Chip Taylor’s This Side of the Big River is probably one of the best underground country albums you’ve never heard. Though the record plays things pretty straight for its genre, it also boasts some pretty solid underground credentials. Not only is Chip Taylor the songwriter behind such Troggs classics as “Wild Thing” and “Any Way That You Want Me” (not to mention “Try,” the great kozmik soul shouter made famous by Janis Joplin), but he’s also the brother of the Midnight Cowboy himself, actor Jon Voight. In addition, three cuts on Big River feature Chip’s friend Sandy Bull on oud, which makes the album about as hip as Nashville could get back in the days of ’74.

As previously stated, however, the music here is country music, no matter how you cut it. Taylor never emphasizes his rock and roll background, instead letting his warm and introspective lyrics drift across lazy, pedal-steel-driven arrangements. One could say that this is the thinking man’s honky-tonk music, which may not be too far from the truth despite the unwelcome elitist connotations that label implies. At times Big River is definitely reminiscent of folks like John Prine or Billie Joe Shaver. In fact, there are a lot of signs that Taylor knew his music – some of his singing on the R&B-influenced “I’ve Been Tied” is straight out of the Gram Parsons handbook.

As an album This Side of the Big River is actually pieced together from assorted studio recordings and tracks cut live on a New Hampshire radio broadcast, though you’d hardly notice the difference without the occasional light applause. Of the latter, Taylor’s cover of Johnny Cash’s rollicking “Big River” is a highlight, despite the occasional presence of an extremely annoying electric piano. Apparently this take on the song impressed its author enough to persuade him to personally promote the album to radio stations – albeit to little avail.

As the story goes, Warner Brothers Records had originally signed Taylor as a rock and roll artist, so when he started recording country they had no idea what to do about promotion. Hell, up until his first record for the label, Chip Taylor’s Last Chance, they didn’t even have a proper country music division! Fortunately for us though, the beautiful people over at Collector’s Choice Music have given the album a well-deserved second chance and reissued it with some insightful liner notes by noted music scholar Richie Unterberger.

mp3: Sleepy Eyes
mp3: I’ve Been Tied

Reissue | 2007 | Collector’s Choice | buy here ]
Original | 1975 | Warner Brothers | search ebay ]

With the exception of their first four albums,  Spirit released some of their best music in the mid 70s.  Spirit of ’76 (released in 1975 by MCA) is a brilliant double album that saw Ed Cassidy and Randy California “officially” reunite for the first time since the legendary 12 Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus.  This disc was also the first band release to feature Randy California in complete creative control of the group’s sound.  Prior to the album, California had suffered a nervous breakdown, an event that led him to relocate to Hawaii.  In Hawaii, California lived on the beaches, miserable and destitute until he was taken in by a Christian family.  The guitarist wrote most of the material for Spirit of ’76 while being employed as a gardener in Hawaii.  When California recovered, he phoned Ed Cassidy (the drummer) and when the two met up, the Spirit name was once again resurrected.

Gone are the jazzy, intricate textures of the group’s early albums.  This version of Spirit favored a classic rock sound with plenty of distortion and phased guitars, vocal effects and a dreamy, stoned production – a strong Hendrix influence abounds. As with many double albums, there’s some indulgent moments sprinkled throughout the two discs.  The brief “Tampa Jam/Jack Bond” theme appears 5 times throughout the album.   Also,  some listeners may be surprised by the 5 or 6 covers that appear on the LP.  The original Spirit albums solely relied on original material.  To me, the covers sound excellent.  “Happy” (The Rolling Stones) is reckless and hard rocking, “Hey Joe” is suitably spacey and faithful to Hendrix’s version, “America The Beautiful/The Times They Are A Changing” is inspiring while ”Walking The Dog” is a powerful rendition that features lots of great guitar work.

The California originals are truly exceptional.  “Sunrise,” “Veruska,” and “Victim Of Society” rock hard and fierce, featuring plenty of fuzz guitar, distortion and pounding drums.  Some of the album’s tracks such as the trippy “Urantia” are influenced by California’s interest in the religious teachings of the Urantia Book/Urantia Foundation (a religious organization).  Other great moments include acoustic, reflective numbers “What Do I Have?” and “My Road” and a few lighthearted cuts such as “Lady Of The Lakes” and the country-psych gem, “Joker On The Run.”

