Johnnie Taylor - Who's Making Love 1968

The song "Who's Making Love?" was among Johnnie Taylor's biggest chart hits, with Taylor's tough but impassioned vocal supported by a potently energetic performance by the usual Stax Records crew (including Steve Cropper, Donald "Duck" Dunn, and the Memphis Horns. But Who's Making Love, the album assembled to accompany the single, is for the most part dominated by more measured and blues-based material. While "Take Care of Your Homework" generates a potent groove (and reads like a sequel to "Who's Making Love"), and "Hold on This Time" is a remarkably successful emulation of the Motown production style, for the most part, Who's Making Love suggests Taylor was most comfortable with slow, sorrowful laments such as "Can't Trust Your Neighbor" and "Poor Make Believer," and while these tunes lack the dancefloor drive of Taylor's uptempo hits, no one can deny he knows how to make the most of the dramatic sweep of a tale of love gone wrong, and his tales of lovers gone astray (and paying the price) carry a weight not unlike that of his earlier gospel period.Who's Making Love captures some of the high points of Taylor's career as a Southern soul man, and finds him nodding to his past and well as his future in his search for inspiration. AMG.

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Barney Wilen - Moshi 1973

In 1970 Barney Wilen assembled a team of filmmakers, technicians, and musicians to travel to Africa for the purpose of recording the music of the native pygmy tribes. Upon returning to Paris two years later, he created Moshi, a dark, eccentric effort fusing avant jazz sensibilities with African rhythms, ambient sound effects, and melodies rooted in American blues traditions. Cut with French and African players including guitarist Pierre Chaze, pianist Michel Graillier, and percussionist Didier Leon, this is music with few precedents or followers, spanning from extraterrestrial dissonance to earthbound, street-legal funk. Wilen pays little heed to conventional structure, assembling tracks like "Afrika Freak Out" and "Zombizar" from spare parts of indeterminate origins. AMG.

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Gordon 'N' Rogers The Inter-Urban Electric A & E Pit Crew And Rhythm Band - Bug-In! 1969

Kelly Gordon and Shorty Rogers collaborated on a couple of funky rarities in the late sixties. Gordon's 1969 masterpiece ‘Defunked’ is oneand this wild obscurity credited to the ‘Inter-Urban Electric A&E Pit Crew And Rhythm Band’ is the other. jumping on the Califor-nia dune buggie wave of the 60's, the chicks-cars-surf-gogo themed gatefold cover gives a first hint of the treasure inside. the funk is really tuned up to the max here on this action packed studio session! the stricly instrumental tracks have 'a groove that is impossible to stop, add fluid scorching solo horns against firecracker chunk-a-funk electric guitar, fender bass, electric piano, drums, funky reverberated flutes and I think even some conga drum.' (Jack Diamond) the excellent, tight horn section delivers infectious, ultra-funky rhythms with a sleazy, very early 70s sound, strongly reminding of some Tom Scott & the L.A. express session from the same time. in between mixed you can hear roaring motor sounds (just like Michel Legrand's 'Le Mans' OST) producing incredibly funky effects you can almost see the buggys wheelin' and jumpin' over sand dunes. a highly recommended and throughout consistent Capitol release, and a rare one too as it’s not listed in any soundtrack guide. the all killer, no filler-tracklist includes titles like 'Glitterbag', 'Spyder Bug', 'The Manx Meets The Bronco', 'Boss Bug', 'Wampuskitty' or 'Mini T'. all that's left to say is: bug in!, turn on!, drop out! and get down! to the inter-urban electric grooves of Gordon N Rogers!

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Re-Post: Frankie Miller - The Rock 1975

