The JB's - Hustle With Speed 1975

The JB's grab at a piece of the disco market that made Van McCoy a solo star with this production. It's excellent throughout despite James Brown's subdued arrangements on some songs. "(It's Not the Express) It's the JB's Monaurail," usually a six-minute song, rambles for over eight. Fred Wesley's funky trombone peppers "All Aboard the Soul Funky Train" (an update of "Night Train"). "Transmograpfication" is similar to jazz trumpeter Eddie Henderson's crossover attempts on his Sunburst and Realization albums. "Thank You for Letting Me Be Myself and You Be Yours" is better than the title, with a Dyke and the Blazers-type vocal that sets it right. AMG.

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The Mama's & The Papa's - If You Can Believe Your Eyes And Ears 1966

In the spring of 1966, If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears represented a genuinely new sound, as fresh to listeners as the songs on Meet the Beatles had seemed two years earlier. Released just as "California Dreaming" was ascending the charts by leaps and bounds, it was the product of months of rehearsal in the Virgin Islands and John Phillips' discovery of what one could do to build a polished recorded sound in the studio -- it embraced folk-rock, pop/rock, pop, and soul, and also reflected the kind of care that acts like the Beatles were putting into their records at the time. "Monday, Monday" and "California Dreamin'" are familiar enough to anyone who's ever listened to the radio, and "Go Where You Wanna Go" isn't far behind, in this version or the very similar rendition by the Fifth Dimension. But the rest is mighty compelling even to casual listeners, including the ethereal "Got a Feelin'," the rocking "Straight Shooter" and "Somebody Groovy," the jaunty, torch song-style version of "I Call Your Name," and the prettiest versions of "Do You Wanna Dance" and "Spanish Harlem" that anyone ever recorded.
If the material here has a certain glow that the Mamas & the Papas' subsequent LPs lacked, that may be due in part to the extensive rehearsal and the exhilaration of their first experience in the studio, but also a result of the fact that it was recorded before the members' personal conflicts began interfering with their ability to work together. The work was all spontaneous and unforced here, as opposed to the emotional complications that had to be overcome before their next sessions. AMG.

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The Hans Staymer Band - Dig A Hole 1972

Band from Canada excellent folk rock formed by harmonica player Hans Steimer, this is their first album. Hard to find.

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Rotary Connection - Dinner Music 1968

The only accurate prediction one could have made before going into a Rotary Connection record was that it would be unpredictable, and attempting to list who the group's peers were to the uninitiated only worked on a song-by-song basis. No other record quite fits this bill like Dinner Music. The least-uniform Rotary Connection record -- and that's saying a lot -- it comes off like a series of tangents with little in the way of cohesion. One moment, they could be jumping in piles of hay on the set of Hee Haw ("Country Things"), later on they could be at a packed juke joint ("Stormy Monday Blues"), and then they could be lulling a crowd at the Newport Folk Festival ("Amuse"), or even taking over the BBC Radiophonic Workshop to twiddle with electronics ("Lektricks #2"). The most bizarre song of all is "Merry Prankster," which has all the cracked acoustic pop of late-'60s Arthur Lee until it shifts into an odd tempo and a chorus made from an even odder melody of grunts. The record's best moment is buried in the latter half. "Amuse" is a beautifully folky song sung by Minnie Riperton at her most gentle and arresting. It's nothing but an acoustic guitar and her voice, which effortlessly wraps around your ears despite not taking full advantage of her five-octave range. Altogether, Dinner Music is the only record where Rotary Connection's eclecticism worked to their disadvantage. AMG.

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Ram Jam - Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Ram 1978

After scoring a major hit with "Black Betty" in 1977, Ram Jam returned in 1978 with another punchy set of hard rock tunes. Though Portrait of the Artist as a Young Ram failed to produce any hit singles like "Black Betty," it actually improves on their previous album by managing to broaden the group's sound without cutting back on the hard rock firepower that got them noticed. For instance, songs like "The Kid Next Door" and "Please Please (Please Me)" add keyboard textures that flesh out the group's sound without distracting from their guitar-driven attack. Ram Jam also makes an interesting departure from their trademark twin-guitar rock sound on the dramatic power ballad "Turnpike": this lost-love lament alternates a hard-rocking chorus with moody piano-driven verses to create an surprisingly ornate blend of AOR melodicism and hard rock bombast. However, the majority of Portrait of the Artist as a Young Ram is devoted to straightforward guitar rock; "Wanna Find Love" and "Saturday Night" blend pop hooks and metal riffs as effectively as anything on Ram Jam. Other tunes up the ante by presenting a frenetic level of energy that borders on punk rock: "Just Like Me" and "Hurricane Ride" both toss out slashing guitar riffs over double-time rhythms to create songs that sound like the Ramones gone metal crazy. Portrait of the Artist as a Young Ram further benefits from short, tight song structures that keep things from getting too excessive (the ambitious "Turnpike" is the only song that runs over 4 and a half minutes). All in all, this is a fine hard rock outing that is worthy of its cult reputation and a treat for anyone who likes hard-driving 1970s rock music. AMG.

