Seagull – Seagull (1970)

Artist: Seagull
Title: Seagull
Year: 1970
Format: LP
Label: Burdette

Seagull were a Seattle-based duo consisting of Jonathan Perry (violin) and Ronald Orden (guitar). The album is a conceptual piece of Folk Rock Fusion Jazz New Age Violin/Bass/Guitar pertaining to the “day in the life” of a Seagull.

Released on the Burdette label (Springfield Rifle etc.), this fits in very well with the “New Age” genre and was recorded way ahead of it’s time in the early part of the seventies. (Howard Hales Broom)

Track Listing

1. Dawn
2. I Can Fly
3. Toward Heaven
4. Within Us All
5. Power Dive
6. Seagull
7. No Limit

Tedd Smith – Smash And Grab World (1969)

Artist: Tedd Smith
Title: Smash And Grab World
Year: 1969
Format: LP
Label: Word

This is truly a great but often overlooked psychedelic Christian album on the very unpsychdelic Word label. And an obscuro fringe record to say the least. This is Tedd Smith’s attempt to convert all the drugged out hippies into nice Christians, I presume as he was a Billy Graham sidekick. But he had an ace up his sleeve. He was going to be working from the inside.

By making an album that sounded psychedelic, he could reach the people that needed help the most. The drugged-out hippies who actually seek out strange noises, exotic instrumentation and trippy lyrics! Perhaps Tedd Smith’s little spoken word bits have been the problem for those seeking heady sounds these days as they do tend to devalue the rest of the albums mood.

The mood being an unworldly mix of avant-garde, Egyptian circus keyboards and drums, semi-fuzz spy guitar, and the beautiful folky-fragile voice of Joan Hettenhouser that swirls and pulsates into a nice 60’s sound experience. And man what a voice. Whether she’s singing about “jumping for joy” or how all the kids are “getting high on grass and acid arrows”, Hettenhouser can create an atmosphere with the best of them. It’s a crime she isn’t better known.

Evidently, she was also in a Christian Rock band called The Sons of Thunder who released four albums starting in 1968. She certainly has a sound that belongs on the Hippie Goddess compilations. Tedd’s keyboards and songwriting, if not directly influenced by psychedelics, have enough second-hand exposure to make them seem genuine.

The rest of the band was probably sneaking away now and then behind Tedd Smith’s back to engage the practices that he was preaching against. They certainly sound “experienced”. Towards the end of “Runnin’ Man”, it starts to feel like I’m dreaming and floating away and I thank Heaven for Tedd Smith’s creations.

Even if he didn’t fulfill his intended purpose, his music is definitely nice to get high too (or remember getting high). In the end, the joke’s on Tedd Smith if he thinks that he could possibly convert a wayward soul with his jams.

He seems more converted into the psychedelic culture than vice versa in my book. I guess he got his revenge with those dreadfully awful spoken word sermon poems that he threw into the album though. If you can overlook this, you’re in for a treat with this album. He ventures places that few have or ever will. (Shane Georges)

Track Listing

1. Jump For Joy
2. Games
3. Smash And Grab World
4. A Little Understanding
5. Circles
6. The Runnin’ Man
7. Outside
8. The Good I Would Be

Risa Potters – Take Me Away (1972)

Artist: Risa Potters
Title: Take Me Away
Year: 1972
Format: LP
Label: Buddah

Risa Potters’ follow-up album “Take Me Away” released in 1972 and featuring backing and vocal arrangements by the group Capability Brown. “Introspective, Emotional  and Brilliant. Underrated 70s bubbler rated as a “Best Buy” in Acid Archives.” (Backspin Records)

Track Listing

1. Take Me Away
2. Too Many People
3. Second Choice
4. Birds
5. Moving
6. Love Song
7. It Must Have Been Hard
8. My Mistake
9. I Think I Always Knew
10. Traveling Man
11. If I Could Sing

Risa Potters – Half Woman/Half Child (1970)

Artist: Risa Potters
Title: Half Woman/Half Child
Year: 1970
Format: LP
Label: National General

Miss Potters’ lovely voice is only one plus in this debut album for National General; her perceptive songs translate youth’s dealing with family, friends and life’s experiences in a simple poetic fashion. “Michael”, “Half Woman/Half Child” and the outstanding “I Made My Father Cry” are exellent examples of her art.  (Billboard Magazine)

Track Listing

1. Half Woman/Half Child
2. Lullabye
3. Old Man
4. I Made My Father Cry
5. Michael
6. Harvey Wrote A Play
7. Ned
8. I Want To Have Your Baby
9. Did You Ever See The Mountains?

