Can we talk about early-mid70s West Coast post-psych/pop/rock/folk-rock/country-rock?

</thread derailment>

How's that American Flyer LP, anyone?

I don't know if this is the thread where I expressed by lack of enthusiasm for I Wish I Could Remember My Name, but I've come around a bit. I listened to it on a car trip recently, and it was a great, not-too-mellow antidote to driving boredom.

'Garcia' - Jerry Garcia

i really couldn't hang with the american flyer deal (there's a 2fer cd, right?) i returned it, waaaaaaaaaaay to MOR, and not in the good way (i really disliked the voices of the guys who aren't doug yule)

Fair enough. I thought the line up looked kinda interesting, but because of Yule mostly...

I just printed out this thread and added it to my binders full of suggested discogs of genres/styles I'll get to later in life. Thanks guys.

ha, that american flyer album is one i pull out at least once a year and say "'cmon, it's gotta be GOOD. How can it not be good?" And yet ...

It was a couple Dave Mason records I was surprised I liked that got me to reopen this thread in the first place, by the way. Does he fit in here?

Haven't heard his solo albums, but his work with Traffic fits a couple of streams of association with others mentioned on this thread. All that about Cowboy, and even Grinderswitch, because when I saw them on the same bill (Wha? That's the mid-70s for you), people were saying, "H'mm. Those boys sound lak Traffic." That's what they were saying about Cowboy; about Grinderswitch, they were saying, "YEEEEEEHAAAA!" (Soon after,Cowboy's Tommy Talton toured with Johnny Sandlin and Bill Stewart, mentioned in that bio Scott pasted upthread, and they did a week at a club not far from where I live. With local keyboardist Jabbo Stokes, they sounded like Jeff Beck with Stevie Wonder's band, though Jabbo wisely didn't try to sing like Stevie. I posted about this [and the recent all-star benefit for Scott Boyer, who also still has a band, the Decoys, in North Alabama] on Rolling Country, so will shut up about it now). The other stream of association is that Dave Mason also did an album with Cass Elliot, Alone Together, one of the best/most pertinent titles ever, ever, and Cass is also one mighty baby on the finally reissued proto-folk-rock Mugwumps album (Collector's Choice, but doesn't sound like poop this time, Scott!) This is true folk times rock, despite and yet somehow in part because of Cass's Tin Pan Alley fixations (she wanted to be Streisand? Anyway, she's taught herself to belt in tune, without overdoing that, like Ronstadt can)(But where are the *Stone Poneys* on this thread? "You and meee, we're marching to the beat of a *different* drum.") Southern children of this thread: Tift Merritt's Bramble Rose (re Ronstadt-Raitt-Larsen and the writers they covered), and some of her former backup musos are most of Chatham County Line, a great song band, if you don't mind a little bluegrass. They know their Zevon (and his collaborators), and thier Hunter/Garcia, their Randy Newman. Ditto Jason Isbell, finally out of the Truckers, but with them playing his way on his album, Sirens Of The Ditch (out Tues., and my review will be in Voice d'rectly). Currently listening to Johnny Irion's Ex Tempore, also featuring Tift and members of CCL, but more like the kind of orchestrated granola, not Thos. Jefferson Kaye (upthread), so much as the sort thing he exploited (produced for others and took sly piss out of on his own)

fraser and debolt
canadian

Chatham County Line's second album (blanking on title) is a bit stiff, compared to the first and third (start with the latter, Speed Of The Whipoorwill). Also, more on the psych side, Oakley Hall's Gypsum Strings (shock of the Wilderness! But they're hardy folk); Howe Gelb's 'Sno Angel But You (good, despite the title)isn't orchestrated, but has a small choir, swooping like the wind across the plain and plane(but not too much), plus The Arcade Fire's drummer (and Howe's guitar and keyboards, and that's 'bout all they need).

fraser and debolt
canadian

-- delta88, Saturday, July 7, 2007 5:24 AM

have you heard meg baird's (one of the espers gals) version of the waltze of the tennis players??? awesome stuff

also, never saw this before
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHYQr8meeog&mode=related&search=

I finally picked up a copy of the Charley D and Milo record that Scott always talks about and yeah so blissful and pretty. I wasn't expecting it to be *that* pretty. What a super, super, album. Thanks Scott for the recommendation!

Listening to the Eagles "On The Border" right now. so awesome.

listening to this right now:

http://static.rateyourmusic.com/album_images/48267.jpg

which, as far as i know, is just matthews southern comfort without matthew. someone tell me if i'm wrong. they apparently put out three albums on their own. and it's good too. no real decline in quality. lotsa nice harmonies.

i can't see the cover. I want to. I've never heard of or hear Southern Comfort without Iain. I want to, though.

whoops, sorry! i can't see it either. try this:

u.s./canada cover:

http://www.coolforever.com/temp/southerncomfort_frogcity_jefflp_may2006.jpg

u.k. cover:

http://991.com/newgallery/Southern-Comfort-Frog-City-380144.jpg

Frog City! what year did it come out?

I just spent the afternoon sunning & swimming w/my son, came home and put on Garden Party by Rick Nelson and am totally feeling that early-mid 70s West Coast post-psych/pop/rock/folk-rock/country-rock.

"what's up my mellow"

garden party is such a genius album. just jaw-dropping to me.

frog city came out in 71. so did later that same year. which was the last matthews southern comfort album.

i bought garden party not really knowing what to expect other than i liked the actual song garden party. god it just sounded so amazing and beautiful.

i love the double album of rick's country stuff that i have too.

