CANNED HEAT The Boogie House Tapes Volume Three Ruf CD www.rufrecords.de


Southern


California-based Canned Heat gained worldwide recognition when their emotional 1968 cover of the Memphis Jug Band’s ‘On The


Road Again’ (featured here twice) reached the Top 10 in both Britain and America. This 25 track, two CD project is the last in a series of unreleased Heat studio and live recordings from Ruf and proves fully as rewarding as the first two. Most of the sides date from the late ’60s and early ’70s and many feature guests on the order of Sunnyland Slim (‘World In A Jug’), Gatemouth Brown and The Chambers Brothers (on the topical ‘Election Blues’ from ’73), James Harmon, John Lee Hooker and guitarist Harvey Mandel—who steps to the fore on the searing instrumental ‘Before Six’. Inspired reprises of other Heat favorites like ‘Catfish Blues’, ‘Let’s Work Together’ and ‘Future Blues’ also impress. Hats off to Belgium’s infamous Dr.


Boogie, Germany’s Thomas Ruf and Heat survivor Fito de la Parra for keeping the flame alive. Gary von Tersch


MARK ERIC A Midsummer’s Day Dream Now Sounds CD www.nowsounds.co.uk


For several years, A Midsummer’s Day Dream was considered a lost late ’60s classic, a sort of bastard child of Pet Sounds. The album is assuredly not but


is an excellent soft pop album basking in the California ethos. Mark Eric – with his Santa Monica upbringing and blond locks – seemed every bit the California surfer boy and, like Brian Wilson, was greatly influenced by the pastoral harmonies of The Four Freshmen. The album is marked (no pun intended) by a very unique, muted lead vocal styling, and soft harmonies and serene aural images abound on tracks like ‘California Home’, ‘Where Do The Girls Of The Summer Go’, the maudlin ‘Sad Is The Way That I Feel’ and, perhaps the track closest to Pet Sounds in spirit and execution, ‘Take Me With You’. Eric shows he’s got some cohones (albeit small ones) on ‘Move With The Dawn’ and ‘Night Of The Lions’. Eric saved the best for last with ‘Lynn’s Baby,’ a heart-tugging true story about a lost love. This updated Now Sounds reissue


adds oodles of bonus tracks – 16 in all – including mono 45 mixes of several of the album’s tracks, along with songs Eric recorded after A Midsummer’s Day Dream. ‘Place For The Summer’ and ‘Build Your Own Dreams’ are every bit as good as the album. David Bash


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WAYLON JENNINGS AND THE KIMBERLYS Country Folk Righteous CD www.cherryred.co.uk


Waylon Jennings – the country misfit well known for both his lifestyle excesses and his bleak lyrics–was not so unruly in his early career. He teamed up in 1969


with well-groomed family harmony group The Kimberlys for an album that’s occasionally country, seldom folk, but a whole lot of cheerful sunshine pop; a good few fathoms away from Jennings’ Outlaw-era darkness. Despite the obviousness of some


song choices on this album, Country Folk is a pleasant listen with Jennings and The Kimberlys democratically sharing vocals to good effect. The standout is ‘These New Changing Times’, an inspired overblown pop nugget that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Fifth Dimension album. Another gem is ‘Cindy, Oh Cindy’, its gentle melodic quality roughed up by Waylon’s authentic country feel. Anyone expecting foreshadows of


Jennings’ later recordings won’t find many clues here. Instead, it’s a fascinating glimpse of Waylon as a clean pop crooner, a role with which he felt ill-suited but was clearly more than capable of pulling off. Jeanette Leech


SAGITTARIUS The Blue Marble Sundazed CD www.sundazed.com


By no means a bad album, but Curt Boettcher – who propelled Sagittarius’ debut Present Tense into the realms of genius – is barely present on what should


really be called Gary Usher’s The Blue Marble. Boettcher was working hard on his newly launched Together label (on which this album was released in 1969) and producing Sandy Salisbury, so he only sung a few songs and wrote one. His presence is missed! The lush, well arranged harmonies are barely evident and on the back of his Moog experimentations with The Byrds Usher drops in farts and burps at every opportunity. That said, there’s enough here to satiate sunshine pop fans but this can’t hold a candle to Present Tense. Jon ‘Mojo’ Mills


SANDY SALISBURY Catchy Sonic Past CD www.sonicpastmusic.com According to Joey Stec, the producer and keeper of the Millennium vaults, these are the last of the demos recorded by Sandy during the years 1966-68. Some were recorded at home on his four-track recorder and others at Original Sound with backing from the various members of The Millennium. Even if these are the last tracks by


THE MONKS The Early Years 1964-1965 Black Monk Time Both Light In The Attic CDs www.lightintheattic.net


The press release claims “you couldn’t make The Monks up” yet they were every bit another man’s vision as The Monkees. Five US soldiers found they could


supplement their service pay on the German beat circuit of rehearse-eat- rest-play-party-


sleep ad infinitum. A carousel that had proved an adept training ground for The Beatles was one that that The Torquays continued to ride once discharged. With a self-promoted single (a reworked ‘She’s a Woman’ titled ‘Boys Are Boys’) under their belt the band were solid but unspectacular, despite rudimentary experimentations with feedback, until they came to the notice of advertising execs, and would-be svengalis, Karl Remy and Walther Niemann. The Torquays took to their


vision of simplicity, energy, repetition, tension and brevity as a reaction against the lightweight pop of groups like The Beatles. Everything that the musicians loved had to be stripped away. They had to start afresh. The Year Zero approach, built around heavy Teutonic drum and bass grooves with a percussive banjo replacing one of the guitars, was deliberately engineered to get right in the face of the audience. The band bought into the image; tonsured in an age of long hair they morphed into The Monks.


The Early Years disc gathers


The Torquays single with a ten-track demo recorded just two months prior to their only album, Black Monk Time, recorded in November 1965. Eight of the songs made it to the album, tightened and minus Larry Clark’s church organ introductions that commence every track on the demo. The drum sound is more tribal and prominent in the demo mix. It’s also interesting to trace the nurture of ‘Boys Are Boys’ from Torquay to Monk. Although individually released,


the pair makes for a pretty essential double pack, with in-depth booklets detailing the band’s story in two parts. The reissued Black Monk Time includes two later singles and a demo prior to the group’s disbanding in ’67. Check before buying –The


Monks may not be your cuppa, but for fans, I recommend both. Few bands can have left so little recorded output yet carried such a legacy of influence. Vic Templar


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