Rainbow "The Best Of Rainbow" 1975-1981(rec) 1981(comp)*****

Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow was the first record I ever bought, in my early teens. It captured my imagination, both musically with its rocking guitars and emotive ballads, and lyrically with its sword-and-sorcery imagery. After a couple of years I got this compilation which lasted me for almost a decade - i.e. until I decided to get their complete discography on CD. I wasn't in a hurry to do that, since (almost) every Rainbow song you need is here; since it was released in 1981, it omits the band's last two LP's with Joe Lynn Turner but that's no great loss - not to dis the singer, but I'm not a fan of those albums' commercial sound. As for my favorite Rainbow song ever ("Temple Of The King") it's conspicuously absent from most of their compilations and was excluded from the band's concerts until their 1995 re-emergence with Doogie White on vocals. It seems the band never really liked it, maybe it was too acoustic for them. In Greece, though, it was hugely popular. Everyone playing acoustic guitar in the 80's just had to learn it, it was one of the most requested "foreign" songs around the campfires and friendly gatherings of the era. Other than that, though, these 16 songs represent the very best Rainbow have to offer. We'll examine them chronologically, although the compilation doesn't take a chronological approach, trying to achieve a balance between the 4 LP sides. Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow (1975) was recorded as a solo album when Blackmore was still with Deep Purple. He's backed here by Ronnie James Dio's band Elf, minus the guitarist. From that album we get one of the all-time classic heavy riffs of "Man on the Silver Mountain", medieval fantasy rocker "Sixteenth Century Greensleeves" and fantastic power ballad "Catch the Rainbow".

For the second album Rising (1976), Rainbow morphed into a proper band. The first of countless personnel changes included Jimmy Bain on bass, Tony Carey on keys, and powerhouse drummer Cozy Powell. Both of the album's 8+ min. epics ("Stargazer" and "A Light in the Black") are included, as well as radio friendly single "Starstruck". A hugely influential album, Rising can arguably be considered a precursor to both the prog metal and power metal subgenres. We get nothing from the live album On Stage (1977), and I can't say I mind at all. Sure Rainbow were great live, but their performances were too long and over-indulgent. If I have to choose, I'll always prefer the studio version. Their last album with Ronnie James Dio, 1978's Long Live Rock 'n' Roll continued in similar vein; despite the absence of an epic like "Stargazer" it's still a great album. We get here the proggy, strings-augmented, "Gates of Babylon", proto-power metal "Kill the King", and the celebratory title track whose catchy chorus has made it an absolute live favorite. Most people (myself included) consider the 3 albums of the Dio/Blackmore era to be the band's pinnacle, but Blackmore was intent on taking a more commercial direction which Dio was unwilling to follow - enter Graham Bonnet for 1979's Down to Earth.

The band for this album also includes Blackmore's former Deep Purple bandmate Roger Glover on bass and production duties, future Deep Purple organist Don Airy, and Cozy Powell. 4 tracks from the album are selected for inclusion: a cover of Russ Ballard's AOR rocker "Since You Been Gone" was their highest charting single so far, with the equally earworm-y 2nd single "All Night Long" following suit. The latter was criticized for its "sexist" lyrics e.g. "I saw you standing down by the stage/Your Black stockings and your see through dress...Don't know about your brain/But you look alright". Yes, the lyrics are so bad they could be a Spinal Tap-style parody. "Lost in Hollywood" is another AOR piece, while the relatively underrated "Eyes of the World" successfully bridges their new commercial sound to the earlier neo-Classical style, and may well be the best song on the LP. Now, Bonnet wasn't your typical hard rock singer but he did well for the band; he could even pull off Dio material in concert but that wasn't enough for Blackmore. Exit Bonnett and Powell, enter Joe Lynn Turner and Bobby Rondinelli for 1981's Difficult to Cure. From this line-up we get the 3 hit singles: "Can't Happen Here", Russ Ballard cover "I Surrender", and the eponymous track from the Jealous Lover EP (1981). It's cool radio-friendly stuff, and they'd release 2 more successful albums with Turner, but writing catchy hit singles is not what Blackmore will be remembered for. In the end he chose to return to his hard rock roots by resurrecting Deep Purple in '84. Anyway, if you're into vinyl this is the best (not to mention only) way to get almost every essential Rainbow song in one place. I kind of like the album cover too - no wonder as it's designed by Hipgnosis. There's also a CD version, though it's not as exhaustive as, say, Catch The Rainbow: The Anthology. Curiously, even that one finds no place for "Temple Of The King ", despite its 2,5-hours running time. WTF?

***** for Man on the Silver Mountain, Long Live Rock 'n' Roll, Stargazer, Since You Been Gone, Sixteenth Century Greensleeves, Catch the Rainbow, Eyes of the World, I Surrender, Gates of Babylon

**** for All Night Long, Lost in Hollywood, Jealous Lover, Kill the King, A Light in the Black, Can't Happen Here, Starstruck

