Recorded in July 1970, but released in January 1971, this very energetic, inventive but still underrated LP was a brainchild of James Lithefiand - formerly vocalist & guitarist of Colosseum. Other important musicians in die band were trumpeter Michael Rosen (ex-Eclection) and die young bass p t ay er J oh n We 11 o n.
This excellent album is very much in the style of the first two Colosseum records bid: a bit more faster; intensive, hard-rocking and brassier, but with no keyboards. It contains songs mostly dominated by heavy and sometimes furious guitar solos, groovy and tasteful brass improvisations, truly amazing bass parts and very solid drumming. In t he Summer of 1971 John Wetton got an invitation from Family and as a. result the band broke up.
Tracks
1. Something Sad - 7:36
2. Elegy - 9:36
3. Dreams of Glass and Sand - 5:09
4. Going North, Going West - 12:01
5. St. Peter - 3:39
6. What's This I Hear - 7:13
7. Sleeping in the Kitchen - 2:45
8. St Peter - 3:41
9. Sleeping in the Kitchen - 3:38
10.St Peter - 3:09
11.I Can't Live Without You - 7:34
12.Fuzzbox - 3:36
13.Conscience - 5:48
Tracks 7-8 Uk mono single
Tracks 9-13 1971 BBC Sessions
The rare, sole, and self-titled album by Eclection was one of the finer overlooked folk-rock recordings of the 1960s, and perhaps the best relatively unknown British folk-rock LP of its time. The band had a great deal going for them: four strong singers, rich multi-part harmonies, strong original material by two composers, deftly textured mixes of electric and acoustic guitars, and tasteful orchestration that gracefully enhanced the soaring bittersweet melodies and male-female vocal blends. They were also one of the few British acts signed to Elektra Records, the hippest American independent label of the era.
None of this translated into high sales or wide renown. Eclection, so full of promise on this 1968 album, had split up by the end of 1969, never having issued another full-length release. The simple label of "British folk-rock band" applies to Eclection as much as any description could. Upon closer scrutiny, that term fails to capture the complexities of this enigmatic group. For this British band had but one actual British member, the rest of the group hailing from Norway, Australia, and Canada; for that matter, when one of the Australians left, she was replaced by an American.
The group are closely connected to the Fairport Convention family tree via the presence of two future members of the band, yet neither of them wrote material or took prominent lead vocal roles on the Eclection album. Despite the Fairport connection, the folk background of some of the members, and the obvious vocal and instrumental folk-rock elements, they didn't think of themselves as folk-rock.
Too, this British album, recorded in London by mostly non-British musicians, sounded more like a product of California than anything else, despite the absence of any Americans on the recording. Tying it all together was the unlikely figure of producer Ossie Byrne, most known for overseeing the first international hits of the Bee Gees. Byrne, of course, was not British either, hailing from Australia.
Eclection was an apt name for a group originating from such disparate regions. Georg Hultgreen, who wrote eight of the eleven songs on the album and handled twelve-string electric and acoustic guitars, was born in Norway. The son of Russian prince Paulo Tjegodiev Sakonski and Finnish sculptress Johanna Kajanus, he moved to Paris just before entering his teens. Shortly afterward he moved with his family to Quebec, where he learned English, and worked as a stained glass window designer before ending up in England. Michael Rosen, who wrote the remaining three songs on the LP and played trumpet in addition to six-string acoustic and electric guitars, came from Canada.
Singer Kerrilee Male, an Australian, had in the mid-1960s sung in Dave's Place Group; that outfit was featured on the Australian folk music television show Dave's Place, featuring ex-Kingston Trio guitarist Dave Guard, who had somehow ended up living in Sydney. Fellow Australian Trevor Lucas had the most on-record experience of any member of Eclection, having released a couple of rare folk albums, as well as contributing to the EP The Folk Attick Presents, singing backup vocals on British folk legend A.L. Lloyd's Leviathan, and appearing on the soundtrack to Far from the Madding Crowd.
Completing the unlikely quintet was their sole British member, drummer Gerry Conway, who was just leaving his teens. Conway had been playing in the group of musical giant Alexis Korner, whose band was famous for helping train numerous future British rock stars, including members of the Rolling Stones, Cream, and Led Zeppelin. If it seems like an unlikely transition from a blues-oriented ensemble such as Korner's to the pop-folk-rock of Eclection, it should be remembered that Korner's band had also given apprenticeships to Danny Thompson and Terry Cox, the rhythm section of one of the most successful British folk-rock groups, Pentangle.
