Plain and Fancy

Thursday, October 24, 2024

The Summer Sounds - Up-Down (1969 us, beautiful psych sunny folk, 2004 reissue)

The Summer Sounds were a five-piece band from Dartmouth, Massachusetts. Their one and only release “Up-Down” is an album of largely self-penned material (only 2 covers) and was recorded at the Metcalf Studio in New Bedford. A beat-garage concept album detailing the highs and lows of a summer vacation romance, loads of moody teenage angst. The songs are all catchy, and there's a couple of good ballads. The opening song "Small World" is soft garage rock with a catchy organ, and the two covers of "Gimme Some Lovin'" by the Spencer Davis Group and "I Love You" by the Zombies are great too.The original vinyl is changing hands for more than 1.000$.

Tracks

1. Small World - 2:49

2. Hard To Please - 3:56

3. Lonely Beach - 3:24

4. Gimme Some Lovin' (Steve Winwood)- 2:59

5. One Last Kiss - 2:23

6. The Leaves Are Turning Brown - 4:20

7. Summer Girl - 4:22

8. I Love You (Chris White) - 3:42

9. First Date - 2:21

10.You Told Me - 2:42

Songs written by Joe Pacheco except where noted

The Summer Sounds

*Paul B. Motta - Bass

*Roy Vieira - Drums

*Dave Travers - Guitar, Backing Vocals

*Joe Pacheco - Lead Vocals, Organ

*Ralph Viera - Saxophone

Tuesday, October 22, 2024

Stevie Wright - Hard Road (1974 australia / uk, fabulous classic rock vibes)

Steven Wright was born on 20 December 1948 in Leeds, England. His family came to Australia as assisted migrants when Stevie was nine and lived in Melbourne for a couple of years before moving to Sydney in 1960 . They settled in Villawood, in Sydney's south-west, close to the Villawood Migrant Hostel. Stevie had been bitten by the rock'n'roll bug at an early age, and in the early Sixties he fronted two local bands, The Outlaws, followed by Chris Langdon & The Langdells. The Langdells started out as a Shadows-style surf band but changed their image to Beatles clones overnight after being introduced to The Fab Four's music music by their friends, teenage vocal group The Bee Gees.

Stevie (aka "Chris") was singing with the The Langdells at Suzie Wong's Disco in Sydney one night in mid-1964 and when he met Hendrickus Vandenburg and Dingeman Vandersluys, two Dutch immigrant lads from the Hostel who were in the process of putting a new band together. Like Stevie, they too had been electrified by the new possibilities opened up by the emergence of The Beatles. Stevie was already friends with another young Villawood resident, a teenage guitarist from Glasgow called George Young. The new band tried out several local kids as potential singers, including John Bell (a great musician in his own right, who went on to form The Throb) but they knew they had their perfect frontman when the diminutive Stevie auditioned. He snapped up the offer of the lead singer spot, and through Stevie the band also met Stevie's friend, guitarist George Young. The new band was completed when they found their final member, drummer Snowy Fleet, thanks to a chance meeting on a train. With an obligatory nod to their heroes, Snowy dubbed the new band The Easybeats.

The huge post-Easybeats success of his bandmates Harry Vanda and George Young, as both writers and producers, has for a long time ovegsubadowed Stevie's contributions to the band, so it's worth repeating the fact that all of their classic Australian hits in 1965-66 -- She's So Fine, Sorry, Women (Make You Feel Alright), Come And See Her, and Wedding Ring -- were co-written by Stevie. He and George were a an accomplished and productive writing team whose knack for writing pithy, memorable, down-to-earth rock lyrics was perfectly matched by George instinctive gift for melody and arrangment. They rapidly wrote dozens of original numbers, most of them created around the piano at the George's family home in Burwood. They were productive enough to write a string of chart-topping hits of their own themselves and still have enough material to spare to provide songs for other artists, including "Step Back ", the 1966 debut hit for Perth singer Johnny Young as well as the B-side of a later single, "Good Evening Girl".

