Although his early Columbia albums brought him worldwide stardom, it was this modest little album (first released on Imperial before the Columbia sides) that first brought Johnny Winter to the attention of guitarheads in America. It's also Winter at the beginning of a long career, playing the blues as if his life depends on it, without applying a glimmer of rock commercialism.
The standard classic repertoire here includes "Rollin' and Tumblin'," "I Got Love if You Want It," "Forty-Four," "It's My Own Fault," and "Help Me," with Winter mixing it up with his original Texas trio of Red Turner on drums and Tommy Shannon (later of Stevie Ray Vaughan's Double Trouble) on bass. A true classic, this is one dirty, dangerous, and visionary album. The set was issued in a sonically screaming 24-bit remastered edition on CD by Capitol in 2005. It contains no bonus tracks, but it leaves the original crummy CD issue in the dust.
by Cub Koda
More than fifty years ago, Johnny Winter and his band consisting of Tommy Shannon and Red Turner made musical history as they recorded the first official Johnny Winter Lp “The Progressive Blues Experiment.”
The 1969 masterwork featured 10 exciting songs from the likes of Johnny Winter " Black Cat Bone" “Mean Town Blues” and from some of his favorite artists and friends like Muddy Waters’ "Rollin’ & Tumblin’ ", B.B. King’s “It’s My Own Fault”, Howlin’ Wolf’s “Forty Four” and Slim Harpo’s " I Got Love If You Want It."
The late artist always considered this one of his favorite albums as noted “The Progressive Blues Experiment” finds me doing what I know and love the best…pure blues."
The explosive album ignited his career prior to playing the Woodstock festival, and shortly afterwards he would go on to become a worldwide rock and blues superstar.
Tracks
1. Rollin' and Tumblin' (McKinley Morganfield) -3:09
2. Tribute to Muddy (Johnny Winter) - 6:20
3. I Got Love If You Want It (James Moore) -3:52
4. Bad Luck and Trouble (Johnny Winter) - 3:43
5. Help Me (Sonny Boy Williamson, Ralph Bass) - 3:46
6. Mean Town Blues (Johnny Winter) - 4:26
7. Broke Down Engine (Traditional) - 3:25
8. Black Cat Bone (Johnny Winter) - 3:46
9. It's My Own Fault (B.B. King, Jules Taub) - 7:20
10.Forty-Four (Chester Burnett) - 3:26
11.Mean Town Blues (Johnny Winter) - 4:28
12.Black Cat Bone (Johnny Winter) - 3:47
Bonus Tracks 11-12 single versions on 2000 digi pak edition
Musicians
*Johnny Winter - Vocals, Electric Guitar, National Steel Guitar, Mandolin, Harmonica
Born as John Dawson Winter III on February 23, 1944, in Beaumont, Texas, where his brother Edgar Winter was born on December 28, 1946; both brothers were albinos. They turned to music early on, Johnny Winter learning to play the guitar, while Edgar Winter took up keyboards and saxophone. Before long they were playing professionally, and soon after that recording singles for small local record labels. Both of them were members of Johnny & the Jammers, whose 45 "School Day Blues"/"You Know I Love You" was released by Dart Records in 1959.
Other singles, either credited to Winter or some group pseudonym, were released over the next several years, including "Gangster of Love"/"Eternally," initially issued by Frolic Records in 1963 and picked up for national distribution by Atlantic Records in 1964, and "Gone for Bad"/"I Won't Believe It," also a 1963 Frolic single that was licensed by MGM Records in 1965. Winter had his first taste of chart success with a version of "Harlem Shuffle," recorded by the Traits, which was released by Universal Records, then picked up by Scepter Records and spent two weeks in the Billboard Hot 100 in November 1966.