After about a year of gigging with post-Kerrilee Male lineups, Eclection broke up in late 1969 (though Henderson did head a revamped version of the band in the 1970s). Lucas and Conway formed the rhythm section of Fotheringay, featuring Trevor's girlfriend (and, later, wife) Sandy Denny, who had just established herself as the finest British folk-rock singer as part of Fairport Convention. Fotheringay made a fine folk-rock album in 1970 before Denny left for a solo career.
Lucas and Denny would play together again in Fairport Convention in the mid-1970s, though Denny died tragically young in 1978, while Lucas passed away in 1989. Conway's long career took in stints in Jethro Tull and Pentangle, as well as recordings with John Cale, Sandy Denny, Joan Armatrading, the Everly Brothers, Cat Stevens, Richard Thompson, Al Stewart, and many others. He's now, in 2001, the drummer in Fairport Convention, an institution that's still going strong more than thirty years after their formation.
As for the others, Hultgreen, under the name Georg Kajanus, joined Sailor, who had a couple of Top Ten British singles in the mid-1970s. An accomplished artist as well as a musician, he is now, believes Conway, living in Paris. Rosen later played with obscure early-1970s progressive rockers Mogul Thrash, which also included future Family/King Crimson/Asia member John Wetton. Gerry last saw Michael in the early 1980s in Canada while touring with Richard Thompson, "and as far as I know, he was working in his uncle's steel mill." Conway's lost all contact with Kerrilee Male, whom he believes went back to Australia after quitting Eclection. "As it started as it finished, I suppose," he chuckles. "Everybody disappeared back to the four corners of the earth."
by Richie Unterberger
Tracks
1. In Her Mind - 3:57
2. Nevertheless (M. Rosen) - 2:51
3. Violet Dew - 3:51
4. Will Tomorrow Be The Same - 3:13
5. Still I Can See - 4:18
6. In The Early Days - 3:39
7. Another Time Another Place - 4:26
8. Morning of Yesterday - 4:11
9. Betty Brown - 3:06
10.St. Georg And The Dragon (Up The Night) (M. Rosen) - 4:58
11.Confusion (M. Rosen) - 5:04
12.Mark Time (B-Side) - 2:51
13.Please (A-Side) - 2:51
14.Please (Mark II) (A-Side) - 2:56
15.Nevertheless (A-Side) - 2:50
16.In The Early Days (B-Side) - 3:37
17.St. Georg And The Dragon (B-Side) (M. Rosen) - 4:58
18.Nevertheless (BBC Sessions) - 3:00
19.Will Tomorrow Be The Same (BBC Sessions) - 3:08
20.Violet Dew (BBC Sessions) - 3:22
21.Please (BBC Sessions) - 2:53
22.Morning Of Yesterday (BBC Sessions) - 4:10
All songs by Georg Hultgreen (Kajanus) except where indicated
Bonus Tracks 12-22
Jack Traylor was a Grateful Dead/Jefferson Airplane associate who contributed towards Kantner, Slick and Freiberg's Baron Von Tollbooth and the Chrome Nun, various members of the collective returning the favour by playing on his 1973 solo album, Child of Nature, credited to Jack Traylor and Steelwind.
Jack was the main songwriter and vocalist, and sticks to unvarnished acoustic rhythm guitar. The have a female vocalist, Diana Harris, who also happens to play some piano, a lead guitarist who mainly sticks to electric, a third guitar player, Skip Morairty, and a bassist. Plus, longtime Airplane producer Al Schmitt produced their debut, Child of Nature.
Traylor's an okay singer/songwriter (the title track is catchy), the young Chaquito gets in some nice work, and has one extended solo which owes a lot more to flashy rock than folk ("Time to be Happy"). Besides Traylor and Chaquico, the other members of Steelwind dropped off the face of the planet. The drummer is Malo member Rick Quintanal, and Freiberg plays faint mellotron on one track. "Caveat Emptor".
Tracks
1. Child Of Nature - 3:48
2. Birds And Beasts And Bumblebees - 3:32
3. I've Got You - 3:14
4. Smile - 4:14
5. Time To Be Happy (Gerald D. Moriarty) - 4:30
6. Come On, Children - 3:50
7. Fifteen Years After - 4:17
8. Gone To Canada - 4:31
9. Caveat Emptor (Craig Chaquico) - 5:12
All songs written by Jack Traylor except where noted
Whistler, Chaucer, Detroit and Greenhill's only album was a minor but decent late-'60s folk-rock-psychedelic record, at times (but not always) reflecting the influence of California groups of the period like Buffalo Springfield. Certainly a few of the tracks, especially "The Viper (What John Rance Had to Tell)" (written by a young T-Bone Burnett, who produced) and "House of Collection" sound much like the folkier things Neil Young was writing and singing in the Springfield's later days and his early solo career.
