1970s


CARAVAN The World Is Yours: The Anthology 1968-1976 Universal 4-CD box set


It’s a matter of record that the punk upheaval of 1976/77 was – perhaps ironically – “instrumental” in seeing off the lumbering behemoths of the old


guard with their musical bloody expertise and smug middle-class profligacy.As a callow 16- year-old, I was among the urchins sneering “Yeahhh, granddad” at the departing Transits of deposed prog icons as they drove in solemn motorcade to the retirement home – ever mindful of my dirty little secret in the shape of a hefty stack of prog albums hidden under the bed. It didn’t take long to come to the sobering


realisation that the values we associated with punk – honesty, integrity, street credibility –


KATHY MCCORD New Jersey To Woodstock Big Beat CD www.acerecords.com


Released in 1970 to muted acclaim, Kathy McCord sits somewhere between the blissed-out psych- folk of Linda Perhacs’ Parallelograms and


the warm orch-soul of Evie Sands’ Anyway That You Want Me. Salivating yet? You should be.


The teenage McCord had been nurtured


by Chip Taylor, who offered her ‘Angel Of The Morning’ before it was passed over to Sands. He then penned ‘I’ll Give My Heart To You’ and ‘I’ll Never Be Alone Again’ (later cut by Sands) for her but this ’68 coupling went nowhere and Kathy went back to school. By the time her brother Billy Vera had set up a deal for her (as artist) and himself (as producer) she’d amassed a pile of sublime originals and it’s these that form the bulk of this lost gem.


Gossamer-light and benefiting from crystal


clear sound and mellifluous arrangements, titles like ‘Candle Waxing’ and ‘Jennipher’ are beautifully realised dreamscapes that evoke The Wicker Man’s more pastoral moments more readily than the Joni Mitchell colours of the day or the Dylan-influenced folk scene of Kathy’s formative years. The Beatles cover – transplanted to the first person as ‘I’m Leaving Home’ and tear-jerkingly lovely in every way – betrays further anglophile leanings with only a couple of ragtimey mis-steps shattering the calm. An entire second disc of post-album demos


renders the package almost too much for a soppy old sod like me. Andy Morten


MIGHTY BABY Tasting The Life: Live 1971 Sunbeam CD/2-LP www.sunbeamrecords.com Bassist Mike [Hajj Amin] Evans’ passing on the eve of this posthumous release casts a pall across the proceedings, making his


64


were themselves built upon quicksand and thin air. Listening to the thorough and thoughtfully compiled The World Is Yours, it is apparent that Caravan – summarily seen off during punk’s night of the long knives – were being themselves to a more telling degree than any number of Roxy Club regulars who walked the walk and hocked the hock, but still sneaked back to The Home Counties at weekends for Tiffin and croquet. Caravan’s Canterbury-shaped worldview is


mellow, personable and wryly humorous, commendably free from fabricated angst. ‘Magic Man’, from their ’68 Verve label debut, instantly nails the dreamy essence of their rarefied realm (“Sitting in my treetop world, doing nothing at all”). Indeed, one of the chief delights of The World Is Yours is that it drags that gorgeous, oft-overlooked first album back into the arena. Represented here with the inclusion of six tracks (including the single ‘Place Of My Own’), it proves that the cornerstones of Caravan’s classic sound were fully in place before the band even showed up on the radar: the contrast between Pye


recollections of this Great Malvern Winter Gardens gig even more poignant. Opening with an extended instrumental intro to


‘Egyptian Tomb’ and a galloping, Dead-like jaunt through ‘Trials Of A City’, Evans and drummer Roger Powell create a massive palette for Ian Whiteman’s searing piano runs and Martin Stone’s serpentine guitar fills that cement his reputation as one of Britain’s unsung guitar gods. Whiteman’s original 10-inch reel has been


“cleaned up” so you can now enjoy one of Britain’s finest psychedelic bands at their peak, highlighted by the 22-minute freeform dreamscape on John Coltrane’s ‘India’ (the only recording with Powell’s drum solo) and the previously-released 16-minute bonus track, ‘A Blanket In My Muesli’ (from their Glastonbury Fayre performance), that many consider their finest moment. Jeff Penczak


SANDY HURVITZ Sandy’sAlbum Is Here At Last ESSRA MOHAWK Primordial Lovers ESSRA MOHAWK Essra Mohawk All Collectors Choice CDs www.collectorschoicemusic.com Sandy Hurvitz AKA Essra Mohawk began her still ongoing songwriting and recording career as a teenager in the mid- 60s with a single on Liberty that went nowhere. She also had material recorded by both Vanilla Fudge and The Shangri-Las but her career really took off when she


joined Frank Zappa and his Mothers Of Invention in ’69 and, shortly after, became the first signing for his new Bizarre imprint.