Elliott Randall – Randall’s Island (1970)

Artist: Elliott Randall
Title: Randall’s Island
Year: 1970
Format: LP
Label: Polydor

You know. You just don’t know you know. Elliott Randall is an amazing guitar player, who did mostly session work. Remember a lot of those hound dog howling, jazz polished blues solos on early Steely Dan albums like Can’t Buy a Thrill”? That’s Elliott.

Hound dog howling jazz is perfect to describe Randall, and not just because I wrote the phrase. Randall is old school, from when being a great guitar player meant knowing how to play EVERY blues scale in EVERY possible inversion–not going to the top of thy neck, gripping thy whammy bar for thy life and going WEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

But Randall had jazz chops–major jazz chops. Buy Randall’s Island and listen to “Sour Flower,” a rock steady stomp. Randell is all over it, with speed, when it fits, choppy skid outs, when it fits–every trick in the book guitar players used to assume were part of axe, 101.

Most of Randall’s Island mixes jazz and blues and of course, Randall’s amazing work on the six string. All the tracks have great writing, and though Randall is a very flashy guitar player, there is twice the substance for every ounce of flash–something big hair idiots forgot when guitars started to come in pink and black zebra skin. (DJ Bill)

Track Listing

1. Sour Flower
2. Life In Boanical Gardens (Oh, Yes)
3. Take Out The Dog And Bark The Cat (Oh, No)
4. Mumblin’ To Myself
5. Brother People
6. Jolly Green Giant And The Statue Of Liberty
7. Bustin’ My Brains
8. All I Am’s

Arthur Blessitt & The Eternal Rush – Soul Session At ‘His Place’ [Vinyl] (1968)

Artist: Arthur Blessitt & The Eternal Rush
Title: Soul Session At ‘His Place’
Year: 1968
Format: LP
Label: Creative Sound

Can you say hippie? Hollywood street preacher Arthur Blessitt could as well as a host of other late-60′s slang terms. Blessitt was known for hosting the all-night psychedelic nightclub His Place in the center of Hollywood’s Sunset Strip, attracting “acid heads, speed freaks, bikers, prostitutes, hippies, pushers, Hell’s Angels, Black Panthers…’, etc.

Though Blessitt’s nightclub (with it’s logo of a fused cross and a peace sign!) is long gone, those of us who missed this era can get a taste of what it was like via this little vinyl encapsulation. The album breaks down into three parts: The Sermon – Blessitt’s 16 minute message doesn’t bear up for repeated listening, but is worth hearing once to catch him encouraging his audience to not drop downers, but to “drop a little Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John”.

The Music: three songs of low-tech garage rock by The Eternal Rush – a band of converted drug addicts including Charles McPheeters’ brother Jim.The Soul Session: this is the highlight, a hilarious 14 minute combination of song, sermon, and comedy, recorded live at His Place.

Blessitt’s pouting-televangelist preaching style (punctuated with phrases of “Can You Dig It”, “Take A Trip With Me”, “Bummer”, “He’ll Give You A High…”, etc. is backed with a slow country gospel piano and chintzy organ, with the band singing “Jesus” (more accurately moaning) through the whole thing, coming off as a strange “Red-Sovine Turns Hippie Jesus Freak” tearjerker ballad and making for a most unusual listening experience.

Hear Blessitt’s half-tongue-in-cheek “visions” of a transformed Hollywood where the Whiskey-A-Go-Go becomes the Jesus-A- Go-Go, the Classy Cat becomes the Saved Cat, the crap tables are cut down to make prayer altars, and the sheriffs carry Bibles in their gun holsters.

But beneath Blessitt’s apocalyptic lunacy there’s a seriousness that goes beyond the “Jesus Is Cool’ attitude prevalent in the Superstar era. Oddball relic from another time. (Ken Scott)

Track Listing

1. Glory Hallelujah [The Eternal Rush vocal - O.J. Peterson]
2. White Slavery, Black Panthers And The Hell’s Angels [Arthur tells it like it is]
3. God’s Love [The Eternal Rush vocal - Jim McPheeters]
4. Tell It To Jesus [The Eternal Rush]
5. Soul Session [Arthur Blessitt and The Eternal Rush]
   

Arthur Blessitt – The Jesus Witness (1972)

Artist: Arthur Blessitt
Title: The Jesus Witness
Year: 1972
Format: LP
Label: Word

Classic bizarro stuff by Hollywood hippie street preacher Arthur Blessitt, ministering to drug addicts and other lost souls. Explains how to spread Gods love by such methods as sneaking into adult bookstores and slipping scripture between magazine pages. Hmmmm. And get this hes credited with saving none other than George W. Bush (no kidding, i couldnt make that up).