They're also competent at integrating both psychedelia ("Days of Childhood") and country-rock ("Just Me and Her") into that Springfield-esque palate, though at times the songs aren't particularly rootsy. "Upon Waking from the Nap," for instance, goes for a more baroque orchestrated mood, and Burnett's "Street in Paris" seems like an attempt to craft an eccentric throwback to '30s European cabaret. There's an understated mood to the record that makes it a cut above many similarly derivative albums of the time, as it doesn't seem to be straining as hard to ride the trends of the day as if they're cloaks to be worn for the duration of the recording sessions.
by Richie Unterberger
Tracks
1. The Viper (What John Rance Had To Tell) (Joseph Burnett) - 2:24
2. Day Of Childhood (Edd Lively, Scott Fraser) - 3:01
3. Upon Waking From The Nap (David Bullock) - 1:59
4. Live Til' I Die (David Bullock) - 3:11
5. Street In Paris (Joseph Burnett) - 2:58
6. As Pure As The Freshly Driven Snow (Joseph Burnett) - 1:38
7. Tribute To Sundance (David Bullock) - 2:55
8. House Of Collection (Edd Lively, Scott Fraser) - 1:43
9. Just Me And Her (Edd Lively, Scott Fraser) - 2:23
10.On Lusty Gentleman (Joseph Burnett) - 2:40
11.Ready To Move (David Bullock) - 3:18
Whistler Chaucer Detroit And Greenhill
*John Carrick - Guitar, Vocals
*Scott Fraser - Bass, Guitar, Keyboards, Vocals
*Eddie K Lively - Guitar, Vocals
*Philip White - Bass, Keyboards, Vocals
QMS formed in late 1965 and continued through several lineup changes until late 1967 when they settled into to what would be their most creative lineup of John Cipollina (guitar), Gary Duncan (guitar), David Freiberg (bass, vocals) and Greg Elmore (drums). They put off signing with a label for years to avoid the pressures of touring and consequently getting rushed by record companies into making albums not up to their own standards (a fate they witnessed befall several contemporary San Franciscan groups.).
Living on a ranch north of San Francisco in high style with their ladies, grass, guns and living out their space cowboy trips, QMS also benefited greatly from an abundance of local gigs they picked up in the absence of The Airplane or The Dead, whose unavailability was due to national tours and out of town engagements. And it was through this constant stream of live performances that afforded them the opportunity to tighten up every loose end in their repertoire while stretching out musically and evolving their sound beyond any reasonable set of expectations.
Comprised of four Virgos, their group name was as astrologically correct as it was perfect in describing their music’s characteristics. Chosen for its associations with Mercury (the ruling planet of Virgo and communication) as well as the double entendre for ‘quicksilver’ (the element, mercury) whose dual properties were simultaneously both liquid and metal, it was an appropriate description of the band’s own dual-guitar undulations.
A key influence on QMS (along with countless others) at this time was Bo Diddley, whose amplified cigar box and ever-shifting shuffle beat lent itself easily to interpretations of extended electric guitar-based improvisations with its simplicity, buoyant consistency and hard, sawn-off jagged primitivism that allowed itself to be employed as if it were some new aural material which was highly conductive to electricity and malleable enough to stretch out into spaced-out plasticity. And in the hands, heads and hearts of QMS, two of his numbers would turn into sprawling epics. A cover of his “Who Do You Love” (credited on the original album as “Who Do You Love Suite” and comprised of six separate ‘movements’) spanned the entire first side of “Happy Trails.” The entire album was recorded live at The Fillmore East and West in 1968, and the sparks just flew all over the place.
Cipollina and Duncan exchange solo and rhythm duties on “Happy Trails” so effortlessly that despite the production’s extreme stereo separation (Duncan on the left channel, Cipollina on the right) it’s never anything but a seamless series of intuitively placed fits of opposing forces with an undying attraction to each other. At times Duncan’s rhythm is a fat, toned-down punk buzzsaw working as a wash against Cipollina’s agile counterpointing and sometimes Cipollina’s solos are the smallest of strategic rhythmic strokes while Duncan’s rhythm playing at times appears more like solos rendered in shorthand. These free-flowing qualities were accented with carefully controlled, soaring feedback and stinging arpeggios of the purest tones.