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Black Widow - Black Widow 1971

Black Widow's eponymous second album was a conscious attempt on the band's part to scale back the satanic trappings that had dominated its debut, and, in the process, redirect the media's focus away from the controversy and onto the group's music. Too bad their songwriting vision remained at worst unfocused, at best an enigma: a half-baked amalgam of progressive rock, folk music, British blues, and -- least of all -- a few very tenuous notions of hard rock and proto-metal that have since erroneously formed a common misconception of the band, due to their business ties to Black Sabbath and, of course, their on and off interest in the dark arts. The last is only really felt here in the creepy, gothic appeal of "Mary Clark," and the closest Black Widow come to really rocking out is with the refreshingly straightforward format of the driving "Wait Until Tomorrow." Elsewhere, it's sadly all about mostly forgettable ("The Journey," "Poser," "Legend of Creation") or derivative ("Tears and Wine" with its mellow, King Crimson-like vibe) examples of prog-lite, with a couple of pointless musical interludes ("Bridge Passage," "An Afterthought") thrown in as filler. But perhaps most telling of all is the second song, "The Gypsy," which, because it highlights Clive Jones' flute, inevitably recalls the contemporary work of Jethro Tull, yet never comes anywhere near replicating Ian Anderson's wide-eyed intensity, never mind his eloquently elliptical turns of phrase. If any song here could single-handedly epitomize Black Widow's underachieving status, this is it, but then, the entirety of this LP pretty much does the trick as well. AMG. 

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The Chambers Brothers - New Generation 1970

Eschewing their normal frenzied mix of soul and rock, the brothers package their socially uplifting messages more inJames Brown-style funk than usual. They produce the album themselves and their ambition often exceeds their grasp. String orchestrations by band members Brian Keenan and Joe Chambers clutter an already-busy mix. The title track is the kind of extended rave-up that seems to be on every one of their albums. "Going to the Mill" closes the session with a straightforward, and welcome, shot of gospel. AMG.

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Ralph McTell - My Side of Your Window 1969

Although he's best-known for his classic folk song staple "Streets of London," which first appeared on his Spiral Staircase album in 1969, Ralph McTell is a multi-dimensional guitarist and singer/songwriter who's influenced hundreds of folk singers in Great Britain, Europe, and the U.S. Fortunately, people in the U.S. and Europe are beginning to connect to his vast body of excellent original work, and not just "Streets," which has been recorded more than 200 times by artists as diverse as Bruce Springsteen, Aretha Franklin, and even the angry punk group Anti-Nowhere League, and is still McTell's most requested song.

McTell, named Ralph May, was raised in post-WWII London with his mother and a younger brother. His father left home when he was two. He began to show musical talent when he was seven, when he began playing harmonica. When skiffle bands became all the rage in England, Scotland, and Ireland, he began playing ukulele and formed his first band. Later in his teens, he began playing guitar.

At the College Jazz Club in London, McTell first heard Ramblin' Jack Elliott sing Jesse Fuller's "San Francisco Bay Blues." Elliott's performance proved to be a revelatory experience for the shy, young, impressionable McTell. He took his earliest cues from the great blues and folk singers: Elliott, Woody Guthrie, Leadbelly, Blind Boy Fuller, Blind Blake,Robert Johnson, and Blind Willie McTell. He took his adopted last name from blues singer McTell, and his songwriting inspiration from the writings of Jack Kerouac and John Steinbeck. After a few years hanging around London, he took off to travel along the south coast of England and the rest of Europe, where he made his way around hitchhiking and busking. While busking around Europe, he met his wife Nanna; shortly thereafter, they had a son.

McTell tried a conventional career as a teacher, but continued playing the folk clubs around London. He began a long tenure at Les Cousins in the Soho section of London and there he began to make a name for himself. A music publisher was so impressed by McTell's early songs that he secured a recording deal for him. His first album, Eight Frames a Second, was released on the Transatlantic label in 1968. With a gentle voice, superb guitar playing skills gleaned from his days as a ukulele player, and a level of modesty that showed through on-stage, McTell began incorporating his own songs into his live shows, which were mostly blues in those days. By July 1969, he was booked at the Cambridge Folk Festival, and in December of that year was headlining his first major London concert at Hornsey Town Hall. By May 1970, McTell completely sold out the Royal Festival Hall and was booked to play the Isle of Wight Festival alongside Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan. He made his first U.S. tour in 1972 and returned to London to sell out the Royal Albert Hall in 1974, the first British solo act to accomplish such a feat in 14 years.

