In 1971 Woodstock promoter Michael Lang became interested in financing a band. The Fabulous Rhinestones carried a beefy set of blues rock numbers featuring lucid lead vocalist and guitarist Kal David. Marty Grebb on keyboards, vocal and sax, Harvey Brooks on bass, Greg Thomas on drums and Dino Andino on drowned out congas rounded out the group mixing more standards with their own original material.
The result is a cool carefree sophisticated album of first rate rock with a strong blues accent. This band has terrific chops. The rhythm section with Brooks and Greg Thomas percolates perfectly, and though Kal David's guitar solos are short they are top notch. Marty Grebb fills out the groups sound with distinctive keyboard work. Kal David's stylish vocals are truly memorable and it all adds up to a cheerful, laid back, very attractive record.
by Allan J Moore
Tracks
1. Nothing New (Kal David) - 5:04
2. Easy As You Make It (Kal David) - 3:36
3. Just Can't Turn My Back On You (Marty Grebb) - 3:42
4. Living On My Own Time (Kal David) - 3:26
5. Free (Harvey Brooks) - 4:15
6. What A Wonderful Thing We Have (Kal David, Marty Grebb) - 4:55
7. Live It Out To The End (Harvey Brooks, Marty Grebb) - 3:41
8. Harmonize (Harvey Brooks, Marty Grebb, Reinol 'Dino' Andino) - 3:12
9. Big Indian (Kal David) - 4:03
10.Positive Direction (Marty Grebb) - 5:12
11.What A Wonderful Thing We Have (Mono Mix Bonus Track) (Kal David, Marty Grebb) - 4:53
The Fabulous Rhinestones
*Harvey Brooks - Bass
*Kal David - Lead Vocals, Lead Guitar
*Marty Grebb - Keyboards, Vocals, Bass, Saxophone
*Greg Thomas - Drums
*Reinol 'Dino' Andino - Congas With
*Bob Pritchard - Trombone
*Terrel Eaton - Saxophone, Flute
*Ben Keith - Pedal Steel Guitar
*Paul Butterfield - Harmonica
*Stan Shafrin - Trumpet
*Jean Eley - Violin
*Harry Lookofsky - Violin
*Lewis Eley - Violin, Viola
*Hilda Harris - Vocals
*Marvin Grafton - Vocals
*Maretha Stewart - Vocals
The Fabulous Rhinestones were an R&B-based band formed in San Francisco in 1971 by ex-Illinois Speed Press guitarist/singer Kal David and ex-Electric Flag (and Bob Dylan, Al Kooper, and Miles Davis) bassist Harvey Brooks. They moved to Woodstock, NY, where they played with members of the Band and some of their own fellow Chicago bluesmen, including Paul Butterfield, and were signed by producer Michael Lang -- the co-producer of the Woodstock festival -- to his own Just Sunshine label.
The group cut three LPs over the next three years, all of which received critical raves without selling in huge numbers -- they also got considerable exposure playing on the same bill with the Allman Brothers, Stevie Wonder, and the Doobie Brothers, but their most visible gig was probably playing a 1971 antiwar rally in New York with John Lennon and Yoko Ono. They split up in the mid-'70s and David later played with Etta James, Al Kooper, and Johnny Rivers. The Fabulous Rhinestones' work has been compiled for reissue on CD in Japan in the 21st century.
by Bruce Eder
In 1975 they dropped the Fabulous from their name but one can't remove it from their music. This is the funkiest album they made. They've stepped out of core group, did a few covers, and brought in some outside players.