These numerous and spectacular displays of twin guitar exchanges are supported by the impeccably synchronised rhythm section composed of David Freiberg on bass (and accompanying brusque vocals) and the perfectly restrained drumming of Greg Elmore. This backing was uncluttered and tough enough to allow the group’s paces to ebb or flow at a single moment’s notice: as gracefully evident in the manner in which “Who Do You Love” constantly shifts, unfolds and turns into passages both reflective and active. By the time they reach the middle passage (subtitled “Where You Love”) they’ve brought it all the way down to so the guitars are now more a cross-stitching of muted, across the bridge picking approximating the tinkling of mechanical chimes. Volume control knobs on guitars are tweaked to neatly stagger the otherwise feedbacking sound signals into blocks of zapping noise.
A wafting current of slight feedback tilts into the near-quietude as the appreciative Fillmore audience starts clapping along in time with the bass drum, and soon it’s all panning from speaker to speaker: yelps and cries from the stage and audience until what was once Bo Diddley has now been reduced to the simplest elements of communal grooving and joy and the group are in no hurry to fall back into the song until the last grunt, handclap and cry has been squeezed out. But they do when Cipollina tears a single, screaming note outta his SG with a twist of Bigsby whammy bar to signal the lurch into the breakneck pace of “How You Love”: a showcase of his quickly incisive and multi-directional arpeggio’d notes that scatter and flee to all four corners of the Fillmore but always regroup back into the ever-ascending main riff. After they cool off during Freiberg’s bass solo spot, they’re quietly circling back over “Who Do You Love” proper. All is simmering until they finally decide to go for broke one final time. Before they hit a final cluster of building crescendos, Freiberg and at least two other members have been vocally going for it by yelling bits of the lyrics over the tumult of guitar riffs and Elmore’s now constant swish of cymbals. But after a series of short solos and heat-generating noise and whining feedback, it elegantly drops off...to roars of applause.
The announcement “This here next one’s rock’n’roll” begins side two with the other Bo Diddley interpretation, “Mona.” Thudding tom-toms and Freiberg’s throb/pulse bass line propels the track as ringing feedback trails off from Cipollina’s amp and juxtaposed against Duncan’s rhythm riffing grind-outs. Eventually dropping down in volume so that an amp hissing like a street sweeper in the distance is audible, Cipollina switches to wah-wah and adjusts his loose guitar cord and the energy is crackling just as sharply. The tom-tom heavy main refrain returns and the band jumps in, only to see things halt and head immediately into “Maiden Of The Cancer Moon.”
The two solos that erupt on this track are nothing short of volcanic and although this was a Duncan composition, it appears that the solos are pure Cipollina in full flight/total heat complete with hallmark whammy bar, distortion and howling feedback. It continually returns to a shaded riverbank at dusk where cool respite is found -- but the calm is soon interrupted by an irritable scratching guitar pick run up against the grain and full length of a guitar neck with accompanying swooping, sonorous feedback. There’s a final low throttling of guitar that’s about the nastiest sound on the entire album, falling into the quiet whistling down the desert winds of the live in the studio instrumental, “Calvary.”
For years I always misinterpreted it as “Cavalry” because its near-Morricone spaghetti western instrumental feel creates instant vistas of adobe villages, Spanish tiled rooftops and horse charges under the burning desert sun (But a cry of “Call it anything you want!” towards the end was probably an auto-suggestive incentive.) But the scope and depth of its impressionism of “Calvary” does intimate a musical interpretation of SOME vast human struggle in the desert. This epic sweeps across the deserts as much as the howling winds and droning dust/freakstorms of dark conflict that build and rage throughout with ever-reoccurring dark squalling of feedback as vibrato’d, piercing feedback like teams of whinnying, ghostly steeds. Some eons later, the dense clouds finally subsist and dissipate and guitar playing from an indefinite past age emerges as gentle scratchings of acoustic guitar, wood and flints are picked up from the scattered debris, before the final gusts blow it all away...
The lazy western campfire of “Happy Trails” ends the album on a heartwarming note as clip-clop percussion, piano and drawling vocals from Greg Elmore bids the listener farewell. Whistling takes us down the dusty trail, as jingling spurs head into the distance of a brightly setting sun on the plains, closing a unique album that was like no other.
by The Seth Man, May 2002
Tracks
1. Who Do You Love - Part 1 (Ellis McDaniel) - 3:32
2. When You Love (Gary Duncan) - 5:15
3. Where You Love (Quicksilver Messenger Service, Fillmore Audience) - 6:07
4. How You Love (John Cipollina) - 2:45
5. Which Do You Love (David Freiberg) - 4:38
6. Who Do You Love - Part 2 (Ellis McDaniel) - 3:05
7. Mona (Ellis McDaniel) - 7:01
8. Maiden of the Cancer Moon (Gary Duncan) - 2:54
9. Calvary (Gary Duncan) - 13:31
10.Happy Trails (Dale Evans) - 1:29
While in high school Joe DiFazio began taking classical music lessons. Graduating high school he applied to and was accepted to Ohio's Baldwin-Wallace College's music program. College opened up the door to the world of rock and roll and just two semesters short of graduating, DiFazio quit school in order to play keyboards for a Canadian Beatles cover band.
