1970s


THUNDERCLAP NEWMAN Hollywood Dream Esoteric CD www.cherryred.co.uk


That brief moment that constituted Thunderclap Newman's recording career is laid out in its entirety on this reissue of their sole 1970 Track Records


album which includes six bonus tracks in the form of single versions and non-album B sides. Principally remembered for 'Something In


The Air' which spent no less than 12 weeks on the UK charts during the summer of ’69 –three of them at #1 –Thunderclap Newman was a motley trio. Take a bow singer/guitarist and former Who roadie (he also wrote and sang ‘Armenia City In The Sky’ on The Who Sell Out) Speedy Keen, a teenage pre-Stone The Crows Jimmy McCulloch and pianist/self-confessed Bix Beiderbecke obsessive, former Post Office engineer and reluctant frontman Andy Newman. Thunderclap's most enduring claim to fame is


their Pete Townshend connection which found PT in the producer's chair and playing bass under the nom de guerre Bijou Drains, meaning there's plenty here for Who completists and connoissuers of late ’60s British eccentric pop alike. Grahame Bent


VARIOUS ARTISTS The Electric Asylum Volume 3: Rare British Acid Freakrock Past & Present CD


The previous two volumes in this series have been excellent and this volume keeps the standard equally high. This time however,


there’s less emphasis on prog pop and freak rock than junkshop glam and groovy dancers. Caberet comedians’ uncharacteristically cool sides feature in the forms of The Grumbleweeds’ ‘(Hey Babe) Follow Me’ – a fuzz guitar cruncher –and The Barron Knights’ 1972 outing ‘You’re All I Need’, sporting a mesmerising drum pattern and more fuzz guitar. The Mike Berry produced, mono-phased


dancer ‘Sweetness’ by Boneshaker is infectious whilst the oddly named Things Fall Apart’s ‘Bye Bye Rose’ supplies the crudest fuzz tone guitar imaginable on a British ’70s record. Dynasty’s ‘Tutankhamun’ is a ’72 cash-in on the exhibition of that year but it’s still a cool bubblegum sound. The sound quality leaves something to be


desired but then that’s boots for you. Paul Martin


WITHOUT ROOTS


Forgotten folk renegades and country dropouts make for a fascinating mix. By HUGH DELLAR.


VARIOUS ARTISTS Wayfaring Strangers: Lonesome Heroes Numero CD www.numerogroup.com


intimacy that is enough to make you shudder in the night on occasion. The arrangements tend towards the starkly simple, and the mood towards the deeply nocturnal –though there are moments of lush loveliness, such as the haunting flute flow that embellishes half of Richard Smyrnios' ‘As I Walk’. Every track hits home, but


Somewhere along the line, the very notion of the singer- songwriter sounds became sullied. For many years, the tag came steeped in trite and whiney Me-generation clichés –with a side order of extra syrup –and called to mind the yawn-inducing mid-70s Coked-up Laurel Canyon smug-fest that spawned James Taylor, Carly Simon and their ilk. Numero's jaw-dropping new compilation, Wayfaring


Strangers: Lonesome Heroes, sets straight that half- truth and returns the genre to its lonesome rebel roots. Think Fred Neil, Tim Buckley and Townes van Zandt and you're halfway there already. As beautifully packaged and lovingly compiled as


you'd expect from this splendid label, the 17 tracks herein encompass a 13-year span, from 1970 up to ’83, and feature a motley crew of peripatetic male folkies, with ties to neither each other nor any particular type of scene. What weaves a thread through the selection is a dark power; a rootless restlessness and a weary familiarity with uncertainty and change. This is the sound of the long, slow post-60s comedown being played out in no-name towns and spread thin through private press releases. The music is hazy and close, possessed of an eerie


68


personal stand-outs include the dreamlike gaze on the apocalypse that is ‘Before’ by ice hockey player Jim Schoenfeld, culled from his ’71 release, Schony. It is nigh-on impossible to imagine there's another LP out there by a professional sportsmen that features music of such spectral fragility or that drips and aches like the molten music of the midnight moon.


Also astounding is ‘The Tailor’


by Jack Hardy, a man once convicted of libel for a political cartoon that lewdly lampooned Tricky Richard Nixon. Veering out into the dark back roads of country music, this moral fable hangs in the head long after it fades from the speakers. And of course, there's more,


much more. For anyone hurtin' to hear some bruised and beautiful loner, stoner sounds, this is truly compulsory. Hugh Dellar


VARIOUS ARTISTS Ghana Special, Modern Highlife, Afro- Sounds & Ghanian Blues 1968-81 Soundway 2-CD/5-LP


Back again and over the boarder to Ghana, Soundway have not only given us another reason to intrepidly explore but have also granted us a complete


dissection of Afro-soul and style. Instantly recognisable is that big band beat ethos which frames the indigenous rhythms of Ghanaian musical endeavour naturally. Whether it’s taking the soulful brass from Soul Sound System (‘Akoko Ba’ by Gyedu-Blay Ambolley & His Creations), or translating guitar parts originally lifted by Eddie Hazel or The Fame Gang for Clarence Carter (The Ogyatanaa Band), these sounds are lured south of the equator and presented in undiluted form. Hammering home the real feel of afro-soul, dancehall blues and the sweat of pure immersion. This isn’t just a sweeping overview of the


genre either. Whether it’s the 5-LP vinyl boxset or double CD hardback case-bound book, without this you aren’t going to get anywhere near to understanding what made Ghana so special. Richard S Jones


VARIOUS ARTISTS Sweet Surrender: Ember Pop 1970-78 Ember CD www.futurenoisemusic.com


This companion volume to Rainy Day Mind: Ember Pop 1969-1974 (reviewed last issue) once again gathers near- misses from that point in time when


the middle of the road briefly took rock to its red velvet bosom. US singer Polly Niles’ throaty versions of


Stephen Stills’ Buffalo Springfield favourite ‘For What It’s Worth’ and Neil Young’s ‘I Am A Child’ are two wonderful choices. Avengers star Linda Thorson sings the rather shaky but engaging Kenny Lynch production ‘Wishful Thinking’ and the rather bootifully clad Mother Trucker get funky with ‘Explosion In My Soul’ and ‘Wrap It Up’.


Many tracks may well be just spare sides


from the previous comp and duds from The New Faces, Nikki Richards, Paula Knight and Mahogany certainly don’t help. But we do get the brilliant schmaltzy


Fading Yellow styled two-sider, Robin’s ‘Back On Watership Down’ and ‘To My Surprise’. Jon ‘Mojo’ Mills


Tucker’s luck: the other Mr Zimmerman.


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