Stevie was one of the most dynamic performers on the local scene, famous for his trademarks stage technique -- the flying tambourine and his acrobatic leaps and backflips -- and he influenced many singers who followed him. He was a natural television performer, as evidenced by the Easys' surviving appearances on shows like their classic "Coca Cola Special", made for ATN-7 in Sydney in mid-'66, just before their first trip to the UK.

As lead singer Stevie was the focus of most of the publicicty and by 1967 he was one of the most popular and recognisable male performers in the country, with Normie Rowe arguably his only serious rival. The move to England and the international success of "Friday On My Mind" took the band to dizzy new heights and seemed to bode for a great future, but over the next two dispiriting years in the UK, Australia's greatest pop group gradually fizzled out and they dissolved after a desultory farewell tour of Australia in late 1969.

Stevie was one of the first new acts signed to the revived Albert label. The team commenced work on Stevie's debut solo album, with Vanda and Young producing, as well as writing and playing on several tracks. Hard Road (April 1974) is without question Stevie's finest hour, and it remains one of the best Australian albums of the period. The classic Vanda-Young tracks -- the autobiographical "Hard Road", "Didn't I Take You Higher?" and the epic "Evie" were ably complemented by Stevie's own strong compositions "Movin' On Up", "Commando Line", "Life Gets Better" and "Dancing in the Limelight".

Stevie's groundbreaking debut solo single "Evie (Parts I, II and III)" is a genuine rock epic. It is arguably the perfect rock'n'roll song, encapsulating the three basic themes of all love songs -- (A) "Baby it'll be great once w're together, (B) "Baby, it's so great now that we're together" and (C) "Baby, it's so bad since you left me". Clocking in at a whopping eleven minutes in total, it seemed an unlikely chart contender, but the three parts were wisely split across the two sides of the single, and the head-on power rock of "Evie Part I" proved irresistable. Lyrically, it revisited the perennial "gonna have a good time tonight" theme of "Friday On My Mind" and Good Times and musically it is perhaps the ultimate distillation of the full-frontal hard rock Vanda & Young had previously essayed on V&Y classics like "Good Times", and showcased the no-frills hard-rocking sound which they woudl soon hone to perfection with AC/DC.

Released in May 1974 Evie shot to the top of charts, peaking at #2 nationally during July. It did especially well in Melbourne, where it stayed at #1 for seven weeks. The Hard Road album also peaked at #5 nationally and #1 in Melbourne. It was released on Atlantic in the USA and Polydor in the UK and made a strong impression overseas -- Suzi Quatro later covered "Evie", and Rod Stewart included a version of "Hard Road" on his Smiler album. "Evie" is now widely considered to be one of best Australian singles of Seventies. Stevie (Stephen Carlton) Wright passed away 27th December 2015.

Milesago

References

Ian McFarlane -Encyclopedia of Australian Rock & Pop (Allen & Unwin, 1999)-

Chris Spencer, Zbig Nowara -Who's Who of Australian Rock (Five Mile Press, 2002)-

Noel McGrath -Australian Encyclopedia of Rock (Outback Press, 1978)-

Tracks

1. Hard Road (Harry Vanda, George Young) - 3:02

2. Life Gets Better (Stevie Wright) - 3:10

3. The Other Side (Stevie Wright) - 2:32

4. I Got You Good (Stevie Wright) - 3:16

5. Dancing In The Limelight (Stevie Wright) - 2:36

6. Didn't I Take You Higher (Harry Vanda, George Young) - 5:57

7. Evie - 11:01

Part 1 (Let Your Hair Down) (Harry Vanda, George Young)

Part 2 (Evie) (Harry Vanda, George Young)

Part 3 (I'm Losing You) (Harry Vanda, George Young)

8. Movin' On Up (Stevie Wright) - 3:16

9. Commando Line (Stevie Wright) - 3:58

Personnel

*Stevie Wright - Vocals

*George Young - Bass

*Harry Vanda - Guitar

*Malcolm Young - Guitar

*John Proud - Drums

*Warren Morgan - Piano

1969 Jeff Beck Group - Beck-Ola (2006 remaster and expanded)

Monday, October 21, 2024

Upp - This Way (1976 uk, groovy jazz funk rock)

Upp was a British rock-jazz fusion band, active in the 1970s. The group was originally going to be called 3 UPP, and consisted of Stephen Amazing (bass guitar), Andy Clark (keyboards) and Jim Copley (drums). David Bunce (guitar) joined on guitar for the second album. The band was heavily influenced by other acts like Otis Redding, Sly & The Family Stone, Stevie Wonder and Donny Hathaway.