Interested in finding a way to meld rock with his earlier affection for classical music, in 1974 DiFazio decided to strike out on his own. Recruiting percussionist Royce Gibson, the pair began writing and recording material. Unable to interest a major label in their efforts, the pair eventually released the DiFazio and Perry Johnson produced "The Atlantis Philharmonic" on their own Dharma label.
Taken as a package, it makes for a fairly impressive debut. Even more so when you consider it was recorded independently and with minimal financial resources. Following the album's release DiFazio and Gibson toured the Midwest extensively, though plans to record a pair of follow-on albums never saw fruition.
By the early-'80s DiFazio had largely dropped out of music. Increasingly interested in computer technology and musical applications he went back to college, obtaining bachelor and masters degrees in computer technology from Indiana State University, though he also found time to complete his music degree. DiFazio is currently a professor of new media and computer technology at Indiana State University.
Late for the Sky, Jackson Browne's third Asylum album, is his most mature, conceptually unified work to date. Its overriding theme: the exploration of romantic possibility in the shadow of the apocalypse. No contemporary male singer/songwriter has dealt so honestly and deeply with the vulnerability of romantic idealism and the pain of adjustment from youthful narcissism to adult survival. Late for the Sky is the autobiography of his young manhood.
The album's eight loosely constructed narratives rely for much of their impact upon stunning sections of aphoristic verse, whose central images, the antinomies of water and sand, reality and dreams, sky and road, inextricably connect them. Browne's melodic style, though limited, serves his ideas brilliantly. He generally avoids the plaintive harmonies of southern California rock ballads for a starker, more eloquent musical diction derived from Protestant hymns. Likewise his open-ended poetry achieves power from the nearly religious intensity that accumulates around the central motifs; its fervor is underscored by the sparest and hardest production to be found on any Browne album yet (Late for the Sky was produced by Browne with Al Schmitt), as well as by his impassioned, oracular singing style.
On side one, Browne tells bluntly about his personal conflict between fantasy and reality in erotic relationships, struggling with his quest for idyllic bliss. The title cut explores an affair at its nadir ("Looking hard into your eyes/There was nobody I'd ever known"), concluding with an image of the sky, the album's symbol for escape, salvation and death. "Fountain Of Sorrow" develops parallel themes of sex and nothingness, fantasy and realism, as Browne, looking at the photograph of a former lover, recalls: "When you see through love's illusion, their lies the danger/And your perfect lover just looks like a perfect fool/So you go running off in search of a perfect stranger." In the chorus, highly romanticized sexuality becomes a "fountain of sorrow, fountain of light." Later in the album the water images are developed into a larger metaphor for death and rebirth.
"Farther On" and "The Late Show" complete the first part of the song cycle. Locating the sources of Browne's exacerbated romaticism "in books and films and song," "a world of illulsion and fantasy," "Farther On" defines Browne's quest as a "citadel" in "a vision of paradise." Its desolate conclusion finds Browne alone and older, "with my maps and my faith in the distance, moving farther on." By "The Late Show," Browne is so absorbed in despair that if he "stumbled on someone real" he'd "never know." Midway in the song, however, he meets a lover and in an impulsive gesture they drive away from the past in the "early model Chevrolet" pictured on the album cover.
The second side of the album describes the precariousness of the journey, as Browne's sense of personal tragedy metamorphoses into a larger social apprehension. "The Road and the Sky," a jaunty rock song, reintroduces the water motif. "For A Dancer," which follows, is one of the album's two masterpieces, a meditation on death that harks back to "Song For Adam" on Browne's first album. But "For A Dancer" is not a lament; it calls for joyful procreation to combat metaphysical terror. Browne's graceful lyric, as fine as any he's written, finds its counterpart in music, an ethereal tango in which David Lindley's fiddle dances against Browne's vocal. A crisp little rock song, "Walking Slow," celebrates Browne's newfound domestic stability. "Before The Deluge," the album's summary cut, brings together in a comprehensive social context the themes of the rest of the album. The verses are linked by a moving secular prayer for music, shelter and spiritual sustenance: "Let creation reveal its secrets by and by/When the light that's lost within us reaches the sky." This chorus's final statement follows a verse so imagistically potent as to suggest literal prophecy
by Stephen Holden, Rolling Stone, 11-7-74
Tracks
1. Late For The Sky - 5:42
2. Fountain Of Sorrow - 6:52
3. Farther On - 5:21
4. The Late Show - 5:14
5. The Road And The Sky - 3:08
6. For A Dancer - 4:46
7. Walking Slow - 3:55
8. Before The Deluge - 6:27
Lyrics and Music by Jackson Browne
Songs for Beginners is Graham Nash's solo debut apart from Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Released in 1971, it is a collection of songs that reflect change, transition, and starting over. The set was recorded in both Los Angeles and San Francisco, in the immediate aftermath of Nash's traumatic breakup with Joni Mitchell. Unlike the colorful dynamism of Stephen Stills' eponymous debut recording, or the acid-drenched cosmic cowboy spaciness of David Crosby's If I Could Only Remember My Name, Nash's album is by contrast a much more humble and direct offering.
