Paul Brett - Clocks 1974

b. England. A former guitarist with 60s psych-pop bands Tintern Abbey and Velvet Opera, Brett left the latter unit to record with Fire, a cultishly popular combo that featured Dave Lambert, a future member of the Strawbs. Fire’s original bass player, Dick DuFall, and drummer, Bob Voice, then broke off to join Brett in his own group, Paul Brett’s Sage, which also featured guitarist Stuart Cowell. This unit recorded three strong albums for the Pye Records subsidiary Dawn at the start of the 70s. Brett then embarked on a singer-songwriter career, recording prolifically throughout the 70s and honing a tasteful yet accomplished style centered around his 12-string guitar work. He was regularly joined by members of the Strawbs. A 1974 collection, Clocks, is arguably his best-remembered album, but as the decade progressed so his work became increasingly less exciting. His 1980 recording Romantic Guitar proved popular enough to rack up gold sales status.

During the following decade, Brett opted out of recording to concentrate on production and managerial work but returned to an active music career in the late 90s recording for his Fretdancer label, sometimes in combination with fellow guitarist (and former Velvet Opera bandmate) John Joyce. AMG.

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The Rolling Stones - Between The Buttons 1967

The Rolling Stones' 1967 recordings are a matter of some controversy; many critics felt that they were compromising their raw, rootsy power with trendy emulations of the Beatles, Kinks, Dylan, and psychedelic music. Approach this album with an open mind, though, and you'll find it to be one of their strongest, most eclectic LPs, with many fine songs that remain unknown to all but Stones devotees. The lyrics are getting better (if more savage), and the arrangements are more creative, on brooding near-classics like "All Sold Out," "My Obsession," and "Yesterday's Papers." "She Smiled Sweetly" shows their hidden romantic side at its best, while "Connection" is one of the record's few slabs of conventionally driving rock. The best tracks on the American edition were the two songs that gave the group a double-sided number one in early 1967: the lustful "Let's Spend the Night Together" and the beautiful, melancholy "Ruby Tuesday," which is as melodic as anything Mick Jagger and Keith Richards would ever write. AMG.

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Calvin Keane - Calvin Keane 1976

There isn't too much info about this album or musician, but it's a very interesting album, blues, rock, and a bit of a bluesy psych. Of course, we all like to know more, about who is it, who are the musicians, where was recorded, and with whom, so when we are lost in all these specifications we tend to put it aside for another time and forget the most important the Music! So give it a listen. 

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Linda Jones - Your Precious Love 1972

R&B singer Linda Jones earned a cult following for her fervent, gospel-influenced style and powerful vocal acrobatics, and she's still celebrated by soul music fans despite her career being cut down prematurely at the age of 27. Linda Jones was born in Newark, New Jersey on December 14, 1944; her family was steeped in gospel music, and at the age of six she began performing with her siblings in a sacred group, the Jones Singers. As a teenager, Jones began performing rhythm & blues music, and cut her first solo record under the name Linda Lane in 1963, a cover of "Lonely Teardrops," but the record sank without a trace.

Linda's fortunes improved when she met George Kerr, a producer and songwriter who had been a member of Little Anthony & the Imperials. The first two singles Kerr produced for Linda Jones (one on Atco, the other on Blue Cat) fared no better, but in 1967 they landed a deal with Loma Records, an R&B imprint of Warner Bros., and her first 45 for the label, "Hypnotized," was a hit, rising to number 21 on the Pop Singles charts and number four on the Rhythm & Blues survey. The single prompted the release of Jones' first album, also called Hypnotized, and Jones' follow-up, "What've I Done (To Make You Mad)," was a Top Ten hit on the R&B charts, but struggled to 61 on the Pop listings, and 1968's "Give My Love a Try" was a greater disappointment, struggling to number 34 R&B and a dismal number 93 on Pop. While "Hypnotized" found Jones taking a relatively subtle approach to her music, her subsequent sides captured her forceful, melismatic style at full strength, and though soul purists (especially Northern soul collectors in the U.K.) treasured her records, she was a bit too much for Top 40 to take, and Jones would never have another major pop hit.In 1968, Warner Bros. shut down Loma and briefly bumped Jones up to their flagship label, but after one single, Jones was a free agent again, and she briefly recorded for Neptune Records, an early label run by Philly soul legends Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff. In 1971, Jones landed a new deal with Turbo Records, an offshoot of Sylvia Robinson's All Platinum label, and in 1972, Jones enjoyed her greatest success in four years when her forceful, gospel-leaning cover of Jerry Butler's "For Your Precious Love" made its way on the R&B charts, peaking at number 15, and even enjoying some Pop airplay, where it rose to number 72. Sadly, Jones' comeback would be short-lived. Jones, who struggled with diabetes, toured hard in support of "For Your Precious Love," and she was booked to play two shows at New York's famed Apollo Theater on March 14, 1972. After a matinee performance, Jones went to her mother's house in Newark to eat dinner and take a nap before playing her evening show, but when her mother tried to wake her, she discovered Linda had slipped into a diabetic coma; she died shortly afterwards. Turbo released a pair of posthumous albums following Jones' unexpected death, and in 2014, Real Gone Music released The Complete Atco-Loma-Warner Brothers Recordings, bringing together the bulk of her recordings of the '60s. AMG.

