Dave White Tricker – Pastel, Paint, Pencil & Ink (1971)

Artist: David White Tricker
Title: Pastel, Paint, Pencil & Ink
Year: 1971
Format: LP
Label: Bell

Contributed by Eliot W.

In 1971, Dave White recorded a solo album for Bell Records under his family name Dave White Tricker. He co-produced the album with Brooks Arthur and utilized The Crystal Mansion as the back-up band with string and horn arrangements by Al Gorgoni. He recruited his old group, Danny and the Juniors to sing back-up on one of the tracks.

The album was recorded at Brooks Arthur’s 914 studio in Blauvelt, New York. Dave’s co-publisher Artie Kaplan contracted the musicians and played sax on the album. He and his wife Sharon graciously provided accomodations for him at their home nearby.

Dave assembled a band he called The Tricker Troupe to promote the album, play gigs and supplement his writer’s income. After a few engagements they became the house band for two years at the Cedarcrest in South Jersey.

In 1973, Dave trekked to India on a spiritual pilgrimage with Guru Maharaji and changed the name of the band to Divine Light. Shortly after that the band disbanded and Dave White Tricker became Dave White again. (rockandrollisheretostay.com)

Track Listing

1. Barry And Brenda
2. 422
3. Like No Woman
4. Right Now
5. Home
6. Your World, Your Way
7. A Million People
8. We Could Be Loving (Celebration)
9. Loose In The Saddle
10. Just The Same
11. Home Again
12. Creation

Snowball – Snowball (1977)

Artist: Snowball
Title: Snowball
Year: 1977
Format: LP
Label: Guinness

Great hard rock power pop offering on the tax scam Guinness label from 1977. The album featured Long Island’s Joey Carbone and Richie Zito, and was produced by Bob “Robert John” Gallo. The album although released in 1977, was recorded in 1970.

Singer/keyboard player Joey (Joseph) Carbone and guitarist Richie Zito grew up in Brooklyn, New York, discovering rock and roll at roughly the same time. There’s an interview where Carbone said he learned piano from a nun. Still in their teens, the pair formed The Bay Ridge, getting signed by Atlantic Records while still in high school.

Atlantic Records subsequently released a pair of Young Rascals-styled blue-eyed soul/lite psych 45s and while all four sides were quite good, none did a great deal commercially and the group subsequently called it quits.

Carbone and Zito continued their partnership in the short-lived late-1960s/early-1970s pop-rock outfit Snowball. Snowball never made much of a splash, though they obviously managed to record some demo material with producer Robert Gallo who apparently passed the tapes to the Guinness label (as well as recording a couple of his own albums for the label).

Interestingly well known collector/tax scam Aaron Mileski actually tracked down Carbone and Zito who didn’t even know their work had been released.

Musically Carbone and Zito were quite impressive. Carbone had a voice that was flexible and commercial – one of those instruments that would have been an advertising company’s dream. He was also an accomplished keyboard player, while Zito was a grossly under-rated guitarist. Flexible and always tasteful, his work provided many of the album’s highlights. (Bad Cat)

Track Listing

1. When I Wake Up In The Morning
2. Dreams Of A Sunday Afternoon
3. Write Me A Letter
4. I Don’t Wanna See You Any More
5. I Wouldn’t I Couldn’t
6. How Can You Face Love Again
7. So Happy Baby
8. You Never Know What You Have
9. Please Don’t Go Away
10. Lullaby Jean

Garland Jeffreys – Garland Jeffreys (1973)

Artist: Garland Jeffreys
Title: Garland Jeffreys
Year: 1973
Format: LP
Label: Atlantic

Garland Jeffreys (born 1943 in Brooklyn, New York) is an African-American and Puerto Rican singer-songwriter. His music is a unique blend of rock and roll, reggae, blues and soul. Jeffreys is from Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. Jeffreys majored in arts at Syracuse University where he met Lou Reed before The Velvet Underground became active.

In 1966, Jeffreys played in Manhattan nightclubs. Grinder’s Switch, a group founded by him in 1969, released one album before breaking up in 1970 (see October 26, 2011 post). Jeffreys played guitar on John Cale’s 1969 debut solo album Vintage Violence and contributed the song “Fairweather Friend”.

In 1973, he released his first solo album, Garland Jeffreys, on Atlantic Records. Around the same time Atlantic also released a 45 RPM single of a song called “Wild in the Streets” that was not included on the LP (check You Tube). The track received airplay on progressive FM album-oriented rock stations and has become one of his best-known songs. (Soundunwound)

Track Listing

1. Ballad Of Me
2. Harlem Bound
3. Calcutta Monsoon
4. Bound To Get Ahead Someday
5. Lovelight
6. She Didn’t Lie
7. True To Me
8. Lon Chaney
9. Eggs
10. Zoo

Hill, Barbata & Ethridge – L.A. Getaway (1971)

Artist: Hill, Barbata & Ethridge
Title: L.A. Getaway
Year: 1971
Format: LP
Label: Atco

Anybody familiar with L. A. Canyon-rock circa 1970 should be familiar with the name Chris Ethridge. Having more or less made his debut as the R&B-minded bass player with the Flying Burrito Brothers, the man soon went on to become one of Americana’s most in-demand session players, serving with everyone from Phil Ochs to Ry Cooder to Judy Collins.