It is a true, mostly introspective songwriter's album full of beautifully performed and wonderfully recorded songs that reflect transition, movement, the desire to look backward and forward simultaneously. Like the aforementioned offering, this one is star-studded in its choice of players and singers: Crosby, Chris Ethridge, Jerry Garcia, Rita Coolidge, Clydie King, Venetta Fields, Dave Mason, Neil Young (under the pseudonym "Joe Yankee"), David Lindley, Bobby Keys, Phil Lesh, Dallas Taylor, and drummer John Barbata reflect some of the personnel on this heady yet humble session. The album is bookended by two of Nash's best-known tunes, the anthemic "Military Madness" that remains timeless in the 21st century, and "Chicago," that doesn't. That said, they are among the weakest songs here -- which reveals what a solid collection it is.
Unlike many recordings birthed from personal angst, Nash's engages in no self pity; instead, he focuses on the craft of songwriting itself. Despite its personal darkness, "Better Days," with its swirling piano and pronounced bassline, is also an actual paean to self-determination and perseverance, the logic being that there were better days in the past, so there must be better ones in the future as well. "I Used to Be a King," with Garcia on a gorgeous pedal steel and Lesh on bass, is a direct, mature response to "King Midas in Reverse," a song Nash wrote and recorded with the Hollies. "Simple Man," with its sparse melody and strings and a fine backing vocal from Coolidge, was written on the afternoon of the breakup with Mitchell.
The violin-cello backdrop to Nash's piano is particularly effective and makes this one of his most memorable songs. The parlor room country waltz that commences "Man in the Mirror," features Garcia's steel, Young's piano, ex-Flying Burrito Brother Ethridge, and drummer Barbata; it shifts keys, tempo, and feel about a third of the way in with a very long bridge that transforms the song's sentiment as well. Ultimately, Songs for Beginners is the strongest of Nash's solo efforts (outside of his work with Crosby).
by Thom Jurek
Tracks
1. Military Madness - 2:50
2. Better Days - 3:47
3. Wounded Bird - 2:09
4. I Used To Be A King - 4:45
5. Be Yourself (Graham Nash, Terry Reid) - 3:03
6. Simple Man - 2:05
7. Man In The Mirror - 2:48
8. There's Only One - 3:55
9. Sleep Song - 2:57
10.Chicago - 2:55
11.We Can Change The World - 1:00
Words and Music by Graham Nash except where notes
Maxwells started in 1963 as "The Dragons". The group was formed by Lasse Lunderskov (guitar), Jørgen Werner (electric bass), Børge Mortensen (drums), Even Mørk Pedersen (rhythm guitar) and Lars Bisgaard (vocal). They were all, apart from Even, attending the Danish Church School, where they were trained in choral singing and obliged to sing in the Marble Church choir, the church of the royal castle Amalienborg.
The band had a repertoire consisting of cover versions of hits by The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, etc. Their skilful singing earned them a reputation as a pop rock band and as such they played a lot of gigs. In 1965 they changed the group's name to Maxwells and the band turned their direction more and more towards a Motown style adding three horns in 1966: Kjeld Ipsen (trombone), Torben Enghoff (tenor saxophone/flute) and Bent Hesselmann (alto saxophone/flute).
Bisgaard and Lunderskov appeared in "The Beggars Opera" at Gladsaxe Theatre and in "Superman" at the "Studenterscenen" late 1966. In 1967 Maxwells performed the first psychedelic show in Denmark: "WE", a collage of scenes and songs at the "Studenterscenen". Svend Åge Mortensen, elder brother of Børge the drummer, constructed a whole set of light devices from gramophone motors, old glass prisms and slide projectors for this performance. It was a sensation and from then on the band worked with psychedelic lighting.