According to Jim Copley, Jeff Beck came to the studio where the band were rehearsing and heard them playing James Brown and some very funky stuff. Beck was at the studio to play with David Bowie who was doing his Hammersmith Odeon farewell concert in 1973, but he liked it so much he ended up producing and playing on the album.

"This Way Upp" was released with Beck again producing and playing guitar solos on "Dance Your Troubles Away" and "Don't Want Nothing to Change”. Recording moved from Kent to LA, and the sound to slickly conventional, string-laden disco, only nodding back to prog with propulsive, jazzy instrumental There’s Still Hope. There wasn’t, so they split.

by Nick Hasted, November 2018

Tracks

1. Never Turn My Back On You - 8:22

2. Say Goodbye - 5:09

3. Nitto - 3:53

4. Dance Your Troubles Away - 3:53

5. I Don't Want Nothing (To Change) - 3:45

6. Groovin' Mood - 3:33

7. There's Still Hope - 3:27

8. Get To The Bottom - 3:33

All compositions by Andy Clark, Stephen Amazing, James Copley

Upp

*Andy Clark - Keyboards, Vocals

*Stephen Amazing - Bass

*Jim Copley - Drums, Percussion

With

*Jeff Beck - Guitar (Track 5)

*David Bunce - Guitar

*Gary Coleman - Percussion, Vibraphone

*Tom Scott - Saxophone

*Christy Thompson, Jeanie Arnold - Backing Vocals

1975 Upp - Upp

1970 Jeff Beck - Rough And Ready (Japan remaster)
1963-68 Glimpses (five disc box set, 2011 release)
1965 The Yardbirds - For Your Love (japan 2018 mono edition)

1965 The Yardbirds - Having A Rave Up With The Yardbirds (2018 japan remaster and expanded)

1969 Jeff Beck Group - Beck-Ola (2006 remaster and expanded)

Sunday, October 20, 2024

Upp - Upp (1975 uk, elegant jazz funk rock, with Jeff Beck)

Jeff Beck's is a name associated with some very great music over the past decade; not a lot of records, mind you, but a lot of great ones. For that reason alone, this debut album by UPP would be significant. That this album marks Beck's debut as a pro- ducer of a group of which he is not a member is also significant, but, as can be expected, the most significant thing about this album is that it is different and it is good. Different and good are two words that aren't always used in the same breath. A lot of times someone will say about an album that isn't particularly good "it's, well, different." That's not what I mean at all. I mean this album is as good as it is different.

It is very different, and very good. There's a lot of soul in this music, but it doesn't sound like Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes. There's a lot of jazz in this music, but it doesn't sound like Miles Davis. There's a lot of rock in this music, but it doesn't sound like (what's a good example of rock?) Bachman-Turner Overdrive. Because mostly in the music of this album is music.

Sure, other bands have com- bined elements of many styles and welded them into something special. Witness the Rolling Stones. Witness the Beatles. Wit- ness Roxy Music. Witness UPP, combining the soulfulness of an AWB with the mellow jazz-rock feel of the Youngbloods. UPP is an ensemble, meaning that they play together well as a unit, not vying for the solo spotlight.

As accomplished as they are on their instruments, the thing that really floors me about UPP is their vocals: they sound like the best of Curtis Mayfield dueting with Eddie Kendricks. That soft, silky flavor really will get you where it counts.

If you're wondering about the production of the album, stop. You'll hear some technique de- signed to remind you that Stevie Wonder wrote "Superstition" when he was working with Jeff Beck. And you'll hear a clarity of sound that lets each instrument communicate to the fullest, and lets the words shine through.

This album is equally strong on ballads and uptempo mover- groovers. UPP, as a group, dis- plays a lot of diversity on their first effort, and as they grow to- gether, perhaps they'll show us even more tricks.

