rep>>> Ronnie Lane And Slim Chance - Ooh La La An Island Harvest (1974-76 uk, wonderfully eclectic mix of country, rock, folk and blues, 2014 two disc hard paper sleeve edition)

The story goes that Ronnie Lane’s Slim Chance were formed after he walked into a bar after the last ever Faces show in June of 73 and shouted at Marc Bolan asking if he had an opening for an unemployed bass player.  Bolan did not take him up on the offer and he retreated to his farm in Wales to begin putting together a new band called Slim Chance. The sound was mainly acoustic driven over flowing with warmth and quality and revealed the heart and soul of one of Britain’s most under rated songwriters. During his time with The Faces, Lane’s talents shone with songs he penned like ‘Just For A Moment’, Ooh La La and ‘Debris’.

Eschewing the rock sound of his era, Lane created a personal organic sound, propelled by melody and mandolins, violins and squeeze boxes, the sound that conjures up the sun at dawn and the beauty of the fading afternoon horizon.

Lane would record four solo albums with Slim Chance plus albums with Ronnie Wood, Mahoney’s Last Stand & Pete Townshend Rough Mix. In 1976 he briefly joined a re-formed Small Faces but quit after two weeks and again teamed up with Steve Marriott in 1981 to cut an album called the Magic Mijits album.

Contracting MS in 1982, he kept going and in a massive showing of affection by his musical contemporaries a benefit show for MS charity was put together featuring Eric Clapton, Pete Townshend, Steve Winwood, Jimmy Page, Charlie Watts, and Andy Fairweather Low and raised millions for the charity.

Ooh La La: An Island Harvest looks at Ronnie and Slim Chance’s time with Island Records where Ronnie released two albums – Ronnie Lane’s Slim Chance and One for The Road.  This collection features highlights from those albums as well as covers of classic tracks delivered in the inimitable “Plonk” style.  Tracks such as ‘Tin and Tambourine’ , ‘One For the Road’ and ‘Burnin’ Summer’ showcase Ronnie’s beautiful melodies and imaginative lyrics.  

It is easy to see why Lane was and still is admired by so many.  The collection also unearths some previously unreleased alternate takes of classic Ronnie compositions such as Ooh La La, The Poacher  and Anniversary.  Also included is the BBC concert Ronnie performed in 1974 which features Faces classics as well as a rip roaring version of How Come and a cover of Gallagher and Lyle’s I Believe In You who were part of the original Slim chance line up and incidentally perform alongside Ronnie at this concert.

Ronnie passed on June 4th, 1997 at the age of 51 . He had stars in his eyes and love in his smile.

by Paolo Hewitt

Tracks

Disc 1

1. Ooh La La (Ronnie Lane, Ron Wood) - 3:18 

2. Don't Try And Change My Mind - 3:06 

3. One For The Road - 4:47 

4. Buddy Can You Spare Me A Dime (Jay Gorney, E.Y. "Yip" Harburg) - 4:10 

5. Steppin' And Reelin' - 6:26 

6. Harvest Home (Charlie Hart, Ronnie Lane) - 5:52 

7. 32nd Street - 4:36 

8. Give Me A Penny - 3:01 

9. I'm Gonna Sit Right Down (And Write Myself A Letter) (Alternate Studio Take) (Fred E. Ahlert, Joe Young) - 3:10 

10.You Never Can Tell (Chuck Berry) - 6:59 

11.Back Street Boy - 4:57 

12.Snake - 3:30 

13.Burnin' Summer - 4:07 

14.Anniversary - 3:00 

15.Country Boy (Marshall Barer, Fred Brooks) - 3:34 

16.What Went Down (That Night With You) - 3:29 

17.Tin And Tambourine (Kathy Lambert, Ronnie Lane) - 4:12 

18.Little Piece Of Nothing - 2:26

Disc 2
1. The Poacher - 3:51
2. Street Gang (Ronnie Lane, Ruan O'Lochlainn, Steve Simpson) - 4:08
3. Nobody's Listenin' - 3:57
4. Stone - 4:10
5. G'morning - 4:02
6. Bottle Of Brandy (Isaacs Family) - 2:50
7. Single Saddle (Arthur Altman, Hal David) - 2:03
8. Lovely - 3:29
9. Ain't No Lady (Kathy Lambert, Ronnie Lane, Ruan O'Lochlainn) - 4:26
10.Blue Monday (Dave Bartholomew) - 4:09
11.Anniversary - 3:07
12.Last Orders - 4:26
13.Done This One Before - 3:58
14.Flags And Banners (Ronnie Lane, Rod Stewart) - 4:06
15.Tell Everyone - 3:40
16.How Come - 3:55
17.I Believe In You (Bernard Gallagher, Graham Lyle) - 4:53
18.Debris - 6:29
19.Ooh La La (Ronnie Lane, Ron Wood) - 3:48
All songs written by Ronnie Lane unless as else noted.

Personnel
*Ronnie Lane – Guitar, Bass, Vocals
*Steve Simpson – Guitar, Mandolin, Violin, Keyboards, Harmonica
*Graham Lyle - Banjo, Twelve String Guitar, Guitar Bottleneck, Mandolin
*Benny Gallagher - Bass, Guitar, Accordion
*Steve Bingham - Bass
*Ken Slaven - Fiddle
*Kevin Westlake - Guitar
*Bruce Rowland - Percussion
*Jimmy Jewell - Saxophone
*Bill Livesey - Keyboards
*Ruan O'Lochlainn – Organ, Piano, Saxophone
*Charlie Hart – Violin, Keyboards, Piano, Accordion
*Brian Belshaw – Bass
*Glen LeFleur – Drums
*Jim Frank – Drums
*Charlie Hart – Violin, Keyboards, Harp, Whistle
*Brian Belshaw – Bass, Vocals
*Colin Davy – Drums
*The Tanners Of Montgomery - Vocals

1965-69  Small Faces - The Immediate Years (four discs box, 1st edition)
1967  Small Faces - Green Circles / First Immediate Album (rare Sequel release)
1968  The Small Faces - Ogden's Nut Gone Flake (2006 three disc box set)

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rep>>> Janis Joplin - Joplin In Concert (1968/70 us, individual classic live performances, 2007 japan blu spec hard paper sleeve two discs set remaster)

Overall an uneven album, In Concert's highest moments are sublime. The collection is culled from concerts with Big Brother and the Holding Company and Full Tilt Boogie. "All Is Loneliness," with Big Brother, was an improvisational vehicle for Joplin unlike any other, and no other performance of this tune, which conveys a terrifying loneliness, is even remotely similar. The version here was recorded at a 1970 reunion with Big Brother, and Joplin at one point--"There ain't no TV, no radio, no nothin', man"--simply rips your heart out. 

