comebacks (in various permutations, all ruined by Sly’s failure to participate), and his subsequent semi-revival at the 2006 Grammy ceremonies are all covered, but I would have liked more detailed information. Kaliss’ extensive bibliography shows he did a lot of research for the book, but it occasionally reads like a graduate thesis with too much third-party commentary and not enough from his subject. Still, he does capture the essence of the decadent musical scene that provided the world with one of the first multi-racial acts to blend pop, funk and soul into a powerful and influential force that still reverberates in the hip hop and soul acts of today. Not a bad ride for a band that was turned down by Bill Graham (not interested in a dance band) and whose record company originally wanted them to sound like The 5th Dimension! Jeff Penczak


IMMEDIATE: LABELS UNLIMITED Simon Spence Black Dog Publishing www.blackdogonline.com


In the mid-60s Andrew Loog Oldham was the King Of Hip. He was the manager and producer of The Rolling Stones (he wrote all those out-there


liner notes to the early Stones albums). And if that didn’t give him enough hipster cred, he also ran an ultra-cool and initially successful independent record label, Immediate, aided by business partner Tony Calder (who comes across in this book as a tough-talking card sharp type who did the dirty work).


The early days of Immediate were


a wild romp and an exhilarating time. Oldham and Calder brought the world the earliest recordings by people like the pre- Velvet Underground Nico, Chris Farlowe, PP Arnold, The Small Faces and The Nice. ALO was still only in his early 20s, and he was making it known that music belonged to the young and that the old and tired label execs and musicians should bugger off and make way for people like himself. But sometime around 1967 or ’68,


not long after Oldham and the Stones parted ways, things began to go wrong for Immediate. While many of their releases were doing well on home turf, they weren’t selling in the US. Oldham and Calder were forced to let many of their biggest acts go. Finally, around the end of the decade, Immediate was forced to fold up its tent. Simon Spence is a former


NME/Face writer who has had quite a history working alongside Andrew Loog Oldham. Initially hoping to write ALO’s biography, Spence eventually did much of the legwork on Oldham’s autobiography, Stoned and 2Stoned. Perhaps the most fascinating part of this book is the last chapter, where Spence relates some of his experiences working with ALO in this process – the two of them together in Oldham’s sanctuary of Bogota, Colombia, Oldham’s behaviour wildly unpredictable.


Immediate: Labels Unlimited is a


great read, and will be a treat to anyone who knows or cares about Oldham, Some of the most engrossing parts of the book are clips of Oldham’s own columns for various UK publications, where he got to let the world know what he and his label artists were up to, what his thoughts were on the issues of the day in the music biz at large. There are also countless photos of Immediate record covers, candid band shots and the like, which are worth the price of the book alone. Having said all of that, it must be


noted that the book is rather sloppily written and edited. It seems pedantic to complain about things like typos and punctuation and usage errors when discussing a book on rock ‘n’ roll; but when these things run rampant, as they do here, it becomes a distraction and makes for a bumpy read. Also, someone writing music from the ’60s should know that the guy who wrote ‘For Your Love’ (mis- titled ‘For My Love’ here) is named Graham Gouldman, and not George! Brian Greene


IT’S ALL GOOD: AJOHN SINCLAIR READER John Sinclair Headpress www.headpress.com


Whenever the subject of John Sinclair crops up it’d be a safe bet to assume that The MC5, White Panther Party, John Lennon or marijuana are also mentioned in the same breath.


Justifiably so maybe, but this is not to detract from Sinclair’s other achievements; and this collection of Sinclair’s writing follows hot on the heels of his contributions to, and editing of the recent Headpress 28 anthology The Gospel According To Unpopular Culture. It’s All Good covers over 40 years


worth of assorted rants, raves, reviews, articles, and essays about everything Sinclair holds dear, or feels passionately about. Equally enthusiastic about jazz and blues practitioners of the past and more recent years, Sinclair is undoubtedly a blues and jazz historian of some calibre. He also acknowledges the debt that nearly all popular music of the late 20th century owes to the early blues men of the Mississippi Delta. Very occasionally the reader can become bogged down in the minutiae; such is Sinclair’s attention to detail. But, this is a minor quibble, and generally his writing is as engaging as it is casual, as earnest as it is humorous, and it makes for enjoyable reading throughout. Other subjects include Dr John, Sun Ra, Jack Kerouac, Irma Thomas and Iggy Pop to name a few, whilst, naturally enough, his associations with the aforementioned MC5, White Panther Party and John Lennon are also covered in some depth. A free 13-track CD provides the


perfect accompaniment to 22 pieces of verse that intersperse the book. At times Sinclair’s voice is pure Beefheart growl, at others it


comes across like marijuana infused honey – so deep and mellow you could listen to it for hours. Musical backing is provided predominantly by a floating collective of musicians known as The Blues Scholars. Other guests include renowned jazz alto saxophonist Marion Brown, Detroit blues axe-man Jeff Grand, and another Motor City guitar maestro you may have heard of called Wayne Kramer. ‘Brilliant Corners’, ‘Ain’t Nobody’s Bizness’ and Sinclair’s very own epic story of the blues, ‘Fattening Frogs For Snakes’, being particular standouts here, but, as the title suggests, it’s all good. Rich Deakin


JOHNNY: THE WORK OF PSYCHEDELIC ARTIST JOHNNY HURFORD Compiled and edited by Jonathan Hill Sunset Press


This little gem actually slipped out in 2006 but with such little fanfare that it wasn’t until recently that I


found out about it and snaffled one up. Johnny Hurford is a psychedelic


artist whose work graced the covers of OZ, IT and Gandalf’s Garden and posters for Middle Earth in the late ’60s. He’s gone on to illustrate countless other books, magazines, posters, publications and ephemera.


Born and raised in the rural idyll


of North Devon (where he still lives and works) he started drawing aged five and was turned on by rock music and trips to London and Liverpool as a teenager in the mid-60s. His art depicted a twisted world of landscapes, trees, flowers and animals born of his home county. This happened to coincide with the similarly naturalistic tendencies of the psychedelic art that began appearing in OZ and on record sleeves and posters in 1967. Taking acid in ’68, becoming a central figure in the local hippie scene and finally showing his work in London at the first ever psychedelic poster exhibition sealed his fate as a psychedelic artist and those formative hallucinogenic qualities have coloured pretty much everything else he’s done since. This beautiful full-colour


hardback is stuffed full of reproductions and sketches from a 40-year career that encompasses those heady years as well as expert portraits and landscapes, children’s books and soft porn and is enlivened by Johnny’s reminiscences of the people, places and cultural touchstones that inspired him. Andy Morten


MELLOTRON: THE MACHINE AND THE MUSICIANS THAT REVOLUTIONISED ROCK Nick Awde Desert Hearts www.deserthearts.com “It sounds like purple fog,” Andy Partridge of XTC once told me. John Hawken of Renaissance and The Strawbs recalls it as being capable on a bad


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