Ben Webster - Soulville 1958

The by turns grizzled and vaporous-toned Webster really hit his stride on the Verve label. During a stretch from roughly 1953-1959, the Ellington alumnus showcased his supreme playing with both combos and string sections, swingers and ballads -- and lurking beneath his blustery and hulking sound were solo lines brimming with sophistication and wit. This 1957 date with the Oscar Peterson Trio is one of the highlights of that golden '50s run. After starting off with two bluesy originals -- the slow-burning title track and gutsy "Late Date" -- Webster gets to the heart of things on five wistful ballads: Here, his exquisitely sly "Makin' Whoopee" is only outdone by an incredibly nuanced "Where Are You." Providing sympathetic counterpoint, Peterson forgoes his usual pyrotechnics for some leisurely compact solos; his cohorts -- guitarist Herb Ellis, bassist Ray Brown, and drummer Stan Levey -- are equally assured and splendid. And ending the set with flair, Webster takes over the piano for three somewhat middling yet still impressive stride and boogie-woogie-styled numbers (these are his only piano recordings). Newcomers shouldn't hesitate to start here. AMG.

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Willie Dixon - Catalyst 1973

Willie Dixon an American blues bassist, vocalist, songwriter, arranger, and record producer, was born 1 July 1915 in Vicksburg, Mississippi, USA, died 29 January 1992 in Burbank, California, USA. Willie is one of the most prolific songwriters of his time. He is a Grammy Award winner, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Inductee, Blues Hall of Fame Inductee, and Songwriters Hall of Fame Inductee. This long out-of-print album was originally released in 1973. It is a classic representation of the Chicago Blues sound post Chess Records featuring a who’s who of the best sidemen of the genre.
 

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Eric Quincy Tate - Eric Quincy Tate 1970

Eric Quincy Tate were not a person, they were a band -- a quartet of down-and-dirty swamp rockers, Naval reservists stationed in Quincy, MA, but based down South, playing regularly in Texas where they were discovered by Tony Joe White, who shared a similar taste for blues, R&B, and soul. White helped get them signed to Capricorn and produced their self-titled 1971 debut, which sank into collector cult status not too long after its release and remained there until Rhino Handmade reissued it in 2006. Upon that reissue, the record was revealed as a real lost gem, something that could hold its own with Tony Joe White's own classic Monument albums, of which it's very reminiscent. Like Tony Joe, Eric Quincy Tate is pure swamp pop, mixing up soul, blues, country, and rock & roll into a dynamite concoction of thick, funky roots rock. EQT could really play, which makes the fact that they didn't play on their debut all the stranger. When EQT entered the studio, the quartet found the Dixie Flyers -- the name of engineer Stan Kesler's studio band at the Sounds of Memphis studio -- all set up, ready to play. Only vocalist/drummer Donnie McCormack and guitarist Tommy Carlisle, EQT's two songwriters, were allowed to play on the album, with the Memphis Horns added later as overdubs. According to Bill DeYoung's liner notes to the 2006 Handmade reissue, nobody remembers who made the decision to use the Dixie Flyers as the core band -- Tony Joe White and Jerry Wexler share producing credits with Tom Dowd, who worked on the final bit of the record -- and the decision to use studio pros is a bit odd, as the three demos, alternate takes, and unreleased cuts featured on the reissue showcase a gritty Southern rock & roll band, one that was looser and funkier than the one that finished record, but all the more appealing because of it. The Eric Quincy Tate reissue is also graced with the presence of none other than Duane Allman, who happened to be in the studio as a guest of Wexler, so he played some impromptu slide on the demo for "Goin' Down," unveiled here for the first time. It's not just Allman who gives the demos a dirtier, bluesier feel: without the overdubs of the horns and the tight attack of the Dixie Flyers, this is lean, hard rhythmic rock instead of the punched-up soul of the finished album. Not that there's anything wrong with the original Eric Quincy Tate as an album -- far from it, really. McCormack and Carlisle were fine songwriters with an ear for blending soul, blues, and rock so there were no borders between the styles, and the Dixie Flyers helped give the music an assured momentum that made it more commercial in 1971, even if the album went nowhere on the charts. Despite its lack of success, Eric Quincy Tate has aged very well -- the songs sound like buried gems and the music itself is the kind of deeply rooted roots rock that sustains its appeal, even increases it, upon repeated plays. Thankfully, Rhino Handmade put this back into circulation -- perhaps as a limited edition that went out of print quickly, but it helped spread the word and whet the appetite for the group's other two, equally forgotten albums. AMG.