Bringing Texas white-blues lightning to the world since 1969 – but on which albums did Johnny Winter flash brightest, strike hardest and blaze hottest? Johnny Winter, like his near-contemporary scion of the Texan upper-middle class William F Gibbons, was first exposed to blues and R&B because that was what his family’s maid listened to as she cooked and cleaned. He identified with the bluesmen because, like him, they were the wrong colour: they were black and he, as an albino, was too white. As a result, his own music was what his original bassist Tommy Shannon called ‘power blues’: “Blues, but played with the power of rock’n’roll.”
Onstage from the age of 15, he played blues, rock, pop and anything else anybody would pay for. Ten years later, following a rave review in Rolling Stone, his hot-wired, super-speedy blues-rock guitar and striking looks got him signed by a New York-based manager and sent out into the world to compete with Cream, Hendrix and Led Zeppelin. Soon persuaded to ditch his Texas blues band and go full-on hard rock, he scored his biggest success with the bludgeoning Johnny Winter And, acquiring a major heroin habit in the process.
His official major-label debut was both underweight and overcooked, lacking the raw spontaneity of his Austin demos, but the ‘three-sided’ Second Winter brought it all home, mapping JW’s blues-rock landscape in all its idiosyncratic glory.
Adding younger brother Edgar to the team on sax and keys, it had a great Richard Avedon sleeve-shot and a prime selection of originals and covers, including the 120mph fireball version of Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited, Little Richard’s Miss Ann slowed down to a languorous Lowell Fulson-style shuffle and a hectic sprint through Chuckleberry’s Johnny B Goode which should be entirely unnecessary but somehow isn’t.
And the home-brewed tunes which made up the final vinyl side were just spectacular: the stomping slide epics I Love Everybody and Fast Life Rider, the hyper-speed Hustled Down In Texas and the jazzy I Hate Everybody all revealed Winter to be more than just another white boy lost in the blues.
And, to add to this embarrassment of Roadhouse Deluxe riches, the Legacy edition comes bundled with a scorchio 1970 live set cut at the Albert Hall (and including an early version of bro’ Edgar’s Frankenstein, not to mention his finest enraged-bee vocal impression on the Nashville Teens’ Tobacco Road).
Relegated to the vaults after Winter dumped his original band in favour of the former McCoys, it was replaced on the release schedule by the subtle-it-ain’t-overwhelming-it-is Live Johnny Winter And, loaded with nuggets such as Good Morning Little Schoolgirl and Jumpin’ Jack Flash, which turned out to be his all-time bestseller. Still, better 43 years late than never.
His 1973 "Still Alive And Well" post-rehab ‘comeback’ album is still Winter’s grooviest, funkiest and most likeable ‘rock’ effort, though the better, bluesier half of the And Live album runs it close. Produced by Rick Derringer, who contributed a few guitar cameos as well as writing two of the standout tracks (the title song and the gorgeous country ballad Cheap Tequila), Winter’s in full-on ‘giant refreshed’ mode, kicking off with a rousing, roaring Rock Me Baby. Elsewhere: the grittily bluesy Too Much Seconal, a hectic slide shuffle called Rock & Roll and Silver Train, a Goats Head Soup song the Stones gave him even before they cut it themselves.
Sadly Johnny Winter passed away on July 16th 2014 while on tour in Switzerland during the summer of that year. His final album, the guest-laden Step Back, was released a little over a month later, and it showed his skills as a guitar player in his last days had not diminished. For blues fans this is a must whereas for fans of hard rock or blues rock these albums that should at least be listened once in your lifetime. It will make you realize why Johnny Winter is truly a legend and an often underrated guitar player.