Blue-eyed soul singer Frankie Miller made his name on the English pub rock circuit of the early '70s, and spent around a decade and a half cutting albums of traditional R&B, rock & roll, and country-rock. In addition to his recorded legacy as an avatar of American roots music, his original material was covered by artists from the worlds of rock, blues, and country, from Bob Seger and Bonnie Tyler to Lou Ann Barton and the Bellamy Brothers. And Miller himself scored a surprise U.K. Top Ten smash in 1978 with "Darlin'," giving his likable, soulful style the popular airing many fans felt it deserved all along.
Frankie Miller was born November 2, 1949, in Glasgow, Scotland; he began singing with local bands beginning in 1967, in a style influenced by American soul singers like Sam Cooke, Ray Charles, and Otis Redding. After a few years, he moved to the more fertile music scene in London, where he soon met ex-Procol Harum guitarist Robin Trowerin the summer of 1971. Impressed with Miller's talents as a raw soul belter in the vein of a Rod Stewart or Joe Cocker,Trower offered him a job as lead vocalist of his new band Jude. It wasn't to be Miller's big break, though; internal conflicts split the group apart by the following year, and Millerreturned to the London pub rock circuit. During 1972, he made frequent appearances at the Tally Ho in Kentish Town, often sitting in with Brinsley Schwarz, and signed a solo record deal with Chrysalis. Using the Brinsleys as a backing band, Miller recorded his debut album, Once in a Blue Moon, that year. Though it wasn't a hit, it was reviewed respectably; more importantly, when Miller sent a copy to New Orleans R&B legend Allen Toussaint, he was impressed enough to produce Miller's next album.Miller traveled to New Orleans in 1973 to record High Life with an authentic Toussaint-led backing band, resulting in one of his most acclaimed and artistically satisfying albums.
Upon returning to England, Miller assembled a Stax-style backing band -- dubbed simply the Frankie Miller Band -- featuring guitarist Henry McCullough, keyboardist Mick Weaver, bassist Chrissy Stewart, and drummer Stu Perry. This group traveled to San Francisco to record The Rock (named after Alcatraz), which was released in 1975. The band dissolved not long after, and Miller put together a new outfit called Full House, featuring guitarist Ray Minhinnett, keyboardist Jim Hall, bassist Charlie Harrison, and drummer Graham Deacon. They issued the aptly titled Full House in 1977, which, oddly enough, became fairly popular in Sweden. However, once again, Miller's backing band imploded, and he was back on his own for 1978's Double Trouble, which produced his first British Top 30 hit in "Be Good to Yourself." Late that year, Miller scored a runaway Top Ten hit in the U.K. with "Darlin'," a single included on his 1979 LP Falling in Love (aka Perfect Fit). (Typical of Miller's luck in the record business, his best-known song wasn't an original.) 1980's Easy Money was recorded in Nashville, and some of 1982's Standing on the Edge was recorded at Alabama's legendary Muscle Shoals Sound Studios. During this period,Miller also had a Scottish hit with his cover of Dougie McLean's "Caledonia." 1986's Dancing in the Rain was his final studio album.

In August 1994, Miller suffered a devastating brain hemorrhage that left him in a coma for five months. Unable to walk or talk upon his emergence, Miller rehabilitated himself enough to begin writing songs again; at a late-'90s benefit concert in Edinburgh, Miller's new collaboration with Will Jennings, "The Sun Goes Up, the Sun Comes Down," was performed by Bonnie Tyler, Paul Carrack, and Jools Holland. AMG.

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Dick Schory’s New Percussion Ensemble - Percussion From Melody to Madness Music to Break Any Mood 1960

Schory was a classically trained percussionist who moved easily from symphony to experimental music to popular recordings. He served in the percussion section of the Chicago Symphony, worked as educational and Picture of Dick Schory advertising director for the Ludwig Drum Company, formed the New Percussion Ensemble and commissioned contemporary composers to write pieces for it, and wrote and recorded musical backgrounds for radio and television commercials.

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Charlie Haden - Liberation Music Orchestra 1969

A fascinating reissue that comfortably straddles the lines of jazz, folk, and world music, working up a storm by way of a jazz protest album that points toward the Spanish Civil War in particular and the Vietnam War in passing. Haden leads the charge and contributes material, but the real star here may in fact be Carla Bley, who arranged numbers, wrote several, and contributed typically brilliant piano work. Also of particular note in a particularly talented crew is guitarist Sam Brown, the standout of "El Quinto Regimiento/Los Cuatro Generales/Viva la Quince Brigada," a 21-minute marathon. Reissue producer Michael Cuscuna has done his best with the mastering here, but listeners will note a roughness to the sound -- one that is in keeping with the album's tone and attitude. AMG.