And this is extra-funny: ever see the movie Starman, where Jeff Bridges plays an alien, and he learns human mannerisms really quickly? Well, if you remember the scene where he gets picked up by Bubba the truck driver, and he mimics Bubba’s facial expression? Blessitt looks exactly like that here! hilarious! (black gem records)

Track Listing

1. The Jesus Witness (Part One)
2. The Jesus Witness (Part Two)
3. The Jesus Witness (Part Three)

The Jon Bartel Thing – The Jon Bartel Thing (1969)

Artist: The Jon Bartel Thing
Title: The Jon Bartel Thing
Year: 1969
Format: LP
Label: Capitol

The Jon Bartel Thing consisted of Jon Bartel (keyboards), Lou Stellute (horns), Larry O’Brien (vocals-strings) and Abe Blassingame (percussion).

This was their first album released on Capitol, a great record full of brass dominated, jazz influenced psychedelic. The album was recorded at the Record Plant and produced by Jimmy Curtiss (The Hobbits, Velvet Night etc.) who created his own label, Perception the same year. In 1971 Jon Bartel in fact did release an album on Perception entitled “Bartel” which is the rarer of the two albums and i will try to post a review in the future.

1969 found Curtiss and Perception having arranged a distribution deal with Capitol. It also saw the release of “The Jon Bartel Thing” – same line up, different, cooler name … Co-produced by Curtiss and Terry Philips, the results made for one weird record.

Showcasing a mixture of Curtiss-penned numbers (co-written with Ralph Green and Marcia Hillman), the album offered up a strange mixture of hard rock (“Where Can I Hide”), pop (“This Girl In Springfield”), conventional soul (“No Doubt About It (He’s Your Man)”), psych touches (“There’s Gotta Be Something Better”), and conventional jazz (the instrumental “So What”)

Those diverse genres occasionally collided within the same composition (check out the totally bizarre “Listen To the Silence”). A hard album to accurate describe (which may explain the absence of much info on the web), but if you were to imagine early Blood, Sweat and Tears with a singer who was better than David Clayton Thomas and a band with a harder rock orientation and you’d be in the right aural neighborhood.

Given the liner notes didn’t provide a great deal of information, I’m going on the assumption that namesake Bartel handled the lead vocals (turns out it was Larry O’Brien). If so, he had a great soul-influenced voice which made you wonder why producers Curtiss and company hadn’t opted for a more conventional collection.

To underscore how good his voice was, I’ve never been a big fan of the T-Bone Walker classic “Stormy Monday”, but these guys turned in a killer version of the track. I even liked the scatting section of the performance. Geez, never thought I’d say something like that! For those of you really into this kind of stuff “Freak Show” also showed up on the Curtiss Velvet Night project. (Bad Cat)

Track Listing

1. Where Can I Hide
2. Listen To The Silence
3. No Doubt About It (He’s Your Man)
4. Stormy Monday
5. Freak Show
6. Headin’ On
7. There’s Gotta Be Something Better
8. Time Machine
9. This Girl In Springfield
10. So What
    

Odyssey – Odyssey (1972)

Artist: Odyssey
Title: Odyssey
Year: 1972
Format: LP
Label: Mowest

Odyssey were a Folk, Funk and Soul group that featured Warner “Doc” Schwebke (bass), Donnie Dacus (guitar), Royce Jones (vocals) and Don Peake (guitar). Other members included Billy Pierce (vocals), Gene Pello (drums) and Kathleen Warren (vocals-vibes-electric piano-piano).

Schwebke began his career in the early 1960′s playing for several Eugene, Oregon rock bands including the The Sires then made his way to San Francisco in 1966 playing the coffeehouse circuit gigging with the likes of Billy Roberts of “Hey Joe” fame.

After a stint with The West Coast Blues Band, Schwebke headed to Los Angeles and became a studio bass player for MoWest, Barry Gordy’s west coast Motown outlet. During this time, he appeared on network television with Bonnie Bramblett in a show called “Live Concert”. Perhaps the biggest artist he played with at MoWest was Barry White.

During this period, he then found himself playing for an early, pioneering band known as Odyssey, which recorded an under appreciated (at the time) album that stretched and honed his creative abilities as a songwriter and player. That band had a contract with a small label, but couldn’t hold it together waiting for that big break to happen.

During the 70′s, Doc played for many artists including touring with Tobias Wood Henderson in Texas, the Stephen Stills Band in California and eventually hooking up with the Bonnie Bramblett group.

