Camel - Rain Dances 1977

The band's fifth release, Rain Dances is Camel at its best, offering the most consistent and representative package in their saga. The addition of Caravan-cofounder Richard Sinclair proves profitable, as do a few colorist touches by Brian Eno on "Elke." Mel Collins' woodwinds are among the highlights, especially on "Tell Me" and the title track. From beginning to end, this project flows gracefully. AMG.

listen here

Fleetwood Mac - Kiln House 1970

Fleetwood Mac was still primarily a blues band on this, their first album after the departure of founder/nominal leader Peter Green. But the remaining members, Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, Jeremy Spencer, and Danny Kirwan (plus McVie's wife, Christine, not yet officially part of the group) started broadening the band's use of blues into other contexts, and adding new influences in the absence of Green's laser-like focus. Jeremy Spencer's fascination with American rock & roll manifests itself on the album opener, "This Is the Rock" (which crosses paths with Elvis Presley's Sun Records sides), whilst "Hi Ho Silver" is a higher-wattage shouter covering the same territory that Spencer explored with the band (sans Green) on "Someone's Gonna Get Their Head Kicked in Tonight," only with a little more subtlety and grace; and his tribute to Buddy Holly, "Buddy's Song," even outdoes the classic Joe Meek/Mike Berry "Tribute to Buddy Holly" as a memorial to the late rock & roll star -- and it was always too good and sincere to be mistaken for part of any oldies revival. "Jewel Eyed Judy" and "Earl Gray" are two superb showcases for Danny Kirwan, the former as a vocalist and player and the latter as a composer and guitarist in tandem with Spencer, in what was a pretty good successor to the Green-era instrumental hit "Albatross." "One Together" shows off a harmony-vocal side to this band that was something new in 1970, on one of the prettiest tunes they ever had to work with. And Kirwan gets the spotlight once again as a guitarist on the hard-rocking "Tell Me All the Things You Do." The album ends with the lyrical, relaxed McCartney-esque folky pop of "Mission Bell," which seemed to point the way toward their future direction. None of this may be as intense as the music they cut with Peter Green running the show, but in its relaxed way Kiln House represents the same virtuoso blues-rock outfit having a little fun while making a record -- think of it as roughly Fleetwood Mac's equivalent to the Rolling Stones' Between the Buttons. AMG.

listen here

Badfinger - Wish You Were Here 1974

Wish You Were Here is a glistening, powerful rock record that stays true to power pop while sounding as contemporary as any mainstream rock band of the mid-'70s. It was the kind of record that could have been a hit, but due to a series of legal and managerial entanglements, it was pulled from stores before it had a chance to find its audience. Despite its relative obscurity, most die-hard Badfinger fans maintain that the group shines brilliantly on Wish You Were Here and they're correct. For one, it's easily the most cohesive album the group ever recorded -- a nice by-product of working with one talented producer (in this case, Chris Thomas) for an entire album instead of piecing a record together. Also, the showcases each band member at a peak of songwriting. As the band's most prolific and gifted composer, Ham naturally has the strongest presence, and while each of his songs stands as proof that he was a consummate pop craftsman -- particularly the elegant "Dennis," the hard-hitting "Just a Chance," and the Abbey Road-esque "Meanwhile Back at the Ranch." Joey Molland has a strong showing with the stately ballad "Love Time" and "Should I Smoke," his complement to "Ranch." What is surprising is that Mike Gibbins' two contributions are of the same caliber, as is Tom Evans' electric-piano laden "King of the Load," since they were in a bit of a slump prior to this album. Thomas ties the record together with a clean, professional production that keeps the rockers energetic without losing their melodic edge, while preventing the sentimental numbers from seeming syrupy. All of this results in a classy, catchy pop record, possibly the best Badfinger ever released. It could have been a hit, too, but we'll never know. AMG.

listen here

B.J. Thomas - Most Of All 1970

There are Bacharach/David songs here -- “(They Long to Be) Close to You” had then been recently popularized by the Carpenters, but there are no new songs written expressly for B.J. Thomas. Instead, there’s a shift toward solid, generic, professional writers who could write toward the sound of the times without quite delivering memorable tunes. That said, they’re hardly unpleasant tunes. but, then again, the point of Thomas’ career at this point was to be pleasant, and in that regard, Most of All succeeds very well, trumping Everybody’s Out of Town. Part of its success is that the songs are designed to be pleasing soft rock -- there’s none of Bacharach/David’s neo-vaudeville, instead there’s subdued, symphonic Joe South soul in “No Love at All,” and a bit of trippy post-hippie pop in Chip Taylor’s “Circle Round the Sun” -- sounds that fit well with the dripping sentiments of “I Don’t Know Any Better.” Thomas never pushes forward on this material; he settles into its shag carpet, and if there’s not much distinction in that sound, there is at least a bit of period comfort. AMG