Among the many new contributers are Brian Auger [Organ], Eric Kaz [Arp String Ensemble] and Bill Curtis on congas. Kal David's vocals are super fine and the background vocals are flawless. This is just great stuff. If you like The Average White Band,Hall & Oats, or the music released on Philly International in the heyday of the 70's you are going to like this record. For the Rhinestones it's another one in the winners circle.
by Allan J Moore
Tracks
1. One Time Love (Harvey Brooks, Kal David) - 3:39
2. Ridin' Thumb (Jim Seals, Dash Crofts) - 4:42
3. Party Music (David Wolfert, Melissa Manchester) - 3:02
4. Get It Up For Love (Ned Doheny) - 3:59
5. Love Jam (Harvey Brooks, Kal David, Bob Leinbach, Arti Funaro, Eric Parker) - 2:07
6. Another Song For You (Harvey Brooks, Marty Grebb) - 3:04
7. Love On My Mind (Harvey Brooks) - 3:57
8. Crossroads Of My Life (Eric Kaz) - 3:07
9. This Devil In Me (Harvey Brooks, Kal David) - 5:18
10.All My Love (Renaldo Benson, Val Benson, Len Perry) - 4:11
11.Party Music (Alternate Mix Without Strings) (David Wolfert, Melissa Manchester) - 3:05
Originally this album was to be released by Perception Records in 1969 but was shelved. It's a delightful example of orchestrated US 60's pop with a psychedelic edge very much in the mould of the other two Hobbits albums.
Back From Middle Earth, The Hobbits third and rarest psychedelic recording, appeared in 1969 on Hobbit-supremo Jimmy Curtiss¿ Perception label, an imprint that bizarrely was to include Dizzy Gillespie, Shirley Horn, Tyrone Washington, Johnny Hartman, Astrud Gilberto and even Jimmy Lunceford amongst its alumnists.
Although The Hobbits owed their name to the writings of Tolkien, there was little of The Shire about their music, which Curtiss described as ¿vocals with instrumental accompaniment¿, with the emphasis very much on sophisticated harmonies reminiscent of contemporaries such as The Cowsills and Jay And The Americans. Curtiss made his recording debut as Jimmy Curtiss & The Regents in the late ¿50s, but surprisingly Return To Middle Earth is a solid ¿60s pop album which highlights the vocal talents of Curtiss and session-singer Gini Eastwood and is completely free of any references to Curtiss¿ doowop past, as indeed are the three heavily psych-influenced 45s Curtiss produced (he also co-wrote two of the tracks) for Decca stable-mates The Bag in 1968. Exactly why The Hobbits changed their name to The New Hobbits is unclear, but this may, along with the album¿s release on Perception (the band¿s two previous efforts had both appeared on Decca) go some way to explaining why the album remained largely unknown (many Psych collectors have never seen a copy of the album), and consequently is so highly sought after today.
Blue Orchard Records
Tracks
1. You Could Have Made It Easy - 3:09
2. Growin' Old - 2:53
3. I Could Hear The Grass Growin' - 2:50
4. Comin' Out - 2:14
5. The Devils Gonna Get Me - 2:08
6. Underground - 2:35
7. Love Can Set You Free - 2:59
8. Flora - 2:51
9. Woman So Worried - 2:05
Van Morrison’s “Astral Weeks” has always seemed like a fluke. In November, 1968, the irascible songwriter from Belfast released a jazz-influenced acoustic song cycle that featured minimal percussion, an upright bass, flute, harpsichord, vibraphone, strings, and stream-of-consciousness lyrics about being transported to “another time” and “another place.” The album was recorded in three sessions, with the string arrangements overdubbed later. Many of the songs were captured on the first or second take. Morrison has called the sessions that produced the album “uncanny,” adding that “it was like an alchemical kind of situation.” A decade later, Lester Bangs called the album “a mystical document” and “a beacon, a light on the far shores of the murk.” Bruce Springsteen said that it gave him “a sense of the divine.” The critic Greil Marcus equated the album to Bob Beamon’s record-shattering long-jump performance at the Mexico City Olympics, a singular achievement that was “way outside of history.”
Ryan H. Walsh’s new book, “Astral Weeks: A Secret History of 1968,” takes up Morrison’s sui-generis masterpiece and unearths the largely forgotten context from which it emerged. Though the songs on “Astral Weeks” were recorded in New York and are full of references to Morrison’s childhood in Northern Ireland, they were, in Walsh’s words, “planned, shaped and rehearsed in Boston and Cambridge,” where Morrison lived and performed for much of 1968. In documenting the milieu out of which the album came, Walsh also argues for Boston as an underappreciated hub of late-sixties radicalism, artistic invention, and social experimentation. The result is a complex, inquisitive, and satisfying book that illuminates and explicates the origins of “Astral Weeks” without diminishing the album’s otherworldly aura.