The intelligentsia took an interest in the band and contemporary composer Per Nørgaard used the band members in his opera "The Labyrinth" at The Royal Theatre of Copenhagen. He also composed an original song for the group called "ABCDarian" which was performed in May 1967 when Maxwells had their first TV appearance in a show recorded at the museum of contemporary art, "Louisiana". This was a real breakthrough and was followed by radio coverage and interviews in all the pop magazines. Late in the summer of 1967 their first record, a single including "Flower Powder" by Lasse Lunderskov and Bisgaard and "What Did She Do?" by Torben Enghoff (Sonet 7250), was recorded at the "Rosenberg Studios".
From then on the band started to add compositions by band members to their repertoire. In the following years, between concerts and theatre engagements, the band toured Denmark.
In October 1967 Maxwells supported Frank Zappa's "Mothers of Invention". For these concerts the band had composed a "collage style" set. The set the band put together for these concerts started with a recital of a Dada poem in a sort of acapella unisono singing, slowly developing into a wild climax 40 minutes later.
The unique psychedelic lighting, which developed together with the music from a red triangle kept still during the recital to a crescendo of rotating lights turning the crowd into a frenzy! It was an instant success and the audience as well as the critics favoured Maxwells as the best band of the concert, which was a bit unfair to The Mothers, who had played the concert using Maxwells instruments as their equipment was sent to Lapland by mistake. In December 1967 Niels Harrit (tenor saxophone/ flute/ Wurlitzer piano) joined the band. The band could now change its set-up during performances.
Niels usually played the Wurlitzer, but when playing soul standards like "Pots 'n' Pans", "I Feel Good" etc., he would play tenor sax, while Enghoff would switch to baritone sax, and Hesselmann would either play alto or soprano sax on top of the horn section with Ipsen's trombone on the base line. In January 1968 Maxwells were hired by the "Montmartre" jazz club to play Monday nights, which they did for longer periods the following year. In August Lasse and Bent wrote and recorded the music for "le Chat Botté" at "The Little Theatre", the first theatre for children in Denmark. In September the entire orchestra played as musicians and actors in the first performance of the musical "Hair" at Gladsaxe Theatre adding to the original score with a strip theme by Hesselmann, original music to the song "The Bed" by Lunderskov and a collective "Trip Music".
In October the band started rehearsals with the Danish contemporary composer Niels Viggo Bentzon, followed by concerts and a recording session in November which produced the single "Memories of Lorca/Biafra", both by Bentzon (Additional musicians: Erik Moseholm (contrabass) and Ingolf Olsen (Spanish guitar). Philips PF 355350). In January 1969 the German jazz critic, Joachim Ernst Behrendt, heard the band in a concert at the Danish Film Academy. He was so enthusiastic about the band, that he signed them to record a session for MPS Saba in Villingen, Germany. This session took place over 4 days in June, with Behrendt as producer. The LP Maxwell Street was released in September same year on MPS15242.
At the end of 1969 two things happened that would later trigger the beginning of the end of Maxwells: All the band members were attending university. Lasse and Jørgen studying Law, Børge and Svend Åge Medicine, Lars Biology, Torben Literature and French, Kjeld Music at the Royal Conservatory and Niels Nuclear Physics at the Ørsted Institute, while Bent, 10 years older than the others, had finished his studies in English and History.
Everything had been going smoothly as they were able to adapt their studies to suit the band's activities but then Niels had to move to the Max Planck Institute for Radiology in Mülheim and stay there for more than a year. Furthermore Kjeld was told to stop his professional work immediately or he would be expelled from the conservatory and miss his degree as a first class solo trombonist.
The band never recovered from the loss of these two versatile members and although they tried with different additional personnel it never really worked as well as it had done before! In 1970 the rest of Maxwells played a final concert at the Music and Light Festival in Skovlunde, North-West of Copenhagen, joined by Dan Nedergaard (trumpet) and Frankie Jackman (congas).
In these 7 years Maxwells changed from being a very popular pop rock band with all the trappings to a band that experimented with all the new things that appeared in these years. The long cascades of dada poetry mixed with absurd snippets taken out from conversations in daily life were never recorded. Neither were the long collective improvisations of up to 45 minutes as played at the "Montmartre" Mondays.
Reactions to the band ranged from raving, delirious enthusiasm to wrath and anger over psychedelic art, twice resulting in smashed furniture and the band getting beaten up. Being a forerunner always has its price - just think of Stravinsky, who had to escape through a window to flee the threatening mob at the first performance of "Le Sacre de Printemps" in Paris in 1911! But it was worth it!
