Fela Kuti - He Miss Road 1975

He Miss Road was produced by none other than Ginger Baker, who was a semi-regular jamming partner of Fela Kuti's as well as a close friend. And the tunes Fela wrote for this platter are wild, cosmic, sexy as hell, and deeply saturated in funk à la James Brown. The B-3 solo at the beginning of the title track is simply a device for inviting the band in. The B-3 is way up in the mix, supercharged. The echo effects Baker used on the organ and the horns add a nice touch and create a different textural quality, one that is spacious, to be sure, but still rooted in the shamanic repetition as the riff goes on forever no matter what instruments enter or leave the mix. The vocals show up midway through as everything gets tense and explodes. "Monday Morning in Lagos" is deep, dark, swirling Afro-funk. It's moody, spooky, and its organ line just stitches the whole groove together. The final cut, "It's No Promise," is pure Nigerian trance music. The longest track here, it's also the most abstract. It's held together by Tony Allen's drumming and the popping bassline by Franco Aboddy. This is one of Fela's cookers, an album from his most creative period, and it reigns among the best in his extensive catalog. AMG.

listen here or here or here

Joe Zawinul - The Rise & The Fall Of The Third Stream 1968

This transitional recording sees Joe Zawinul moving from the role of jazz pianist to that of a synthesist in the broad sense of the word. The recording, made up of advanced hard bop and post bop themes, includes -- with varying degrees of cohesion -- passages for cello and violas. The strings never completely meld with the jazz instrumentation, but they also don't get in the way. The title suggests Zawinul sees little value in partitioning music under such headings as "Third Stream" (a rubric for the fusion of jazz and classical music). This view would be famously exemplified in the influential projects with which Zawinul would soon be involved. Zawinul sticks with acoustic piano except for "Soul of a Village", where he improvises in a soul-jazz vein on Fender Rhodes over the tamboura-like droning of a prepared piano. On other tracks, his playing is similar to the sweeping grandeur of McCoy Tyner. Elsewhere, he is in more of a Keith Jarrett or Bill Evans space. There's good work from Jimmy Owens on trumpet and William Fischer on tenor sax, along with a top-flight rhythm section comprising bassist Richard Davis and either Freddie Waits or Roy McCurdy on drums.What's interesting about this music is the insight it provides on directions Zawinul would soon take with Miles Davis on the ethereal In a Silent Way, on the impressionistic 1971 eponymous release Zawinul, and then with the borderless fusioneering of Weather Report. These later projects are the realization of ideas that Zawinul was beginning to form on this 1967 session. AMG.

listen here or here or here

Mighty Kong - All I Wanna Do Is Rock 1973

Aussie rock icon Ross Wilson has been at the helm of two of Australia's biggest bands (Daddy Cool and Mondo Rock) plus one of our more obscure: Mighty Kong. Mighty Kong lasted less than a year, but they did leave US with one terrific and underrated album: 'All I Wanna Do Is Rock'. When Daddy Cool broke up in August 1972, Wilson and Ross Hannaford set about forming a new band that would explore a heavier style that harked back to the pre-DADDY COOL days of Sons of the Vegetal Mother and the Party Machine. After some initial changes that at one stage included Tim Gaze (Tamam Shud / Kahvas Jute) and Gulliver Smith (Company Caine), the final lineup was settled with Wilson, Hannaford, Russell Smith (Company Caine), Tim Partridge (Company Caine) and Ray Arnott (Spectrum). Signing to the newly formed Wizard Records, the band recorded 'All I Wanna Do Is Rock' with American producer John Fischbach. The album came out in December 1973 along with the single "Callin' All Cats (The Cats Are Callin'). 