What was Morrison doing in Boston? The short answer is that he was hiding out. Stymied but full of ambition, the twenty-two-year-old songwriter had come to New York, in 1967, burdened by an onerous recording contract with the Bang Records producer Bert Berns, who’d worked with Morrison’s band Them, and who had also produced Morrison’s hit single “Brown Eyed Girl.” When Berns died of a heart attack, in December, the contract came under the supervision of a mobster friend of Berns named Carmine (Wassel) DeNoia. One night, Morrison, whose immigration status was tenuous at best, got into a drunken argument with DeNoia, who ended the conversation by smashing an acoustic guitar over the singer’s head. Morrison promptly married his American girlfriend, Janet Rigsbee (a.k.a. Janet Planet), and escaped to Boston.
Boston was home to the other major figure in Walsh’s book, Mel Lyman, a musician who reinvented himself as the messianic leader of a commune in the Fort Hill area of Roxbury, where he and his followers, known as the Lyman “Family,” commandeered an entire neighborhood of houses. As Walsh notes, the Fort Hill Community “attracted followers of a pedigree far more impressive than that of your run-of-the-mill sixties commune,” including Jessie Benton, the daughter of Thomas Hart Benton; Mark Frechette, the star of Michelangelo Antonioni’s film “Zabriskie Point”; Paul Williams, the founder of the music magazine Crawdaddy; two children of the novelist Kay Boyle; and Owen deLong, a former speechwriter for Robert Kennedy. Lyman controlled every aspect of life in Fort Hill. Members who had trouble following the rules might be given an LSD trip, guided by Lyman himself, or subjected to a rigged astrological reading. Commune members were also expected, among other duties, to distribute the provocative biweekly underground newspaper Avatar. Lyman died in 1978, but his death was kept secret until the mid-eighties. The Fort Hill Community, unlike so many other sixties communes, still exists.
There’s no evidence that Morrison and Lyman ever met, but their trajectories through the book operate like melodic counterpoints. With his harmonica, Lyman serenaded mournful fans who were departing the Newport Folk Festival in 1965, after Bob Dylan’s scandalous electrified set. In “Astral Weeks,” Morrison abandoned the amplified sound of his earlier work in favor of acoustic instruments. Lyman was a charismatic leader able to create and sustain a community through the force of his character. Morrison was hotheaded and irritating to many of the musicians who played with him, and he exasperated a series of managers. Both men believed fiercely in the power of their own internal visions and were propelled by the tumult of the late sixties. Each has a legacy that endures half a century later.
Walsh fills out the book with a plethora of other figures, famous and obscure, who were living in or passing through Boston during that year. There was David Silver, a Tufts University Shakespeare scholar from England, who created the wildly experimental television show “What’s Happening, Mister Silver?” “It was the first TV show that spoke to the stoned generation,” Peter Simon, the younger brother of the singer-songwriter Carly Simon, said. There were the members of the Velvet Underground, who played at the Boston Tea Party, a local rock venue, fifteen times in 1968. (Lou Reed called it “our favorite place to play in the whole country.”) There was Peter Wolf, the future front man of the J. Geils Band, who worked as a late-night disk jockey on WBCN, a free-form station that Morrison liked to call in to. Wolf’s early band, the Hallucinations, played gigs with the Velvet Underground, Howlin’ Wolf, and other notable acts in Boston. Jonathan Richman, who would found the Modern Lovers, in 1970, was in the audience for some of those shows and serves as a source for Walsh.
This flourishing of countercultural activity was not accidental. Its foundations were laid a decade earlier. Walsh writes that “in the late fifties and early sixties, Boston and Cambridge served as ground zero for both the folk music revival and the origin of the American hallucinogenic revolution.” Boston was where Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert started the Harvard Psilocybin Project, under the auspices of which they conducted experiments on the effects of psychotropic drugs. Mel Lyman took LSD at Alpert’s house. Alpert later travelled to India, returning to Boston as a spiritual guru with the name Ram Dass. His best-selling book, “Be Here Now,” published in 1971, introduced many readers to Hindu spirituality and yoga. It also inspired the George Harrison song of the same title.