by Charles Shaar Murray
Tracks
Disc 1 Johnny Winter 1969
1. I'm Yours And I'm Hers (Johnny Winter) - 4:27
2. Be Careful With A Fool (Joe Josea, B. B. King) - 5:15
3. Dallas (Johnny Winter) - 2:45
4. Mean Mistreater (James Gordon) - 3:53
5. Leland Mississippi Blues (Johnny Winter) - 3:19
6. Good Morning Little School Girl (Sonny Boy Williamson) - 2:45
7. When You Got A Good Friend (Robert Johnson) - 3:30
8. I'll Drown In My Own Tears (Henry Glover) - 4:44
9. Back Door Friend (Lightnin' Hopkins, Stan Lewis) - 2:57
Disc 2 Second Winter 1969
1. Memory Pain (Percy Mayfield) - 5:33
2. I'm Not Sure (Johnny Winter) - 5:24
3. The Good Love (Dennis Collins) - 4:43
4. Slippin' And Slidin' (Eddie Bocage, Albert Collins, Little Richard, James Smith) - 2:48
5. Miss Ann (Enotris Johnson, Little Richard) - 3:42
6. Johnny B. Goode (Chuck Berry) - 2:49
7. Highway 61 Revisted (Bob Dylan) - 5:07
8. I Love Everybody (Johnny Winter) - 3:42
9. Hustled Down In Texas (Johnny Winter) - 3:34
10.I Hate Everybody (Johnny Winter) - 2:33
11.Fast Life Rider (Johnny Winter) - 7:00
Disc 3 Live Johnny Winter And 1971
1. Good Morning Little Schoolgirl (Don Level, Bob Love) - 4:35
2. It's My Own Fault (Jules Taub, Riley King) - 11:58
3. Jumpin' Jack Flash (Mick Jagger, Keith Richards) - 4:28
4. Rock 'n' Roll Medley - 6:47
.i. Great Balls Of Fire (Jerry Lee Lewis)
.ii. Long Tall Sally (Enotris Johnson, Richard Penniman, Robert Blackwell)
.iii. Whole Lotta Shakin'Goin' On (Dave Williams, Sunny David)
5. Mean Town Blues (Johnny Winter) - 9:00
6. Johnny B. Goode (Chuck Berry) - 3:22
Disc 4 Still Alive And Well 1973
1. Rock Me Baby (Big Bill Broonzy, Arthur Crudup) - 3:49
2. Can't You Feel It (Dan Hartman) - 3:01
3. Cheap Tequila (Rick Derringer) - 4:05
4. All Tore Down (Joe Crane) - 4:32
5. Rock 'n' Roll (Johnny Winter) - 4:45
6. Silver Train (Mick Jagger, Keith Richards) - 3:34
7. Ain't Nothing To Me (Eric Dunbar) - 3:05
8. Still Alive And Well (Rick Derringer) - 3:44
9. Too Much Secondal (Johnny Winter) - 4:22
10.Let It Bleed (Mick Jagger, Keith Richards) - 4:11
11.Lucillie (Richard Penniman) - 2:45
12.From A Buick Six (Bob Dylan) - 2:38
Bonus Tracks 11-12
Disc 5 Saints And Sinners 1974
1. Stone County (Richard Supa) - 3:36
2. Blinded By Love (Allen Toussaint) - 4:29
3. Thirty Days (Chuck Berry) - 3:02
4. Stray Cat Blues (Mick Jagger, Keith Richards) - 4:18
5. Bad Luck Situation (Johnny Winter) - 2:50
6. Rollin' 'Cross The Country (Edgar Winter) - 4:35
7. Riot In Cell Block #9 (Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller) - 3:12
8. Hurtin' So Bad (Johnny Winter) - 4:41
9. Bony Moronie (Larry Williams) - 2:39
10.Feedback On Highway 101 (Van Morrison) - 4:26
11. Dirty (Johnny Winter) - 4:00
Bonus Track 11
Personnel
Disc 1 Johnny Winter 1969
*Johnny Winter - Lead Guitar, Slide Guitar, Harmonica, Vocals
Formed from the ashes of two disbanded rival groups that had played the same southern circuit, The Allman Joys (based in Florida) and the Men-its (based in Alabama), the group was booked in early 1967 into a month-long engagement in St. Louis, Missouri, where they met members of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, whose manager, Bill McEuen, arranged for them a contract with Liberty Records.