Today, Jørgen Werner works as a chartered accountant/counsellor of law, Børge Mortensen is a parish clerk at the Royal Church of Holmen, his brother, Svend Åge, is the chief anaesthetist of the heart transplantation centre at Rigshospitalet, Lars Bisgaard is a school teacher, Niels Harit is a professor of Nuclear Physics at the Ørsted institute and still plays in big-bands and occasionally as a soloist on records. Torben Enghoff is a composer and leader of a quartet playing classical and contemporary repertoire. Kjeld Ipsen has been touring the world with various artists such as Gloria Gaynor and still works in big-bands. Since 1970 Lasse Lunderskov has been working as an actor with growing success. He played a strong character as Onkel Leif in the Danish dogma film "The Celebration" and has appeared in many TV programmes. Lunderskov still plays guitar in his own band "Rootbeat" and works as a theatre and film composer and as a songwriter.
Bent Hesselmann has toured Europe with Rainbow Band and Midnight Sun and Denmark with various groups and theatres as a band leader and occasionally as an actor. He mainly works as a theatre and film music composer. Together with Lunderskov he has written two books on the electric guitar and electric band equipment: "Beat Guitar" and "The Book on Electric Instruments". Lunderskov and Hesselmann are also both board members of the "Danish Songwriters Guild".
by Trevor Wilson and Annette Duffy, Special thanks to Bent Hesselman
Tracks
1. Esther (Lasse Lunderskov) - 4:57
2. Free To Be (Niels Harrit, Joergen Werner) - 5:27
3. a. Make It Break It (Niels Harrit, Mike Roy)
....b. Beni Riamba (Bent Hesselmann) - 10:18
4. Maxwell Street (Bent Hesselmann) - 13:40
5. What´s A Smock (Niels Harrit) - 6:01
6. What Did She Do? (Torben Enghoff, Lars Bisgaard) - 2:32
7. Flower Powder (Lasse Lunderskov, Lars Bisgaard) - 2:51
8. Memories Of Lorca (Niels Viggo Bentzon) - 3:44
9. Biafra (Niels Viggo Bentzon) - 2:26
Bonus Tracks 6-9
Mayall was outraged by the untrumpeted death of J.B. Lenoir, and Crusade was his attempt to force the blues down the throat of the mainstream (“I hope you’ll join forces with me,” he writes in the sleeve notes).
With Green gone, his eye had settled on a teenage Mick Taylor, who brings equal parts soul and swagger. Crusade took just seven hours to record and mix, which perhaps accounts for its wham-bam brilliance. The band tips its hat on The Death Of J.B. Lenoir, and Taylor arguably pips Clapton’s Hideaway with his jaw-dropping instrumental Snowy Wood.
by Henry Yates
The final album of an (unintentional) trilogy, Crusade is most notable for the appearance of a very young, pre-Rolling Stones Mick Taylor on lead guitar. Taylor's performance is indeed the highlight, just as Eric Clapton and Peter Green's playing was on the previous album. The centerpiece of the album is a beautiful instrumental by Taylor titled "Snowy Wood," which, while wholly original, seems to combine both Green and Clapton's influence with great style and sensibility.
The rest of the record, while very enjoyable, is standard blues-rock fare of the day, but somewhat behind the then-progressive flavor of 1967. Mayall, while being one of the great bandleaders of London, simply wasn't really the frontman that the group needed so desperately, especially then. Nevertheless, Crusade is important listening for Mick Taylor aficionados.
by Matthew Greenwald
Tracks
1. Oh, Pretty Woman (A.C. Williams) - 3:33
2. Stand Back Baby - 1:44
3. My Time After Awhile (Ron Badger, Sheldon Feinberg, Robert Geddins) - 5:08
4. Snowy Wood (John Mayall, Mick Taylor) - 3:36
5. Man of Stone (Eddie Kirkland) - 2:25
6. Tears in My Eyes - 4:15
7. Driving Sideways (Freddie King, Sonny Thompson) - 3:57
8. The Death of J. B. Lenoir - 4:23
9. I Can't Quit You Baby (Willie Dixon) - 4:30
10.Streamline - 3:14
11.Me and My Woman (Gene Barge) - 4:00
12.Checkin' Up on My Baby (Sonny Boy Williamson II) - 3:56
13.Curly (Peter Green) - 3:23
14.Rubber Duck (Peter Green, Aynsley Dunbar) - 3:46
15.Greeny (Peter Green) - 3:54
16.Missing You (Peter Green) - 1:57
17.Please Don't Tell - 2:27
18.Your Funeral and My Trial (Sonny Boy Williamson II) - 3:55
19.Double Trouble (Otis Rush) - 3:21
20.It Hurts Me Too (Malvene R London) - 2:54
21.Suspicions (Part One) - 2:48
22.Suspicions (Part Two) - 5:30
All songs written by John Mayall except where indicated