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Re-Post: Eddie Gale - Ghetto Music 1969

The aesthetic and cultural merits of Eddie Gale's Ghetto Music cannot be overstated. That it is one of the most obscure recordings in Blue Note's catalog -- paid for out of label co-founder Francis Wolff's own pocket -- should tell us something. This is an apocryphal album, one that seamlessly blends the new jazz of the '60s -- Gale was a member of the Sun Ra Arkestra before and after these sides, and played on Cecil Taylor's Blue Note debut, Unit Structures -- with gospel, soul, and the blues. Gale's sextet included two bass players and two drummers -- in 1968 -- as well as a chorus of 11 voices, male and female. Sound like a mess? Far from it. This is some of the most spiritually engaged, forward-thinking, and finely wrought music of 1968. What's more is that, unlike lots of post-Coltranefree jazz, it's ultimately very listenable. Soloists come and go, but modes, melodies, and harmonies remain firmly intact. The beautiful strains of African folk music and Latin jazz sounds in "Fulton Street," for example, create a veritable chromatic rainbow. "A Walk with Thee" is a spiritual written to a march tempo with drummers playing counterpoint to one another and the front line creating elongated melodic lines via an Eastern harmonic sensibility. Does it swing? Hell yeah! The final cut, "The Coming of Gwilu," moves from the tribal to the urban and everywhere in between using Jamaican thumb piano's, soaring vocals à la the Arkestra, polyrhythmic invention, and good, old-fashioned groove jazz, making something entirely new in the process. While Albert Ayler's New Grass was a failure for all its adventurousness, Eddie Gale's Ghetto Music, while a bit narrower in scope, succeeds because it concentrates on creating a space for the myriad voices of an emerging African-American cultural force to be heard in a single architecture. This is militant music posessed by soul and spirit. AMG.

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Fifty Foot Hose - Ingredients 1966

Fifty Foot Hose were one of the most unusual '60s San Francisco psychedelic bands, in part because they weren't really that psychedelic. Like a few other acts of the time (most notably the United States of America), they were trying to fuse the contemporary sounds of rock with electronic instruments and avant-garde compositional ideas. Only one album resulted from the ambitious enterprise, and that record (Cauldron, 1968) still remains unknown to all but hardcore collectors. Although an erratic work, it was intriguing for its mix of jazzy psychedelic rock tunes with electronic sound effects that anticipated future models of synthesizers, but sounded fiercer and more primitive.

Fifty Foot Hose were founded by bassist Cork Marcheschi, who had previously been in a conventional rock/R&B band the Ethix. Under Marcheschi's prodding, in 1967, the Ethix released one wildly atonal single, "Bad Trip," whose violent musique concrète foreshadowed the avant-garde postures of his subsequent group (in fact, "Bad Trip" was more avant-garde than anything Fifty Foot Hose would record). (Apparently it was played once on a local underground radio station, and then never again.) Interested in the ideas of experimental composers like Edgar Varese, John Cage, Terry Riley, andGeorge Antheil, Marcheschi constructed his own electronic instrument from a combination of elements like Theremins, fuzz boxes, a cardboard tube, and a speaker from a World War II aircraft bomber.

Fifty Foot Hose were filled out by guitarist David Blossom and his vocalist wife Nancy, who brought both psychedelic and jazz influences to the band, and a couple of musicians who had played withMarcheschi in other acts. A home demo successfully demonstrated their fusion of electronic effects and songs that were loosely in tune with the San Francisco psychedelic vibe. It led to a deal with Limelight, a subsidiary of Mercury that focused more upon experimental music than conventional rock and pop outings.

Cauldron was perhaps more interesting for its experimental textures than the sometimes routine compositions -- eerie electronic swoops and jolts swam through the background and foreground of the tracks, enhanced by techniques like putting instruments through an FM transmitter. The jazzier and spookier tunes worked better than the bluesier hard rock items, yet it was an admirably risk-taking effort. But, ultimately, a pretty uncommercial one -- although they got some live work in San Francisco, the album was heard by few at its time of release. Fifty Foot Hose were finished, ironically, by the temptations of a much more commercial project -- when the musical Hair came to San Francisco, most of the members joined the production to satisfy their need for more reliable income. Interest in the group resurfaced in the 1990s, as they became recognized as precursors to the electronic rock sounds of groups like Throbbing Gristle. Marcheschi is now a respected sculptor, specializing in public work using neon, plastic, and kinetic characteristics.

These seven songs were recorded prior to the Caldron album, and are rawer in form and execution than the Caldron material. Four of them show up as bonus tracks on Big Beat's CD reissue of Caldron -- including the best number, the jazzy "Fly Free" -- but three do not. Of those three cuts, "Good Morning Girl" and "Low Down Mostly" are much more in the normal blues-rock-influenced San Francisco 1967 psychedelic vein than most Fifty Foot Hose material, while "War" is a more typical electronic free-for-all. It's of peripheral importance unless you're a psychedelic completist. Don't think you're done collecting Fifty Foot Hose if you have the Caldron LP and Ingredients, though, since the expanded Big Beat reissue of Caldron has some additional demos that are not on either of those releases. AMG.