Moving to Los Angeles, they were soon opening for groups like The Doors and Buffalo Springfield and recording their eponymous debut album, full of lighthearted poppy soul that was quite contrary to what the group was performing in various clubs and theatres in California such as the Fillmore West and Troubadour, picked out by the label from a pool of songwriters including Jackson Browne. The album flopped, perhaps because the group, aside from Gregg Allman, was sparsely used in the studio.
Onstage, the group rarely performed tracks from the album, preferring original material by the younger Allman alongside covers of Otis Redding and Yardbirds songs. Over the next few months, however, the group lingered, unable to perform outside of southern California due to label constraints. Eventually losing bassist Mabron McKinney, they soldiered on, performing concerts and recording a second album, Power of Love, which featured bassist Pete Carr. However, like their debut, Power of Love, which also featured the songwriting skills of Gregg Allman and material that fit the group much better than the material on their debut, flopped.
Pulling out one last-ditch effort by leaving Los Angeles to work at the legendary FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, the group recorded a handful of tracks that, for once, showed their full potential in the studio. After these tracks were rejected by the label, the group became dejected and broke up. The group over, Duane and Gregg Allman went to Jacksonville, Florida where they jammed with folk-rockers The 31st of February, featuring drummer Butch Trucks. The others went to do session work in Muscle Shoals.
With his brother back in Los Angeles, Duane Allman temporarily joined his fellow bandmates in Muscle Shoals, eventually forming The Allman Brothers Band, enticing his brother back from Los Angeles.
In 1966 Jack Grunsky located in Vienna Austria, and for ten years he was in the top of the European charts as a singer and songwriter, a few years of which with Jack’s Angels. He had his own weekly radio show “Folk with Jack” on ORF, before he returns back to Canada in 1974.
This is his first turn in 1966, full of beautiful acoustic folkies, backing them by his voice and guitar, most of them are original compositions except five covers.
Tracks
1. A Hard Time - 1:55
2. The Sound Of My Baby's Footsteps - 3:18
3. Ten Thousand Candles (Carolyn Hester) - 1:56
4. Ramblin' Boy (Tom Paxton) - 2:27
5. The Peculiar Time Of Year - 2:07
6. Follow The Drinkin' Gourd (Traditional) - 2:00
7. Can't Help But Wonder Where I'm Bound (Tom Paxton) - 2:43
8. Over The Sea - 2:32
9. Wild Horses - 2:15
10.New York's Jewels (Butt Wegscheider, Jack Grunsky) - 2:32
Jason Humberto Ephraim Rivera was born January 19th, 1951 in Cuamo, Puerto Rico and grew up in Southern California. He made a living performing as a gifted professional musician and was a recording artist back in the 1970s. His album “Jode” on Vanguard Records, recently earned a gold record.
A very interesting release that has some fantastic cuts, from the rockers “I Think It’s The Man”,”Let The Morning Shine” and “Miscommunication” to the mellower “There’s No Reason To Cry”, “Did You Not Hear Me” and “Tomorrow Is Gone”. An album that you’re sure to enjoy."
Three Man Army was a British hard rock band active in the first half of the 1970s. The group was formed by Adrian Gurvitz and Paul Gurvitz, formerly of The Gun. Following the band's dissolution, Adrian played with Buddy Miles and Paul played with Parrish & Gurvitz, then reunited as Three Man Army. Their debut album, A Third of a Lifetime, featured several drummers, including Miles, Carmine Appice (of Vanilla Fudge) and Mike Kellie (from Spooky Tooth). Tony Newman, who had previously played with Sounds Incorporated and Rod Stewart, joined for the group's next two albums, and a fourth album was planned but never recorded. Newman then left to play with David Bowie, and the Gurvitzes united with Ginger Baker as the Baker Gurvitz Army.