So the record is two begin- nings for the price of one: first, the production career of Jeff Beck; and two, the sure-to-be long and healthy career for UPP as purveyors of a smooth and soulful sound built on a solid rock foundation. There's no place to go but UPP.

by Toby B. Mamis

Tracks

1. Bad Stuff - 7:19

2. Friendly Street - 3:25

3. It's A Mystery - 3:54

4. Get Down In The Dirt - 4:44

5. Give It To You - 7:10

6. Jeff's One (Andy Clark, Jeff Beck) - 5:19

7. Count To Ten - 5:36

A;; songs by Andy Clark, Jimmy Copley, Stephen Fields, except trrack #6

Upp

*Andy Clark - Keyboards, Vocals

*Stephen Amazing - Bass

*Jim Copley - Drums, Percussion

With

*Jeff Beck - Guitar

1970 Jeff Beck - Rough And Ready (Japan remaster)
1963-68 Glimpses (five disc box set, 2011 release)
1965 The Yardbirds - For Your Love (japan 2018 mono edition)

1965 The Yardbirds - Having A Rave Up With The Yardbirds (2018 japan remaster and expanded)

1973 Marshall Tucker Band - The Marshall Tucker Band (2004 bonus track)

Friday, October 18, 2024

Marshall Tucker Band - Tenth (1980 us, exceptional southern rock, 2015 remaster)

Tenth is an excellent Marshall Tucker Band album. Sadly, it was also the last Marshall Tucker Band album to feature founding member Tommy Caldwell, who would lose his life in an automobile accident the same year the album was released. The album was released in 1980. The album hit number thirty two on the US Billboard Top 200 Albums Charts. Standout tracks included the album opener “It Takes Time” as well as “Cattle Drive,” “See You One More Time” and “Foolish Dreaming.”

by Brian Kachejian

Tracks

1. It Takes Time (Toy Caldwell) - 3:33

2. Without You (Tommy Caldwell) - 3:36

3. See You One More Time (Toy Caldwell) - 3:51

4. Disillusion (George McCorkle, Jerry Eubanks) - 3:57

5. Cattle Drive (Tommy Caldwell, Toy Caldwell) - 6:19

6. Gospel Singin' Man (George McCorkle) - 3:26

7. Save MySoul (Toy Caldwell) - 4:36

8. Sing My Blues (Tommy Caldwell, Toy Caldwell) - 3:27

9. Jimi (George McCorkle, Toy Caldwell) - 2:14

10.Foolish Deaming (Doug Gray, George McCorkle) - 4:50

Marshall Tucker Band

*Doug Gray - Lead Vocals, Percussion

*Toy Caldwell - Acoustic, Lead, Steel Guitar, Vocals, Harmonica

*George McCorkle - Rhythm, Acoustic Guitar, Organ (Track 6)

*Tommy Caldwell - Bass, Vocals

*Paul Riddle - Drums, Congas, Vocals

*Jerry Eubanks - Alto Saxophone, Flute, Backing Vocals, Electric Piano, Percussion

With

*Diva Gray, Jocelyn Shaw, Patti Austin, Ullanda McCullough, Vivian Cherry - Backing Vocals (Track 6)

*Ben "Mojo" Burnett - Percussion (Track 6)

1973 Marshall Tucker Band - Way Out West, Live From San Francisco (2010 remaster)

1974 Marshall Tucker Band - Where We All Belong (2004 remaster with bonus track)

1974 Marshall Tucker Band - A New Life (2002 Bonus Track)
1975 Marshall Tucker Band - Searchin' For A Rainbow (2004 remaster and expanded)
1976 Marshall Tucker Band - Long Hard Ride (2004 extra track remaster)

1977 Marshall Tucker Band - Carolina Dreams (2004 bonus track remaster)

1978 Marshall Tucker Band - Together Forever (2004 remaster with bonus track)

1979 Marshall Tucker Band - Running Like The Wind (2005 remaster)

1973 Richard Clapton - Prussian Blue (2024 remaster)

Thursday, October 17, 2024

Richard Clapton - Goodbye Tiger (1977 australia, stunning singer songwriter, 2024 remaster)

From where we sit today in the 21st century, 1977 seems like another world, another lifetime ago.The Whitlam Experiment was over and Australia appeared to be heading back to the conservative dark ages. The most popular shows on TV were Number 96 and The Box. On Sunday nights, Countdown celebrated the Australians stars of the era: LRB, Sherbet, JPY and Dragon.