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George Benson - Giblet Gravy 1968

No, you're not in Creed Taylor country yet, but you might as well be, for many of the ingredients that would garnish Benson's albums with Taylor are already present in this often enjoyable prototype. The immediate goal was to groom Benson as the next Wes Montgomery (who was about to leave Verve) -- and so he covers hit tunes of the day ("Sunny," "Along Comes Mary," "Groovin'"), playing either with a big band plus voices or a neat quintet anchored by Herbie Hancock, and the sound is contoured to give his guitar a warm mellow ambience. But the eclectic Benson is his own man, as his infectious repeated-interval rhythm trademark tells us on his self-composed title track, and despite Tom McIntosh's mostly lame arrangements, George's work is always tasty and irresistibly melodic. AMG.

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Gary Walker & The Rain - Album No.1 (1968)

Thanks to ChrisGoesRock. The sole LP by Walker & the Rain is a middling slice of late-'60s British mod-pop/rock with mild psychedelic influences, like phasing and slight guitar distortion. Not at all similar to the balladeering ofthe Walker Brothers, Leeds deserved credit for trying to reinvent himself within a straightahead rock group, although the results weren't that impressive. The LP on Shanghai that surfaced in the States in the '80s and '90s, incidentally, is probably not the original Japanese article, but an unauthorized reissue. AMG.

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Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich - Together 1969

The least impressive of the ubiquitous quintet's original albums, Together was largely marred by the same problems that afflicted Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mich & Tich's most recent singles -- the awareness that they'd taken their original flamboyance as far as it could go, and uncertainty as to how to proceed. Certainly "Snake in the Grass" was little more than a throwaway when compared to the band's past glories, while the ambitions that would ultimately sunder the group were also beginning to bubble through. Dave Dee himself produced six of the songs on the album, and his inexperience shows in the lifelessness that afflicts such lightweight efforts as "First Time Loving," "Mountains of the Moon," and a trio of double-entendre-ridden numbers ("Below the Belt," "Love Is a Drum," and "P Teaser") that are little more than execrable exercises in smutty juvenilia. It's not all bad, of course. "Margareta Lidman," an ode to one of Beaky's ex-girlfriends, has a proto-prog drive all its own, together with a truly ear-opening Dozy solo, while "Don Juan" was an ultra-atmospheric romp through the backstreets and alleyways of Pamplona. Unfortunately, those same two songs were coupled on the band's latest single -- so, once you'd picked up that, what did you need the album for? AMG.

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Bobby Callender - Rainbow 1968

This bizarre, Alan Lorber-produced psychedelic album appeared originally in 1969 on Boston Sound. Bobby Callendar was an incredibly gifted poet and lyricist whose complex texts could only be compared to Scott Walker; the concepts of a U.K. artist of Indian heritage post-psychedelia were augmented by the lush arrangements of Paul Harris and Bob Gallo. The cast of musicians on this album included some of the highest-caliber sidemen of the time, most notably Richard Davis, the master bassist of Van Morrison's Astral weeks fame (not to mention a jazz musician in his own right), the guitars of Eric Gale and Hugh McCracken, and the astonishingly subtle Burnard Purdie on drums. The album is a rich and complex exploration of Eastern-inspired psychedelic rock and folk centered on the incredibly complex texts and vocals of Bobby Callendar. When reading the lyric sheet, it is most astonishing how such elaborate poetic evocations were somehow made to fit popular song forms. Sure, at these highly conscious times of the late '60s it was not uncommon for deeply poetic, socially conscious, or hallucinogenic themes to appear in the lyrics of pop music, yet this is album is absolutely brilliant for being one of the most ostentatious animations of the written word, yet absolutely vital and musical throughout. Fans of Scott Walker's solo material, Colin Blundstone, and Duncan Browne should give this album a few hours -- if not a week -- of their attention. This excellent Italian reissue from Akarma is packaged and remastered exquisitely. AMG.