We're also treated to the impromptu 12-bar blues of "Ego Rock," wherein Nick Gravenites and Joplin toss blues lines back and forth in an affectionate but competitive repartee. Joplin was looped during the outdoor gigs with Full Tilt. A lot of tequila went down the hatch on the festival train that puffed its way across Canada in July of 1970. It was four months before Joplin died, and her Calgary performance of "Ball and Chain" is inspired, brilliant, drunk, uncanny, and frightening. It's like work from the other side. 

by Myra Friedman

About half of this two-record set features Janis Joplin with Big Brother & the Holding Company in 1968, performing songs like "Down on Me" and "Piece of My Heart." The rest, recorded in 1970, finds her with her backup group, Full Tilt Boogie, mostly performing songs from I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama! Joplin puts herself out on-stage, both in terms of singing until her voice is raw and describing her life to her audiences. Parts of this album are moving, parts are heartbreaking, and the rest is just great rock & roll. 

by William Ruhlmann

Tracks

Disc 1 - Janis Joplin With Big Brother And The Holding Company 1968

1. Down On Me (Arranged By Janis Joplin) - 3:05

2. Bye Bye Baby (Powell St. John) - 3:54

3. All Is Loneliness (Louis Hardin "Moondog") - 6:21

4. Piece Of My Heart (Bert Berns, Jerry Ragovoy) - 4:09

5. Road Block (Janis Joplin, Peter Albin) - 2:58

6. Flower In The Sun (Sam Andrew) - 3:04

7. Summertime (DuBose Heyward, George Gershwin) - 4:45

8. Ego Rock (Nick Gravenites, Janis Joplin) - 8:00

Tracks 1 and 4 Recorded March 2, 1968, at The Grande Ballroom, Detroit, MI

Track 2 Recorded April 12, 1968, at Winterland, San Francisco, CA

Tracks 3 and 8 Recorded April 4, 1970, Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA

Tracks 5-7 Recorded June 23, 1968, The Carousel Ballroom, San Francisco, CA

!Some distortions on track #8 may be from the source.

Disc 2 - Janis Joplin With Full Tilt Boogie 1970
1. Half Moon (Johanna Hall, John Joseph Hall) - 5:15
2. Kozmic Blues (Janis Joplin, Gabriel Mekler) - 5:45
3. Move Over (Janis Joplin) - 5:07
4. Try (Just A Little Bit Harder) (Chip Taylor, Jerry Ragovoy) - 9:26
5. Get It While You Can (Jerry Ragovoy, Mort Shuman) - 7:04
6. Ball And Chain (Willa Mae "Big Mama' Thornton ) - 8:02
Tracks 1-3 Recorded during the Canadian Festival Express Toronto, Ontario, on June 28, 1970.
Tracks 4-6 Recorded in Calgary, Alberta, on July 4, 1970.
 
With the Big Brother and The Holding Company
*Janis Joplin - vocals
*James Gurley - Guitar
*Sam Andrew - Guitar
*Peter Albin - Bass
*Dave Getz - Drums
*Nick Gravenites - Vocals (Track 8)

With the Full Tilt Boogie Band
*Janis Joplin - vocals
*John Till - Guitar
*Richard Bell - Piano
*Ken Pearson - Organ
*Brad Campbell - Bass
*Clark Pierson - Drums

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rep>>> Witch - We Intend To Cause Havoc (1972-77 zambia, the complete works of legendary garage, psych, prog, funk, afro-rock ensemble, true masterwork, four discs box set, 2012 remaster)

A pioneering group from the nation of Zambia, Witch (the name was an acronym, standing for We Intend To Cause Havoc) were one of the defining acts of Zamrock, a fusion of Western rock and rhythm & blues with traditional African sounds; they were among Zambia's most popular and influential bands in the 1970s as a wave of psychedelic and hard rock gained an audience in Africa. 

A landlocked nation in the South of Africa, Zambia was formerly Northern Rhodesia until gaining its independence in 1964, and as Zambia established its own national identity, local musicians began embracing the progressive influences of artists such as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and Jimi Hendrix, as well as the forward-thinking soul and funk sounds of James Brown. 

By the mid-'70s, Zambia was falling into political chaos as the nation's once profitable mining industry ran dry, and many Zamrock bands reflected this with a darker, more psychedelic-influenced sound that suggested a familiarity with the likes of Deep Purple and Grand Funk Railroad. 

Witch included vocalist Emanyeo "Jagari" Chanda, guitarists Chris Mbewe and John Muma, bassist Gedeon Mulenga, and drummer Boidi Sinkala, who were veterans of Zambian cover bands of the late '60s; Chanda (whose nickname "Jagari" came from his fascination with Mick Jagger, one of his strongest influences) had worked with the Red Balloons and the Boyfriends (the latter group would evolve into another key Zamrock outfit, Peace), while most of the other members were members of Kingston Market. In 1971, Chanda sang with Kingston Market at a school function, and he was soon invited to join the group; they soon changed their name to the Mighty Witch, and then simply Witch, using the acronym they'd coined as explanation. Fueled by marijuana and Western rock and soul, the group's debut album, Introduction, was released in 1972, and was among the first commercially released LPs issued in Zambia. 

Witch's third album, 1975's Lazy Bones!!, is generally regarded as their finest work; while they were hampered by the primitive recording technology available in Africa, they developed a large following in Zambia and were playing stadium-sized shows throughout the continent.

After Witch toured as an opening act for Osibisa, the U.K.-based Afro-rock band, they began including more local influences on their final two albums, Lukombo Vibes and Including Janet (Single), but in 1977 the group began to splinter when Chanda left the band to return to school and become a teacher, and the rise of disco and loss of venues for live music did the rest. 

Chanda also became a born-again Christian, which he cites as one of the reason he avoided the fate that befell his bandmates; as the AIDS epidemic swept through Africa, the Zambian musical community was hit especially hard, and like most key Zamrock musicians of the 1970s, Mbewe, Muma, Mulenga, and Sinkala all succumbed to the disease. 

In the 21st century, crate diggers interested in idiosyncratic rock sounds from around the world rediscovered Witch, and the German reissue label Shadoks brought out new CD editions of Introduction and Lazy Bones!! In 2012 the American label Now Again Records released a comprehensive Witch box set that featured their five studio albums plus a bonus collection of single tracks and unreleased material. 

by Mark Deming 

Witch's five albums and rare 7" tracks presented as a 4CD box set, restored and remastered from the original tapes. Contains a twenty-four page booklet with never before seen photos and ephemera; extensive liner notes and annotation; an interview with bandleader 'Jagari' Chanda. By the mid 1970s, the Southern African nation known as the Republic of Zambia had fallen on hard times: self-imposed, single party rule; a decline in prices for the country's largest natural resource, copper; conflict in other countries on Zambia's borders. 

This is the environment in which the Zamrock scene that flourished throughout that decade emerged... fuzz guitars were commonplace, driving rhythms as influenced by James Brown's funk as Jimi Hendrix's rock predominated, musical themes were often bleak and bands largely sang in the country's constitutional language, English. Although Witch is the best known Zamrock ensemble and although they succeeded in releasing five albums in Zamrock's golden years -- they never made an impact on the global scale in, say, the way afro-beat maestro Fela Kuti did. Travel to and within Zambia is expensive, and the markers for the Zamrock scene are now few. 