The band was often praised for their tight and professional live performances, yet, at the end of the day, none of their records had made it into the charts. This 2005 album release offers almost forgotten material of Three Man Army from Gurvitz' archives in a sound quality which leaves no wishes unfulfilled, it is actually the fourth Three Man Army album, after A Third Of A Lifetime (1971, on Pegasus), Mahesha (1972), and Three Man Army Two from 1973 - the second longplayer which the band released on Warner Bros.
Tracks
1. Three Days To Go - 4:26
2. Dog's Life - 2:56
3. Jubilee - 4:34
4. Look At The Sun - 3:18
5. Don't Wanna Go Right Now - 5:20
6. Come To The Party - 2:28
7. Let's Go Get Laid - 3:52
8. Doctor - 2:42
9. You'll Find Love - 3:26
All songs by Adrian Gurvitz
Three Man Army
*Paul Gurvitz - Vocals, Guitar, Bass
*Adrian Gurvitz - Vocals, Guitar, Slide Guitar, Organ
Although ‘Good Morning Starshine’ sounds way different from the previous three, it is nonetheless a masterpiece. It featured a considerably altered lineup and a departure from the sound on the group’s past psychedelic pop works, toward blues rock. With the arrival of Jim Pitman and Gene Gunnells, this album has a decidedly harder sound too, with the rollicking long version of “Miss Attraction” and the bluesy “Changes”. They released a single of “Good Morning Starshine” from the hit and hip musical “HAIR”. Touring the U.S.A. one of their opening acts was the young Lynyrd Skynyrd who bassist Ed King later joined in 1972, playing on their first three albums for Sound Of The South/MCA.
Tracks
1. Me And The Township (Jimmy Pitman) - 3:22
2. Off Ramp Road Tramp - 4:16
3. Small Package - 3:55
4. Hog Child - 5:09
5. Miss Attraction - 4:52
6. Good Morning Starshine (Galt MacDermot, Gerome Ragni, James Rado) - 2:22
7. Miss Attraction - 2:41
8. Write Your Name In Gold (Jimmy Pitman) - 3:36
9. (You Put Me On) Standby - 2:22
10.Dear Joy (Jimmy Pitman) - 3:20
11.Changes - 5:21
12.Desiree (Mark Weitz, Jimmy Pitman) - 3:01
13.I Climbed The Mountain (Carl Friberg, Ira Gasman) - 2:59
Contract negotiations of some kind would seem to be the cause for Three Man Army’s long-delayed second album. Recorded in April 1972, Three Man Army wasn’t released in the US until October 1973 and didn’t get a European release until the following year under a different title, Mahesha. Those listeners who bothered to tune in were treated to a tasty second helping of the band’s hard blues/rock, which continued in the same vein (Jimi Hendrix, Cream, Mountain, Robin Trower) as the first album. The group also got a new drummer in the interim, Tony Newman, who does everything that you’d want a drummer in a power trio to do (i.e., kick ass and keep the beat).
If Adrian Curtis/Gurvitz wasn’t a household name, he was building up a reputation among his peers. Buddy Miles asked Adrian to join his band, Buddy Miles Express, after the first Army album, in effect replacing Jimi Hendrix. That led to Adrian being approached by Ginger Baker, Eric Clapton’s former partner. I can’t imagine higher praise for a guitarist than being asked to “stand in” for Hendrix and Clapton. Unfortunately, Three Man Army never got the attention or the support it needed to break through. Psychedelic blues/rock was on the wane, and while some artists such as Trower and Leslie West were able to cash in on their name, not so Adrian Curtis.