listen here

Be Bop Deluxe - Axe Victim 1974

When Be Bop Deluxe's first album was released during the glam rock wave in 1974 and the band (then comprised of Bill Nelson and Ian Parkin on guitars, Robert Bryan on bass, and Nicholas Chatterton-Dew on drums) turned up on the back of the record cover in heavy makeup, it was viewed as being in the David Bowie mold, which certainly took in Nelson's thin but confident tenor vocals and the uptempo rock approach, and even ballads like "Adventures in a Yorkshire Landscape" that sounded a lot like Bowie's "Rock 'n' Roll Suicide." But it was already obvious that Nelson was an unusually lyrical guitar slinger, and in fact the tunes often took a back seat to his sometimes jazzy, sometimes metal-ish excursions. He was, as he sang, "an axe victim," but at the same time, Be Bop Deluxe's musical identity was uncertain. AMG.

listen here

The Wild Magnolias - They Call Us Wild 1975

New Orleans legends the Wild Magnolias released their second album, THEY CALL US WILD, in Europe in 1975, but it didn't come out in the States until the '90s, when the band finally went national. Today they're thought of as an old-school Mardis Gras party band, but these early recordings reveal a greasier, murkier sound that owes something to the swamp-funk shadings of late-'60s/early-'70s Dr. John, as well as the slightly jazzy West Coast funkateers in War. AMG.

listen here

A Band Called O - Within Reach 1976

A Band Called O were a band from Jersey, Channel Islands. Originally known as "The Parlour Band", playing progressive rock, they renamed to "A Band Called O" for two albums on CBS/Epic and later to "The O Band" for a further albums with UA. Despite issuing five albums, on three major labels, and being championed by John Peel, for whom they recorded four Peel Sessions, they had no chart success; but were a popular live act, who toured Britain and Europe. 

listen here

David Bowie - Station to Station 1976

Taking the detached plastic soul of Young Americans to an elegant, robotic extreme, Station to Station is a transitional album that creates its own distinctive style. Abandoning any pretense of being a soulman, yet keeping rhythmic elements of soul, David Bowie positions himself as a cold, clinical crooner and explores a variety of styles. Everything from epic ballads and disco to synthesized avant pop is present on Station to Station, but what ties it together is Bowie's cocaine-induced paranoia and detached musical persona. At its heart, Station to Station is an avant-garde art-rock album, most explicitly on "TVC 15" and the epic sprawl of the title track, but also on the cool crooning of "Wild Is the Wind" and "Word on a Wing," as well as the disco stylings of "Golden Years." It's not an easy album to warm to, but its epic structure and clinical sound were an impressive, individualistic achievement, as well as a style that would prove enormously influential on post-punk. AMG.

listen here

Johnny Rivers - New Lovers And Old Friends 1975

Johnny Rivers is a unique figure in the history of rock music. On the most obvious level, he was a rock star of the 1960s and a true rarity as a white American singer/guitarist who made a name for himself as a straight-ahead rock & roller during the middle of that decade. Just as important behind the scenes, his recordings and their success led to the launching, directly and indirectly, of at least three record labels and a dozen other careers whose influence extended into the 1970s, 1980s, and beyond. AMG.

listen here

ZZ Top - Tres Hombres 1973

Tres Hombres is the record that brought ZZ Top their first Top Ten record, making them stars in the process. It couldn't have happened to a better record. ZZ Top finally got their low-down, cheerfully sleazy blooze-n-boogie right on this, their third album. As their sound gelled, producer Bill Ham discovered how to record the trio so simply that they sound indestructible, and the group brought the best set of songs they'd ever have to the table. On the surface, there's nothing really special about the record, since it's just a driving blues-rock album from a Texas bar band, but that's what's special about it. It has a filthy groove and an infectious feel, thanks to Billy Gibbons' growling guitars and the steady propulsion of Dusty Hill and Frank Beard's rhythm section. They get the blend of bluesy shuffles, gut-bucket rocking, and off-beat humor just right. ZZ Top's very identity comes from this earthy sound and songs as utterly infectious as "Waitin' for the Bus," "Jesus Just Left Chicago," "Move Me on Down the Line," and the John Lee Hooker boogie "La Grange." In a sense, they kept trying to remake this record from this point on -- what is Eliminator if not Tres Hombres with sequencers and synthesizers? -- but they never got it better than they did here. AMG.