Only a small number of the original Zamrock godfathers survived the AIDS epidemic that decimated this country. Witch's musical arc is contained to a five year span: The band's first two, self-produced albums, released in unison with the birth of the commercial Zambian recording industry, are exuberant experiments in garage rock, and are as influenced by the Rolling Stones as they are James Brown; their third albun, Lazy Bones!! is the band's masterpiece, a dark, brooding psychedelic opus that makes equal use of wah-wah and fuzz guitars, that relies as heavily on the stomping feel of hard rock as it does the syncopation of funk; the band's last two albums, recorded after the band toured with Osibisa, make use of traditional Zambian rhythms and folk melodies and are the most 'afro-rock'of Witch's oeuvre." 

Tracks

Disc 1  Introduction and In The Past

1. Introduction (Chris Mbewe) - 3:45

2. Home Town - 4:21

3. You Better Now (John Muma) - 3:29

4. Feeling High (Emanyeo Jagari Chanda) - 3:37

5. Like A Chicken (John Muma) - 3:10

6. See Your Mama (Emanyeo Jagari Chanda) - 4:34

7. That s What I Want (John Muma) - 3:01

8. Try Me - 4:23

9. No Time (Emanyeo Jagari Chanda) - 4:33

10.Living In the Past (Gedeon Mulenga, John Muma) - 5:44

11.Young Lady (Chris Mbewe) - 3:51

12.Chance (Emanyeo Jagari Chanda, John Muma) - 3:10

13.It s Alright (John Muma) - 3:29

14.I ve Been Away (B. Mvula, John Muma) - 2:39

15.I Like The Way I Am (Chris Mbewe) - 4:52

16.The Only Way (Emanyeo Jagari Chanda) - 3:58

17.Smiling Face (Chris Mbewe) - 3:45

18.She Is Mine (B. Mvula, John Muma) - 3:31

19.Mashed Potato (Emanyeo Jagari Chanda, John Muma) - 4:05

Disc 2  Lazy Bones!! and Bonus Tracks

1. Black Tears (Emanyeo Jagari Chanda, Shaddick Bwalya, Chris Mbewe) - 4:54

2. Motherless Child (Emanyeo Jagari Chanda, Shaddick Bwalya, Gedeon Mulenga) -3:57 

3. Tooth Factory (Emanyeo Jagari Chanda, Shaddick Bwalya, Chris Mbewe) - 4:34

4. Strange Dream (Emanyeo Jagari Chanda, Gedeon Mulenga) - 3:17

5. Look Out (Shaddick Bwalya, John Muma) - 4:04

6. Havoc (Emanyeo Jagari Chanda, Shaddick Bwalya, Chris Mbewe) - 4:28

7. October Night (Emanyeo Jagari Chanda, Shaddick Bwalya, Chris Mbewe) - 4:39

8. Off My Boots (Boidi Sinkala) - 2:55

9. Lazy Bones (Emanyeo Jagari Chanda, Shaddick Bwalya) - 4:02

10.Little Clown (Emanyeo Jagari Chanda, Chris Mbewe) - 3:29

11.Talking Universe (Chris Mbewe) - 5:18

12.Evil Woman (Emanyeo Jagari Chanda, Chris Mbewe) - 6:00

13.Sweet Sixteen (Emanyeo Jagari Chanda, Chris Mbewe) - 3:06

14.Toloka (Emanyeo Jagari Chanda, Boidi Sinkala, John Muma, Gedeon Mulenga, Chris Mbewe)  - 4:06

15.81st Crowd Confusion (Emanyeo Jagari Chanda) - 3:48

16.Up The Sky (Chris Mbewe, John Muma) - 3:41

Disc 3  Lukombo Vibes and Bonus Tracks

1. Thou Shalt Not Cry (Shaddick Bwalya, Gedeon Mulenga) - 4:50

2. Bleeding Thunder (Shaddick Bwalya) - 5:15

3. Devil s Flight (Shaddick Bwalya, Chris Mbewe) - 4:32

4. Blood Donor (Emanyeo Jagari Chanda, Chris Mbewe) - 4:44

5. Nasauka (Emanyeo Jagari Chanda, Chris Mbewe, Gedeon Mulenga) - 4:13

6. Evening Of My Life (Boidi Sinkala) - 5:23

7. Kangalaitoito (Emanyeo Jagari Chanda, Chris Mbewe) - 3:42

8. See Saw (Emanyeo Jagari Chanda, Chris Mbewe) - 5:25

9. Chifundo - 5:10

10.Fool s Ride - 3:26

Disc 4  Including Janet (Hit Single)

1. Janet (Chris Mbewe) - 4:48

2. As Days Go By (Shaddick Bwalya)  - 3:17

3. Ntedelakumbi (Boidi Sinkala) - 4:05

4. In Flight (Gedeon Mulenga) - 3:27

5. Nazingwa (Chris Mbewe) - 4:23

6. Silver Lady (Shaddick Bwalya)  - 3:56

7. Anyinamwana (John Muma) - 4:08

8. Mama Feel Good (Emanyeo Jagari Chanda) - 5:19

9. The Way I Feel (Boidi Sinkala) - 5:10

Witch

*Emanyeo Jagari Chanda - Cowbell, Maracas, Vocals

*Chris Mbewe - Guitar, Vocals

*Gedeon Mulenga - Bass

*John Muma - Guitar, Vocals, Wah Wah Guitar

*Boidi Sinkala - Drums

*Cosmos Zani - Keyboards

*Paul "Jones" Mumba - Keyboards, Drums

Related Acts

1972-77  Various Artists - Welcome to Zamrock! Vol 1 How Zambia’s Liberation Led To A Rock Revolution (2017 release)

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Jackson Browne - The Pretender (1976 us, marvelous country folk soft rock, 2005 japan remaster)

In March 1976, Jackson Browne’s wife Phyllis Major passed away from a barbiturates overdose. The couple already had a son together, Ethan, who was three by then, just two years after appearing on the cover of Rolling Stone with his father. After a stint with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and a year-long relationship with Nico in New York City, which included writing and playing guitar on her debut album Chelsea Girl (that’s him playing the finger-picked electric intro on “These Days,” which he penned), he moved back to his native California, settled down in Los Angeles, and befriended Glenn Frey. Browne and his, as Rolling Stone wrote, “mind-boggling melodies” had achieved moderate success by 1972, scoring a Top 10 hit with his debut single “Doctor, My Eyes.” His eponymous first record did well enough, though its follow ups—For Everyman and Late for the Sky—failed to leave any significant mark on the Hot 100. It seemed that, by the time Browne arrived at Sunset Sound to record his fourth album with songs scored by unfathomable loss as he was writing them, the easiest way forward was through—but not without good company.

