Ultimate Spinach - Ultimate Spinach 1967

Upon its release in early 1968, Ultimate Spinach's self-titled debut was derided by some as second-rate psychedelia, selling reasonably well only by virtue of its hype as part of the "Bosstown Sound." So how does it sound decades later, removed from that hype and standing on the music alone? It still sounds like bush league, bandwagon-riding psychedelia. Ian Bruce-Douglas dominates the record as lead singer, composer of all the songs, and multi-instrumentalist, and while he espoused a darker vision than many psychedelic songsmiths, he wasn't in remotely the same league as Jim Morrison, Grace Slick, or Country Joe McDonald. Such comparisons are not idly chosen; echoes of the Doors, Jefferson Airplane, and Country Joe & the Fish cross over into derivation more than once, sounding like a recombination of 1967 West Coast psychedelic music that was garbled on its journey across the continent. All the same, the record is their best, for what that's worth. It is not without some attractive aspects, the best of which are Bruce-Douglas' skittering, piercing organ lines heard to superior effect on "Sacrifice of the Moon," especially as that is unencumbered by his awkward, over-serious lyrics ("collapsed laughter, running, falling, drifting across the minefield of your thoughts, dissolve, wondering, who am I, why should I be alone, alone?"). He likely played Country Joe & the Fish's first LP over and over, as "Sacrifice of the Moon" and "Baroque #1" attest to; "Baroque #1" goes as far as to plagiarize Country Joe's "Masked Marauder," right down to the harmonica and scat vocals. Similarly, "Your Head Is Reeling" has grungy, distorted Doors guitar lifted straight out of Robby Krieger's intro to "The End." As Bruce-Douglas' vocals are only adequate, it's unfortunate more was not heard from guitarist and occasional lead singer Barbara Hudson, who has the kind of ice-cool style trendy among the female psychedelic singers of the era. AllMusic.

listen here

FR / USA / UK

Harpers Bizarre - Feelin' Groovy 1967

One of the bands that came to Warner Bros. in their buyout of Autumn Records were the Tikis. They had only recorded a handful of singles, and in terms of musical direction and group identity, they definitely had potential. Enter producer Lenny Waronker and session musician/arranger/songwriter/general musical architect Van Dyke Parks. The two of them brought then-drummer Ted Templeman up to the front as co-lead vocalist, along with Dick Scoppettone, and created a soft-rock identity for the group, renaming them Harpers Bizarre. Their first single was perhaps their greatest shot: a cover of the then-brand new Paul Simon song, "Feelin' Groovy." Buttressed by an amazing Leon Russell arrangement and some great performances from the A-list of L.A. session cats, the song quickly went into the Top Ten. The resulting album is almost as great as the single, with songs by Van Dyke Parks ("Come to the Sunshine"), Randy Newman ("Debutante's Ball"), and others. An excellent and definitive slice of California soft pop. The 2001 CD reissue on Sundazed adds two bonus tracks, both taken from the 1966 "Bye, Bye, Bye"/"Lost My Love Today" single by the Tikis, the San Francisco group that evolved into Harper's Bizarre." AllMusic.

listen here

FR / USA / UK

Grace Slick & The Great Society - Collector's Item 1971

This double-LP/single-CD reissue combines both of the Great Society's live albums, Conspicuous Only by Its Absence and How It Was, and features "Somebody to Love" in its original slower, more menacing version. It also includes the Society's extended version of Grace Slick's "White Rabbit" along with several other haunting originals which strike an exhilarating balance between tight songwriting and psychedelic jamming. Based on his raga-tinged work here, guitarist Darby Slick (Grace's then brother-in-law) deserves a lot more recognition than he's ever received for his pioneering explorations of Eastern scales. Bassist Peter Van Gelder isn't far behind him in the innovation department, and makes significant contributions here on saxophone and flute as well, plunging into John Coltrane territory on the former -- and his work on "White Rabbit," by itself, is worth the price of admission. Additionally, Grace Slick's singing was already about 95-percent of what it would be with the Airplane when she came aboard the latter, and if you close your eyes and forget what you're hearing, there are moments when you'd swear you were listening to her work from Surrealistic Pillow, After Bathing at Baxter's, or Crown of Creation. What's more, the CD edition is very nicely produced, the engineers overcoming most of the sonic limitations of the original concert tapes that made the original LP versions sound so flat in spots. All of these attributes make the title of this release something of a misnomer -- far more than a "Collector's Item," this is a genuinely exciting glimpse into the birth of psychedelic music, and essential listening for any devotees of the latter, or the San Francisco sound in any of its manifestations; the Great Society might not have made it past 1966, but they left behind music here that was as solid, substantial, and enduring -- and worth hearing today -- as anything the Airplane, the Grateful Dead, and the Charlatans were doing at the time. (And if you do look for this CD -- which, amazingly, is still in print as of 2007 -- a lot of stores tend to file it under Grace Slick rather than Great Society). AllMusic.