The group’s second album is more overtly psychedelic than the first. There is the opening instrumental, which Paul Gurvitz has described as the band’s take on Hendrix’ “Star-Spangled Banner” (source: http://dmme.net/interviews/pgurvitz.html), an unexpected cover of My Yiddishe Mama. Say what you will, if you can make that song rock you can make anything rock. The new trio then gets down to business with the crunchy guitar- and drums-driven Hold On, a logical choice for what should have been the album’s single. (As it turned out, no single was forthcoming.) Come Down To Earth is one of several trippy numbers that reference drug use. (The Trip chronicles a bad trip and duplicates the experience with surreal layers of guitar.) Take Me Down From The Mountain sounds like mountain music with its thumping bass guitar, while Woman marries the band’s psychedelic blues-rock sound with a chorus worthy of George Harrison.
The second side starts with Mahesha, a really cool and heavy song that served as the album’s title in Europe. (“Mahesha” is another name for the Hindu god Shiva, which is about 180 degrees from where this album started.) Take a Look at the Light recalls the songwriting of Clapton and Pete Townshend, two names that invariably come up when I’m listening to Adrian’s music. Of minor interest, the song was originally co-credited to Lee Baxter Hayes, the drummer for the short-lived Sam Apple Pie. (Now there was a band with a bad name.) The album comes to a trippy close with the two-part Can I Leave The Summer and “The Trip,” which kind of foreshadows the strange storytelling of “Mad Jack” from the first Baker-Gurvitz Army album.
I tend to hear Three Man Army as a Robin Trower or West Bruce & Laing with a stronger psychedelic pop influence. You’re less likely, for example, to encounter a 60-second guitar solo from Adrian Curtis. Instead, he frequently overlays the fireworks on top of an existing rhythm part, which ends up sounding like he’s competing with himself for attention. The band mounted a brief US tour after the release of Three Man Army, but the battle for the bright lights of stardom had already been lost. As with all the Gurvitz Brothers projects, Three Man Army/Mahesha is well worth seeking out as an interesting sequel to the psychedelic power trio style that Cream and Jimi Hendrix started.
The Lemon Drops were one of those 60’s pop bands that disappeared from the musical map, with nearly everyone thinking that like so many, they’d gone up in flames … when nothing could have been further from the truth. With a bit of help from the lysergic, a new vision, and a revamping of the band, the core of The Lemon Drops relocated to the west coast and re-surfaced as The Buzzsaw; a power trio featuring ex-Lemon Drops Eddie Weiss [guitar], Gray Weiss [drums], along with Rick Fertel [bass].
The lush atmospheric pop effects of The Lemon Drop were also reformatted, pushing peddle effects to the max, filled with distortion and fuzz to create a sonically more heavy sound, often coming across as Love, and at other times with flashes of The Velvet Underground [especially the Velvet’s song “What Goes On”], along with Jimi Hendrix, though with that being said, their sound was delightfully in and of its time, and not really as heavy as the word heavy may suggest. Hitting the recording studio in 1971, backed by CCR’s manager Max Weiss, the band released but a single 45 rpm that went up in smoke, with nearly no one ever hearing it, as it both flashed back to a Lemon Drops ear song on side A, and with side B containing a track that didn’t really suggest where the band was at at this stage of their career.
It wasn’t until 1995 that all of the recordings done at both Ampex Studios in San Francisco, and those laid down at Pacific Sound Studios, were finally gathered together, unleashing a sort of proto grunge psychedelic sound, filled with melodic vocals over which a sustained wah-wah laced the tracks together, though merely whispering as to where this band might have found themselves, had they had the proper management and production team backing them.
Once you sit down with this grouping of songs, you’ll be surprised at how fresh and up to date they sound, featuring a lo-fi atmosphere that with a bit of reworking, could easily be delivered today without a second thought, and almost no one knowing the true genesis and magic of these tracks.