Produced by Jon Landau, who’d just made Born to Run with Bruce Springsteen, The Pretender is a great record—a disarmingly tranquil one, to be honest. Grief lingers over its eight tracks, yet Browne rummages in optimism even at his most scornful. “Oh, God, this is some shape I’m in,” he mourns during “Sleep’s Dark and Silent Gate.” The album sold 3 million copies in the US alone, going platinum less than a year after first hitting the shelves. Laurel Canyon had rarely homed such an emotional tempest, nor a personnel list packed with more recognizable names than I’ve got fingers. Members of the E Street Band, Crosby, Stills and Nash, Little Feat, Derek and the Dominoes, Orleans, and Jimmy Buffett’s Coral Reefer Band. A future congressman plays the “Here Come Those Tears Again” guitar solo! Stevie Nicks’ longtime guitarist Waddy Wachtel is on the right side of “Daddy’s Tune”! Bonnie Raitt sings harmonies at the end of side one, and Don Henley and JD Souther pick up the vocals at the top of side two.

The Pretender lacks that punchy single, sure. There’s no “Doctor, My Eyes” or “Running on Empty” or “Boulevard” here, but soft rock has rarely sounded better than when it aches out of Browne’s mellow doldrums on “Your Bright Baby Blues.” The music is endlessly balmy and faints in a pitch of contrasts. Soul-stirring domesticity lets Browne fly like a bird “so far above my sorrow.” “Baby, you can free me,” he assures, with gusts of Bill Payne’s Hammond organ falling into the pauses of Lowell George’s slide guitar, “all in the power of your sweet tenderness.” Daydreams of sleeping around then settle in the vacancy. Just as Terry Allen had on Juarez a year prior, Browne decamps south of the American border to sing about his “Mexican dove,” filling his wounded imagination with pictures of “restless wings” and “the sun’s bright corona” while the morning casts a spell on two sleeping, estranged bodies. “Love will fill your eyes with the sight of a world you can’t hope to keep,” Browne serenades, to the tune of Roberto Gutierrez’s guitarrón and Arthur Gert’s twinkling harp. “Dreaming on after that moment’s gone, the light in your lover’s eyes disappears with the light of the dawn.”

Though the exact origins of “The Fuse” are unknown, its piano-and-guitar tempered arrangement is especially sanguine in the context of Major’s death. Browne surveys the absence around him, a “long distance loneliness rolling out over the desert floor,” and reckons with the weight of eternity and what years he lost to the mystery of time’s unyielding forward motion. He questions what suffering exists beyond his own but dares to outlast the falling walls of Babylon. “I will tune my spirit to the gentle sound,” he sings. “I want to hear the sound of the waters lapping on a higher ground, of the children laughing.” Browne speaks of Ethan in the dizzying piano ballad “The Only Child,” urging his only son to “let the laughter fill your glass.” The song is plainly beautiful, an exchange of wisdom from parent to child set to David Lindley’s fussy, weeping violin. The advice is rooted in love, in life’s fortunes being as challenging as they are funny. Questions will go unanswered, Browne wagers, before offering one final lived-in truth: “When you’ve found another soul who sees into your own, take good care of each other.”

“Here Come Those Tears Again,” a track that peaked at #23 exactly one year after Major’s death. Her mother, Nancy Farnsworth, is credited as a co-writer with Browne, who completed one of Nancy’s old song drafts during a trip to Paris in early 1975. It’s a textbook love-lost, crying-man ballad, sung from the perspective of a soured narrator whose lover left because she “needed to free” but eventually returns. His bitterness is a symptom of his own guardedness; “When I can look at you without crying, you might look like a friend of mine,” Browne sings. “But I don’t know if I can open up enough to let you in.” In a hesitation to forgive, “Here Come Those Tears Again” opens itself wide, the piano melancholy evaporating into a sprawling guitar cascade scored by Rosemary Butler and Bonnie Raitt’s vocal support.

The burdens lessen on “Daddy’s Tune,” as Browne pleads to a faraway father and yearns for his closeness. It’s a coastal take on Cat Stevens’ “Father & Son,” a page-turning pastoral of wasted days and once-misunderstood lessons. “The older I become, living your life day after day,” Browne sings, as a horn medley craters into Waddy Wachtel and Fred Tackett’s dueling guitar. “Soon all your plans and changes either fall or fade away, leaving so much still left to say.” The conclusion of “Daddy’s Tune” carries The Pretender’s greatest revelation: “Make room for my forty-fives along beside your seventy-eights. Nothing survives but the way we live our lives.”

While my favorite song of all time is “Doctor, My Eyes,” I will always contend that “The Pretender” is Jackson Browne’s greatest work, rivaling “Fountain of Sorrow” and “The Road” but ultimately surpassing them both. It’s an ineffable, romantic ode to surrender in both the veil of a freeway’s shade and the cresting nightfall of Los Angeles. “I’m going to find myself a girl who can show me what laughter means, and we’ll fill in the missing colors in each other’s paint-by-number dreams” is a sentence-long poem. The music winks like a hallelujah before sweeping into an orchestral awakening. The piano lines give way to vibrating strings, as David Crosby and Graham Nash’s harmonies soothe and Browne cherishes the “laughter of lovers as they run through the night.” In the catchy, unmistakable pre-chorus, he sings about the tug of war between finding love and being broke, segueing right into his best lyrical sequence: “When the sirens sing and the church bells ring—and the junk man pounds his fender, where the veterans dream of the fight fast asleep at the traffic light, and the children solemnly wait for the ice cream vendor—out into the cool of the evening strolls the Pretender. He knows that all his hopes and dreams begin and end there.”

In the early ‘70s, Jackson Browne’s tours with Linda Ronstadt and Joni Mitchell turned into a co-writer credit on the Eagles’ “Take It Easy” and a “Late for the Sky” needle-drop in Taxi Driver. He later produced Warren Zevon’s first two records for their label mothership Asylum, and spent long months on the road with Major and Ethan in a converted Greyhound bus. But it was the commercial breakthrough of The Pretender that opened the door for the tour-recorded Running on Empty, the #1 record Hold Out, and Browne’s highest-charting hit, “Somebody’s Baby,” which found popularity thanks to its appearance in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. It was his first real glimpse at being the contemporary rock songwriter he’s now regarded as, and these songs became a perfect bridge between the two chapters of his inaugural decade as a solo artist. Full of grief, cynicism, and love both found and lost, The Pretender is certainly a product of its era, released into a skeptical, post-Vietnam, post-Watergate America. But the surrounding world’s identity crisis never undercuts Browne’s poems about suburban monotony, border-crossing rendezvous, and raising a son with the presence his own father lacked. The music remains sincerely in-style—wonderfully made by a happy idiot for the happy idiot.