listen here or here or here

Warren Zevon - Warren Zevon 1976

Warren Zevon was a ten-year music industry veteran who had written songs for the Turtles, backed up Phil Everly, done years of session work, and been befriended by Jackson Browne by the time he cut his self-titled album in 1976 (which wasn't his debut, though the less said about 1969's misbegotten Wanted Dead or Alive the better). Even though Warren Zevon was on good terms with L.A.'s Mellow Mafia, he sure didn't think (or write) like any of his pals in the Eagles or Fleetwood Mac; Zevon's music was full of blood, bile, and mean-spirited irony, and the glossy surfaces of Jackson Browne's production failed to disguise the bitter heart of the songs on Warren Zevon. The album opened with a jaunty celebration of a pair of Old West thieves and gunfighters ("Frank and Jesse James"), and went on to tell remarkable, slightly unnerving tales of ambitious pimps ("The French Inhaler"), lonesome junkies ("Carmelita"), wired, hard-living lunatics ("I'll Sleep When I'm Dead"), and truly dastardly womanizers ("Poor Poor Pitiful Me"), and even Zevon's celebrations of life in Los Angeles, long a staple of the soft rock genre, had both a menace and an epic sweep his contemporaries could never match ("Join Me in L.A." and "Desperados Under the Eaves"). But for all their darkness, Zevon's songs also possessed a steely intelligence, a winning wit, and an unusually sophisticated melodic sense, and he certainly made the most of the high-priced help who backed him on the album. Warren Zevon may not have been the songwriter's debut, but it was the album that confirmed he was a major talent, and it remains a black-hearted pop delight. AMG.

listen here or here or here

Randy Newman - Good Old Boys 1974

Randy Newman's songwriting often walks a narrow line between intelligent satire and willful cruelty, and that line was never finer than on the album Good Old Boys. Newman had long displayed a fascination with the American South, and Good Old Boys was a song cycle where he gave free rein to his most imaginative (and venomous) thoughts on the subject. The album's scabrous opening cut, "Rednecks," is guaranteed to offend practically anyone with its tale of a slow-witted, willfully (and proudly) ignorant Southerner obsessed with "keeping the n-----s down." "A Wedding in Cherokee County" is more polite but hardly less mean-spirited, in which an impotent hick marries a circus freak; if the song's melody and arrangement weren't so skillful, it would be hard to imagine anyone bothering with this musical geek show. But elsewhere, Good Old Boys displays a very real compassion for the blighted history of the South, leavened with a knowing wit. "Birmingham" is a funny but humane tale of working-class Alabamians, "Louisiana 1927" and "Kingfish" are intelligent and powerfully evocative tales of the deep South in the depths of the Great Depression, and "Rollin'" is cheerful on the surface and troubling to anyone willing to look beneath it. Musically, Newman dives deep into his influences in Southern soul and also adds potent country accents (with the help of Al Perkins pedal-steel guitar) while dressing up his songs in typically expert string and horn arrangements. And Newman assumes each character, either brave or foolish, with the skill of a gifted actor, giving even his most loathsome characters enough depth that they're human beings, despite their flaws. Good Old Boys is one of Newman's finest albums; it's also one of his most provocative and infuriating, and that's probably just the way he wanted it. AMG
 

listen here or here or here

John Hiatt - Slug Line 1979

Conventional wisdom at the time was that MCA Records had signed John Hiatt (who had languished without a record contract for four years) with the idea that he would be their Elvis Costello -- a singer/songwriter in the fashionable punk/new wave style. Certainly, Hiatt has stripped down and roughed up from his Epic records here, fronting a straight-ahead guitar rock band (that was capable, of course, of playing the obligatory reggae number), eschewing the stylistic diversity he reveled in before and throwing out snappy, aphoristic lyrics in a highly processed voice. None of this quite turns him into Elvis Costello, although the mean streak he reveals would serve him well later. AMG.

listen here or here or here

Gordon Smith - Long Overdue 1968

Blues singer, guitarist and songwriter, described by John Peel as "the foremost white blues guitarist in the world", Gordon is also one of the country’s greatest Blues vocalists.