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Barry Miles - Scatbird 1972

Barry Miles is an American musician and composer from New Jersey. Miles's talent showed itself at an early age and he was presented as a child prodigy on some of the same shows that the likes of Miles Davis and John Coltrane appeared on. He made his first solo jazz record in 1961 as a drummer and composer at only 14 years old. After Princeton University he focused more on piano and ways of mixing different styles of music with jazz in an improvisational manner, which resulted in a live recording presenting his 'syncretic' approach to music.

As the 60's passed Miles started to incorporate more influence from rock and roll and electric piano, which soon developed into a familiar sound of fusion and Miles's records were one of the pioneers of the genre. On the records he worked with his brother Terry Silverlight and on some like 'White Heat' from 1971 featured John Abercrombie. Overall his solo career perhaps got less attention because besides being a music director he was also maybe known more as a prolific studio musician on many albums, and the studio work Miles is probably best known for is playing keyboards and co-producing records of Al Di Meola.

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Emergency - Entrance 1972

The German-based band Emergency was founded in 1970 by Czech musician Hanus Berka, who already had a career as an arranger and sideman in the States among others with Jan Hammer and Miroslav Vitous. The multicultural band consisted of Berka (sax & keyboards) fellow Czechs Jiro Matousek (keyboards), Otto Bezloja (bass) and Dusko Goykovic (trumpet), German drummer Udo Lindenberg, and Englishman Barrie Newby on guitar.
The band recorded two jazz-rock records with brass arrangements for CBS. 'Emergency' (1971) and in 1972 'Entrance' with a changed line-up.
In the summer of '72, the band split up, only to be reformed in December of the same year with a completely new line-up: Berka, Peter Bischof (ex-Orange Peel, lead vocals), Richard Palmer-James (ex-King Crimson lyricist, guitar& vocals) Jerzy Ziembrowski (bass), Veit Marvos (ex-2066 &Then, keyboards), Martin Harrison (percussion) and Bernd Knaak (drums). The new line-up secured a record deal with Brain and recorded two commercially oriented records 'Get Out To the Country' (1973) and 'No Compromise' (1974) the last again with a changed line-up. Both records present jazz-rock with blues and soul elements. Afterward, the band folded for good. progarchives.com/

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James Brown - Live At The Apollo, 1962 (1963)

An astonishing record of James and the Flames tearing the roof off the sucker at the mecca of R&B theatres, New York's Apollo. When King Records owner Syd Nathan refused to fund the recording, thinking it commercial folly, Brown single-mindedly proceeded anyway, paying for it out of his own pocket. He had been out on the road night after night for a while, and he knew that the magic that was part and parcel of a James Brown show was something no record had ever caught. Hit follows hit without a pause -- "I'll Go Crazy," "Try Me," "Think," "Please Please Please," "I Don't Mind," "Night Train," and more. The affirmative screams and cries of the audience are something you've never experienced unless you've seen the Brown Revue in a Black theater. If you have, I need not say more; if you haven't, suffice to say that this should be one of the very first records you ever own. AMG. 

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Paul Simon - Paul Simon 1972

If any musical justification were needed for the breakup of Simon & Garfunkel, it could be found on this striking collection, Paul Simon's post-split debut. From the opening cut, "Mother and Child Reunion" (a Top Ten hit), Simon, who had snuck several subtle musical explorations into the generally conservative S&G sound, broke free, heralding the rise of reggae with an exuberant track recorded in Jamaica for a song about death. From there, it was off to Paris for a track in South American style and a rambling story of a fisherman's son, "Duncan" (which made the singles chart). But most of the album had a low-key feel, with Simon on acoustic guitar backed by only a few trusted associates (among them Joe Osborn, Larry Knechtel, David Spinozza, Mike Manieri, Ron Carter, and Hal Blaine, along with such guests as Stefan Grossman, Airto Moreira, and Stephane Grappelli), singing a group of informal, intimate, funny, and closely observed songs (among them the lively Top 40 hit "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard"). It was miles removed from the big, stately ballad style of Bridge Over Troubled Water and signaled that Simon was a versatile songwriter as well as an expressive singer with a much broader range of musical interests than he had previously demonstrated. You didn't miss Art Garfunkel on Paul Simon, not only because Simon didn't write Garfunkel-like showcases for himself, but because the songs he did write showed off his own, more varied musical strengths. AMG.