He also found himself working with Donnie Dacus who was then playing for Stephen Stills and later with work the the band Chicago. Doc collaborated with Donnie to write songs for both groups. The platinum selling albums “Illegal Stills” by Stills and “Hot Streets” by Chicago both included songs that Doc helped pen.

Dacus began in a teenage band called The Shux, in honor of Jimi Hendrix. In 1966, the band played at a Mardi Gras in Fort Worth, Texas. After graduating from Cleburne High, Dacus left the band to record with another band, the Yellow Payges (see November 23, 2010 post).

Dacus played guitar on Chris Hillman’s 1976 album, “Slippin’ Away”. He also worked on Crosby, Stills, and Nash’s CSN album, doing background vocals and playing rhythm guitar. A few years later, he teamed up with Stephen Stills for several projects. On Stills Dacus has two writing credits, and on Illegal Stills he is featured prominently.

In 1978, Dacus was cast as Woof, a supporting character in the movie Hair, and about the same time, jazz-rock band Chicago selected him as a replacement guitarist and vocalist after the death of Terry Kath. His debut with Chicago (Hot Streets) went to #12 and platinum, but not without controversy amongst the fans. Dacus also was in the lineup for Chicago 13, which was the least commercially successful of the band’s albums to that point.

After the 1979 tour in support of Chicago 13, Dacus was dropped from the band for undisclosed reasons. Chicago used session guitarists for Chicago XIV, then added guitarist Chris Pinnick as a full-blown member following his studio work on Chicago 16. In 1982 Dacus resurfaced, joining Badfinger for a tour, and in the late 80s, he was involved in the Broadway musical Cats.

Royce Jones is a Grammy-winning American musician best known for his work as a touring vocalist with the bands Steely Dan (in 1973) and Ambrosia (joined 1978). Royce Jones is now in The Royce Jones band, also formally a member of eight piece horn band called Stonebridge. He also worked with The Platters.

Don Peake is a multi-talented musician who has worked as a guitarist, arranger, record producer, and film music composer. Starting his professional musical career as a guitarist in 1961, Peake’s talent was recognized early when he toured as lead guitarist with the Everly Brothers at the age of 21, playing in the U.S. and Europe for two years.

Peake established himself as a recording musician, and played for many of the legendary performers under Phil Spector’s production including The Righteous Brothers – “You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling”, Ike and Tina Turner – ” River Deep Mountain High”, as well as recording with Mahalia Jackson, Billy Preston, Cannonball Adderly, Marvin Gaye, and Diana Ross.

In 1964, Peake became the first white guitarist to play with the Ray Charles Orchestra, touring with Charles, and recording with him for ten years. During that time, Peake studied guitar with Barney Kessel, Howard Roberts, and Joe Pass, three legendary guitarists.

Peake became one of the premiere session guitarists in Los Angeles, recording for Jan and Dean, The Mamas and the Papas, Sonny and Cher, The Beach Boys, and many others. Don was inducted into an elite group of musicians led by drummer Hal Blaine known as “The Wrecking Crew“.

He played lead guitar for Marvin Gaye (Let’s Get It On), and on all the Jackson Five’s original hits, “ABC”, “I Want You Back”, etc. Don was on the Commodores, Smokey Robinson, The Supremes, The Temptations, and many more Motown Artists’ records as a Staff Guitarist for Motown Records. It was during his tenure at Motown that he joined in the Odyssey sessions.

Peake also played on John Lennon’s records that Phil Spector produced, and on all of Barry White’s hit records, some of which he arranged. On all of the records that Don Peake has made, he has been a major creative contributor. (J.J. Hildreth)

Track Listing

1. Home Of The Brave
2. Georgia Song
3. Country Tune
4. Gossamer Wings
5. Our Lives Are Shaped By What We Love
6. Wondrous Castles
7. Battened Ships
8. Sunny California Woman
9. Black Top Island (Of The West)
10. Broken Road
    

Ian Whitcomb – Ian Whitcomb’s Mod, Mod Music Hall! [Mono] (1966)

Artist: Ian Whitcomb
Title: Ian Whitcomb’s Mod, Mod Music Hall!
Year: 1966
Format: LP
Label: Tower

Ian Whitcomb’s 1966 follow-up to his “You Turn Me On” album (for more info on that and other Ian Whitcomb posts, see the entries for March 14, 2010).

Flee from this IF you are not enamoured by GB’s Music Hall…as Ian steps right out of GB Edwardian times into the ‘revival shoes’ so beloved by The Temperance Seven, circa 1962, The New Vaudeville Band of Winchester Cathedral fame….