Not many great classic rock albums were being issued in 1975/1976.  At this point, all the heavy hitters (example – at this juncture The Rolling Stones, The Who, The Kinks and solo Beatles were releasing weak, uninteresting LPs) were peddling slick, corporate dreck to the public.  Taken in this context, Spirit of ’76 is one of the better classic rock releases from 1975 that actually does possess real artistic integrity; a hidden gem from 1975.

“My Road”

Reissue | 2004 | BGO | buy here ]
Original | 1975 | Mercury | search ebay ]

For reasons unexplained, officially-sanctioned outtakes from the Rolling Stones’ Decca (a.k.a. London) period remain as rare as rocking-horse manure. Was the Glimmer Twins’ quality control really so good that they recorded little more than those tracks that appeared as singles or on albums? Or were they so perfectionist that almost all the other stuff was immediately wiped, Paul Dukas-style, rather than being archived? Although to date no fewer than 23 compilations of their ’63-’70 material have been issued worldwide, the number of cuts on these which were not used on the scheduled studio releases can just about be counted on the fingers of one hand – with one notable, noble exception.

At first glance, Metamorphosis, with its Kafka-derived cover art, is just one of the many “exploitation” back-catalogue collections issued by Allen Klein’s ABKCO Music in the wake of the Stones’ defection to Virgin. But where Metamorphosis differs is that it consists completely of studio material unavailable elsewhere – including possibly the meagre sum total of the album-session outtakes remaining from the sixties. These include a cracking cover of Chuck Berry’s “Don’t Lie To Me” with rollicking piano by Ian Stewart, and the stomping, Motownish original “Try A Little Harder”, both of which inexplicably got left off their 1964 LP releases; a strange alternative take on “Heart Of Stone” with pedal steel (by Jimmy Page?); a funky alternative punt (to that used in performance and subsequently issued as a UK-only Mick Jagger solo single) at “Memo From Turner” featuring Al Kooper and possibly Steve Winwood; and three unused cuts from the sessions for Let It Bleed plus one each from Aftermath, Beggars’ Banquet and Sticky Fingers. For rarity freaks these include the gloriously sloppy “Downtown Suzie”, one of only two Bill Wyman songs ever committed to tape by the band, with open-G guitar supplied by Ry Cooder, and a fine cover of Stevie Wonder’s “I Don’t Know Why” taped the night Brian Jones died and featuring slide guitar solos from both Keith Richards (recorded earlier) and Mick Taylor (overdubbed later). Taylor also makes a confident early declaration of intent on the studio version of the live concert favourite “Jiving Sister Fanny”.

And that’s only half the story. Almost half the album consists of demos of songs penned by Jagger and Richards but intended for other artists to record, during the Twins’ first fertile period as writers around 1965 (several songs from that year’s Aftermath album were similarly covered). These were cut under Andrew Oldham’s tutelage with Jagger vocalising and backings provided by sessioneers and studio guests including Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, Clem Cattini, John McLaughlin, Tony Hicks and Graham Nash. Jagger sings “Out Of Time” over the actual string-laden backing track used by Chris Farlowe for his UK no. 1 and “Each And Every Day Of The Year” over that used by Bobby Jameson, and on demos of “Some Things Just Stick In Your Mind”, “I’d Much Rather Be With The Boys”, “(Walkin’ Thru The) Sleepy City” and “We’re Wastin’ Time” which were realised with new backings respectively by Dick And Dee Dee, the Toggery Five, the Mighty Avengers and (honestly) Jimmy Tarbuck.

So how worthwhile are the sixteen genuine rarities here? Well, the demos are all pretty good, the songs certainly strong enough and the backings sophisticated enough to have made it as single releases under Jagger’s name, apart from the uncharacteristically wimpy “I’d Rather Be With The Boys” (credited to Oldham rather than Jagger as co-writer). And it’s genuinely hard to decide why the excellent band originals here were sidelined in favour of the tracks that made it on to the albums. The schizoid chronology of this collection (mostly 1964-65 and 1969-70) makes it an uneven rather than a homogenous listen, but any serious collector of the Stones’ oeuvre needs to own these tracks.