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Astrud Gilberto - Beach Samba 1967

One of Gilberto's less impressive '60s Verve outings, primarily due to the more pop-oriented song selection. Much of this is just standard pleasant Gilberto: offhand vocals and a sumptuous Brazil pop-cum-U.S. orchestration feel (Ron Carter and Toots Thielemans are among the sidemen). And some of the pop choices work well, particularly Tim Hardin's gorgeous "Misty Roses." No vocals or arrangements, however, could save the criminally wrong-headed military march of "A Banda (Parade)," or the exasperatingly coochie-coochie duet between Gilberto and her six-year-old son on the Lovin' Spoonful's "You Didn't Have to Be So Nice." This makes it all the more surprising when the next and concluding track, "Nao Bate O Corocao," has Gilberto cutting loose with confident, sassy scats, as she rarely did before or since. The CD reissue improves matters by adding five bonus cuts from A Certain Smile a Certain Sadness, recorded in 1966 in more authentically bossa nova-style arrangements, anchored by organist Walter Wanderley. AMG.

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Sinto - Right On Brother 1972

Sinto is a versatile hybrid kraut jazzy project in the typical vein of bands coming from 70's German underground (Morpheus, Out of Focus, Kraan, Ibliss...) They punctuate their soulful jazzy rock improvs with funky-catchy grooves and tones. The band features members of Embryo and Between. Their debut and unique album called Right on Brother (1972) is considered a long-time lost classic.

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Les Dudek - Ghost Town Parade 1978

Guitarist Les Dudek has played with some of rock and pop's biggest names (Stevie Nicks, Steve Miller, Dave Mason, Cher, Boz Scaggs, and the Allman Brothers Band, among others), in addition to issuing solo albums on his own. Born on August 2, 1952, in Rhode Island, Dudek began playing guitar at the age of 11 (first inspired by such pop hitmakers as Elvis Presley and the Beatles), and only three years later, would sneak into bars to play with bands. It was during his teenage years that Dudek discovered such blues masters as Freddie, Albert, and B.B. King, as well as such then-modern-day blues rockers as Paul Butterfield and Steve Miller. By the early '70s, Dudek was residing in Florida, playing in the obscure group Power, whose keyboard player was friends with the Allman Brothers' Dickey Betts. Soon a friendship was struck up between Betts and Dudek, as Betts contemplated forming a side band in addition to his Allman duties. The duo cut some demos, but the group was disbanded when work on the Allman's classic Brothers and Sisters album got underway. But Dudek was present for the recording sessions, laying down some guitar lines alongside Betts on "Ramblin' Man" and helping co-write one of the Allman's best-known songs, "Jessica" (for which Dudek also played). After his brief detour with the Allman Brothers, Dudek signed on with Boz Scaggs, playing with him for five years and appearing on the 1976 release Silk Degrees. Dudek became friends with one of his main guitar influences during this time, Steve Miller, leading to a co-headlining tour between Scaggs and Miller, which saw Dudek appearing with both artists each night. (Miller would subsequently record a few of Dudek's original compositions, including "Sacrifice" for his Book of Dreams release, while Dudek also played on Miller's Fly Like an Eagle album.) A planned acoustic tour with just Dudek and Miller was shelved at the last minute, as Dudek returned for a tour with Scaggs. With all this activity, Dudek still found time to sign a solo deal with Columbia Records, issuing four albums between 1976 and 1981 -- 1976's self-titled debut, 1977's Say No More, 1978's Ghost Town Parade, and 1981's Gypsy Ride -- as well as launching the DFK Band (which saw Dudek joined by keyboardist Mike Finnigan and guitarist Jim Krueger), who issued a lone, self-titled release in 1979. Dudek also played with Cher briefly in the early '80s, as the famous singer attempted to launch a rock-based outfit, Cher & Black Rose, which failed to get off the ground due to record label turmoil. Cher launched her successful movie acting career shortly thereafter and even helped Dudek land a bit part in 1985's Mask as a boyfriend (Cher and Dudek demoed a song for the movie which has remained unissued). Dudek then guested on Stevie Nicks' 1985 release, Rock a Little, and was the guitarist on the album's ensuing tour. The '90s saw Dudek return to his blues roots, as he appeared on Steve Miller's back-to-basics release, 1993's Wide River, and issued his fifth solo release overall, 1994's Deeper Shade of Blues. AMG.

