bit of unreleased recordings (now on the double CD Preserves Uncanned) prior to 1969's Strawbs. This is still their first proper album, but their wealth of prior live and studio experience most likely helped make it sound more confident and fully formed than many a debut effort. The group distinguished itself among the burgeoning school of British folk-rockers by delivering bittersweet folk-rock with a storytelling flavor. Dave Cousins' songwriting was on the sober and occasionally over-earnest side, but nonetheless the record was strong and alluring enough to immediately establish the Strawbs as one of the better first-generation U.K. folk-rock outfits. Some of these songs had been around for a while, as the presence of some of them on Preserves Uncanned and Sandy Denny & the Strawbs attests. However, the group took big strides from bare-bones folk-rock in the studio by dressing these in arrangements -- sometimes with light recorder, choral backup vocals, and orchestration -- that gave the Elizabethan melodies a pastoral, quasi-classical feel at times, without losing sight of an acoustic base. "The Man Who Called Himself Jesus" and "Where Is This Dream of Your Youth" are among their best and most ambitious songs, and even if the compositions can sometimes take themselves too seriously, the music's never less than respectable. AMG.

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