The common thread among the myriad personalities and communities profiled by Walsh is a yearning for transcendence and rebirth. These are also the central themes of Van Morrison’s “Astral Weeks.” Morrison’s route to the spiritual plane was through music, not drugs. (A notorious drunk during his time in Boston, he is said to have eschewed dope after “burning [his] brain on hash” when he was younger.) The singer seems to have been guided by his subconscious in creating “Astral Weeks.” Some of the songs emerged from dreams and reveries. Morrison was a student of the occult who believed in automatic writing.
Morrison spent the summer of 1968 playing rock clubs, roller rinks, high-school gyms, and amusement parks across New England with a group of local musicians, under the banner the Van Morrison Controversy. While Morrison was refining the songs that would become “Astral Weeks,” a Warner Brothers executive named Joe Smith, who’d seen Morrison perform in Boston, bought his Bang Records contract from the Mob with a bag full of cash. “He was a hateful little guy,” Smith said of Morrison, “but . . . I still think he’s the best rock ’n’ roll voice out there.” Smith dispatched the producer Lewis Merenstein to audition Morrison in Boston, in September of 1968. Upon hearing him perform “Astral Weeks,” Merenstein said, “What are we wasting time for? Let’s go make a record.”
So what magic happened during those three recording sessions on West Fifty-second Street? At Merenstein’s insistence, most of the band Morrison had been touring with that summer were not invited to the studio. Instead, the producer gathered an élite group of session musicians, featuring the bassist Richard Davis, who had performed with Sarah Vaughan and Oscar Peterson, and the guitarist Jay Berliner, who had recorded with Harry Belafonte and Charles Mingus. Perhaps intimidated by the company he was in, Morrison skulked to the vocal booth and kept his interactions with the musicians to a minimum. Davis recalls that Morrison strummed his songs once or twice for them and then let them improvise their parts as the tapes rolled. It hardly seems like a recipe for success, but it was very much in keeping with the unstructured and unorthodox temper of the time. Merenstein and the musicians were thrilled with the results, but Morrison, ever the contrarian, had a different opinion. “They ruined it,” he said later. “They added strings. I didn’t want the strings. And they sent it to me, it was all changed. That’s not ‘Astral Weeks’.”
For the rest of us, though, it very much is.
by Jon Michaud
Tracks
1. Astral Weeks - 7:04
2. Beside You - 5:14
3. Sweet Thing - 4:23
4. Cyprus Avenue - 6:57
5. The Way Young Lovers Do - 3:12
6. Madame George - 9:42
7. Ballerina - 7:00
8. Slim Slow Slider - 3:30
9. Beside You (Take 1) - 5:58
10.Madame George (Take 4) - 8:25
11.Ballerina (Long Version) - 8:03
12.Slim Slow Slider (Long Version) - 4:54
All selections written by Van Morrison
Bonus Tracks 9-12
Musicians
*Van Morrison - Vocals, Guitar
*Jay Berliner - Guitar
*Richard Davis - Bass
*Connie Kay - Drums
*John Payne - Flute, Soprano Saxophone
*Warren Smith Jr – Percussion, Vibraphone
The songs on this album, that comprise this horn dominated and tightly rhythmed outfit from England carry a pageful of impressive credits that surface in the music on the group's second release.
Soulful and smoothly energized Gonzalez selections are both punchy and lyrical, resulting in an optimistic tone and uplifting delivery pushed even further by the velvet vocal harmonies.