by Matt Mitchell, May 24, 2025 

Tracks

1. The Fuse - 5:50

2. Your Bright Baby Blues - 6:05

3. Linda Paloma - 4:06

4. Here Come Those Tears Again (Jackson Browne, Nancy Farnsworth) - 3:36

5. The Only Child - 3:43

6. Daddy's Tune - 3:38

7. Sleep's Dark And Silent Gate - 2:37

8. The Pretender - 5:53

All Music and Words by Jackson Browne except track #4

Musicians

*Jackson Browne - Guitar, Keyboards, Piano, Vocals

*Albert Lee - Electric Guitar 

*Arthur Gerst - Harp, Background Vocals

*Bill Payne - Keyboards, Organ, Piano

*Bob Glaub - Bass

*Bonnie Raitt - Harmony Vocals

*Chuck Finley - Horn

*Chuck Rainey - Bass

*Craig Doerge - Keyboards, Piano

*David Campbell - String Arrangements, Viola

*David Crosby - Harmony Vocals

*David Hyde - Horn

*David Lindley - Fiddle, Lap Steel Guitar, Slide Guitar, Violin

*Dick Hyde - Horn

*Don Henley - Harmony Vocals

*Fred Tackett - Electric, Acoustic Guitars

*Gary Coleman - Percussion

*Graham Nash - Harmony Vocals

*J.D. Souther - Harmony Vocals

*Jeff Porcaro - Drums

*Jim Gordon - Drums, Organ

*Jim Horn - Arranger, Horn

*John Hall - Guitar

*Jon Landau -Vocals

*Leland Sklar - Bass

*Lowell George - Guitar, Slide Guitar, Harmony Vocals

*Luis Damian - Guitar, Background Vocals

*Mike Utley - Keyboards, Organ

*Quitman Dennis - Horn

*Roberto Gutierrez - Guitar, Guitarron, Violin, Background Vocals

*Rosemary Butler - Harmony Vocals

*Roy Bittan - Piano

*Russ Kunkel - Drums

1972  Jackson Browne - Saturate Before Using
1973  Jackson Browne - For Everyman (2004 remaster)
1974  Jackson Browne - Late For The Sky ( 2014 remaster)

1977  Jackson Browne - Running On Empty (2017  japan remaster)

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Máquina - Why? (1970 spain, impressive prog psych fusion rock, 2015 remaster and expanded)

Every time I play the fantastic "Why?" LP, I wonder how these guys managed to produce such a monumental album in the squalid Spain of 1970. Máquina's Why is nothing short of a minor miracle, starting with its fascinating, Dalí-esque cover.

Hailing from the Catalan scene of the late 1960s, known as the ‘Grup de folk’, the idea of forming a trio arose after its dissolution. After some changes, the line-up settled circumstantially with Jordi Batiste - vocals and bass, Enric Herrera - keyboards, Tapi - drums, and Luigi Cabanagh - guitar. There is a belief that Máquina were a quintet - because of the five members who appear on the back cover, but in reality they were a quartet, except that Batiste was called up for military service and Josep María París joined on guitar, with Luigi moving to bass.

And those five were the ones who recorded one of the most amazing albums ever produced on the Iberian Peninsula. It begins with “I Believe,” an instrumental track composed by París with hypnotic, gliding guitar, wisely supported by the rest of the band, which prepares us for the best.

The orgiastic 25 minutes of Why, a bacchanal of Hammond organ, fuzz and wah-wah guitars, and incandescent percussive rhythms, is a song that originally lasted three minutes and became a monstrous improvisation that you would never tire of listening to, where jazz the structure of the song clearly follows that style of music is married to progressive rock, with musicians in absolute top form.

The album closes with a song reminiscent of The Beatles, ‘Let Me Be Born’. In short, it doesn't matter that the language used, English, was a bit of a stretch and that after its release, the group began to fall apart with its constant stylistic ups and downs and numerous lineup changes. With a painfully short-lived existence, and almost without meaning to, a bunch of Catalan guys made history in our country...

by David Rodríguez Araujo

Tracks

1. I Believe (Josep Maria Paris) - 4:12

2. Why (Parts 1,2) (Josep Maria Paris, Lluis Cabanach, Enrice Herrera, Josep María Vilaseca Delgado, Jordi Batiste) - 24:45

3. Let Me Be Born (Jordi Batiste) - 3:07

4. Chains (Enrice Herrera) - 12:00

5. Thank You (Lluis Cabanach) - 3:12

6. Fragment Del Ier Temps De La Simfonia No 1 D' Enric Herrera (Enrice Herrera) - 5:39

7. Blues En Fa (Traditional) - 9:21

8. Thoughts Of You (Part 1) (Josep Maria Paris, Lluis Cabanach, Enrice Herrera, Josep María Vilaseca Delgado, Jordi Batiste) - 3:22

9. Thoughts Of You (Part 2) (Josep Maria Paris, Lluis Cabanach, Enrice Herrera, Josep María Vilaseca Delgado, Jordi Batiste) - 4:23

10.Look Away Our Happiness (Enrice Herrera, Jordi Batiste) - 2:53

11.Earth's Daughter (Enrice Herrera, Jordi Batiste) - 2:49

12.Lands Of Perfection (Enrice Herrera, Jordi Batiste) - 4:08

Maquina!

*Josep Maria Paris - Guitars

*Lluis Cabanach - Bass, Wah Wah Guitar 

*Enrice Herrera - Keyboards

*Josep María Vilaseca Delgado - Drums

*Jordi Batiste - Vocals, Bass

*Santiago "Jacky" García - Drums (Track 12)

1972  Maquina! - En Directo (2000 edition)

Related Act

1971  Tapiman - Tapiman (2012 remaster)  

1971  Tapiman - Hard Drive (2017 remaster)  

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rep>>> Various Artists - The Cycle Savages / O.S.T. (1969 us, superb psychedelic rock with rare tracks, 2012 Reel Time edition)

Written and directed by Bill Brame (who usually served as an editor on TV shows such as Star Trek), this exceptionally violent biker movie concerns a Los Angeles gang named Hell's Chosen Few that kidnaps, drugs, rapes and sells women into a Las Vegas prostitution ring. It stars an intense Bruce Dern as their sociopathic ringleader, Keeg, who at one point orders a sensitive artist named Romko (played by Chris Robinson, later to star in TV soap The Bold & The Beautiful) to have his hands crushed in a vice, for the sin of having sketched his cohorts while the smashed up a hamburger joint. 

As well as Melody Patterson as the female lead Lea, it somewhat oddly features co-producer and famed DJ Casey Kasem in a cameo role as Dern's brother. Critical response was unenthusiastic, with the New York Times remarking that 'there's a plethora of senseless beatings, torture, love making and robbery, to say nothing of a gang rape before these crackpot cyclists are unseated or killed,' while Leonard Maltin dismissed it as nothing more than 'sadism and torture galore'. 

Its rare soundtrack appeared in early 1970, and is best-remembered for featuring rare tracks by two cult psychedelic rock bands, Orphan Egg and The Boston Tea Party. The former (who came from California) were involved because they'd won the Vox Band Battle For Stardom (held at a Simon & Garfunkel gig at Forest Hills in August 1967), the prize for which was 'a guaranteed film contract with American International Pictures and an all expenses paid trip to Hollywood'. 

Their sole album appeared in June 1968, and contained three tracks also included here (the exception is We Have Already Died, which was presumably taped at the same time, though Falling is offered in a different mix). The Boston Tea Party, meanwhile (who were also from California) had an album of their own out in 1968 too. Of their tracks, Chained To Your Heart is exclusive to the Cycle Savages soundtrack. 

Their drummer Dave Novogroski later joined Edge, while guitarist Mike Stevens formed cult hard rockers Highway Robbery. The remaining four tracks are credited to soundtrack co-producer Jerry Styner, vocalist Randy Johnson and studio band the Cycle-Mates. The LP sold poorly, and has changed hands on eBay in recent years for upwards of $75.