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Laurelie - Laurelie 1970

Laurelie is part of the first wave of prog groups to appear in Belgium, even if there were still many psychedelics treats in their music (this is true also for the other groups just mentioned). Seemingly out of Eastern Belgium's Ardennes, the group was a standard prog quartet with a flutist. Their sole album, released on a Barclay subsidiary label called triangle was released in early 1970 and they sounded a bit like Traffic, with a touch of BJH in their more symphonic moments. Their music is a mix of shorter psych-filled tracks and two longer prog tracks, including a five-piece suite almost filling the second side of the album.

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Emily Bindiger - Emily 1971

Emily Bindiger is a NY singer who has performed on hundreds of recordings, including commercials, movie soundtracks, industrials, and records, as well as concert stages worldwide. She started out as a teenager playing clubs in Greenwich Village, then moved to France at 16 where she performed in musicals and on TV and released an album of original songs "Emily" in 1972. She made her Broadway debut in "Shenandoah," immediately followed by the revival of "Hair," and for seven seasons she starred as "Frannie" on the Peabody Award-winning children's TV show, "The Great Space Coaster."

Emily has recorded and/or performed with such diverse artists as Leonard Cohen, Buster Poindexter, Ann Hampton Callaway, Joan Osborne, Lou Reed, Steve Van Zandt, Oscar Brand, Mary Fahl, Andy LaVerne, The Klezmatics, Peter White, Kevin Mahogany, Deodato, Michael Amante, Lesley Gore, Kathie Lee Gifford, David Friedman, Christine Lavin, Ben Vereen, Bobby Caldwell, Black 47, Laurie Beechman, Patti Austin, Ronnie Spector, Catherine Russell, Julie Gold, and the legendary Neil Sedaka, with whom she toured for several years

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The Rolling Stones - Sticky Fingers 1971

Pieced together from outtakes and much-labored-over songs, Sticky Fingers manages to have a loose, ramshackle ambience that belies both its origins and the dark undercurrents of the songs. It's a weary, drug-laden album -- well over half the songs explicitly mention drug use, while the others merely allude to it -- that never fades away, but it barely keeps afloat. Apart from the classic opener, "Brown Sugar" (a gleeful tune about slavery, interracial sex, and lost virginity, not necessarily in that order), the long workout "Can't You Hear Me Knocking" and the mean-spirited "Bitch," Sticky Fingers is a slow, bluesy affair, with a few country touches thrown in for good measure. The laid-back tone of the album gives ample room for new lead guitarist Mick Taylor to stretch out, particularly on the extended coda of "Can't You Hear Me Knocking." But the key to the album isn't the instrumental interplay -- although that is terrific -- it's the utter weariness of the songs. "Wild Horses" is their first non-ironic stab at a country song, and it is a beautiful, heart-tugging masterpiece. Similarly, "I Got the Blues" is a ravished, late-night classic that ranks among their very best blues. "Sister Morphine" is a horrifying overdose tale, and "Moonlight Mile," with Paul Buckmaster's grandiose strings, is a perfect closure: sad, yearning, drug-addled, and beautiful. With its offhand mixture of decadence, roots music, and outright malevolence, Sticky Fingers set the tone for the rest of the decade for the Stones. AMG.

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The Beatles - Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band 1967

With Revolver, the Beatles made the Great Leap Forward, reaching a previously unheard-of level of sophistication and fearless experimentation. Sgt. Pepper, in many ways, refines that breakthrough, as the Beatles consciously synthesized such disparate influences as psychedelia, art-song, classical music, rock & roll, and music hall, often in the course of one song. Not once does the diversity seem forced -- the genius of the record is how the vaudevillian "When I'm 64" seems like a logical extension of "Within You Without You" and how it provides a gateway to the chiming guitars of "Lovely Rita." There's no discounting the individual contributions of each member or their producer, George Martin, but the preponderance of whimsy and self-conscious art gives the impression that Paul McCartney is the leader of the Lonely Hearts Club Band. He dominates the album in terms of compositions, setting the tone for the album with his unabashed melodicism and deviously clever arrangements. In comparison, Lennon's contributions seem fewer, and a couple of them are a little slight but his major statements are stunning. "With a Little Help From My Friends" is the ideal Ringo tune, a rolling, friendly pop song that hides genuine Lennon anguish, à la "Help!"; "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" remains one of the touchstones of British psychedelia; and he's the mastermind behind the bulk of "A Day in the Life," a haunting number that skillfully blends Lennon's verse and chorus with McCartney's bridge. It's possible to argue that there are better Beatles albums, yet no album is as historically important as this. After Sgt. Pepper, there were no rules to follow -- rock and pop bands could try anything, for better or worse. Ironically, few tried to achieve the sweeping, all-encompassing embrace of music as the Beatles did here. AMG.