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Free - Free 1969

Free's second album was recorded with the band itself in considerable turmoil. Principal songwriters Paul Rodgers and Andy Fraser demanded strict discipline from their bandmates, and guitarist Paul Kossoff in particular equally demanded the spontaneity and freedom that had characterized the group's debut. It was an awkward period; both Kossoff and drummer Simon Kirke came close to quitting, and only the intervention of Island label chief Chris Blackwell seems to have prevented it. Few of these tensions, however, are evident on the finished album. (Tribute, again, to Blackwell's powers of diplomacy.) He replaced original producer Guy Stevens early into the sessions and, having reminded both warring parties where the band's strengths lay, proceeded to coax out an album that stands alongside its predecessor as a benchmark of British blues at the turn of the 1970s. AMG.

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Mike Bloomfield & Al Kooper - The Live Adventures Of Mike Bloomfield And Al Kooper 1968

One of the seminal live albums of the late '60s, Live Adventures of Al Kooper & Mike Bloomfield was a natural, organic offshoot of the hugely successful Super Session album from 1968, which contained performances by both of these groundbreaking musicians, as well as Stephen Stills. The idea of musical spontaneity both in live performance and in the recording studio had reached a certain apex in 1968, and spontaneous excursions by musicians such as Jimi Hendrix, Steve Winwood, and the Southern California musical covenant that eventually became Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, as well as a host of others, were indeed a sign of the times. But it was the union of Bloomfield and Kooper that can truly claim origination of the phenomenon, and this album takes it to another level entirely.
Utilizing a fine and tight rhythm section of John Kahn and Skip Prokop, the two musicians duel and embrace each other on such cuts as the accurately named "Her Holy Modal Highness" and a great, revamped rock/soul re-working of Paul Simon's "Feelin' Groovy," which is buttressed by a guest studio vocal overdub by the author himself. The album's high point may be Bloomfield's rendering of Albert King's epic "Don't Throw Your Love on Me So Strong," which may indeed also be one of his finest career recordings. Like the Super Session album, history repeated itself, as Bloomfield's chronic insomnia caught up with him by the morning of the second night of the two-night gig, rendering him unavailable. Kooper enlisted the help of Steve Miller and a practically unknown Carlos Santana (himself a Bloomfield devotee) for several tracks, particularly a loose and free version of "Dear Mr. Fantasy," which sort of embodies the whole affair and era. Undoubtedly a necessity from the period, the record has been remastered for CD, and the results are truly glorious, and do this legendary album justice. AMG.

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Cargoe - Cargoe 1972

Often associated with the Power Pop genre given to Ardent Label Mates Big Star, Cargoe projected more of a stylized artistic nuance to their songwriting and performing, with harmonies exhibiting a strong American/Southern Roots cultural influence. The band recorded their Album Cargoe with Terry Manning producing at, John Fry's Ardent Studios. They scored numerous Billboard and Cashbox Top 100 listings, and reviews from 1970 through 1973, along with major radio plays of their first single “Feel Alright” and follow-up “I Love You Anyway”. The band’s studio LP Cargoe was even featured, with Isaac Hayes Shaft, which won an Academy Award/Oscar that year for Best Original Song, in a Special Edition section of Billboard’s June 3, 1972 “The Deck is Stax” promotion. The band began a West Coast tour in the summer of 1972 but was caught up in the distribution and bankruptcy label problems at Stax/Volt, who distributed the album and owned the masters. Distribution was sold to Columbia Records who failed to include Cargoe in their catalog, which meant that listeners who heard the hit couldn't actually buy the record. “Feel Alright” and their debut Cargoe LP fell off the charts instantly. The same label troubles caused both Cargoe and Big Star to disband within a short time. Big Star went on to become one of the most beloved and influential bands of the entire decade, while Cargoe pretty much disappeared out of the popular memory. Ardent Records contracts for distribution with Stax/Volt gave Stax ownership of the master tapes. When Stax went bankrupt in the mid-'70s, ownership of the masters eventually wound up in the hands of Fantasy Records Saul Zaentz, and no one's been able to get the tapes for domestic release. It's certainly worth noting that after nearly 40 years of producing and engineering countless hit records including ZZ Top, Led Zeppelin, George Thorogood, Celine Dion, Bjork, Lenny Kravitz, Mariah Carey, Shania Twain, and many others, Terry Manning to this day regards Cargoe as “the great record he helped make that no one ever discovered”. 