“C’mon, smile boys – you’re pop stars now!”


Hastings’ featherweight tenor and Richard Sinclair’s chummily unaffected delivery, the enthusiastic bustle of Richard Coughlan’s drums and, in particular, the dawn chorus of Jimmy Hastings’ flute and Dave Sinclair’s Hammond. Pretty much everything else that sealed


Caravan’s gilt-edged underground reputation is Early on, however, Mohawk and Zappa had


a falling-out about how the “studio recordings should proceed” (as liners author Richie Unterberger delicately puts it) with the result not what Mohawk had envisioned although she maintains “affection for the songs and some of the musicians”. Regardless, her intriguingly eclectic mix of rock, soul and jazz elements transfixes on titles like the soaring, wave-like ‘You’ll Dance Alone’, the trippy ‘Archgodliness Of Purplefull Magic’, a jazz-flavoured reverie titled ‘I Know The Sun’ (with tenor saxist Jim Pepper) and the otherworldly sounding ‘Love Is What I Found’, that features flautist Jeremy Steig. For her second album, ’70’s Primordial


Lovers, Mohawk moved to Reprise and fortunately had veteran producer and then- husband Frazier Mohawk AKA Barry Friedman on board along with pals like guitarist Jerry Hahn, drummer Dallas Taylor and bassist Mel Graves on select tracks. Picks encompass the angular yet tranquil ‘Thunder In The Morning’ (a turntable FM radio hit back in the day), the obvious inspiration for David Crosby’s ‘Deja Vu’ titled ‘I Have Been Here Before’ and a couple of the five bonus tracks – an eerie ‘Someone Has Captured Me’ and the lush, tempo-shifting ‘Drifter’.


Mohawk’s self-titled third project was issued


on Asylum in ’74 and while her sophisticatedly soulful genre blend remained the same her sound had evolved with new producer Tom Sellers, with whom she wrote jingles back in her native Philadelphia. Sellers also co- composed a few songs with Mohawk including one of the album’s peaks – a disquietingly carefree ‘If I’m Going To Go Crazy With Someone It Might As Well Be You’. Other remarkables are a spirited, piano-


paced cover of the standard ‘Summertime’, the passionate bonus track ‘I Stand Here Naked’ (again with Steig) and two Mohawk originals – a proclamatory ‘Full Fledged Woman’ and the luxuriantly incantatory ‘Magic Pen’. Gary von Tersch


MORNING Morning Wounded Bird CD www.woundedbird.com Morning’s eponymous 1970 debut is one of the


here, hand-picked from ’70’s If I Could Do It All Over Again up to ’76’s far-better-than-we- remember-it Blind Dog At St. Dunstan’s. A smattering of polished demos and BBC session recordings adds flesh to an already satisfyingly plump package. Marco Rossi


most sublime albums you will ever hear – period. Well-crafted songs, superlative playing, top-notch production and gorgeous three and


four-part harmonies. Then throw into the pot a delicious stew of stylistic flavours, from West Coast folk and country-rock to jazz, psychedelia and soul. The brainchild of singer/songwriters Barry


Brown, Jim Hobson and Jay Lewis (the latter better known as Jay Donnellan, Love’s guitarist on Four Sail and Out Here), Morning was the culmination of months of intense studio work. And boy does it show. Standouts include the spine-tinglingly beautiful ‘Angelina’, featuring one of the most heart wrenching piano solos you’ll ever hear and the infectious ‘Tell Me A Story’, which predates Jackson Browne’s trademark sound by a year. Wounded Bird’s CD reproduction is


stunning. The only gripe is the shoddy packaging and absence of bonus tracks. An album of this quality really deserves a decent liner note and some photos. Nick Warburton


PARLIAMENT Osmium… plus Edsel CD www.demonmusicgroup.co.uk


Greater men than I have been broken by the fuzzy logic defining the Parliament/Funkadelic dividing line. I’d be a fool to even try: but I


won’t let such imponderables compromise my enjoyment. Originally released in 1970, Osmium is a


definitive exemplar of George Clinton’s free- mind-arse-follows dictum. Album opener ‘I Call My Baby Pussycat’ is a whip-smart melange of Sly Stone and The Mothers Of Invention. Thereafter, Parliament drive straight over all of the fences. Ruth Copeland, Durham-born wife of Motown


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92