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Audience - The First 1969

It feels completely weird to regard Audience's self-titled 1969 debut album as an "art rock" album, or even stranger, "prog rock." Yet, along with In the Court of the Crimson King (the first album by King Crimson) and early Yes efforts, it is exactly that, despite the fact that it is far more rockist and basic. But vocalist and guitarist Howard Werth wanted to be as far away as possible from the band's previous incarnation as the Lloyd Alexander Blues Band. So, along with reed and woodwind man Keith Gemmell, drummer Tony Connor, and bassist Trevor Williams -- yes, that one -- the band put their flutes and arty lyrics about poets and meadows first and got right to it. There is no psychedelia on these sides, though there is a certain amount of flower power in the laughable words. Audience were in the process of self-discovery here, and they fail as often as they succeed. Cuts like "Waverley Stage Coach" and "Harlequin" borrow wonderfully from the heaviness and imagery of the Move's best sides, while "Poet," "Pleasant Convalescene," and "River Boat Queen" are pure twee twaddle. AMG.

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Blue Mink - Melting Pot 1969

One of the giants of British pop in the early '70s, Blue Mink was formed in fall 1969 by keyboard playerRoger Coulam, around a nucleus of musicians based at London's Morgan Studios -- bassist Herbie Flowers, guitarist Allan Parker, and drummer Barry Morgan were also involved. Having already recorded a number of backing tracks, Coulam then approached soul singer Madeline Bell and formerDavid & Jonathan star Roger Greenaway as vocalists; Bell accepted, Greenaway declined but recommended his songwriting partner (and fellow David & Jonathan-er) Roger Cook in his stead.

With this lineup, Cook and Greenaway's "Melting Pot" was released as Blue Mink's debut single, a plea for multi-racial harmony that reached number three in the U.K. that November. An album of the same title was released in the new year, alongside the single "Good Morning Freedom" -- for reasons unknown, the single did not originally appear on the LP. However, its swift rise into the U.K. Top Ten prompted a rethink, and subsequent pressings packed it on board.

Throughout Blue Mink's career, the members maintained their high profile session careers -- in March 1970, Cook and Bell appeared on Elton John's eponymous album; John reciprocated by covering "Good Morning Freedom" on the compilation album Pick of the Pops (while waiting for his own career to take off, the pianist made ends meet by recording anonymous covers of top hits for the budget Deacon label). The following month, Cook rejoined Greenaway briefly in a new band, Currant Kraze, while the pair maintained their songwriting career with such anthems as "You've Got Your Troubles," "I've Got You on My Mind," and "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing." Other extracurricular activities over the next few years included Alan Parker's the Congregation and Herbie Flowers' pivotal involvement with Lou Reed's Transformer album.

Titled for the group's third hit single, Blue Mink's second album, Our World (U.S. title Real Mink) was released in September 1970. The group then faded from view for some six months before resurfacing with "The Banner Man" in spring 1971. Their first release for the Regal Zonophone label (earlier records were issued by Philips), "Banner Man" reached number three. However, close to another year elapsed before Blue Mink reconvened for a two-week-long engagement at London's Talk of the Town nightspot in January 1972, to be immortalized on the Live at the Talk of the Town album two months later. Oddly, Blue Mink's next studio album, A Time of Change, was released simultaneously with the live record (the set was originally to be titled "Harvest," but was changed to avoid confusion with Neil Young's latest release).

With the band now featuring percussionist Ray Cooper and keyboardist Ann Odell, November 1972 brought another number three hit, "Stay with Me," their last for Regal Zonophone before parent company EMI merged the historic label into a new imprint, also named EMI. Blue Mink's fourth album,Only When I Laugh, followed in March 1973. However, the group's appeal was clearly slipping, as glam rock elbowed Blue Mink's brand of light-hearted pop out of the way -- their latest single, "By the Devil (I Was Tempted)," struggled to break into the Top 30 and, while June 1973's "Randy" would return Blue Mink to the TopTen, it was to prove their final hit.

Blue Mink released one further album, January 1974's Fruity, together with the single "Quackers." Neither did anything, and the band broke up that fall, following one final American tour. Elton John was among the celebrities present to say goodbye, introducing the band on-stage at the Troubadour in Los Angeles. Blue Mink's final single, "Get Up," was released in July 1974 -- it passed by completely unnoticed, but would resurface two years later, retitled "7-6-5-4-3-2-1 (Blow Your Whistle)" scoring a massive disco hit for the Rimshots.

Since the band's demise, each of the members maintained a loud presence in the world of sessions and songwriting. Blue Mink, meanwhile, have been immortalized on a string of compilations, each recounting the string of effervescent hits that established them among Britain's best-loved pop groups of the early decade. AMG.

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