Henry McCullough - Mind Your Own Business 1975

Henry McCullough was one of the busier guitarists in England during the 1970s, playing alongside such stars and superstars as Joe Cocker and Paul McCartney. Born in Portstewart, Northern Ireland in 1943, he took up the guitar as a boy and was playing in the Irish showband the Skyrockets in the mid-'60s. After a few years of playing dancehalls, he decided to move his career to the next phase -- he'd met three other players, Ernie Graham (guitar/vocals), Chris Stewart (bass), and Dave Lutton (drums), from a show band called Gene & the Gents, and together they formed the People, later renamed Eire Apparent. Their sound was a mix of blues, pop, and psychedelia, with a commercial and virtuoso edge to the playing and singing. They jumped into the big time after a move to London and being signed by Chas Chandler and Mike Jeffery, the managers of Jimi Hendrix -- from obscurity, they were suddenly thrust into Hendrix's orbit, touring England and then America in support of the legendary guitarist. The band had one single under its belt and was on a successful tour of North America when McCullough was suddenly forced to leave, due to problems he encountered when he tried to enter Canada with the group for a scheduled show. Some accounts say it was a problem with his visa, while others indicate that controlled substances were involved -- whatever the details, he was forced to return to Ireland and was replaced by Mick Cox, who took his spot permanently. McCullough returned to London, where he helped found the band Sweeney's Men; he then jumped to the Grease Band, playing behind Joe Cocker during the latter's international breakthrough, on With a Little Help from My Friends and the tour that followed (including a performance at the Woodstock Festival), before going off on their own. 
In 1972, McCullough passed an audition for Paul McCartney's new band, Wings, joining the bare-bones lineup of Denny Seiwell and Denny Laine (who were already aboard for the album Wild Life) in the first fully functional incarnation of the group. That version of Wings did play a few gigs and cut the album Red Rose Speedway, which restored McCartney (whose career had faltered somewhat with the previous album) to full critical and commercial success. Its sales were driven by the soaring romantic ballad "My Love," a hit single that gave McCullough his most visible moment on record to date, with a guitar solo that was all over AM radio in the months following its release. During the recording of the album at EMI, McCullough made an unintended contribution to another top-seller of the period when he took a break -- he ended up in the adjacent studio, joining a Pink Floyd session where he made a spoken word contribution that got him onto Dark Side of the Moon. He left Wings after the one album and later turned to session work, playing on records by Marianne Faithfull, Roy Harper, Ronnie Lane, Frankie Miller, Eric Burdon, and Spooky Tooth, joining the latter on their fourth album. A hand injury in the early '80s left him sidelined for an extended period, and it wasn't until 1988 that McCullough re-emerged fully, leading his own band in Ireland. For the next decade, he confined his work exclusively to Ireland, but in the late '90s, he cut a series of sessions for an album in Poland and toured the country. He also turned to songwriting and generated "Failed Christian," which was later recorded by Nick Lowe. McCullough had a serious heart attack in November 2012 and was left incapacitated; he died in June 2016 after an extended illness at 72 years of age. AMG.

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Roy Rutanen - Roy Rutanen 1972

The only record of an American musician. Roy Rutanen grew up in Southbridge, Massachusetts. He was the eldest in a family of 4 children. His mother was a good pianist, and his father was a talented auto mechanic, but unfortunately an avid alcoholic. In 1966, he was drafted into the army and sent to Vietnam. After the service, he went to Australia where this album was recorded on MCA through Astor Records. A thoroughly amazing psych-acid-folk from the early 70s.
Roy Rutanen hailed from New Zealand. This album was recorded in Australia and released on MCA through Astor Records. Thoroughly amazing psych-acid-folk from early 70s. Lots of acoustic and fuzz guitar and flute.

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Larry Young - Into Somethin' 1964

Larry Young who like most organists originally sounded close to Jimmy Smith, took a big step away from the organ's dominant influence on this adventurous and colorful set, which was his debut as a leader for Blue Note. Performing with a quartet also including tenor saxophonist Sam Rivers, guitarist Grant Green and drummer Elvin Jones, Young performs four of his originals plus Green's "Plaza de Toros." Other than the blues "Backup," the music is fairly complex, grooving in its own fashion and showing that Young was quite aware of John Coltrane's modal excursions. AMG.

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J.F. Murphy and Free Flowing Salt - Almost Home 1971

The first album issued by J.F. Murphy & Free Flowing Salt, renamed after as J.F. Murphy & Salt. Interesting group with the melting of music styles, rock, psych, jazz. Not to miss. 