Tracks
1. Got My Eye On You (Bob Marshall, John Miles) - 3:23
2. Da Me La Cosa Caramba (Larry Steele, Roy Davies) - 4:41
3. The Love You've Given Me (Jerome Rimson) - 3:21
4. Ain't It Funny (Gordon Hunte) - 3:20
5. Rissoled (Gonzalez) - 3:27
6. Nothing Ever Comes That Easy (Mike Finesilver) - 3:56
7. Ahwai Five-O (Robert Ahwai) - 3:38
8. D.N.S. (Gordon Hunte, Lenny Zakatek) - 4:13
9. Love Me, Love Me Not (Gordon Hunte, Lenny Zakatek) - 3:40
10.Our Only Weapon Is Our Music (Chris Mercer) - 2:59
11.Just My Imaginations (Norman Whitfield, Barry Strong) - 5:59
12.Leave Old Dreams (Roy Davies) - 4:40
13.Neptune (E. Reid) - 5:51
14.Tribute To Puente (Gonzalez) - 6:04
15.Virgin Flight (Roy Davies) - 7:57
Gonzalez was a loosely knit, British-based aggregate with a revolving-door membership of anywhere from 10 to 30 players. Their specialty was a mostly instrumental melange of funk, jazz, soul, and (later) disco, though they did employ vocalists for selected tracks on most of their albums. Their core early membership consisted of saxophonists Mick Eve, Chris Mercer, and Geoffrey "Bud" Beadle, keyboardist Roy Davies, and guitarist Gordon Hunte; collectively, their previous credits included Georgie Fame's Blue Flames, Juicy Lucy, John Mayall, Keef Hartley, and the Night-Timers, among others.
First convening in 1971, Gonzalez grew to include bassist DeLisle Harper, trumpeter Ron Carthy, saxophonist Steve Gregory, drummers Richard Bailey and Glen LeFleur, and vocalist George Chandler (among others) by the time they released their self-titled debut album on EMI-Capitol in 1974. Cuts like "Funky Frith Street" and the Latin-tinged "Saoco" later became popular among connoisseurs of obscure funk. The follow-up, Our Only Weapon Is Our Music, appeared in 1975 and featured new members in guitarist/vocalist Lenny Zakatek, trombonist Colin Jacas, guitarist Robert Ahwai, bassist Larry Steele, percussionist Bobby Stignac, and singer Viola Wells.
by Steve Huey
Tracks
1. Pack It Up (George Chandler, Gonzalez) - 4:25
2. Clapham South (Steve Gregory) - 4:05
3. No Way (Michael Eve, Gonzalez) - 3:30
4. Adelanto Nightride (Chris Mercer) - 3:30
5. Underground Railroad (Lisle Harper) - 3:58
6. Gonzalez (Gonzalez) - 4:59
7. Together Forever (Roy Davis) - 5:40
8. Saoco (Ramon Paz) - 6:45
9. Funky Frith Street (Gonzalez) - 1:33
10.Closer To You (Colin Jacas) - 7:05
11.Cuidado (Zangolza, Michael Eve) - 7:02
12.Got It get It (E. Reid, R. taylor, T.J. Cansfield) - 5:06
13.Hey Ambeinte (Zangolza) - 3:32
14.I Believe In You (Keith Forsey, H. Faltermeier) - 5:16
This is the third in a series of previously unreleased live gigs – and though it’s not all 1975 (the first six songs are from the year on the title card, the final two come from 1973, the band is largely the same for all) it is all great.
Worth it for Buchanan’s dazzle across signature pieces like I Used To Have A Woman and The Messiah Will Come Again.
Heck, even when he’s trotting out bar-room blues staples such as Further On Up The Road and Sweet Home Chicago, there’s real fire in his playing.
The version of Don Gibson’s Sweet Dreams (from ’73) is a sublime closer. Like Peter Green and really only one or two others Buchanan had something truly special in his touch, something utterly believable in his soul. He took the blues on his journey while always being respectful to the form.
It’s a solid crew behind him, road-tight and tested. With drummer Byrd Foster a sympathetic hand and bassist John Harrison capable as a vocalist when needed, since that wasn’t Roy’s thing.
Even when the band rocks things up a lot (Running Out, Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On) it’s worth it for the way Buchanan paints himself into, and then straight out of, the corners of the tune. His attack on Running Out is tremendous, all scrambly and scratchy.