Liner-Notes

Artists - Tracks - Composer

1. Cycle-Mates - Theme from Cycle Savages (Jerry Styner) - 2:16

2. Randy Johnson/Randy Johnson - Fly Superman Fly (Randy Johnson) - 2:01

3. Boston Tea Party - Fantasy (Mike Stevens) - 2:46

4. Orphan Egg - Falling (Jim Bate, George Brix, Pat Gallagher, Dave Monley, Barry Smith) - 3:42

5. Jerry Styner - I've Got To Let You Go (Guy Hemic, Jerry Styner) - 2:43

6. Boston Tea Party - Chained To Your Heart (Mike Stevens) - 2:10

7. Orphan Egg - Don't Go To Him (Jim Bate, George Brix, Pat Gallagher, Dave Monley, Barry Smith) - 2:13

8. Cycle-Mates - Virgin's Vengeance (Jerry Styner) - 2:22

9. Boston Tea Party - We Have Already Died (Mike Stevens) - 2:33

10.Orphan Egg - Mourning Becomes Electra (Jim Bate, George Brix, Pat Gallagher, Dave Monley, Barry Smith) - 2:23

Related Acts

1968  The Boston Tea Party - The Boston Tea Party (2010 edition)

1968  Orphan Egg - Orphan Egg (2012 bonus tracks edition)

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Kusudo And Worth - Of Sun And Rain (1969 us, brilliant folk psych rock, 2019 remaster)

Every so often, along comes a disc on a small or obscure label which is a first-time CD release for what’s claimed to be a long-lost classic, gem of its kind or masterpiece of its genre, one that was only ever issued in a privately pressed, very limited vinyl edition in (say) the late ’60s. Such is this artefact. And even as a self-confessed enthusiast with an insatiable thirst for discovery and a taste for such curios, I tend to be inordinately suspicious of all such extravagant claims.

The biggest surprise, then, was that I’d never even heard of this album, whose original (and only) release was in December 1968 on the Custom Fidelity label. Nor of its protagonists, Ken Kusudo and Jeff Worth, who came together in Riverside, California in the mid-’60s and, partly through their siblings, discovered a shared love of folk music – notably Peter, Paul & Mary, Donovan, Simon & Garfunkel, Tim Buckley, Dylan and Ian & Sylvia. Jeff was drawn to Ken’s song of adolescent angst, Elizabeth (written in his mid-teens and inspired by the movie A Patch Of Blue), and the two soon began writing together, the next logical step was performing as a duo, basing their complementary-twin-guitar sound and style on the Peter & Paul model but also taking inspiration from the finger-picking of Paul Simon and Donovan. Their subsequent meeting with Richard Krieb led to his engagement as lyricist (one with a special instinct for “aligning lyrics with the most compatible musical sensibility”), and this collaboration, in turn, produced a white-heat outpouring of songs, which – alongside a small handful of songs Ken had written independently – ended up forming the album Of Sun And Rain.

The story goes that from late 2013, four of the album’s songs had appeared on Youtube – one of which, the abovementioned Elizabeth, had been happened upon by Jason Smith of Slipstream Records. After hearing the other three songs (and undeterred by the knowledge that the original vinyl LP commanded a ludicrous four-figure price tag), Jason embarked on an obsessive mission to research the album and its origins, and eventually, in 2017, managed to publish the story of Kusudo & Worth in his fanzine Fantastic Expedition, subsequently gaining permission from the artists themselves to re-release their album in a proper CD edition. Glory be!

For much of the time, the album’s songs don’t conform to, or even necessarily observe, conventions of folk-song, but it’s more that their poetical spirit enables them to unfold with each part or element fitting and shaping around the others. In this regard, there’s no easy comparison to be made although the closest approximation would seem to be early Tim Buckley, or perhaps some of the more complex ISB manoeuvres (but not in terms of “sectional” song structure). But then, “something in the water” of several of the songs also conjures up Nick Drake: perhaps it’s the dominant spirit of often aching, torn-apart romanticism, the delicate longing and yearning…

But it’s undeniable that the obliquely freeform nature of many of the album’s songs tends to preclude an instant appreciation, but each song has a peculiarly insistent individual drawing power. All the same, curiously, the songs come together over time to form a strange, skewed kind of unity. Not an easy impression to convey, and one that’s only really vindicated by detailed listening and a more prolonged, even concentrated exposure to the songs.

One might, therefore, take Of Sun And Rain as a considered sequence, a kind of song-cycle in all but name, but only part of its flavour can be conveyed by a discussion of the individual tracks. The LP opens with the tellingly fragile yet sensuous ballad Elizabeth, which powerfully conveys the contrasting emotions recalled in relative tranquillity with a concomitant display of conflicting emotional responses to the memories involved. Then follows For You, a thinly veiled expression of unrequited love that really hits home with its sparse yet mellifluous setting. The Donovan-like Song For A Pelican builds from a softly strummed majesty to a soaring with the quickened pace of the bird’s depicted flight. Mystical and philosophical concerns illuminate the despondency of Love Is Naught, propelled into a clinical but distant balance by the spacing of Ken and Jeff’s two voices across the magical delicacy of the twin-guitar soundscape; this is another song where soft picking gives way to a fiercer, more hammered thrumming (shades of Richie Havens?) as the emotional content builds. 

Even more so on one of the album’s standout tracks, the adventurous and complex Side-1-closer I Would Like To Hear Your Story, whose eerie, spacey slide-guitar embellishments finally yield to a discordant folk-freakout-style cacophony in its thrashing crescendo climax.  In contrast, the intensely personal song The Gull is a masterly slice of metaphor-driven loner-folk, succeeded by the more elliptical patchwork of observations on the wistful, lullaby-like Something From Nowhere and the cautionary, if warmly, melancholy literary narrative of Bittersweet. The halcyon ambience of Mill Valley Woodlands is by contrast almost pastoral in feel, a harmonica-bedecked homage to a local beauty spot maybe (who knows?), but enticing nevertheless. The album’s title song (and closing track) is at a tad over 6½ minutes its longest item, and despite its compelling writing and sombre mood doesn’t quite hang together, as it feels less well executed and edited – maybe a result of their limited studio time (just three hours which was funded by friends).

This CD reissue appends to the above LP three additional tracks. Settle Ya Down is a fairly recent reworking of a song from a distinctly Donovan-esque side-project album of Jeff and Richard’s (The Coming Of Captain Glee) which was released in November 1970 and is slated for future re-release by Slipstream. Pau Hana is a pleasing, melodic, ambling instrumental that recalls early Ralph McTell filtered through the American Primitive styling of John Fahey. A mellower and less edgy revisit of album track Love Is Naught that the back cover dates as originating from 2012.