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Gal Costa - Índia 1973

With Índia, Gal Costa completely abandoned the absurd, screaming guitars and wild drumming for some of the lushest, most sophisticated, and most complex arrangements of her career. Her voice is clear and inviting as always, sitting perfectly with the strings, accordions, horns, reeds, and percussion that swirl around, effortlessly punctuating the romance in every track. With Gilberto Gil alongside acoustic guitar and musical director, the arrangements definitely glow with his polyphonic personality, but these songs have a feel all their own -- sounding as if they blossomed out of necessity and the sharp edge of elegance. Índia seems as if it were conceived with ideas walled off to past influences and future aspirations, holding a timeless quality, leaving one to wonder if Costa and Gil were at all aware of what they were producing while it was happening or if they were completely swept up in the magic of the moment. Even though the hugely influential Tropicalia movement was over by the time of this release, Índia unquestionably shows that Costa's inventiveness was still unfolding and impulsive and should be considered by the wave of Tropicalia collectors as a worthy addition to the assortment of recordings in that it shows how a major player in that movement transferred her ambitions to a completely different direction without forsaking her class or drive. AMG.

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Ruby Starr - Ruby Starr & Gey Ghost 1975

Singer Ruby Starr was best-known as a backup singer for '70s macho man rockers Black Oak Arkansas, but also issued several recordings as a solo artist as well. Born Constance Henrietta Mierzwiak in Toledo, OH, in 1949, the future rock singer got her start at the age of nine (performing renditions of Brenda Lee songs) before changing her stage name to Connie Little and forming the Phil Spector-esque Connie & the Blu-Beats. Following stints in such obscure outfits as the Downtowners and the Blue Grange Ramblers (aka BGR), the latter of which mutated into the outfit Ruby Jones (a name that the singer was going by at the time). Signed to Curtis Mayfield's Curtom label, the recording of Ruby Jones' 1971 self-titled was even supervised by Mayfield. Shortly after the album's release, Black Oak Arkansas frontman Jim Dandy spotted Starr singing in an Evansville, IN, club and persuaded her to join his band, as she assumed her best-known stage name Ruby Starr.

Starr toured with the band for several years (appearing on the albums Street Party and Balls of Fire, as well as their lone hit single "Jim Dandy") before leaving the group to form the Ruby Jones Band in 1976, and issuing Scene Stealer the same year. By the dawn of the '80s, Jones/Starr had formed Grey Star, issuing a pair of recordings -- 1981's self-titled debut and 1983's Telephone Sex -- before forming the group Henrietta Kahn in the late '80s. In the '90s, Starr was diagnosed with cancer, eventually passing away at home in Toledo in January of 1995. After her passing, several archival releases that featured Starr were issued, including the live Black Oak Arkansas recording, King Biscuit Flower Hour Presents, and a reissue of Ruby Jones' debut album, retitled as Stone Junkie. AMG. 

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Miles Davis - Live-Evil 1970

Live-Evil is one of Miles Davis' most confusing and illuminating documents. As a double album, it features very different settings of his band -- and indeed two very different bands. The double-LP CD package is an amalgam of a December 19, 1970, gig at the Cellar Door, which featured a band comprised of Miles, bassist Michael Henderson, drummer Jack DeJohnette, guitarist John McLaughlin, saxophonist Gary Bartz, Keith Jarrett on organ, and percussionist Airto. These tunes show a septet that grooved hard and fast, touching on the great funkiness that would come on later. But they are also misleading in that McLaughlin only joined the band for this night of a four-night stand; he wasn't really a member of the band at this time. Therefore, as fine and deeply lyrically grooved-out as these tracks are, they feel just a bit stiff -- check any edition of this band without him and hear the difference. The other band on these discs was recorded in Columbia's Studio B and subbed Ron Carter or Dave Holland on bass, added Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock on electric pianos, dropped the guitar on "Selim" and "Nem Um Talvez," and subbed Steve Grossman over Gary Bartz while adding Hermeto Pascoal on percussion and drums in one place ("Selim"). In fact, these sessions were recorded earlier than the live dates, the previous June in fact, when the three-keyboard band was beginning to fall apart. Why the discs were not issued separately or as a live disc and a studio disc has more to do with Miles' mind than anything else. As for the performances, the live material is wonderfully immediate and fiery: "Sivad," "Funky Tonk," and "What I Say" all cream with enthusiasm, even if they are a tad unsure of how to accommodate McLaughlin. Of the studio tracks, only "Little Red Church" comes up to that level of excitement, but the other tracks, particularly "Gemini/Double Image," have a winding, whirring kind of dynamic to them that seems to turn them back in on themselves as if the band was really pushing in a free direction that Miles was trying to rein in. It's an awesome record, but it's because of its flaws rather than in spite of them. This is the sound of transition and complexity, and somehow it still grooves wonderfully. AMG.