Also, these recordings are – sonically – wonderful. No patchiness, nothing lost. It’s a great live sound that’s been captured here. Probably it’s just for existing Roy fans. But his sad story was score by mesmerising music and so the legend lives on.
by Simon Sweetman
Tracks
1. Can I Change My Mind (Barry Despenza, Carl Wolfolk) - 6:48
2. Running Out (Roy Buchanan, John Harrison) - 3:18
3. Further On Up The Road (Don Robey, Joe Veasey) - 3:40
4. I Used To Have A Woman (Roy Buchanan) - 7:23
5. Sweet Home Chicago (Robert Johnson) - 3:09
6. The Messiah Will Come Again (Roy Buchanan) - 7:24
7. Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On (Sunny David, Dave Williams) - 3:35
8. Sweet Dreams (Don Gibson) - 4:00
Personnel
*Roy Buchanan - Vocals, Guitar
*Byrd Foster - Drums
*John Harrison - Bass, Vocals
*Dick Heintze - Organ
*Malcolm Lukens - Organ, Piano
I Reserve the Right album features a naked man running down the main street of a major city, which is a little more appealing than the wardrobe this seven-piece group sports on the back cover. They look like they just got off work for the day at the farm, so you know without the image they'd better have some chops to warrant this record's release. Lead guitarist Rob Walker's "Alone on a Saturday Night" is a beautiful song, with drummer Sebie Lacey getting the honors for the lead vocal. It is the tune that stands out and grabs you on a decent outing produced by Stillwater and engineer Tad Bush for Buddy Buie Productions.
The title track sounds like it is a cross between Duke & the Drivers meets Bachman Turner Overdrive sans Randy Bachman; it is truck-driving rock, the qualities of "Alone on a Saturday Night" or the other subdued highlight here, "Women (Beautiful Women)." With no Top 40 hit to their credit and not much of a cult for this genre of music, this fairly decent outing is one for the bargain bins. Having the Muscle Shoals Horns contribute is pretty neat, and there are some enjoyable moments here nonetheless.
by Joe Viglione
Tracks
1. I Reserve The Right (Buddy Buie, Jimmy Hall, Mike Causey, Rob Walker, Sebie Lacey) - 7:09
2. Women (Beautiful Woman) (Buddy Buie, Rob Walker, Sebie Lacey) - 4:25
3. Keeping Myself Alive (Buddy Buie, James B. Cobb Jr.) - 2:53
4. Kalifornia Kool (Allison Scarborough, Buddy Buie, Jimmy Hall, Rob Walker, Sebie Lacey) - 3:31
5. Sometimes Sunshine (Buddy Buie, James B. Cobb Jr., Mike Causey, Robert Nix) - 4:06
6. Fair Warning (Bobby Golden, Buddy Buie, Jimmy Hall, Mike Causey, Rob Walker) - 4:28
7. Alone On A Saturday Night (Rob Walker) - 2:09
8. Ain't We A Pair (Buddy Buie, Jimmy Hall, Mike Causey, Rob Walker) - 4:26
Stillwater was an obscure multi-membered Southern rock band that featured the triple guitar team of Mike Causey (guitar), Bobby Golden (guitar, vocals), and Rob Walker (guitar), plus Jimmy Hall (vocals, percussion), Allison Scarborough (bass, vocals), Bob Spearman (keyboards, vocals), and Sebie Lacey (drums). Originally formed in Georgia during 1973, Stillwater issued a pair of albums during the late '70s -- 1977's self titled debut and 1979's I Reserve the Right! -- and narrowly missed scoring a Top 40 hit single with the track "Mind Bender."
Between the near-hit single and steady opening gigs for the Atlanta Rhythm Section and the Charlie Daniels Band (the latter of which was riding high at the time with the monster crossover hit "The Devil Went Down to Georgia"), Stillwater seemed to be on the right track for breakthrough success. But when their record label, Capricorn Records, hit upon hard times, Stillwater found themselves without a label, and broke up soon thereafter. Several live tracks from 1978 were included on the 1997 Alive Down South multi-artist collection, which was followed by a Stillwater reunion the same year. A new album, Running Free, was released a year later, and the group began to play live shows once more.