The third song he ever wrote, "Streets of London," was something he deliberately left off his debut album, but at a producer's insistence, he included it on his second album for Transatlantic, Spiral Staircase. After the song was re-recorded in 1974 as a single for Reprise/Warner Bros. it became a huge world-wide hit. The song reached number two on the British charts, and in Germany, there were four different versions of the song on the charts at one point, three by McTell and one by a German singer.

McTell's discography is very extensive and demonstrates his commitment to his craft as a songwriter. Though many of these albums are hard to locate, they're well worth seeking out, most originally recorded for Transatlantic, Reprise/Warner Bros., or Mays.In 1995 and 1996, McTell returned to the U.S. and performed a series of sold-out shows on the East Coast, and his visibility in the U.S. may have been helped along by Nanci Griffith's decision to record one of his songs, "From Clare to Here," on her Grammy-winning Other Voices, Other Roomsalbum.The pressures of world-wide success temporarily became too much for the shy, reserved McTell, and in the spring of 1975, he announced his intention to quit touring and withdraw from the music business for a while. He came to the U.S., where he relaxed and wrote songs in relative anonymity for a year before going back to the U.K. to play a Christmas benefit concert in Belfast. He continued recording for Warner Bros. in the '70s, releasing Right Side Upin 1976, Ralph, Albert and Sydney in 1977, and Slide Away the Screen in 1979. For most of the '80s, he spent his time touring and working on a children's television show called Alphabet Zoo, which led the TV network to create a show especially for him, Tickle on the Tum, and both programs introduced McTell to new generations of fans.

In 1992, he recorded an ambitious project about the life and times of poet Dylan Thomas, The Boy with a Note, released on Leola Music; recently, the U.S. has seen the Stateside release ofFrom Clare to Here (1996), a U.S. release of Silver Celebration, and Sand In Your Shoes (1998). Blue Skies Black Heroes appeared the following year. AMG.

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Q 65 - Revival 1966

Based on sheer musical ability, the Q 65 deserved to be at least as well known as the Pretty Things or the Yardbirds. Indeed, the Dutch quintet could have held their own with either of those groups or the Animals without breaking a sweat, based on the recorded evidence, and they also had room for some of the more countrified blues evident in the work of the Downliners Sect. Yet the Q 65 have remained one of Europe's best-kept star-caliber musical secrets for more than 30 years. the Q 65 were Frank Nuyens (guitar, vocals, sax, flute, harmonica), Willem Bieler (vocals, harmonica), Peter Vink (bass), Joop Roelofs (guitar), and Jay Baar (drums), first got together in 1965, in the Hague. The city was known as "the Liverpool of the Netherlands," with a music scene that had been thriving since the end of the '50s.

Instrumental groups, patterned after the sound of the Shadows had been very big at that time. Peter Vink and Jay Baar had been playing in a blues-based band called Leadbelly's Limited before they hooked up with Wim Bieler, Frank Nuyens, and Joop Roelofs to form the Q 65 in February of 1965. The group's professed influences were American soul acts like Sam & Dave, Wilson Pickett, and Otis Redding, yet somehow, when they performed, what they played came out closer in form and spirit to the likes of the Pretty Things, the Downliners Sect, and the Yardbirds than it did to any of those soul acts, at least at first. They landed a recording contract with Phonogram, a unit of Philips Records, late that year, and put on the Decca label. Their first single, "You're the Victor," was released in February of 1966. This was a strange record for a band professing an admiration of Sam & Dave or Wilson Pickett, a frantically paced piece of punk-style blues-rock with an infectious Bo Diddley beat, screaming, raspy vocals, and a savage attack on their instruments. The single made number 11 on the charts in Holland, and rode the bestseller lists for 13 weeks. The B-side, another original called "And Your Kind," was a more low-key, relaxed piece of blues-rock with slightly more of a soulful feel, but also some crunchy punk guitar.

In May of 1966, with the group now primed for success (with a full-time manager working for them), they released their second single, "The Life I Live." This was a more soulful record that built almost bolero-like in intensity. It was a good enough record to get Phonogram's management interested in promoting the group in England, which led to a publicity stunt that was not only a waste of time, but utterly foolish, sending the group to England by boat and having them come ashore in a rubber lifeboat, as though they'd come across the ocean that way. They were then supposed to play a gig, but as nobody had secured work permits, the group was only able to pose for photographs and press interviews before returning to the Netherlands. the Q 65 were greeted at the shore in Schevenning when they landed (again manning the lifeboat to land) by 30,000 fans, and ended up playing a gig right there at the pier. The band may not have done much for themselves in England, but they garnered a Top Ten hit in the Netherlands.