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Johnny Winter - Second Winter 1969

Johnny's second Columbia album shows an artist in transition. He's still obviously a Texas bluesman, recording in the same trio format that he left Dallas with. But his music is moving toward the more rock & roll sounds he would go on to create. The opener, "Memory Pain," moves him into psychedelic blues-rock territory, while old-time rockers like "Johnny B. Goode," "Miss Ann," and "Slippin' and Slidin'" provide him with familiar landscapes on which to spray his patented licks. His reworking of Dylan's "Highway 61 Revisited" is the high spot of the record, a career-defining track that would remain a major component in his set list to the end of his life. AMG.

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Bob Dylan & The Band - The Basement Tapes 1975

The official release of The Basement Tapes -- which were first heard on a 1968 bootleg called The Great White Wonder -- plays with history somewhat, as Robbie Robertson overemphasizes the Band's status in the sessions, making them out to be equally active to Dylan, adding in demos not cut at the sessions and overdubbing their recordings to flesh them out. As many bootlegs (most notably the complete five-disc series) reveal, this isn't entirely true and the Band were nowhere near as active as Dylan, but that ultimately is a bit like nitpicking, since the music here (including the Band's) is astonishingly good. The party line on The Basement Tapes is that it is Americana, as Dylan and the Band pick up the weirdness inherent in old folk, country, and blues tunes, but it transcends mere historical arcana through its lively, humorous, full-bodied performances. Dylan never sounded as loose, nor was he ever as funny as he is here, and this positively revels in its weird, wild character. For all the apparent antecedents -- and the allusions are sly and obvious in equal measure -- this is truly Dylan's show, as he majestically evokes old myths and creates new ones, resulting in a crazy quilt of blues, humor, folk, tall tales, inside jokes, and rock. The Band pretty much pick up where Dylan left off, even singing a couple of his tunes, but they play it a little straight, on both their rockers and ballads. Not a bad thing at all, since this actually winds up providing context for the wild, mercurial brilliance of Dylan's work -- and, taken together, the results (especially in this judiciously compiled form with its expert song selection, even if there's a bit too much Band) rank among the greatest American music ever made. AMG.

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Happy New Year 2022!!!

One more year is gone, and what a year! Anyway, more to come yes!!! Thanks to all visitors, new ones and those who come frequently for some time.  B., Alfred, Adriana, Mauro Filipe, Vasily, E.W., Snakeboy, Mara, George, Bill (24hrDejaVu), Zapata, and so many more. So, thanks for sharing life around!!! Happy New Year 2022!

Manfred Mann Chapter Three - Volume 1 1969

It's light years from the airy pop of "Do Wah Diddy Diddy," recorded by the hit-making first group formed by South African Manfred Mann and Mike Hugg in 1963. This is as much jazz as rock. There's hardly any guitar, but a swaggering horn section compensates. Imagine a darker, moodier Traffic with Mann manning the organ instead of Steve Winwood. Hugg's raspy vocals are featured on the first album recorded with the new band. The standout tracks are the album-opening "Travelling Lady" and "Time," but they are hardly the only strong ones. AMG.

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Colosseum - Live 1971

Live albums are dangerous things. While the good ones capture the raw excitement of a show, all too often they expose a band's weaknesses, the ones that get covered in the studio -- a singer who's not so good and instrumentalists who really can't cut it. But Colosseum, by the time they made their live album (the CD version comes with an extra track, "I Can't Live Without You," that wasn't on the original vinyl), were a seasoned outfit with some top-notch performers. In veteran Chris Farlowe they had a blues belter who could also turn his hand to jazz. Dave "Clem" Clempson was a rock guitarist first and foremost, but not limited to that, and bassist Mark Clarke was exactly the elastic foil drummer Jon Hiseman needed in the rhythm section. And they make the most of their abilities here, giving everything extended workouts, from Jack Bruce's "Rope Ladder to the Moon" to a seemingly off-the-cuff (though probably carefully rehearsed) "Stormy Monday Blues." Of course, like any faithful live album, it has its flat moments, notably the guitar and vocal solos in "Skellington," which were probably fun to the live audience, but seem interminable and unnecessary on record. Apart from that, this is an album with plenty of delights -- the way the band arranges songs, with interesting duets in the fills, and the way the solos flow from one instrument to another -- with Dick Heckstall-Smith's harmonizing saxes on "Tanglewood '63" being the biggest standout. But Clempson shows incredible chops throughout, upfront in his spotlight exposures without being over the top (usually). With good material, some towering performances, and a powerful atmosphere, this is everything you could hope for from a live album. It makes you wish you could be there, while offering the next best thing -- not a bad deal, all in all. AMG.
 