Of Sun And Rain proves an inordinately fascinating album, a privileged glimpse into a creative maelstrom that still after several playthroughs promises to reveal even more delights. It certainly deserves the “lost classic” tag and fully vindicates the care lavished on this reissue, not least in the production of the CD’s exemplary 32-page booklet, which fastidiously chronicles the duo’s life and times and the genesis (and revelatory nature) of the album and its songs. The booklet’s front and back cover reproduce the original LP sleeve, the latter usefully providing the song lyrics in commendably readable high-resolution.

by David Kidman 29 July, 2019

 

Tracks

1. Elizabeth (Ken Kusudo) - 4:07

2. For You (Jeff Worth, Richard Krieb) - 3:00

3. Song To A Pelican (Ken Kusudo, Richard Krieb) - 3:38

4. Love Is Naught (Ken Kusudo, Jeff Worth, Richard Krieb) - 4:43

5. I Would Like To Hear Your Story (Ken Kusudo, Richard Krieb) - 6:06

6. The Gull (Ken Kusudo, Jeff Worth) - 3:01

7. Something From Nowhere (Ken Kusudo) - 3:12

8. Bittersweet (Ken Kusudo) - 3:14

9. Mill Valley Woodlands (Jeff Worth, Richard Krieb) - 4:43

10.Of Sun And Rain (Ken Kusudo, Richard Krieb) - 6:41

11.Pau Hana (Ken Kusudo, Jeff Worth) - 4:03

12.Settle Ya Down (Jeff Worth, Richard Krieb) - 3:00

13.Love Is Naught (Ken Kusudo, Jeff Worth, Richard Krieb) - 4:51

Personnel

*Ken Kusudo - Vocals, Guitar

*Jeff Worth - Vocals, Guitar

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rep>>> Nancy Priddy - You've Come This Way Before (1968 us, impressive jazzy baroque folk psych vibes, 2005 remaster)

Although better known to the public at large as an actress, Nancy Priddy also enjoyed a sporadic recording career, in 1968 releasing her lone LP, You've Come This Way Before, a minor classic of psychedelic folk. Born and raised in South Bend, IN, Priddy later studied liberal arts at Oberlin College, eventually graduating from the Northwestern School of Drama. Her fledgling theatrical career included a stint doing cabaret, and in 1964 she relocated to Greenwich Village, joining the folk combo the Bitter End Singers and making her recorded debut on the 1964 Mercury release Discover the Bitter End Singers. Priddy exited the group a year later to resume her acting career, eventually returning to the Chicago area. There she began writing her own songs, recording a series of now-lost demo sessions; upon landing back in New York City in 1967, she also contributed backing vocals to the classic Songs of Leonard Cohen.

At the end of 1967, Priddy and aspiring producer Phil Ramone initiated work on You've Come This Way Before, a dreamy, far-reaching acid-folk effort featuring contributions from jazz arranger Manny Albam and funk drummer Bernard "Pretty" Purdie. Issued with virtually no fanfare on Dot Records in late 1968, the album quickly disappeared. During a subsequent visit to Dot's Los Angeles headquarters, Priddy met her future husband, staff producer Bob Applegate. (The couple's daughter Christina Applegate later co-starred in the long-running television sitcom Married...with Children before mounting a feature film career.) During her SoCal stay Priddy also cut a single with producer Harry Nilsson, the 1969 release "Feelings." After contributing to composer Mort Garson's multi-volume opus Signs of the Zodiac, she effectively retired from music, renewing her focus on acting and later appearing in films (Short Walk to Daylight, The Aliens Are Coming) and television (Bewitched, The Waltons, and Barnaby Jones). Following a lengthy but triumphant battle with breast cancer, Priddy returned to music in the early '90s, self-releasing a series of LPs including Can We Talk About It? and Mama's Jam. 

by Jason Ankeny

Nancy Priddy's sole, obscure solo album is the kind of idiosyncratically weird effort that could have only been made in the late '60s, when all sorts of pop and underground influences were combining with a naïveté unreplicated ever since. In some ways it's an off-the-wall singer/songwriter album drawing from both folk-rock and psychedelia. The trippy lyrics are often Through the Looking Glass-like dreamy jottings from a woman who's just gone to the other side of reality, overawed and only slightly intimidated. The sense of a child let loose to romp in the fields is amplified by Priddy's oft-girlish vocals, as heard on cuts like "Ebony Glass," and trendy psychedelic-style echo and high-pitch modulations are added to some of the instruments and vocals on various tracks.

Structurally, the songs -- written by Priddy with several collaborators, including John Simon, Manny Albam, and Everett Gordon, all of whom contributed arrangements to the album -- zigzag all over the map, shifting tunes, meters, and moods unpredictably, and sometimes with little rhyme or reason. Yet at the same time, it's sometimes dressed up in unabashedly late-'60s commercial pop/rock and pop-soul production and orchestration, even to the point of employing trumpets that sound fresh off a Dionne Warwick session. It's often as if the creator and her coconspirators couldn't quite decide whether they were aiming for the pop market or the freaks. Sometimes the result's haunting and enticing, yet on the whole it's an uneasy mix that doesn't cohere, the songwriting not being quite up to the apparent far-out ambitions of the project. 

by Richie Unterberger

Tracks
1. You've Come This Way Before (Everett Gordon, Nancy Priddy) - 2:52
2. Ebony Glass (Bobby Whiteside, Nancy Priddy) - 2:22
3. Mystic Lady (John Simon, Nancy Priddy) - 6:33
4. Christina's World (Everett Gordon, Nancy Priddy) - 2:46
5. We Could Have It All (Manny Albam, Nancy Priddy) - 2:42
6. My Friend Frank (Manny Albam, Nancy Priddy) - 3:03
7. O' Little Child (Manny Albam, Nancy Priddy) - 3:17
8. And Who Will You Be Then (Everett Gordon, Nancy Priddy) - 3:14
9. On The Other Side Of The River (Manny Albam, Nancy Priddy) - 2:35
10.Epitaph (John Simon, Nancy Priddy) - 1:22
11.Take Care Of My Brother (George Tipton, Art Podell) - 2:53
12.Feelings (George Tipton, Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil) - 2:36

*Nancy Priddy - Vocals

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rep>>> Six Feet Under - In Retrospect (1969-70 us, chilling, spooky garage psych)

As Bar Mitzvah presents, Jerry Dobb receives an Acetone electronic organ with Kalamazoo Amplifier and Scott Julian receives an Epiphone electric guitar and amp. The friends decide to form a band in the archetypal New York City suburb of Colonia, New Jersey. First band is named the Marc 5 (for no reason that I can now remember - no one named Marc in the band). The band consists of Jerry and Scott, Bob Briendel on bass (he had no idea how to play. Scott showed him where to put his fingers), Phil Mazuski on drums and the only real musician, Joe "Musky" Muscolino on saxophone. 

The band had a repertoire of about 10 songs, including "Summertime," "Tequila" and "The Batman Theme." Playing a private pool party and someone requested "Moon River." Musky knew it, so we faked it behind him. It was pretty awful, but the guests were too drunk to care and actually gave us an extra tip for playing it! The thirteen year olds in the band hook up with a seemingly much older, 17 year old singer named Pete (don't remember his last name) and change the name of the band to the Sonix. Pete is an R&B enthusiast and the song list changes to include "I Got You," "Mustang Sally" and other soul songs. Pete performs James Brown style with spins, splits and yelps. 