Gordon Smith’s 1968 debut album ‘Long Overdue’ was produced by Mike Vernon for the legendary Blue Horizon label, and featured members of Fleetwood Mac, including Peter Green. During the 1970s, Gordon was a member of Kevin Coyne’s Band.

listen here or here or here

Farmyard - Farmyard 1970

Farmyard was a Wellington group that was around only for a short time from 1970 to 1971. Rick White, previously of the Relics and Tom Thumb, started with the group but was later replaced by Bernard Lee. Their first single for Polydor in 1970 was "Learnin' 'bout Living"/"Da Woirks". It was successful enough to gain entry into the 1971 Loxene Gold Disk Awards. A self-titled album was also released and came in a plastic bag with a poster. A second single "Nothing's Happening Here"/"Me, The Dog, Ma And Dear Ol' Dad" also came out in 1970 and was included on their second album called "Back To Fronting" released in 1971.

Their third and last single was "Which Way Confusion Part 1"/"Which Way Confusion Part 2", taken from their first album and appeared during 1971.

Both of their albums were repackaged in 1991 into a double album called "Looking For A Place" on the Little Wing label. That album appears below. After Farmyard disbanded, Tom Swainson joined Wellington underground band Arkastra in February 1972, and Redeye in 1976. Thanks to "therockasteria.blogspot" 

listen here or here or here

Grand Funk Railroad - Live Album 1970

Either you love or you hate it. Live Album by Grand Funk Railroad was a smash when released and those who loved it played it to death. A hard rock phenomenon of the waning days of the Sixties, Grand Funk proved over and over that they were the live performing act of the time, and this album is a testament to their in-concert power. AMG.

listen here or here or here

Prince - Prince 1979

Expanding the urban R&B and funk approach of his debut, Prince is a considerably more accomplished record than his first effort, featuring the first signs of his adventurous, sexy signature sound. Although the album is still rather uneven, a handful of songs rank as classics. "I Wanna Be Your Lover" is excellent lite funk and "Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad?" is a wonderful soulful plea, but "I Feel for You," a sexy slice of urban R&B with a strong pop melody, is the true masterpiece of Prince, indicating the major breakthroughs of his next album, Dirty Mind. AMG.

listen here or here or here

Jasper - Liberation 1969

The British group Jasper put out a weird, unimpressively erratic album in 1969, Liberation. The unfocused record consisted largely of loose blues-rock that sometimes resembled lower-level John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers in both their blues-rock and jazz/blues-rock phases, interspersed with odd repetitions of a classical theme, "Liberation." AMG.

listen here or here or here

Seatrain - Seatrain 1969

Roots-fusion combo Seatrain formed from the ashes of the Blues Project -- following the exits of the New York-based group's other members. Flutist/bassist Andy Kulberg and drummer Roy Blumenfeld relocated to Marin County, CA, forming a new lineup with vocalist Jim Roberts, ex-Mystery Trend guitarist John Gregory, former Jim Kweskin Jug Band violinist Richard Greene, and saxophonist Don Kretmar. Though the group's 1968 album, Planned Obsolescence, was issued under the Blues Project name out of contractual obligations, the sextet immediately rechristened itself Seatrain to release a self-titled 1969 LP highlighted by their unique blend of rock, bluegrass, folk, and blues. A series of roster changes plagued the group in the months to follow, however, and in 1970 Seatrain -- now comprising Kulberg, Roberts and Greene in addition to keyboardist Lloyd Baskin, drummer Larry Atamanuik, and former Earth Opera guitarist Peter Rowan -- released their second album, also eponymously-titled, scoring a minor hit with the single "13 Questions." The George Martin-produced Marblehead Messenger followed a year later, with Greene and Rowan soon exiting to join Muleskinner; Roberts and Atamanuik left Seatrain as well, with the latter eventually resurfacing in Emmylou Harris' Nash Ramblers. The remaining duo of Kulberg and Baskin recruited guitarist Peter Walsh, keyboardist Bill Elliot, and drummer Julio Coronado for one final LP, 1973's Watch. AMG.