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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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V.A. - Wattstax Festival 2003

As it is with the multiple Woodstock soundtrack albums, it's hard to keep up with what's on the soundtrack discs bearing the name Wattstax in the title, counting the two initial volumes that came out in the 1970s, and now this three-CD package. Making matters more confusing is how, as the title of this set infers, the albums mix music from the festival with music from, or somehow associated with, the film Wattstax (which had some scenes, musical and otherwise, that actually didn't take place at the Wattstax festival itself). And to make matters yet more confusing, Music from the Wattstax Festival & Film, for all its generous length, isn't simply a combination of the Wattstax music that appeared in the '70s on either Wattstax, The Living Word: Live Concert Music from the Original Movie Soundtrack or Wattstax: The Living Word, Vol. 2. A lot of tracks from those albums do appear on these three CDs, but some don't; plus, Music from the Wattstax Festival & Film adds 17 previously unreleased songs, as well as one (Isaac Hayes' "Theme from Shaft") that previously appeared on Isaac Hayes at Wattstax. It's something of a head-hurting exercise to keep it all straight. But ultimately, the most important thing to bear in mind is that Music from the Wattstax Festival & Film is the best, and certainly most bountiful, of the Wattstax-spawned discs, though it's marred by the exclusion of some previously issued tracks from the other Wattstax releases. Most of this was indeed recorded at the Wattstax festival on August 20, 1972, featuring live soul from many artists on the Stax label. Most of the best performances from the previous Wattstax iterations were retained, among them well-recorded selections by the Staple Singers (whose four songs include "Respect Yourself" and "I'll Take You There"), Eddie Floyd (doing "Knock on Wood"), the Bar-Kays (whose nine-minute "Son of Shaft/Feel It" is a highlight), Albert King, Carla Thomas, Johnnie Taylor (with an eight-minute "Steal Away"), the Emotions, and Rufus Thomas. Some of the best cuts, however, are found in the dynamic previously unreleased material by lesser-known Stax artists, like Louise McCord's "Better Get a Move On," Lee Sain's "Them Hot Pants," Little Sonny's funk-blues "Wade in the Water," the Newcomers' Jackson Five-like "Pin the Tail on the Donkey," and Mel & Tim's hit "Backfield in Motion." The addition of some gospel songs also reflects the breadth of music at the festival, though the gospel tunes aren't as inspiring as the soul ones. On the whole, it's an important document of some of the better, live-'70s soul recordings. Arguably, however, some of the less interesting, previously unissued songs, should have been excluded to make room for some tracks by Albert King, Johnny Taylor, and Little Milton that showed up on the two Wattstax, the Living Word volumes, but somehow didn't make it onto Music from the Wattstax Festival & Film. AMG.

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Patty Waters - College Tour 1966

Although this live show was only recorded a few months after the Sings session, it's hardly extraneous, featuring entirely different material. It's also a considerably more aggressive and free-leaning effort than her debut, as Waters challenges herself and the audience with avant-garde crescendos of peals and wordless, whispering moans, although she doesn't entirely neglect the more subdued and accessible features of her voice. AMG.

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Love - Love 1965

Love's debut is both their hardest-rocking early album and their most Byrds-influenced. Arthur Lee's songwriting muse hadn't fully developed at this stage, and in comparison with their second and third efforts, this is the least striking of the LPs featuring their classic lineup, with some similar-sounding folk-rock compositions and stock riffs. A few of the tracks are great, though: their punky rendition of Bacharach/David's "My Little Red Book" was a minor hit, "Signed D.C." and "Mushroom Clouds" were superbly moody ballads and Bryan Maclean's "Softly to Me" served notice that Lee wasn't the only songwriter of note in the band. AMG.

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Ornette Coleman - Something Else!!!! 1958

This 1958 debut recording by the Ornette Coleman Quintet, which featured Coleman on his trademark white plastic alto, Don Cherry on trumpet, Billy Higgins on drums, Walter Norris on piano, and Don Payne on bass, shook up the jazz world -- particularly those musicians and critics who had entered the hard bop era with such verve and were busy using the blues as a way of creating vast solo spaces inside tight and short melody lines. Something Else!!!! is anathema to that entire idea, and must have sounded like it came from outer space at the time. First, Coleman's interest was in pitch, not "being in tune." His use of pitch could take him all over -- and outside of -- a composition, as it does on "Invisible," which begins in D flat. The intervals are standard, but the melodic component of the tune -- despite its hard bop tempo -- is, for the most part, free. But what is most compelling is evident in abundance here and on the next two tunes, "The Blessing" and "Jayne": a revitalization of the blues as it expressed itself in jazz. Coleman refurbished the blues framework, threaded it through his jazz without getting rid of its folk-like, simplistic milieu. In other words, the groove Coleman was getting here was a people's groove that only confounded intellectuals at the time. Coleman restored blues to their "classic" beginnings in African music and unhooked their harmonies. Whether the key was D flat, A, G, whatever, Coleman revisited the 17- and 25-bar blues. There are normal signatures, however, such as "Chippie" in F and in eight-bar form, and "The Disguise" is in D, but in a strange 13-bar form where the first and the last change places, altering the talking-like voice inherent in the melodic line. But the most important thing about Something Else! was that, in its angular, almost totally oppositional way, it swung and still does; like a finger-poppin' daddy on a Saturday night, this record swings from the rafters of the human heart with the most unusually gifted, emotional, and lyrical line since Bill Evans first hit the scene. AMG.