listen here

FR / USA / UK

Carlos Santana & Mahavishnu Orchestra - The Live Devine 1973

This album it's recorded on the tour that follows the "Love Devotion Surrender" album. A hopelessly misunderstood record in its time by Santana fans -- they were still reeling from the radical direction shift toward jazz on Caravanserai and praying it was an aberration -- it was greeted by Santana devotees with hostility, contrasted with kindness from major-league critics like Robert Palmer. To hear this recording in the context of not only Carlos Santana's development as a guitarist, but as the logical extension of the music of John Coltrane and Miles Davis influencing rock musicians -- McLaughlin, of course, was a former Davis sideman -- this extension makes perfect sense in the post-Sonic Youth, post-rock era. With the exception of Coltrane's "Naima" and McLaughlin's "Meditation," this album consists of merely three extended guitar jams played on the spiritual ecstasy tip -- both men were devotees of guru Shri Chinmoy at the time. The assembled band included members of Santana's band and the Mahavishnu Orchestra in Michael Shrieve, Billy Cobham, Doug Rauch, Armando Peraza, Jan Hammer (playing drums!), and Don Alias. But it is the presence of the revolutionary jazz organist Larry Young -- a colleague of McLaughlin's in Tony Williams' Lifetime band -- that makes the entire project gel. He stands as the great communicator harmonically between the two very different guitarists whose ideas contrasted enough to complement one another in the context of Young's aggressive approach to keep the entire proceeding in the air. In the acknowledgement section of Coltrane's "A Love Supreme," which opens the album, Young creates a channel between Santana's riotous, transcendent, melodic runs and McLaughlin's rapid-fire machine-gun riffing. Young' double-handed striated chord voicings offered enough for both men to chew on, leaving free-ranging territory for percussive effects to drive the tracks from underneath. Check "Let Us Go Into the House of the Lord," which was musically inspired by Bobby Womack's "Breezing" and dynamically foreshadowed by Pharoah Sanders' read of it, or the insanely knotty yet intervallically transcendent "The Life Divine," for the manner in which Young's organ actually speaks both languages simultaneously. Young is the person who makes the room for the deep spirituality inherent in these sessions to be grasped for what it is: the interplay of two men who were not merely paying tribute to Coltrane, but trying to take his ideas about going beyond the realm of Western music to communicate with the language of the heart as it united with the cosmos. After three decades, Love Devotion Surrender still sounds completely radical and stunningly, movingly beautiful. AllMusic.

listen here

FR / USA / UK

Jackson Heights - Ragamuffins Fool & Bump 'n' Grind 1972-3

Following the breakup of the trio Emerson, Lake & Palmer, in 1970, Jackson formed a new band, Jackson Heights, which recorded a handful of albums between 1971 and 1973, and whose ranks included ex-King Crimson drummers Michael Giles and Ian Wallace. AllMusic.

listen here

FR / USA / UK

Faces - A Nod Is as Good as a Wink...To a Blind Horse 1971

The Faces' third album, A Nod Is as Good as a Wink...to a Blind Horse, finally gave the group their long-awaited hit single in "Stay with Me," helping send the album into the Billboard Top Ten, which is certainly a testament to both the song and the album, but it's hard to separate its success from that of Rod Stewart's sudden solo stardom. In the mere months that separated Long Player and A Nod, Rod had a phenomenal hit with "Maggie May" and Every Picture Tells a Story, his third solo album, something that would soon irreparably damage the band, but at the time it was mere good fortune, helping bring them some collateral success that they deserved. Certainly, it didn't change the character of the album itself, which is the tightest record the band ever made. Granted that may be a relative term, since sloppiness is at the heart of the band, but this doesn't feel cobbled together (which the otherwise excellent Long Player did) and it serves up tremendous song after tremendous song, starting with the mean, propulsive "Miss Judy's Farm" and ending with the rampaging good times of "That's All You Need." In between, Ronnie Lane serves up dirty jokes (the exquisitely funny "You're So Rude") and heartbreaking ballads (the absolutely beautiful "Debris"), the band reworks a classic as their own (Chuck Berry's "Memphis") and generally serves up a nonstop party. There are few records that feel like a never-ending party like A Nod -- the slow moments are for slow dancing, and as soon as it's over, it's hard not to want to do it all over again. It's another classic -- and when you consider that the band also had Long Player to their credit and had their hands all over Every Picture in 1971, it's hard to imagine another band or singer having a year more extraordinary as this. AllMusic.

listen here

FR / USA / UK

Churchill's - Churchill's 1973

The Churchills' sole album is above average for a rare psychedelic late-'60s obscurity, and an important document as the only Israeli psychedelic record to achieve even a bit of an international cult, but not as interesting as some of the buzz generated on the collector's circuit may have you believe. Heavily influenced by both West Coast psychedelia and late-'60s British hard rock, there's often a Jack Bruce-type resonance to the vocals, and a garage-Doors vibe to the guitar-organ interplay and spacy-but-somber lyrics. Sometimes they let more of a Middle Eastern element into play, as on "Subsequent Final," a mandolin tune which sounds like a psychedelic hora dance. The CD reissue adds four bonus tracks from early-1970s singles, including covers of Led Zeppelin's "Living Loving" and the Beatles' "She's a Woman," that are more run-of-the-mill hard rock. AllMusic.

listen here

FR / USA / UK