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David Bromberg - Demon in Disguise 1972

A strikingly gifted multi-instrumentalist with an intuitive understanding of American roots music styles and a sly sense of humor, David Bromberg has earned a following for his many solo recordings and has served as a sideman and collaborator with some of the most respected artists in his field. He stepped out as a solo artist in 1972 with an eponymous album on Columbia that featured "The Holdup," a popular song he co-wrote with George Harrison. Throughout the decade he managed a hectic schedule releasing numerous solo albums for Columbia and Fantasy while playing everything from dobro to fiddle on songs by an array of acts including Gordon Lightfoot, Ringo Starr, and Bob Dylan. Taking a lengthy sabbatical from touring and recording, Bromberg spent much of the next two decades studying the art of violin luthiery. He occasionally appeared with a new album, including 2007's Grammy-nominated Try Me One More Time, while establishing a successful business, David Bromberg and Associate Fine Violins, in Wilmington, Delaware. In the latter part of the 2010s, he put together a large group, the David Bromberg Band, which made a handful of colorful and eclectic albums including 2016's The Blues, the Whole Blues, and Nothing But the Blues and 2020's Big Road. Bromberg was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on September 19, 1945, and spent most of his childhood in Tarrytown, New York. As a teenager, Bromberg got hooked on rock & roll and began exploring the blues, folk, and country artists who informed early rock, such as Pete Seeger, Reverend Gary Davis, Muddy Waters, Flatt & Scruggs, and Bill Monroe. When he was 13, Bromberg began learning the guitar, and after graduating from high school, he attended Columbia University, where he studied musicology and began playing Greenwich Village folk clubs.

While his early gigs didn't pay much, he struck up friendships with a number of noted musicians and began studying with his hero, Reverend Davis. Bromberg's guitar skills didn't go unnoticed, and he began accompanying a number of Village folk acts both on-stage and in the studio, including Tom Paxton, Tom Rush, Jerry Jeff Walker, and Richie Havens. Bromberg was playing guitar with singer Rosalie Sorrels when she was booked to play the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival in Great Britain; Bromberg played an impromptu solo set after Sorrels was done, and he went over well enough that he was offered a deal with Columbia Records as a solo artist. Bromberg's self-titled debut was released in 1971 and featured the song "The Holdup," a radio favorite that Bromberg co-wrote with George Harrison. Between 1971 and 1976, Bromberg recorded six albums for Columbia and toured extensively as well as maintaining a hectic schedule of session work, lending his talents on guitar, Dobro, mandolin, and fiddle to albums by Bob Dylan, Carly Simon, the Eagles, Ringo Starr, Willie Nelson, Gordon Lightfoot, Bonnie Raitt, Doug Sahm, and many more. (Bromberg also produced an album for Dylan that has yet to be released in full.) In 1977, Bromberg signed a new record deal with Fantasy Records, and issued his first album for the label, Reckless Abandon; three more records of new material followed, but in 1980 Bromberg decided he was tired of the rigors of touring and took a sabbatical from the road, occasionally playing sessions for friends and staging occasional live shows but devoting most of his time to studying at the Kenneth Warren School of Violin Making in Chicago. It wasn't until 1990 that Bromberg released a new album, Sideman Serenade, and it was in 2007 when his next studio set appeared, Try Me One More Time, which earned a Grammy nomination as Best Traditional Folk Album. In the meantime, Bromberg had established a successful business building and repairing violins as well as dealing in quality instruments, and in 2002 he opened a shop in Wilmington, Delaware, simply called David Bromberg Fine Violins. In 2011, Bromberg returned with a new and ambitious solo album, Use Me, in which he performed new songs written at his request by some of his favorite tunesmiths, including John Hiatt, Guy Clark, Dr. John, Keb' Mo', and David Hidalgo of Los Lobos. Riding the critical success of that release, he returned two years later with Only Slightly Mad, a diverse set of new originals and a handful of well-curated covers produced by Bob Dylan guitarist Larry Campbell. His next album, 2016's The Blues, the Whole Blues, and Nothing But the Blues, offered tasteful renderings of tracks by Sonny Boy Williamson, Ray Charles, and many others. Returning in 2020, he again worked with Larry Campbell, who produced Big Road, a typically eclectic album featuring Bromberg and his band recorded live in the studio. AMG.

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