The Bonzos also put their own take on this genre, albeit with more wit and beef, (Viv Stanshill’s Sir Henry Rawlinson further took up the gauntlet, by deepening the psyche wackiness)……

Ian Whitcomb presents a collection of ‘songs’ performed in a style that my gran would have been familiar with…..
‘Poor Little Bird’…kicks off proceedings with a full on mad brass band…with honky tonk piano….off the wall.
‘Get a Date With An Angel’….is Oxford bags lands….sugary sweet and twee in all the correct places….and all with a toy piano accompaniment….

‘The Night I Appeared As Macbeth….he he…high po….this is The Goons on gas….Ian takes on the role of Macbeth as a sub-lieutenant in the First World War British Expeditionary Force…this is way-out beyond the bend….

‘August 1914’…follows on the above WW1 theme…a gypsy fiddler drunkenly sets off…the piano and accordion take up and try to keep up with the French tune…the lads are over in France and all looks set for IT to be over by Christmas….this instrumental is where it’s at……

‘Coney Island Washboard’….takes us over to the Big Apple and we are entertained by Ian and his banjo jug band…we get a stonking kazoo solo too….

‘Mother! Mother! Mother!’……takes us into George Formby land, with ukulele accompaniment…the honky tonk piano chops in with chords and there’s also a manic fairground organ in the mix…. Ian is our wee cheeky chappie here….in the 1970’s Gilbert Sullivan built a career using this voice…

‘The Junkman Rag’….I’m sure this is not Scott Joplin?…Ian knows his rags….he must have had a grin a mile wide playing this instrumental homage to Steptoe and Son….

‘The Sweetheart of Sigma Chi’….adopts Neil Innes vocal delivery on this drug addled ‘dream’……the tune is a light polka with a whole lot of dots in there too….Ian extends this story out to over three minutes…..

‘The Awful Tale of Maggie May’…sees Ian taking on an old jack-tar character….this is a harbour bar-room bawdy ballad, where Ian drops his vocal a couple of octaves…and gargles away while guzzling a bottle of dark rum….he tells his cautionary tale and doesn’t drop character….the tale’s moral is: don’t lie down with the dark ladies of the street, cos when you drop your trousers, you’ll lose your trousers…

‘Where Did Robinson Crusoe Go With Friday on Saturday Night?’…..explores the area so briefly touched by Ed Sanders et al in The Fugs’ ‘It Crawled out of My Hand Honest’…this is another little risqué tale…with the band farting away on brass and Ian rollicking on…on his piano.

‘Saucy Seaside Sue’….has Ian singing out from a Blackpool post-card…we are treated to that ‘special’ fairground organ sound…Ian’s honky tonk piano…..and his ‘twee’ Oxford English voice….

‘Reindeer – A Ragtime Two Step’ gets an extended instrumental work-out here…..the beat is constant though we do get a bit of woozy, boozy wibbly wobbles here and there….this is parlour music that everyone’s favourite ‘clever’ uncle would play every Christmas whilst we plucked the turkey bones.

‘Ida! Sweet as Apple Cider’….chunky chunk…plinkity plink…sort of a tune…Ian delivers his rhyming couplets with aplomb….
‘That Ragtime Suffragette’….is a word-feast full of nonsense…this is as surreal as IT gets……..

‘Oh Helen!’…has our Ian lisping his way through 53 seconds of red-faced flustering and blustering love-struck blues….
‘Your Baby Has Gone Down The Plug-Hole’…for those who have stayed the distance…and wondering about the merits of this album being in a rock sleeve…you must know that the Great Ginger Baker…that monster of Toad fame…closed off Cream’s ‘Disraeli Gears’ with this self-same ‘nugget’ from London’s East End….

And so that concludes Ian’s follow-up to ‘You Turn Me On’… feel lucky that most tracks don’t hang around long….but do know that this is an essential listen for lovers of such tracks gathered on the 1990’s release “By Jingo It’s British Rubbish!”…which takes up the torch of all that is to be found herein….. (Cy from Pck)

Track Listing

1. Poor Little Bird
2. Got A Date With An Angel
3. The Night I Appeared As Macbeth
4. August, 1914
5. Coney Island Washboard
6. Mother! Mother! Mother! (What A Naughty Boy Am I)
7. The Junkman Rag
8. The Sweetheart Of Sigma Chi
9. The Awful Tale Of Maggie May
10. Where Did Robinson Crusoe Go With Friday On Saturday Night?
11. 11 Saucy Seaside Sue
12. Reindeer – A Ragtime Two-Step
13. Ida! Sweet As Apple Cider
14. 14 That Ragtime Suffragette
15. Oh Helen!
16. Your Baby Has Gone Down The Plug-Hole