*** The essential keepers are: “Saturn Is Just A Few Days Away”, “Don’t Listen To Sam”, “U.S. Chick”, “Roll Your Green Grass On”, “In The Country”, “I’ll Be Wanting You”, “Gotta Be Rock n’ Roll”, and “Walkin’ Thru A Rainbow” … most of the other tracks sounded unfinished or in the process to me, with the alternative takes and versions being pretty useless.
by Jenell Kesler
Tracks
1. Saturn Is Just A Few Days Away (Roger Weiss) - 3:12
2. Death Calls (Dick Sidman, Eddie Weiss) - 2:59
3. Linda In Rhinestones - 3:25
4. U.S. Chick - 3:40
5. Roll Your Green Grass On - 3:45
6. Walkin' Thru A Rainbow - 2:57
7. I Really Like To Blow Your Mind - 4:59
8. In The Country - 5:09
9. The Sun Just Come Up On The Other Side - 4:18
10.Gotta Be Rock 'n' Roll - 3:42
11.Saturn Jam (Roger Weiss) - 4:47
12.Don't Listen To Sam - 3:04
13.Nowhere To Go (Eddie Weiss, Gary Weiss) - 4:24
14.Gotta Be Rock 'n ' Roll - 3:56
15.Saturn Is Just A Few Days Away (Roger Weiss) - 4:25
16.The Sun Just Come Up On The Other Side - 4:19
17.Fire It Up - 2:03
18.U.S. Chick - 4:09
19.Nowhere To Go (Eddie Weiss, Gary Weiss) - 3:16
20.Won't You Miss Her When She's Gone - 2:05
21.I'll Be Wanting You - 2:46
22.Such A Nice Morning (Roger Weiss, Eddie Weiss) - 1:47
If this world were truly fair and just then The Creation should’ve been HUGE. I mean I should be able to call up my local oldies rock station that plays “Wild Thing” by The Troggs when it feels like gittin’ down and hear “Making Time” and “How Does It Feel To Feel?” at least 20 times a day shouldn’t I? However this is not the case. Yet The Creation remains a righteous, rocking band unafraid of indulging in Psychedelic whimsy. They shouldn’t be left at the bottom of history’s trash bin so here’s my humble review for you.
If you were to ask me “Le Sam how aware of The Creation were you before this collection came out?” I’d have to ‘fess and say “not much.” Outside of knowing who their #1 fan was - Alan McGee, head of Creation records - I knew nada. McGee obviously named his highly influential record label after them and before that was in a band named after one of the Creation’s B-sides “Biff Bang Pow!” I believe they’re on the new huge sequel to Nuggets which covers the the non-American garage rock scene as well.
What I really love about this comp. is how Guitarist Eddie Phillips like the best of the 1960’s UK guitar alchemists (Townsend, Richards, Clapton, Beck, Page, Harrison, Lennon, the Davies bros., Marriot, Barrett and many others) and the rest of The Creation channel raunchy sass one minute then sensitive pathos the next. The Creation’s debut single “Making Time” makes this intensely clear as Phillips makes the guitar sounds during the “solo” like one big long vicous breakdown with a little bit o' Tourette’s syndrome thrown in.
All the while Vocalist Kenny Pickett raggedly reflects opining “Why do we have to carry on? Are we singing the same old song?” Later, you get the half anthemic rave-up/half anthemic gentle reflection of last night’s romantic triste of “For All That I Am.” Here Pickett reminisces dreamily while the band just pounds at him relentlessly. Phillips was the first using a violin bow on his guitar (this idea was later jacked by Jimmy Page in Zep.) Their best tunes have a Mod-ish sense of humor (almost Who/Kinks-like) and no wonder ultra-hip production god (and early Who/Kinks knob twiddler) Shel Talmy produced the whole of this (both mono and stereo versions as well.) This whole collections just screams "The party starts right now!” and that alone should be reason enough to buy it.
This collection is like a half Singles Collection/Half Odds & Sods thang (I’m not sure if The Creation ever made a full length LP.) You get both mono and stereo versions of a few songs and some kick-ass live versions from a German beat show (where they were major stars in Germany.) The mastering is sublime making Phillips sound more fercious and the band more mighty. If you do indeed feel this disc be more than sure to get Vol. 2 of the Complete Collection called Biff Bang Pow!