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Osibisa - Osibisa 1971

Osibisa's self-titled album opened up their unique blend of African and Western-styled music to a wider audience, charting in both the U.S. and Europe. Produced by Tony Visconti, Osibisa's extraordinary merger of African drum beats, colorful rhythms, and rock-inspired keyboard and horn parts give it an expansive sound that infuses countless musical influences. Even the melodies take bits of rhythm & blues and modern rock and affix them to the accompanying percussion beats to come up with a contemporary feel with an avant-garde atmosphere. Tracks such as "Dawn," "Phallus C," and "Oranges" incorporate fragments of traditional jazz and jazz fusion mainly because of the flute and saxophone into their core, but then fashions the result to resemble the band's true heritage. Each song conjures up a certain African mysticism with its stressed rhythms and semi-primordial tempos. The most impressive track, "Music for Gong Gong," became a minor hit in the U.K. thanks to the well- balanced vocal charge and the beauty that's felt in the shingled layers of guitar, organ, and drum work. In both "Ayiko Bia" and "Akwaaba," Osibisa's Ghanian and Nigerian roots come alive through the use of the flute, flugelhorn, and trumpet -- not exactly the traditional instruments of West Africa, but they are transformed and molded to take on the band's fundamental sound. What may be the most predominant aspect about Osibisa is that the vast blend of instruments and the playful lyrics inject just enough of a modern element into the album that it's properly kept from being labeled as world music or as new age. AMG.

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Pacific Gas & Electric - Are You Ready 1970

Anchored by Pacific Gas & Electric's sole hit "Are You Ready," the album of the same name -- actually their third LP -- treads a thin line between eclecticism and confusion, and is actually weaker on the whole than its predecessor, 1969's Pacific Gas & Electric. Certainly the ominous yet inspirational gospel-funk-psychedelia of "Are You Ready" was the strongest track, and to this day the only one that most casual rock fans remember. Yet other cuts on the album indicated they couldn't decide whether to be a heavy blues-rock group ("Hawg for You"), a more soul-dipped version of the Band ("Staggolee"), a swampy soul-rock outfit (a cover of the Isley Brothers' "The Blackberry"), or, least convincingly, cry-in-your-beer honky tonk balladeers ("Mother, Why Don't You Cry?"). This wouldn't have been such a handicap if the material wasn't as mediocre as it was, and any song titled "Love, Love, Love, Love, Love" is a warning that lyrical imagination wasn't in abundance on the day it was composed. They do play the James Brown-psychedelic rock-fusion card with some gusto on "Elvira," and Charlie Allen's vocals are pretty soulful, though it's only on a cover of Percy Sledge's "When a Man Loves a Woman" that they come to the fore in a no-nonsense manner. AMG.

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Mahogany Rush - Strange Universe 1975

Mahogany Rush was to Jimi Hendrix what jazz saxophonists Sonny Stitt and Ernie Henry were to Charlie Parker -- loving disciples, but not outright clones. Without question, Hendrix was a major influence on the hard rock power trio; you could hear it in leader Frank Marino's singing as well as his electric guitar playing. But ultimately, Mahogany Rush sounded like itself. One of the best studio albums that Mahogany recorded in the 1970s was Strange Universe, a hard rock/heavy metal classic that is as melodic as it is forceful. As aggressively as Mahogany rocks on gems like "Tryin' Anyway," "Dancing Anyway," and "Dear Music," this 1975 LP never fails to be musical. One hears overtones of progressive rock, psychedelic rock, and jazz-rock fusion on much of the material, and Mahogany's lyrics aren't the typical boy-meets-girl fare; in fact, the threesome explores gothic fantasy themes on "Land of 1000 Nights," "Tales of the Spanish Warrior," and other cuts. There are no dull moments on Strange Universe, which points to the fact that Mahogany Rush was among the finest hard rock/metal bands of the '70s. AMG.

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