There’s a good chance that you can find him on more than one of your favorite records. A less recognized part of Ethridge’s career, however, is his time served as a member of Hill, Barbata & Ethridge, a tight congregation of musicians who had until the band’s formation only really been seen working the sidelines of the nascent country rock movement.

John Barbata probably had the highest profile of any of them, having spent several years manning the kit for sardonic folk rockers The Turtles, while singer Joel Scott Hill had only cut a couple of solo sides for small independent labels out of the west coast.

So it was really only with L. A. Getaway that these three really got a chance to shine on their own. Hill, perhaps the largest unknown quantity here, turns up positively mind-blowing on cuts like “Old Man Trouble, ” where he takes Otis Redding’s classic heart breaker and wrenches out one of the most satisfying blue-eyed soul performances I’ve ever heard.

Ethridge, whose bass work has always lain somewhere between Stax and McCartney, finally gets a chance to work out his R&B tendencies, having heretofore been confined mostly to country and folk-rock music. I should also mention the cast of supporting players here, if only to emphasize the weight these cats held in the world of Los Angeles rock and roll. Hammering the piano and Hammond organ are none other than the holy quadrumvirate of Leon Russell, Spooner Oldham, Booker T. Jones, and Mac Rebennack. Clarence White throws down some trademark guitar solos.

If there is any part of this record which disappoints, it is in the fact that the band here relies so much on other people’s material. Though songs like Dr. John’s swampy “Craney Crow” and Allen Toussaint’s woozy closer “So Long” are given strong and inspired readings, the most memorable moments come with Ethridge’s numbers, such as the barnstorming “It’s Your Love, ” which could have been a radio staple had fortune only dealt more cards in their favor.

His laconic vocal drawl on the twangy title track, a wry kiss-off to the smoggy city, makes one wish he had gotten a chance to record more of his own material in this way. Otherwise, the band’s treatment of rock and roll standards like Chuck Berry’s “Promised Land” and Sonny Boy Williamson’s “Eyesight To the Blind” are fun, but not remarkable. It’s a shame that L. A. Getaway didn’t get the chance to develop further than this one album. All three musicians would go on to other high-profile ventures, though I would argue that their sum was greater than their parts.

John Barbata would serve time in many different bands through the seventies, from Jefferson Airplane to Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, while Hill joined up with Canned Heat for a couple of years. Eventually, him and Ethridge were reunited in a latter-day incarnation of the Flying Burrito Brothers, though the recordings they made under that name, including 1975′s Flying Again, are a solid disappointment, especially in regards to Hill’s vocal performances.

L. A. Getaway did in fact see a compact disc reissue in 2004, courtesy of Water Records, but it has since fallen back out of print. At this point it’s probably easier to track down an original vinyl copy, though if the word gets around one hopes that this long-neglected classic will soon be made available again. (The Rising Storm)

Track Listing

1. Bring It To Jerome
2. It’s Your Love
3. Long Ago
4. Craney Crow
5. The Promised Land
6. Ole Man Trouble
7. Eyesight
8. L. A. Getaway
9. Big City
10. So Long

Chelsea – Chelsea (1970)

Artist: Chelsea
Title: Chelsea
Year: 1970
Format: LP
Label: Decca

Chelsea was possibly the best-known of the several Peter Criss bands before KISS, and issued this lone self-titled album in 1970, by means of Decca, featuring vocalist Peter Shipley, both guitarists Mike Brand & Chris Aridas and bassist Michael Benvenga, besides of Criss on drums & vocals (credited as Peter Cris here).

As expected, the music has little to do with the KISS heavy metal, being Chelsea an admixture of post-psychedelia and folk rock specks, including every now and then certain attempts at hard rock (“Hard Rock Music”, “Long River”).

The songwriting is nothing to write home about, but ain’t bad, even some cuts are pretty interesting, namely “Ophelia”, the aforementioned “Long River”, ‘Let’s Call It A Day” or “Polly Von”.

I guess that most of the people interested in this album will be curious KISS fans, other than that, it was only an obscure album of the later famous “Catman”. (death metal doll RYM)

Track Listing

1. Rollin’ Along
2. Let’s Call It A Day
3. Silver Lining
4. All American Boy
5. Hard Rock Music
6. Ophelia
7. Long River
8. Grace
9. Polly Von
10. Good Company
11. Beck

Great Bear – Great Bear (1971)

Artist: Great Bear
Title: Great Bear
Year: 1971
Format: LP
Label: Scepter

Great Bear were a blues rock group from Wilkes-Barre, Pa that consisted of John Gonska (guitar), Michael Boback (lead vocals-keyboards), Paul Metzger (lead vocal-percussion-tympany-drums) and Bob Gryziec (bass). Background vocals provided by The Chimes, Norman Letinski and Great Bear.

Among the mostly original Michael Boback songs on this album which run the gamut from rock, rural, blues, progressive and gospel, the group performs three covers including the Joseph Longoria track “I’m Gonna Build Me A Mountain” which first appeared on his Joseph “Stoned Age Man” LP (which was also released on Scepter Records in 1970), the Chuck Berry song “Almost Grown” and Mac Rebennack’s (Dr. John) “Headin’ Closer To Home”  (Jaque Itzch)

Track Listing

1. I Took It Too Long
2. Headin’ Closer To Home
3. All Of Her Best
4. Poor Rich Man
5. I’m Gonna Build A Mountain
6. Hand Me To The Lord
7. Almost Grown
8. Cinderella
9. The Last Page Came Too Soon
10. Going Away
11. The Singer Left Before His Song
12. Summation