by Greg Prato
Tracks
1. Rock 'n' Roll Loser (Rob Walker) - 4:14
2. Out On A Limb (Bob Spearman, Jimmy Hall, Mike Causey, Rob Walker) - 3:57
3. Sunshine Blues (Bob Spearman, Bobby Golden, Buddy Buie, Jimmy Hall) - 3:37
4. Sam's Jam (Allison Scarborough, Bob Spearman, Bobby Golden, Buddy Buie, Jimmy Hall, Mike Causey, Sebie Lacey) - 9:36
5. Mindbender (Buddy Buie, Rob Walker) - 4:14
6. Universal Fool (Buddy Buie, Jimmy Hall, Rob Walker) - 6:58
7. April Love (Buddy Buie, Mike Causey, Rob Walker) - 4:08
8. Fantasy Park (Allison Scarborough, Buddy Buie, Jimmy Hall, Mike Causey, Rob Walker) - 4:07
Bonus Tracks 2013 reissue
9. Out On A Limb (Bob Spearman, Jimmy Hall, Mike Causey, Rob Walker) - 3:55
10.Mindbender (Buddy Buie, Rob Walker) - 5:17
Tracks 9,10 recorded live at the Rebel Jam, Atlanta, Georgia 1978
Roy Buchanan is one of those artists who seemed to just excel in front of a live audience. A true guitarists’ guitarist, he never had a strong desire to be a studio maverick. Buchanan just wanted to play. While his early studio LPs are all certified classics, 30 years since his passing it is his live sound is what he will be remembered for.
Live Stock, his first official live album released in 1975, is a glimpse of what a typical Buchanan show might have been during his glory days. However, the album only features eight tracks and doesn’t really give the listener the full extent of a live performance. Now over 40 years later, we can hear the whole thing. Live at Town Hall, offers the listener the complete Live Stock show.
Over the course of the double CD set, we can fully experience two full sets of Buchanan’s at the height of his career. It’s easy to picture a smoke-filled room reeking of stale beer and old sweat seeing ol’ stone faced Butch making his ’53 Telecaster squeal.
While Buchanan’s guitar prowess is at the peak of its powers, the music can suffer at times due to the occasionally trite singing, which can seem uninspired in parts. Billy Price, who provides the vocals here, sang on the majority of his ‘70s work but never quite had the power of Butch’s first singer, Chuck Tiley. Nevertheless, the ferocious guitar playing makes up for it. Tracks like “Too Many Drivers”, “Done Your Daddy Wrong” and most importantly “Roy’s Bluz” are pure brilliance.
by Ryan Sagadore
Tracks
Disc 1 Early Set
1. Done Your Daddy Dirty (Roy Buchanan) - 3:17
2. Reelin' And Rockin' (Roy Milton) - 2:13
3. Hot Cha (Willie Woods) - 4:12
4. Further On Up The Road (Don Robey, Joe Medwick Veasey) - 3:39
5. Roy's Bluz (Roy Buchanan) - 8:01
6. Can I Change My Mind (Barry Despenza, Carl Wolfolk) - 5:47
7. Hey Joe (Billy Roberts) - 8:36
8. Too Many Drivers (Andrew Hogg) - 2:50
9. Down By The River (Neil Young) - 9:16
10.I'm A Ram (Al Green, Mabon "Teenie" Hodges) - 4:23
11.In The Beginning (Roy Buchanan) - 2:19
12.Driftin' And Driftin' (Charles Brown, Johnny Moore, Eddie Williams) - 7:45
Disc 2 Late Set
1. I'm Evil (Roy Buchanan) - 3:48
2. Too Many Drivers (Andrew Hogg) - 5:07
3. Done Your Daddy Dirty (Roy Buchanan) - 2:03
4. Roy's Bluz (Roy Buchanan) - 8:48
5. Further On Up The Road (Don Robey, Joe Medwick Veasey) - 3:56
6. Hey Joe (Billy Roberts) - 8:07
7. Can I Change My Mind (Barry Despenza, Carl Wolfolk) - 6:18
8. In The Beginning (Roy Buchanan) - 2:30
9. All Over Again (I've Got A Mind To Give Up Living) (Carl Adams, B.B. King) - 8:55