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Buzzy Linhart - The Time To Live Is Now 1971

Buzzy Linhart's first of two albums for Kama Sutra, three if you include the band Music's on the Buddah-distributed Eleuthera Records, 1971's The Time to Live Is Now has the songwriter playing with different styles and sounds in a setting that is not as refined as the Eddie Kramer co-produced Music album or Barry Beckett and Roger Hawkins' production of 1974's Pussycats Can Go Far. But don't blame the artist for that. In an exclusive interview for the All Media Guide conducted on February 28th, 2002, Linhart revealed some of the secrets of The Time To Live Is Now: Bill Takas and Luther Rix, the bass player, and drummer, are "world-class jazz and classical musicians."  Bill Takas spent nine years on the Tonight Show, and they co-founded Ten Wheel Drive (with Genya Ravan; see the Construction #1 LP). "We had been performing eight-to-ten months as a trio, sometimes with sax...it was supposed to be more [produced] like 'Pussycats' (Pussycats Can Go Far)...but [record exec] Neil Bogart played this for a group of 30-something pros for Buddah/Kama Sutra, and they got up out of their chairs and danced to it." That resulted in the late Neil Bogart deciding he wanted to release the roughs -- the rough vocals, the rough mix, even with a 32,000 dollar budget, which was pretty good at that point in time. They called this "rock-folk," rock with a jazz tinge as opposed to "jazz-rock" that was Blood, Sweat & Tears. Even in its raw form, it is great stuff. Linhart lifts lines from here and there. Four lines from the Beatles' 1968 hit "Lady Madonna" are taken almost verbatim in the title track -- "Who buys the money, when you pay the rent" -- while the strange "Cheat Cheat Lied" is fused with Percy Mayfield's "Hit the Road Jack," Linhart lifting a melody and line from Blind Faith's "Presence of the Lord." On the following album, Buzzy (also called "The Black Album" as his 1969 outing on Phillips was also titled Buzzy), he's more blatantly lifting "What the World Needs Now Is Love" for his "Rollin' On" title. When he goes into Chester Powers' 1963 composition "Let's Get Together," you think he's absconding with lyrics and melody again, but it's actually a very cool cover of the Youngbloods' "Get Together," which hit for them in 1967 and 1969. It is charming, as is the first appearance of "Friends," the Barry Manilow-produced hit for Bette Midler in 1973, re-cut by Buzzy on Pussycats Can Go Far and the only appearance here of friend Moogy Klingman, in the capacity of co-writer. Most of the material is by Linhart, "Good Face" being co-written with future Music bandmemberDoug Rodrigues, while drummer and co-producer Luther Rix pens and sings "Comin' Home." The group covers Jordan Kaplan's "There's No Need" with the legendary Ken Ascher on piano, and Jeannie Linhart does a vocal harmony on "The Love's Still Growing," but other than that, it's the three-piece unit producing and performing on this Kama Sutra debut album. Todd Rundgren would come onboard to mix "The Black Album," 1972's Buzzy, which would replace Takas with Danny Trifan on bass, and add Jeff "Skunk" Baxter on guitar, but The Time to Live Is Now remains an important, albeit raw, document of a major talent emerging from the early '70s. AMG.

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Canned Heat - Future Blues 1970

The final Canned Heat album to feature co-founder Alan Wilson, Future Blues was also one of their best, surprisingly restrained as a studio creation by the band, the whole thing clocking in at under 36 minutes, as long as some single jams on their live discs. It was also one of their most stylistically diverse efforts. Most of what's here is very concise and accessible, even the one group-composed jam -- Alan Wilson's "Shake It and Break It" and his prophetically titled "My Time Ain't Long" (he would be dead the year this record was issued), which also sounds a lot like a follow-up to "Going up the Country" until its final, very heavy, and up-close guitar coda. Other songs are a little self-consciously heavy, especially their version of Arthur Crudup's "That's All Right, Mama." Dr. John appears, playing piano on the dark, ominous "London Blues," and arranges the horns on "Skat," which tries for a completely different kind of sound -- late-'40s-style jump blues -- than that for which the group was usually known. And the band also turns in a powerhouse heavy guitar version of Wilbert Harrison's "Let's Work Together." AMG.

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King Crimson - In The Court Of The Crimson King 1968

The group's definitive album, and one of the most daring debut albums ever recorded by anybody. At the time, it blew all of the progressive/psychedelic competition (the Moody Blues, the Nice, etc.) out of the running, although it was almost too good for the band's own good -- it took King Crimson nearly four years to come up with a record as strong or concise. Ian McDonald's Mellotron is the dominant instrument, along with his saxes and Fripp's guitar, making this a somewhat different-sounding record from everything else they ever did. And even though that Mellotron sound is muted and toned down compared to their concert work of the era (e.g., Epitaph), it is still fierce and overpowering, on an album highlighted by strong songwriting (most of it filled with dark and doom-laden visions), the strongest singing of Greg Lake's entire career, and Fripp's guitar playing that strangely mixed elegant classical, Hendrix-like rock explosions, and jazz noodling. Lineup changes commenced immediately upon the album's release, and Fripp would ultimately be the only survivor on later King Crimson records. AMG.

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