“Don’t Lie to Me”

Original | 1975 | ABKCO | search ]
Reissue | 2002 | ABKCO | buy here ]
Spotify link | listen ]

Timbercreek, a young band of ruffians who hailed from the small town of Boulder Creek (pop. 4081), nestled deep in the Santa Cruz Mountains of Northern California, recorded this lost country-rock gem with a for-real-not-ironic-rural-vibe in 1975. The small California indie label Renegade Records released the lp, and depending on who’s story you choose to believe, somewhere between 100 and 3,000 copies of Hellbound Highway were pressed. Needless to say, this record is very rare, and very, very good. If you’re a fan of The Flying Burrito Brothers, The Band, The New Riders of the Purple Sage, or Workingman’s Dead/American Beauty era Grateful Dead then today is your lucky day.

Larry Ross, Jon Hicks, Carl Holland, Bill Woody, and Frank Gummersal met in the Santa Cruz Mountains area and began, along with the help of lyricist Frank Andrick, writing tunes not unlike those being churned out some fifty miles north by the great songwriting team of Garcia/Hunter. Before long they were playing the Bay Area circuit, hitting clubs from Santa Cruz to Palo Alto to La Honda, the one time home of The Merry Pranksters and the site of numerous acid tests. By the time the group of friends entered The Church in San Anselmo, Ca to record their debut record they had developed a solid rural country-rock sound complete with twanging telecasters, bluesy benders, Big Pink harmonies, and tales of life on the road and the fight to take it easy.

The title track is the highlight of the bunch, the story of a highway kind enjoying the finer pleasures in life–jukebox tunes, honky tonk saloons, and of course the midnight special with the truck stop girl. The narrator seems to know that the life will kill him eventually, but he’s trying to make the most of the cards that he’s been dealt. Complete with a few sounds of the road, a killer opening and closing riff, and a nauseous phased out bridge, this song surely delivers. “Nobody on the Streets” has that funky backwoods bootcut sound, complete with wah-wah guitar and a groovy bassline–played by bassist Jon Hicks on his completely homemade bass guitar no less! “Hell in the Hills” is a wonderful album closer that really shows off the band’s jammier side.

After working the circuit, opening for groups like Kingfish and The Sons of Champlin, and even receiving radio play in the San Francisco Bay Area, the members went their separate ways. Fortunately we have Hellbound Highway to remember them by. If you’re looking for a tasty tonic to satisfy your craving for more laid-back West Coast country-rock, Timbercreek’s Hellbound Highway will get you drunk on funky rural vibes straight from the backwoods hill country of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Avoid the unlicensed Radioactive Records bootleg cd release and score an original pressing on vinyl, you won’t regret it!

“Hellbound Highway”

Original | 1975 | Renegade Records | search ebay ]

Bob Carpenter’s Silent Passage was a Warner Brothers release from 1984. Supposedly, the sessions for this album were cut between 1971 and 1973 but the Riverman Records reissue OBI strip dates Silent Passage at 1975.  Artists as diverse as Tom Rush, Billy Joe Shaver and Emmylou Harris have covered Carpenter’s material.

Bob Carpenter’s rustic, gritty vocals will probably be an acquired taste but don’t let this deter you from listening to this fine album. There’s a certain spirtual vibe that cloaks Silent Passage, also, it’s not the cheeriest record but not many country-rock albums are. The lyrics usually deal with depression, isolation, loss and the occasional religious overtone but these themes are common among many early 70s country rock/Americana/singer songwriter releases. It’s closest cousin is probably Bob Martin’s classic Midwest Farm Disaster.

Key tracks are the great, eerie Americana of “Gypsy Boy,” a spiritual highlight titled “Morning Train,” the desolate “Down Along the Border,” and the depressing but strangely optimistic “The Believer.” Some tracks such as “Miracle Man” and “Old Friends” offer up a more commerical rock sound while “First Light” is a folk gem with strings and organ.

