1969, part 5
This is the last installment of my 1969 retrospective: American albums ##31-40.
Born from the ashes of the Buffalo Springfield, the original lineup of Poco sported Richie Furay, Jim Messina, virtuoso slide guitarist Rusty Young, and George Grantham. They combined for an underrated country-rock classic of high spirits and high harmonies.
This is Boz before he went soft-rock. As the covers of Jimmie Rodgers’s “Waiting for a Train” and a spectacular 12-minute-plus version of Chicago bluesman Fenton Robinson’s “Somebody Loan Me a Dime” show, he used to be more down-home. It’s the latter, with Duane Allman wailing on a series of guitar solos, that makes this a classic, though it’s worth noting that it comes in the middle of side two and is followed up by the Boz original “Sweet Release,” which sounds worthy of the Band or the Stones. Recorded at Muscle Shoals with much of that hallowed establishment’s house players, this is as soulful as Boz ever got.
The cynically named Bread (as in money) was the product of three veteran sessionmen/songwriters – David Gates, Robb Royer, and James Griffin – who decided to go all-out for commercial success. But it was a freewheeling time, and there’s nothing rote or formulaic here; even the song that later became a hit single, “It Don’t Matter to Me,” had to be recorded in a slicker, mellower, less eccentric version to reach the charts. This is a moody set of 12 tautly structured pop gems, the best album they ever made.
This underrated band’s debut relies rather heavily on extended versions of covers (“Bluebird,” “Lost Woman,” “Stop”), but they sure do sound great on them. Not as great, though, as they do on two of Joe Walsh’s finest songwriting efforts, “Take a Look Around” and “Collage,” or on the hard-rockin’ riff jams “Funk #48” and “I Don’t Have the Time.” Made while all three band members were attending (or at least enrolled at) Kent State.
January’s CCR release may have been their least offering of the year, but still boasts “Born on the Bayou,” “Proud Mary,” and “Keep on Chooglin’.”
Don’t believe the received wisdom about Sweetheart of the Rodeo being the last good Byrds album, because this one, which is nearly as strongly imbued with country style, is a winner as well. For one thing, Clarence White’s brilliant guitarwork is all over this disc. And while there’s a bit of filler, the title track is beautiful, there are some excellent covers, and “Oil in My Lamp,” “Jesus Is Just Alright,” and “Gunga Din” are undeniably classics.
This band was an odd and not always cohesive mix of jazzy pretensions and commercial aspirations, and David Clayton-Thomas’s vocals sometimes annoy me. But “God Bless the Child,” “Smiling Phases,” “And When I Die,” “You’ve Made Me So Very Happy,” and “Spinning Wheel” make this a classic.
“It’s Your Thing” is the main attraction, one of the all-time great R&B productions. “I Know Who You Been Socking It To” kills as well, and while a lot of this LP pretty much repeats the same ideas, it’s such a good sound that it’s hard to complain.
Kicking off with the irrepressible “I Got a Line on You,” Spirit’s sophomore effort offers alternately rockin’ and jazzy psychedelia that style-hops with aplomb, mixing atmospheric production, monster riffs, rich vocal harmonies, and the imaginative guitar stylings of Hendrix protégé Randy California. He and Jay Ferguson split the songwriting and come up with 11 tracks greater than the sum of their parts.
A Detroit soul group that recorded in Memphis, for a great mix of urban soul and Southern grease. The sweet bit of hyperbole “Ice Cream Song” was a hit at the time (1969) and suggests the Miracles, while other tracks are redolent of the Temptations.