the Q 65's lineup changed during the early '70s as Nuyens exited to join Baar in a band called Rainman, while the Q 65 continued with a new lineup, featuring John Frederikz on vocals and Joop van Nimwegan on guitar. The original Q 65 reunited in 1980 and toured that year; they continued in various configurations throughout the middle of the '80s.Jay Baar passed away in 1990, but a version of the band, with Wim Bieler as leader, continued playing into '90s. During the early '70s, Dutch bands such as Ekseption (Holland's answer to The Nice) began getting a tiny bit of exposure in England and America, and in 1973, the floodgates fairly well opened, albeit briefly, with the chart-topping status of Focus. The Q 65 were around a little too early for their own good, in terms of finding any major exposure in England, much less America, but they were at least as worthy of being heard as any number of better-known British bands of the period.During 1967, they didn't release any LPs, but did get a solid extended-play single out called Q Blues, which did well at home. Their music during this period reached what was arguably its peak -- "Ain't That Lovin' You Babe" is a garage punk classic worthy of the best American bands of the period, while their version of "Ramblin' on My Mind" thunders and surges with ferocious energy. They were unique in their approach, mixing the sounds of saxes and even an ocarina -- an instrument virtually unknown in rock away from theTroggs -- into country and Chicago-style blues. The group continued trying to make it as a blues-rock band for most of 1967. Their sound began to change late in the year, just as music was turning psychedelic, and around the time just before Wim Bieler was drafted into the army. His exit heralded the end ofthe Q 65's classic period. Nuyens, Baar, and Roelofs hooked up with Herman Brood (piano, vocals) and Henk Smitskamp (vocals, bass) to form a new, more psychedelic-oriented outfit, which eventually evolved into a group calledCircus, which lasted, in varying lineups, for the year of 1968. Peter Vink, meanwhile, joined a group called Big Wheel, whose lineup included future Focus member Cyril Havermanns. In 1969, a second Q 65 album was released, entitledRevival and made up of singles and latter-day tracks. The music was still powerful and very intense -- perhaps too much so -- if not as accessible. Had the lineup stayed intact, the group might even have found an audience. They still played well, even if it was experimental in nature (and what blues they played was more psychedelic than classic style). They might've given bands like the Creation a run for their money, but the Q 65 split up at just about this point. The Q 65 re-formed in 1970 with Beer Klaasse on drums, and signed to Negram Records, staying together for one year and two LPs, Afghanistan and We Are Gonna Make It, which had a slightly more psychedelic orientation.With two successful singles under their belt, the group's debut album,Revolution, followed in 1966. Revolution was a powerful blues-rock album that included a snarling rendition of Willie Dixon's "Down in the Bottom," a rendition of Dixon's "Spoonful" that boasted gloriously crunchy acoustic guitars behind a raspy vocal worthy of Howlin' Wolf himself, and a funky version of Allen Toussaint's "Get Out of My Life, Woman," and a handful of originals that were fully competitive with the covers. The highlight, however, was a riveting 14-minute version of Sonny Boy Williamson II's "Bring It on Home." The album sold 3,5000 copies, a respectable number in the Netherlands, and established the group sufficiently to rate a spot playing withthe Small Faces, the Spencer Davis Group, the Kinks, and the Pretty Thingswhen they toured Holland. AMG.

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The Perth County Conspiracy - Does Not Exist 1970

Cedric Smith and Richard Keelan formed Perth County Conspiracy in 1969. Signed to Columbia soon after, the band (now including bassist Michael Butler) released The Perth County Conspiracy Does Not Exist in 1970 and Perth County Conspiracy Live the following year. Break out in Berlin was released in 1976 and Ten Lost Years -- And Then Some in 1977. AMG.

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Paul Siebel - Woodsmoke and Oranges 1970

Jac Holzman's (of Elektra Records) assessment of Paul Siebel proved right: Siebel really didn't have the ambition necessary to make it in show business. That, however, didn't mean he couldn't make a great album, so Elektra matched the songsmith with producer Peter K. Siegel and turned them loose in the studio. With a shoestring budget, the two men gathered a handful of fine musicians -- including guitarist David Bromberg, violinist Richard Greene, and steel guitarist Weldon Myrick -- to record ten Siebel originals quickly. Despite, or because of, the small budget and lack of time, Siebel and company crafted an incredible record that still sounds vibrant 30 years after the fact.Woodsmoke and Oranges begins with three gems, the up-tempo "She Made Me Lose My Blues," the jazzy "Miss Cherry Lane," and the road song "Nashville Again." Everything works in harmony here -- Siebel's songs, the vocals, and the sparkling, multi-layered arrangements. In fact, throughout the album, the arrangements seem to push the singer forward to deliver taut, heartfelt performances. The slower ballads equal the upbeat material, with nods going to "Louise" and "Long Afternoons." Like John Prine, Siebel is a singer/songwriter who has serious things on his mind, but doesn't forget to write memorable melodies to accompany the words. Although he'd never outdo his work onWoodsmoke and Oranges, few artists ever craft an album this good. AMG.

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