The hand uniform is pointy-toed black shoes, black pants, pink Italian high-roll collar shirts and burgundy button front sweaters. The band decides that they'd like to follow a more hip and hippy style of music. Pete departs and the group reforms as Six Feet Under. Phil is replaced by Ritchie on drums. Bob, who never really took to music, is replaced by Duanc Ulghcrait on bass. Joe leaves for an established soul band. A girl singer (name unknown) briefly comes and goes. Ritchie, while an excellent drummer, proves to be volatile and is replaced by Hector "Tico" Torres fromSayerville N.J. Where did the name Six Feet Under come from? Well after the Sonix, the hand wanted a new hipper name. 

The first thing decided was that the name shouldn't begin with "The." After some brainstorming, someone mentioned that the British band Ten Years After didn't start with "The" and was kind of cool. So we started coming up with phrases that fit that pattern; a number, a noun, and an adverb. We also wanted a name that was kind of dark and slightly threatening, like the Grateful Dead. Ultimately someone came up with Six Feet Under, and we immediately realized that it was the perfect moniker. Later, when Nannette joined the band the sound softened a bit, but the name stuck until the end.

When the dust settles it's Jerry on organ and vocals, Scott on guitar, Duane on bass and Tico on drums. Tico plays a drum set that belonged to his dad, circa the mid-1940s. The bass drum was oversized and the tom-toms were nailed onto the bass. A friend of Tico's paints a beautiful oil painting of a woman's head floating above a grave with ghostly hands reaching up, trying to retrieve it. This is cut out and inserted into the front of the bass drum. A simplified line drawing of the painting is used as a promotional hand-out.

The band plays at least one night most weekends and improves. Gigs include dances, Rutger's University fraternity parties, battle of the band competitions and local festivals in and around Northern New Jersey. The songs now include a lot of Doors material, Cream, Hendrix, and the signature song, a relatively faithful rendition of the complete "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida." The First original songs appear, including "The Six Feet Under Theme" and "Karen." Around this time the opportunity to record appears.

Fifteen year old Nanette DeLaune joins the band as "chick singer" a la Grace Slick. Jay Crystal begins as drummer. While preparing to record the band continues to play gigs, many times two a weekend. The material now includes songs by the Jefferson Airplane, Rolling Stones, Santana, Ten Years After and Blind Faith. Show stoppers include a rousing version of "Soul Sacrifice" and a 15 minute set of songs from the Who's "Tommy." Original material is written by Jerry and practiced. 

The band records at the Scepter Studios. Jerry uses a Hammond B-3 with Leslie tone cabinet for the first time. "Inspiration In My Head" is "released." The band is angry because the extended instrumental break at the end of the song is edited out. Friends and relatives convince a local record shop to order the single and buy a few dozen copies. A local radio station plays it once on the air. The band listens in a car and can't believe that they're on the radio. Nothing else happens. The band goes back to the studio to record more songs. 

By late fall of 1970 the band decides to split up. Jerry, Scott and Duane head to college. Jerry assembles an ad-hoc band and records some solo songs. These are never released. Nanette does some further recording also, but nothing comes of it. Jerry studies filmmaking at college and ultimately becomes a corporate video manager. Scott ends up as a chef in a prestigious hotel. Duane becomes a candy salesman. Musky lands in Utah where he plays and books local bands. Don't know what became of Nanette, Jay, Bob, Phil, Ritchie, or Pete. But Hector "Tico" Torres, the guy who wasn't good enough to record, hooked up with a younger boy from Sayerville named Jon Bon Jovi and the rest, as they say...

by Jerry Dobb

Tracks
1 Inspiration in My Head - 2:28
2 Freedom - 4:07
3 What Would You Do? - 3:43
4 Baby I Want to Love You - 8:08
5 In Retrospect - 4:04
6 Fields - 3:04
7 Running Around in the Sun - 3:28
8 Black Movies - 3:20
9 Six Feet Under Theme - 2:46
10 Suzy Q (Dale Hawkins, Eleanor Broadwater, Stanley Lewis) - 6:18
11 City Blues - 5:12
12 In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida (Doug Ingle) - 11:52
13 Basement Jam - 0:47
14 Sonix Commercial - 0:58
15 Inspiration in My Head - 2:51
16 Freedom - 4:30
17 What Would You Do? - 5:53
18 Fields - 3:05
19 Boogie Man Bash - 0:44

All songs written by Jerry Dobb except where stated

6 Feet Under
*Jay Crystal -  Drums
*Nanette DeLaune - Vocals
*Jerry Dobb - Keyboards, Vocals
*Scott Julian - Guitar
*Hector Torres - Drums
*Duane Ulgherait  - Bass
*Richie - Drums (only on track #9)

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rep>>> Infinity - Collected Works (1969-70 uk, splendid garage beat psych, 2009 issue)

Legendary UK psych outfit Infinity formed in 1969 from the ashes of "Chocolate Soup" psych faves the Flies and Cymbaline. The mission: to develop a heavy psychedelic/pop sound, and express it through complex original songs. Thanks to some funky Hammond organ, punchy guitars, and the band’s unique harmonies, Infinity were no run of the mill outfit. 

Upon their return to mainland England from a residency in Jersey, they joined the high-profile NEMS agency, alongside heavy hitters like Pink Floyd, Tyrannosaurus Rex, Soft Machine, and Pretty Things. In late 1969 and early 1970, following support slots with The Searchers and Marmalade, Infinity recorded original material for a proposed album, which was meant to explore "time, space, matter, energy and chicken phal, said in some circles to be so hot in a culinary sense that it's temperature approached infinity," or so they have said, with tongue-in-cheek, we have to believe. 

Sadly, they broke up soon after the sessions. The good news is that the band left behind the recordings presented on this disc, which can now be enjoyed in the digital format after the passage of more than four decades! Comes with a 24-page booklet which includes band history, photos, and more, printed on FSC recycled, chlorine-free, 100% post-consumer fiber paper manufactured using biogas energy.

Light In The Attic

Tracks
1. Time Keeper - 4:02
2. Venetian Glass - 1:53
3. Space Shanty - 5:41
4. Taxman (George Harrison) - 2:59
5. (I'm In Love With) A Girl Like You - 2:28  
6. Same Girl - 3:02
7. Pattern People (Jim Webb) -  2:35
8. Venetian Glass (Instrumental) - 1:54  
9.  I've Got You Under My Skin (Instrumental) (Cole Porter) - 2:34
10.(I'm In Love With) A Girl Like You (Mono) - 2:27
11.I've Got You Under My Skin (Cole Porter) - 3:33
12.Taxman (Instrumental) (George Harrison) - 2:59
All songs written by The Infinity except where indicated.

Infinity
*Ian Baldwin - Bass Guitar, Vocals
*Phil Chesterton - Drums, Vocals
*Brian Gill - Guitar, Vocals
*John Da Costa - Organ, Vocals
*Stu Calver - Guitar, Vocals

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