1960s
THE VAGRANTS I Can’t Make A Friend Light In The Attic CD/LP
www.lightintheattic.net
and place. More a manifesto than a band name,
really.And they lived up to it. Even at their tamest, on the two earliest
This is Long Island, New York’s Great Lost ’60s Band. Period. Historically, they exist only as a footnote to What Came Later. Just as contemporaries The Hassles are only infamous for having been the teenage Billy Joel’s first band, and Atlanta’s Hour Glass are only infamous for having sported a couple of brothers named Allman, The Vagrants are only remembered as Leslie West’s pre-Mountain garage band. Which is a terrible shame. An even bigger shame: they never recorded an LP.What you have here is a compendium of singles on the Atco and Vanguard labels, and a couple of studio exercises. But they were special indeed. The name
says it all, really: these were the days (’66- 68) when snotty, Stones-influenced rock ’n’ roll bands were popping up in, literally, garages all over the USA, with little or no parental approval. They were considered low-class outsiders. A name like The Vagrants was utterly perfect for that time
tracks here, there’s something “other” about these guys. ‘Oh Those Eyes’ borrows freely from ‘Walk Don’t Run’, but there’s something about it that connects more strongly to a dangerous Link Wray sort of sound than to The Ventures and their safe little Mosrite guitars. By the time of ‘Your Hasty Heart’, they’d truly found their voice. A precise midpoint between The Young Rascals and the louder, angrier elements of Vanilla Fudge. No shock that all three of these bands cut their teeth on the same circuit of clubs, with The Vagrants being the only ones that never made it out. What probably sank The Vagrants was
the failure of their best-remembered single – a cover of Otis Redding’s‘Respect’, released in spring ’67. The song was ripe for a take-no-prisoners exercise by a young angry rock ’n’ roll band, and that’s what you have here. How did it fail? What could possibly keep this from being a #1 record? Aretha Franklin’s history-making takeover of the same song, a month or two later, on the same label.Welcome to Show Business, boys. There were a couple more singles, on
which West’s guitar gets exponentially louder and angrier, but the lack of success outside their home base was finally too much. These recordings will slay you. You need this. Mike Fornatale
The Vagrants, “more a manifesto than a band name”
1970s
MADELINE BELL/THE THEMES INTERNATIONAL “RHYTHM SECTION” The Voice Of Soul/The Sound Of Soul Vocalion CD
www.duttonvocalion.co.uk A singer’s singer, Madeline Bell’s flexible chords began with soulful and beat- driven pop in the ’60s, before
diversifying into the sunshine effervescence of Blue Mink and then disco, synthesizer pop and jazz. She was also a tireless session singer and here, in a rarely heard album from 1976, she lends her vocals to library music. The mood is that particular mid-70s
acquired taste, syrupy soul. If you like it, then this is a lovely example of the genre, full of careful playing, well-crafted songs and Bell’s gorgeous voice, especially on the Ann Peebles-like ‘Soul Slap’. If, however, you think that kind of slick production is an antithesis to true soulfulness, you’ll find little to like here, especially since the tracks themselves were conceived of as backdrops for film and TV.
The second half of the CD is instrumental
versions, and a treat for library nerds; while the cover, a truly impressively horrible drawing of Bell, is a treat for everyone. Jeanette Leech
CLUSTER Cluster Bureau B CD
www.bureau-b.com
Originally released on Phillips in 1971, Cluster’s extraordinary self-titled debut album has seen a variety of incarnations
over the years. Previously reissued by Sky records as Cluster 71 with different artwork and with the album’s three title-free tracks resequenced (each listed solely by its playing time – 7.42, 15.43 and 21.32 respectively), this Bureau B reissue reverts to the original Phillips artwork and running order.
Produced by Conny Plank, who at the time
was effectively functioning as Cluster’s third member alongside Moebius and Roedelius, the duo’s monolithic debut has long been considered the alpha and omega of the electro-ambient universe. There’s such an all- enveloping otherworldliness about Moebius and Roedelius’s abstract explorations in pure analog sound that taken together, the three tracks feel little short of a symphony from
112
CRAVO E CANELA Preco De Cada Um Mr Bongo CD/LP
www.mrbongo.com
Seriously rare original pressings of Cravo E Canela’s 1977 album have reputedly changed hands for a proverbial king’s
ransom with even the Japanese import pressings from 2008 commanding three- figure sums. Despite all this, the album itself remains shrouded in mystery with little background information available on either the band or its personnel. That said, what is resoundingly clear is
just how closely the combination of twin female vocalists seductively harmonising in Portuguese, the melodies, the arrangements and the overall production style echo the cool and sophisticated bossa sound of Sergio Mendes & Brasil ’66’s classic recordings on A&M. At their most irresistible
outer space. Now, a full 40 years on, it still sounds like it’s being transmitted from another planet. Grahame Bent
THE COWSILLS On My Side Now Sound CD
www.nowsounds.co.uk
By 1971 bubblegum was dead, and even if The Cowsills had tried their hardest to change (and done so rather well), the family
group were now a reminder of a previous era. On My Side bombed and new label London dropped them like hot coals. Shame, as it’s a fine album. On side one, at least, the Beatley proto-
powerpop of Badfinger and The Hollies is to the fore (‘On My Side’, ‘If You Can’t Have It – Knock It’, ‘Can You Love?’), there’s some deft CSN styled defiant hippie-rock (‘Once There Was A Time’, ‘Contact Mae’) and The Aerovons meets We All Together psychedelicims of ‘The Mystery Of Life’. Side two sees the appearance of ma Cowsill and ‘Heather Says’, possibly the most oddball song here – equal parts Free Design and Chrysalis – starts things off
superbly.Yet after two pleasing folk numbers comes bad country pastiche ‘Cheatin’ On Me’, and ‘Down On The Farm’ is as stupid as the title infers. Crime of all crimes, the album ends on a rock ’n’ roll number that reeks of Sha Na Na. A record that is as confused and
desperate as it is brilliant. Jon ‘Mojo’ Mills
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