Overall this is a very good, overlooked LP with many strengths. A quiet gem for the folk-rock and country-rock fans.

“Gypsy Boy”

Reissue | 2009 | Riverman | buy here ]
Original | 1975 | Warner Reprise | search ebay ]

It’s quite a challenge for me to write a good, subjective review on these guys.  I’ve been a big fan of their music for some time now, probably since the first time I heard the opening chords of “The Viper” from Whistler, Chaucer, Detroit and Greenhill’s 1968 album, The Unwritten Works of Geoffrey, Etc - I was hooked.  That album was more of a collection of studio experimentation/tracks whereas Space Opera (1973) was conceived as an actual album – the band played lots of live festivals/gigs during the Space Opera years.  The Space Opera LP shares many of the same characteristics that made the WCD&G album so enjoyable but in place of psychedelia (or psych pop) are the more structured, studied sounds of a good progressive rock band.  It’s a classic record too, very different from the majority of  “progressive rock” and “country-rock” albums being released at the time.   Not many unknown groups who release one album in their lifetime have this many quality tracks lying around the cutting room floor.  Therefore, I was shocked and excited to find out the release of these early demo tracks from the group’s prime years.

Space Opera are closer in sound to latter day Byrds or more distantly, Moby Grape.   They had a knack for mixing blues, rock n roll, country, folk, and psych/progressive rock into something that still sounds fresh today and uniquely American (they were from Texas).  Space Opera’s guitar sound leans towards the jazz/progressive end of the spectrum.  Also, some of the tracks like the trippy reprise of ”Singers and Sailors” feature vibes and David Bullock’s trance-like flute work.  The Exit 4 (named after Exit 4 studios) demos are the first 9 tracks (approximately 40 minutes) of this album, cut in 1970/1971, before Space Opera’s self title debut.  While the remaining 6 tracks, cut between 1975-1978 are very solid and musical (check out folk-rock gem “Snow Is Falling”), the Exit 4 demos are the real meat of the Safe at Home project.  Exit 4 should have been Space Opera’s debut album.  Both “Country Max” (their most popular song) and a heavily phased “Over and Over” make appearances on the Exit 4 album albeit in very good, early versions.  The remaining cuts are unique to this compilation and are nearly the equal of anything on Space Opera - these cuts sound like finished tracks rather than demos.

Every track is strong and worth multiple spins.  The album leads off with ”Singers and Sailors/Father,” a tough bluesy hard rocker  with spiraling guitar leads and gutsy vocals.  This track segues into the excellent “Journey’s End.”  This cut has a country folk intro that eventually morphs into soft, tuneful rock that would have been fine radio fodder.  The guitar playing throughout is outstanding.  These guys were intelligent musicians that could have played any style well.  Space Opera also knew how to balance out their instrumental prowess with quality songwriting.  Check out “Psychic Vampire”, another creative gem, which is similar to “Journey’s End” in it’s mixture of soft progressive sounds and fluid, expressive guitar work.  Songs like “Marlow” and “Fly Away” show off the groups country and folk origins (with interesting chord progressions) and are no less potent than the aforementioned tracks.  All in all, Exit 4 (and Safe at Home as a whole) is a superb album by one of America’s great lost bands.

Check out the excellent Cyber City Radio interview with Space Opera founder, David Bullock (2002).

“Snow Is Falling”

CD Reissue | 2010 | buy here ]
Spotify link | listen ]

Yoga Records, in collaboration with Riverman, are hitting it out of the park in their first year. It seems a shame I haven’t heard this record before, as it’s an easy new favorite. Ted Lucas got his start playing in a Detroit folk revival band called The Spike-Drivers, eventually leaving to form other groups The Misty Wizards, Horny Toads, and the Boogie Disease. While he was a respected figure in Michigan’s folk and rock scene, his self-titled solo album (recorded largely in his attic studio during 1974) failed to break beyond local recognition.