Thanks for all that Mason info upthread, dow!

then there is ANOTHER album that came out in 71 on Harvest:

http://991.com/newgallery/Southern-Comfort-Southern-Comfort-257890.jpg

and now i am kinda curious about this completely different u.s. band who had one album in 1969:

http://static.rateyourmusic.com/album_images/449192.jpg

listened to moby grape '69 today too. it is summer after all. and the last vetiver album! doesn't fit time-wise for this thread, but it definitely gave me a warm west coast feeling. some of their stuff on that album reminded me of what i liked about beechwood sparks.

can we please get a head-count of who hates and who likes beechwood sparks? i know some people hate them for some reason and i have no idea why. i really dug their stuff. i still want to get the stuff of theirs that i haven't heard. i only have the first full-length and that affiliated album by The Tyde that i also really like.

Moby Grape's Wow/Grape Jam double-LP may be the only one of theirs not mentioned yet on here. Mainlywhat I remember isMoseley on the one that starts,"Working 'til e-leh-eh-ven..."That one got me. Later he joined the Marines, while the Vietnam War was still going strong. Didn't know he did a solo album! Wonder if he's still active/alive?

beachwood sparks with better vocals coulda been great. the first record had the best songs, but they played with more confidence on the second (and it was better produced than the debut). the final ep was kinda interesting, showed them moving out of the overtly retro thing, sorta, or at least away from country-rock thing.

If you like Beachwood Sparks Scott check out a now defunct side project of one of the main members called AllNightRadio. They take the whole west coast/pop/country/folk thing and change it up a bit with more psych and less overt pop structure. Kinda what Gershy was saying about the final ep and part of the reason they broke up, the more forward thinking dude went on to AllNightRadio.

I've been digging Unicorn's Blue Pine Trees LP from '74. David Gilmour pretends to be Garcia on pedal steal -- he's great. Unicorn sound very much like the British version of New Riders. The LP isn't as consistenly cosmic as the first two New Riders LPs, but there are several peak moments, particularly "Sleep Song," which is literally a cosmic country/smooth British pop ode to sleep!

I finally got my in-house turntable working again this weekend, and one of the first things I listened to was the first side of Leon Russell and The Shelter People. Jammy goodness and too underappreciated on this thread. I've swiped Hank Wilson's Back and the live TRIPLE ALBUM from my dad's library recently. Will report back soon.

I need to look into those Russell jams. Is it bluesy stuff or more soaring West Coast magic?

In the last week, I've interviewed Weir, Tom Shipley (of Brewer & Shipley), and Richie Furay (of Poco). I'm ass-deep in West Coast sounds.

C.Grisso/McCain, have you heard Asylum Choir II? Leon and Marc Benno, who seems to have pretty much disappeared after AC, though he did at least one solo album. II used to be a party favorite in our trailer park, especially "Down On The Base" (Base Exchange party favors, whoo hoo! An important part of Southern culture, on or off the skids). Speaking of Jason Isbell, here's my review of his solo debut, Sirens Of The Ditch (smoother and more consistently tuneful than the Truckers, but closer to Zevon and Newman than the Eagles--maybe if Ronnie Van Zant had gone solo, and kept going--?) http://www.villagevoice.com/music/0728,allred,77190,22.html

Haven't heard Asylum Choir II. I did recently pick up the new reish of Look Inside The Asylum Choir, their first set from '68 (IIRC, II was cut the next year but temporarily shelved). It was ok studio psych. I actually haven't played HWB and the live set yet, though I'll probably dip into the former when I get home. As for The Shelter People LP, it actually is a loose mix of blues, country, and some soaring West Coast magic, with all three coming together beautifully in the opening cut, "Stranger In A Strange Land." There are also a couple of cool Dylan covers ("A Hard Rain's A Gonna Fall" & "It Takes A Lot To Laugh..."). Side 1 is more rock and souled-out, side 2 is mellow come down stuff.

somethings i've been digging alone these lines.

http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/drh100/h181/h18112ljmb9.jpg
the Wackers "Wackering Heights" - Gary Usher produced record that amg gets right on: A charming, sunny debut disc from a group that somehow managed to blend the Byrds and the Monkees into a pop sound that was as intelligent as it was catchy.

Johnny Rivers "Realization" - i've never listened to him before, but after my mom telling me she dated him for 2 years after she and my dad split up, i decided to check it out. really nicely produced w/great plucked bass sound. kinda reminds me of Gene Clark.

Don Everly "Sunset Towers"

Wait, your Mom dated Johnny Rivers? How'd she meet him? I used to go out with a girl whose Mom went out with Don Preston of the Mothers (I think he also played with Leon; they were both from Oklahoma.) "Donnie" wa long gone by the time I got there Her Mom was this cool old Southern Alabama-to-Southern Cali hipster, homegrown. Um, anyway, don't know if they're on that album, but you gotta hear "Summer Rain," "Poor Side Of Town" "Baby, I Need Your Lovin'," "Secret Agent Man."

I just spotted Poco "Legend" for a buck. Picked it up. None too impressed, but I see it wasn't mentioned upthread, so I'll try a couple more.

I just put on the first Aztec Two-Step album and am shocked at how much I'm liking it. Not west coast, really more 'soft rock' than anything in the thread title, but definitely feels post-psych/folk-rocky.

first aztec two step is probably their best. really nice. great jerry yester production too. the guitars sound awesome.

yeah i like that aztec two-step record.

i don't know much by him, but john stewart interests me. "july you're a woman" popped up on my ipod tonight.