listen here

Damon - Song Of A Gypsy 1968

Singer/songwriter Damon (just Damon, no last name) put out an extremely obscure, folk-tinged psychedelic album in 1969, Song of a Gypsy, of which only 100 copies were pressed. Such is its rarity that mint copies have gone for as much as $1000 or more. There's a droning, slightly raga-modalish flavor to the melodies and guitar lines, with a gypsy touch in the percussion and questing, spiritual lyrics. The gypsy element of Song of a Gypsy is not just an extrapolation from the title, but a deliberate action on Damon's part, who came to think of himself as a gypsy while wandering around California in the late '60s. After one 45, "Song of the Gypsy"/"Oh What a Good Boy Am I," the LP was recorded by Damon and other musicians in Los Angeles, its existence barely even suspected by most psychedelic collectors for years. In the late '90s, it had something of a renaissance, with the title track appearing on one of the Love, Peace & Poetry compilations of rare psychedelia, and the LP getting reissued in both CD and vinyl editions. Around this time, Damon returned to recording with a similar but less strange album, Gypsy Eyes. Song of a Gypsy was reissued by Now-Again in 2013, just in time for a Damon track to feature on HBO's vampire hit True Blood. AMG.

listen here

Tranquility - Silver 1972

Second and last album by this British folk rock band released in 192. The álbum features tentacks strongly inspired by progressive folk and psychedelic rock. Both of their two albums are highly collectable. 

listen here

Yves & Serge & Victor - Cagibi 1975

Recorded in a Cagibi in just two weeks, Yves & Serge & Victor's album is nonetheless a true folk/rock gem tinged with psychedelia. It also proves that constraints are also our strengths, for example, using a packet of rice as a percussion instrument. Distributed confidentially (300 copies) to the musicians' entourage, this album has in fact never received the recognition it deserves. He is one of the best of the genre (at least in France) but above all one of the most 'American', as we are so close here to Californian productions - others will no doubt think of Neil Young and his related groups. Even if it does not have the palm of originality, Cagibi has an undeniable charm - this mixture of spontaneity, fragility and clumsiness, as touching as it is characteristic of the best private pressings - and does not fail to move. Isn't that ultimately the main thing? "somewherethereismusic#

listen here

Goldenrod - Goldenrod 1969

The below instrumental album is full of extended and improvised jamming by this Los Angeles-based trio. It only contains four tracks. They had some mystical titles, such as "Karmic Dream Sequence" and "Descent Of The Cyclopeans". All three band members met while playing behind The Fifth Dimension and they had earlier played with Ballroom who were a pre- The Millennium-Sagittarius band. All three became top LA session men. Jerry Scheff went on to play with The Millennium and Ben Benay appeared in Funzone in the seventies. 
 

listen here

Ry Cooder - Chicken Skin Music 1976

Ry Cooder has always believed in the "mutuality in music," and this may be no more evident in his career than with his fifth album, Chicken Skin Music (a Hawaiian colloquialism, synonymous with goosebumps). Even more than usual, Cooder refuses to recognize borders -- geographical or musical -- presenting "Stand By Me" as a gospel song with a norteño arrangement, or giving the Jim Reeves country-pop classic, "He'll Have to Go," a bolero rhythm, featuring the interplay of Flaco Jimenez's accordion and Pat Rizzo's alto sax. Elsewhere, he teams with a pair of Hawaiian greats -- steel guitarist and singer Gabby Pahinui and slack key guitar master Atta Isaacs -- on the Hank Snow hit "Yellow Roses" and the beautiful instrumental "Chloe." If Cooder's approach to the music is stylistically diverse, his choice of material certainly follows suit. Bookended by a couple of Leadbelly compositions, Chicken Skin Music sports a collection of songs ranging from the aforementioned tracks to the charming old minstrel/medicine show number "I Got Mine" and the syncopated R&B of "Smack Dab in the Middle." Also included is Appalachian songwriter Blind Alfred Reed's "Always Lift Him Up," complete with a Hawaiian gospel tune, "Kanaka Wai Wai," woven into the instrumental section. As he explains in the album's liner notes, Cooder understands the connection between these seemingly disparate styles. This is not merely eclecticism for its own sake. Chicken Skin Music is probably Ry Cooder's most eccentric record since his first, but it's also one of his most entertaining. AMG.

listen here