The promo sticker nails the sound, placing Ted Lucas next to legends John Fahey, Nick Drake, and Skip Spence. It’s a right on comparison when you hear what this album has to offer. Each side of the record is plainly its own thing; Side A being a suite of six perfectly sweet folk originals and Side B containing an instrumental, an extended blues jam, and an 8-minute raga. The first three tracks have melodies that seamlessly weave in your head on first or second listen. “I’ll Find A Way” is the sleeper knockout, tucking in after the record’s gorgeous three song opener: “Plain & Sane & Simple Melody,” “It’s So Easy,” and “Now That I Know.” These tunes are so easy to love and will have no trouble lodging comfortably in your head. I can’t contain how much I dig the side A closer “It Is So Nice To Get Stoned,” especially when “Sonny Boy Blues” on side B warns “you better stop drinking that wine.” Arrangements are sparse, an acoustic guitar gracefully ornamented with sitar drones (Lucas played uncredited sitar on the Tempations’ “Psychedelic Shack”) and delicate electric fingerpicking, with some auto-harp and tasteful percussion elsewhere. For a lost psych-folk record, the sound is remarkably current.

Comes in a faithfully reproduced LP-style package, with a facsimile of the original insert, new liners and a save-worthy protective cover. Yoga just might make the CD format cool again! Even so, I might have to spring for the vinyl. The insert, by the way, is wonderful, showcasing a badass t-shirt with Stanley Mouse’s cover design and contains the lyrics and chords to the songs on the first side. Got to be one of the best reissues of the year.

“It Is So Nice To Get Stoned”

CD Reissue | Yoga/Riverman | at amazon ]
Vinyl Reissue | Yoga/Riverman | at amazon ]

So, calling all TW fiends: what’s overrated, underrated, and essential in the Tom Waits Discography?

The Souther-Hillman-Furay Band was pulled together by Elektra/Asylum supremo David Geffen to be, as one critic described it, “a country Crosby, Stills & Nash” (notwithstanding that CS&N had plenty country roots of their own, cf. “Teach Your Children”). More likely, Geffen set out to cynically rehash his previous Frankensteinian creation, the Eagles, at a time when the latter had mutated from an honest country-rock quartet into an intolerably precious stadium-rock act. SHF would follow the same path, but on a drastically shortened timeline and with conspicuously less success, as tensions immediately mounted between the three talented but mismatched principals: the reclusive, sensitive Souther, the hard-living, hard-boozing Hillman and the born-again evangelist Furay, not to mention ill-fated schizophrenic drummer Jim Gordon. Sometimes the whole just isn’t greater than the sum of the parts.

SHF’s eponymous debut from 1974, breezily labelled “Greetings from Glamour City”, had turned out to be a reasonably satisfying, if by then somewhat dated, LA country-rock trip comprising unspectacular but mostly upbeat songs from all three principals, the whole elevated by their scintillating three-part harmonies plus honey-sweet pedal steel and scorching lead guitar from Al Perkins and inspirational piano and Hammond from Paul Harris, all mixed gratifyingly upfront. Their second effort a year later would be a very different animal, its title instantly giving the lowdown: now the songs were subdued and pessimistic, symbolising the tensions in the band and reflecting the same disillusionment with the sleazy Los Angeles scene evinced in the Eagles’ contemporaneous Hotel California. The accompaniment was considerably stripped down, with Perkins mixed much further back and most tracks carried by Harris’s plaintive piano. In place of the garish, solarised band portrait on the debut’s elaborate gatefold sleeve, the follow-up offered simple, sombre, Bible-black artwork. The faces tell the story; even Richie Furay’s ubiquitous smile is wry and forced. Needless to say, the album faltered chartwise and the inevitable breakup followed in short order. SHF’s entry on Wikipedia is one of the briefest on record.