It was into this space that a young artist by the name of Richard Clapton dropped Goodbye Tiger, this most enigmatic and mysterious of Australian Rock Classics - an album suffused with bitterness and sadness, with loss and resignation, with righteous anger and acerbic disdain.

Richard Clapton was always an outsider - a young man keen to reject almost everything about his family, his upbringing and his culture. With his curtain of black hair and his dark, introspective songs, Clapton was in so many ways out of step with his time and his place, travelling a very different path to his contemporaries.

Yet despite this, or perhaps because of it, his music found its audience almost instantly. Whatever Australia was in those days - a sunburnt country of proud sportsmen, suburban values and narrow thinking - Richard wasn't buying it. Never comfortable in his country of birth nor, indeed, in his own skin, he turned his back on the parochial materialism of his homeland and wandered the world in search of a place that felt like home.

It will come as no surprise to anyone who knew the artist as a young man that he found that place in Northern Europe - and in particular the edgy, nerve-damaged mean streets of West Berlin. Richard returned to Australia with a brace of incredible songs and gathered a band with the intelligence and technical ability to realise them. In a state of siege with both his producer - Richard Batchens and his record company, Richard Clapton went into the Festival Studios in Ultimo and created Goodbye Tiger.

Goodbye Tiger was a kiss-off letter to Australia and everyone that lived there. And even now, more than 30 years later, it remains strikingly relevant and brutally on-target. Listening to the album today with fresh ears, I'm struck by it's unique perspective. Although the songs were written by a young man in the prime of what was already a successful career, it's suffused with a sad, reflective disappointment and an appreciation of some of life's inevitable certainties: hopes fade; dreams shatter. The past is another country and you can never go back. The entire album is a meditation on the very nature of reminiscence and regret.

It's a poignant and expertly crafted album from a man jaggedly out of step with his time and place, unsure how he got there and even less certain of his desire to remain. Drunk., alienated and angry, the artist stands apart from his own life and examines it with bitter clarity.

If you're reading these liner notes you've almost certainly had the good taste to purchase the album, and you'd be entitled to form your own interpretations of the songs. Suffice to say that of the eight songs here - four per side, as one did in those days I'd suggest that at least five are stone-cold classics. From the ironically upbeat opening salvo of "Lucky Country" to the strangely peaceful melancholia of closing track "Wintertime in Amsterdam", this is an album of untold riches.

"Deep Water" was the "hit" from the album - he even got to perform it on Countdown - and it still sounds fantastic with it's sparring themes of faded glory and drunken alienation. But for this writer, at least, it's the title track that leaps off the disc. "Goodbye Tiger" - written in a moment of desolate, hung-over reflection after fleeing Australia spontaneously is a deep musing on all that was and never will be again. A fond but unsentimental farewell. And one of the greatest Australian songs ever written or committed to tape.

So, music lovers, it is indeed a very long time since 1977. For all of us who were there all those years ago, it's been a long strange trip. I first met Richard Clapton the very month he released this album, and we've been friends ever since. Goodbye Tiger stands as a shining example of all that great songwriting can be and should be: it's personal, it's universal, it moves you and it makes you think. It hasn't aged one bit, unlike the rest of us. So this note's for you, Richard, with all my love. Never say Goodbye to a friend.

by Ed St John, Sydney, June 2009

Tracks

1. Down In The Lucky Country - 3:43

2. Wild Child - 3:36

3. Goodbye Tiger - 5:42

4. I Can Talk To You - 6:15

5. Deep Water - 5:29

6. Out On The Edge Again - 3:09

7. Hiding From The Light - 4:34

8. Wintertime In Amsterdam - 6:07

Music and Lyrics by Richard Clapton

Musicians

*Richard Clapton - Lead Vocals

*Kirk Lorange - Lead Guitar

*Cleis Pearce - Viola

*Michael Hegerty - Bass Guitar

*Greg Sheehan - Drums, Percussion

*Diane McLennan - Backing Vocals

*Gunther Gorman - Guitar (Tracks 2-7)