listen here or here or here

801 - Live 1976

801 provided Roxy Music guitarist Phil Manzanera with one of his most intriguing side projects. Although the band only played three gigs in August and September 1976, this album captures a night when everything fell right into place musically. That should only be expected with names like Eno and Simon Phillips in the lineup. (Still, the lesser-known players -- bassist Bill MacCormick, keyboardist Francis Monkman, and slide guitarist Lloyd Watson -- are in exemplary form, too.) The repertoire is boldly diverse, opening with "Lagrima," a crunchy solo guitar piece from Manzanera. Then the band undertakes a spacey but smoldering version of "Tomorrow Never Knows"; it's definitely among the cleverest of Beatles covers. Then it's on to crisp jazz-rock ("East of Asteroid"), atmospheric psych-pop ("Rongwrong"), and Eno's tape manipulation showcase, "Sombre Reptiles." And that's only the first five songs. The rest of the gig is no less audacious, with no less than three Eno songs -- including a frenetic "Baby's on Fire," "Third Uncle," and "Miss Shapiro"'s dense, syllable-packed verbal gymnastics. There's another unlikely cover of the Kinks' "You Really Got Me," while Manzanera turns in another typically gutsy instrumental performance on "Diamond Head." This album marks probably one of the last times that Eno rocked out in such an unself-consciously fun fashion, but that's not the only reason to buy it: 801 Live is a cohesive document of an unlikely crew who had fun and took chances. Listeners will never know what else they might have done if their schedules had been less crowded, but this album's a good reminder. AMG.

listen here or here or here

Duo Ouro Negro - Mulowa Afrika 1972

A sampling of Angola's top performers, including Marisa, Luis Represas, Bonga Kuenda, Pedro Joia and Banda Dizoma, gathered on May 23, 2003, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of one of the former Portuguese colony's greatest entertainers, Raúl Indipwo.

As one-half of Duo Ouro Negro ("Duo Black Gold"), a group that he shared with Milo MacMahon from 1959 until MacMahon's death in the late 1980s, Indipwo helped to introduce much of the world to the music of his homeland.

Friends since childhood, Indipwo and MacMahon increasingly attracted attention with their harmonizing. Within a year after their first concert at the Rome Cinema in Lisbon, for the Radio Club of the Portuguese Congo, they had performed in Switzerland, France, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, and Spain. Their dance-inspiring approach to South African-derived kwela made them the top group in Angola during the summer of 1965. Signed by Columbia Artists Management, they appeared at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York.

The political unrest had a powerful impact on the Duo Ouro Negro. Forced into exile at the height of the Angolan Civil War, Indipwo and MacMahon spent time residing in Finland, Sweden, and France. Their repertoire expanded to include Angolan folksongs.

Returning to Angola, after it had gained its independence from Portugal in 1975, Indipwo and MacMahon continued to perform together for another decade. AMG.

listen here or here or here

Duster Bennett - Smiling Like I'm Happy 1968

One of the unsung heroes of British blues, this one-man band was a fine harmonica player and singer, a decent guitarist, and a soulful enough singer to make one overlook his distinctly unbluesy high voice. The opening "Worried Mind" -- just Duster on harp, guitar, voice, high-hat and kick drum -- is a marvelously sloppy shuffle romp that holds its own with the Fabulous Thunderbirds' work ten years hence. On other tracks Bennett is backed by three-fourths of the original Fleetwood Mac, who provide simple, effective support without stealing any limelight; solos are kept to a minimum. Originals "My Lucky Day" (with chromatic harmonica) and "Jumping at Shadows" which Mac would later cover) are absolutely outstanding, and Duster does justice to Magic Sam's "My Love Is Your Love." AMG.

listen here or here or here