Yet for all this, to me Trouble In Paradise is still a rewarding listen. The songs themselves are better than those on the debut, Souther’s in particular being more expressive and explorative, and the Big Three rely less on the stellar talents of their sidemen to raise the quality. The self-explanatory title track features untutored but amazingly confident drumming by Souther himself, and its centre section moves unerringly into a jazz groove with immaculate flute and Fender Rhodes from Harris; the “gold plated room” motif consciously echoes Gram’s classic “Sin City” theme. “Mexico” sets its tale of infidelity and guilt against an exquisite faux Norteño accompaniment, decorated with Hillman’s shimmering mandolin and offering superb mariachi harmonies in the middle eight. “Follow Me Through” allows Perkins and Harris to stretch out briefly and funkily, and could almost have been lifted from a Manassas album. Ironically, a cover of the gorgeous, keening “Prisoner In Disguise” would headline Linda Ronstadt’s immensely successful next album.

Perhaps the tensions and prevailing bad atmosphere perversely instigated an unexpectedly strong work; after all, there were numerous precedents for this, not least the Fabs’ Abbey Road and the Stones’ Beggars’ Banquet. None of the three SHF principals would ever again produce genuinely first-division product (unless you consider Hillman’s Desert Rose stuff to be in that bracket, which I don’t), but this isn’t a bad valedictory effort.

“Mexico”

CD Reissue | 2002 | Wounded Bird | at amazon ]
Original Vinyl | 1975 | Asylum | at ebay ]
MP3 Download | at amazon ]

Commonly referred to as the Rolling Stones of the Lowlands, Bintangs are also one of the longest lived Dutch groups (they’ve been at it since the late 50s).  Prior to Genuine Bull, Bintangs had released 3 albums in the late 60s/early 70s and some fine garage rock/nederbeat singles a bit earlier (seek out 65′s “Splendid Sight” and 67′s “Please Do Listen”).   After years of personnel changes, Bintangs had finally stablized a solid lineup in 1974 and released arguably their finest album to date.

Genuine Bull was first issued in 1975.  Produced by Steve Verroca and recorded in Rockfield Studios in Monmouth, Wales, the lp is usually considered one of the best by a Dutch band.  Exile On Main Street must’ve been a major inspiration for these guys but I also hear, more distantly, the primitive, tribal sounds of Captain Beefheart and Dr. John etched deep within Genuine Bull‘s grooves (another point of reference: Roy Loney and the Flamin’ Groovies).  The album’s foundation is blues-rock (a medium Bintangs would never stray from) but this fine lp’s tense guitar playing and angst fueled vocals will also appeal to garage-rock and proto punk fans.  The first three tracks of Genuine Bull show off this lean, hard rock attack and the world is a better place for it.    The guitar work on Stone’s inspired gem ”Hobo Man” is imaginative, “Insight Inside Out” is a raw garage rock/hard rock shouter, and “Agnes Grey,” one of the LP’s finest numbers, is downright epic.  Other tracks such as ”New Orleans, New Orleans” and “Biyou Woman” stand out for their evil hoodoo swamp rock thang.   And while the latter description might sound strange knowing this band hails from the Netherlands,  Bintangs make their odd stew of American roots music work for them in spades.  Also of note is “Do John,” another swampy rhythm & blues number with a killer Bo Diddley beat, greasy harp and stellar guitar solos.   Genuine Bull is loaded with great moments like these; there’s plenty of character to be found here.

Overall, I can’t imagine anyone complaining about this group’s delivery.  Bintangs’ songwriting is very solid; the musicianship while reckless in a Rolling Stones/Faces manner, is still very impressive at heart, showing off lots of skill and talent.   Groups from the Netherlands always had a knack for mutating American blues and rock n roll traditions into something original and bracing.  Had the Rolling Stones released a record like this in 1975 it would have been seen as a blessing.  Genuine Bull is a much better album than It’s Only Rock N Roll or Black And Blue and stays true to rock n roll’s roots whereas the Rolling Stones of the mid 70s were studio slick and formulaic.

Bintangs have never really received their due.  It took almost 25 years for Genuine Bull to be reissued for the first time in 1999 (on cd).   The 2009 deluxe version (double disc) by Corazong is highly recommended as it includes tons of extra tracks and rarities.  So if you’re into pure rock n roll, ballsy, bluesy and decadent, check this great album out.

“Hobo Man”

MP3 Album | 2009 | Corazong | download ]
Original Vinyl | 1975 | search ebay ]
Spotify link | listen ]