*Tony Buchanan - Saxophone (Tracks 2,7,8)

*Tony Asnell - Keyboards

*Dalvanius - Backing Vocals

*James "Ace" Penson - Drums (Track 5)

1968 Traffic - Traffic (2018 remaster and expanded)

Tuesday, October 15, 2024

Traffic - When The Eagle Flies (1974 uk, remarkable prog jam rock, 2003 remaster)

As the piano kicked in on “Something New” at the same time as one of the most distinctive voices in rock, Traffic were back in the American album chart on September 28, 1974 with When The Eagle Flies.

With Steve Winwood’s vocals and keyboards augmented by the work of Jim Capaldi, Chris Wood, and now Rosko Gee (plus the uncredited Rebop Kwaku Baah), they would once again strike gold in the States — but this would be their last chart showing with a new studio record for very nearly 20 years.

This ninth album by the British rock pacemakers gathered half a dozen new compositions by Winwood and Capaldi, and another, the equally impressive “Dream Gerrard,” that Steve wrote with inimitable performer-humorist Vivian Stanshall, late of the Bonzo Dog Band. It arrived just over a year and a half after the band’s 1973 entry Shoot Out At The Fantasy Factory, after which they had released the On The Road memento of their concert in Germany that year.

Whereas Traffic’s recent studio endeavors had been produced by Winwood, When The Eagle Flies was overseen, like the live disc, by their Island label boss and confidant, Chris Blackwell. There was a subtle update to their sound, too, with the use of Moog and Mellotron keyboards, and an ever greater advance into a sophisticated jazz-rock style. But, with their status as FM album rock radio staples intact, there was no sign of any reduction in their American popularity.

While the band’s British audience showed less enthusiasm for the new album, granting it only a fleeting Top 40 place, Eagle entered the US chart at No.52 and became the group’s fourth Top 10 LP in a row there. Billboard called the album “a superb return.”

It reached No.9 in a 27-week run, going gold by November, but after a promotional tour in the US in the autumn, Traffic called it a day. They were commemorated by two compilations in 1975 but the name was not revived by Winwood and Capaldi until 1994’s Far From Home.

by Paul Sexton, September 28, 2024

Tracks

1. Something New - 3:15

2. Dream Gerrard (Steve Winwood, Vivian Stanshall) - 11:01

3. Graveyard People - 6:05

4. Walking In The Wind - 6:51

5. Memories Of A Rock N' Rolla - 4:48

6. Love - 3:16

7. When The Eagle Flies - 4:21

All songs written by Jim Capaldi, Steve Winwood except track #2

Traffic

*Steve Winwood - Vocals, Guitar, Piano, Organ, Mellotron

*Jim Capaldi - Drums, Percussion, Background Vocals

*Chris Wood - Sax, Flute

*Rosko Gee - Bass

With

*Rebop Kwaky Baah - Percussion (Tracks 3,7)

1969 Traffic - Last Exit (SHM remaster)

1970 Traffic - John Barleycorn Must Die (japan SHM and 2011 deluxe double disc edition)
1971 Traffic - Welcome To The Canteen (SHM remaster)

1971 Traffic - The Low Spark Of High Heeled Boys (2002 bonus track remaster)

1973 Traffic - Shoot Out At The Fantasy Factory (2003 remaster)
1973 Traffic - On The Road (SHM remaster)
Related Acts
1965 The Spencer Davis Group - Their First LP
1966 The Spencer Davis Group - The Second Album

1966 The Spencer Davis Group - Autumn '66 (2007 japan bonus tracks edition)

1966-68 Deep Feeling - Pretty Colours
1972 Jim Capaldi - Oh How We Danced (2012 extra track edition)
1973-74 Jim Capaldi - Whale Meat Again (2012 remaster)