McDonald and Giles "McDonald and Giles" 1971****

This is a curiously underrated album, seeing as it is a sort of sequel to one of Rock's great masterpieces, In The Court Of The Crimson King. While early King Crimson had no single leader, Ian McDonald probably had the most significant input in their debut, having written the eponymous song and "I Talk To The Wind", co-written the other 3 tracks together with the other band members, and played wind instruments, mellotron and other keyboards. But after a lengthy US tour, he and drummer Micheal Giles quit the band to start something different. Reasons cited at various times include the pressure of touring, artistic differences with guitarist Robert Fripp, and dissatisfaction with the dark ("evil" was one of the words used) tone of the ...Court album, especially its lyrical content. So after the tour, McDonald started working on the finalization of half-written tracks that he initially intended to contribute to King Crimson, while the Giles brothers (Michael and bassist Peter) recorded In The Wake Of Poseidon together with the rest of K.C. If ...Poseidon ended up sounding like ...Court's poor cousin (still quite rich compared to other albums of the era, of course), then McDonald and Giles is its younger sister: lighter, prettier, with less gravitas, yet still sharing some of its DNA. Just compare the two covers: the loving couples and pinkish colors of this one to the toothy scream of ...Court. Which doesn't mean this is easy listening or pop in any way. It's still a proggish album with many-layered compositions and complex playing. 11-minute opener "Suite In C" is a patchwork of mini-songs: a 3-minute Syd Barrett-like ballad part is followed by another featuring flute solos, complex improvisations by the rhythm section and jazzy piano and organ courtesy of Mr. Steve Winwood. ("Turnham Green"). Then there's a part with dreamy vocals ("Here I am") followed by a sax solo, emotive strings, and a bluesy ending. Follower "Flight of the Ibis" is based on McDonald's original melody that evolved into KC's "Cadence And Cascade". This version has other, more romantic, lyrics, Beatlesque harmonies and airy zither playing. Different from the KC version but equally gorgeous. "Is She Waiting?" is another beautiful folky ballad, and the good vibes continue with "Tomorrow's People-The Children of Today", written by drummer Michael Giles and dedicated to his children. The drums throughout the album are fantastic, complex and melodic rather than just rhythmic or hard-hitting, but here they are especially dominant. The song has often been raided for drum samples, most notably by The Beastie Boys on "Body Movin'". All of this comprised Side 1 of the vinyl album with a long song-suite called "Birdman" taking up all of Side 2. On CD this is broken down in 6 parts. It's the only song where they used KC lyricist Peter Sinfield, and the text here is a cut above their usual, rather naive, style. Part I "The Inventor's Dream" is introduced with some multi-tracked harmonies and continues with washes of zither and whimsical singing. This part sounds already a bit outdated for 1971, which isn't too strange seeing as work on this song started in 1968 - basically all the tracks were written 1967-1970, and the recorded May-July 1970. Part II "The Workshop" features jazzy sax and funky drumming, with Giles also using different household objects for percussion to give a literal meaning to the "workshop" of the title. "Wishbone Ascension" and "Birdman Flies!" are a couple of rather melodic song snippets, and "Wings in the Sunset" a short choral piece seguing into the transcendental instrumental "Birdman-The Reflection". Starting with a bit of piano, the song keeps building up with the addition of more choral vocals, then strings, woodwind, drums and horns, finishing with a soaring crescendo. There is definitely something Floydian about it, though a better comparison would be with a much more recent work, Spiritualized's Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space LP. While not quite on the same level with the majestic In The Court Of The Crimson King, I'd wholeheartedly recommended this album to anyone who enjoyed that album, or melodic jazzy prog like that of the Canterbury scene.

***** for Flight of the Ibis

**** for Suite In C including Turnham Green Here I am And Others, Is She Waiting?, Tomorrow's People-The Children of Today, Birdman Flies!, Birdman-The Reflection

*** for Birdman/The Inventor's Dream (O.U.A.T.), The Workshop, Wishbone Ascension, Wings in the Sunset

Niemen Enigmatic A.K.A. Czesław Niemen "Niemen Enigmatic" AKA "Człowiek Jam Niewdzięczny" AKA The Red Album 1971****

What a mess this is! No, I don't mean the album, I mean the title. On discogs this is registered as the eponymous album by the band Niemen Enigmatic. It's actually an LP by popular Polish singer Czesław Niemen, whose backing band in the 1970-71 period was called Enigmatic. But that's also the title of his previous album Enigmatic. So Enigmatic (1969) by Czesław Niemen is a different album to Niemen Enigmatic (1971) by Niemen Enigmatic featuring Czesław Niemen. To complicate things further it also circulates under the Polish title Człowiek Jam Niewdzięczny, and sometimes as plain Niemen. To simplify them, everybody just calls it The Red Album. Niemen was born Czesław Juliusz Wydrzycki in 1939 in a village in Belarus, which was at the time divided between Poland and the USSR (after W.W.II it was completely engulfed by the USSR). In the 60's, he embarked on a career as a pop singer in Poland. His publicity photos of the time show him wearing multicolored hippy outfits and long hair, which must have turned a lot of heads in Communist Poland. He used to play pop and soul music, but around 1969 he embarked on a more progressive direction with longer pieces incorporating jazz and classical elements. The 20+ minute opener "Czlowiek Jam Niewdzieczny" takes up all of size 1. It starts as an organ-based ballad ("Whiter Shade Of Pale" comes to mind) and turns into a long jam with many solos - bass and drums too, though the organ and guitar are most prominent. There are also some pretty cool female backing vocals here and there, as well as nods to early Deep Purple (Mk.I), Traffic, and the Jullie Driscoll/ Brian Auger collaborations.

"Aerumnarum Plenus" and "Italiam, Italiam" are nice jazz-soul ballads, "Enigmatyczne Impresje" a rocking instrumental à la Small Faces, "Wruc Jeszcze Dzis" and "Zechcesz Mnie Zechcesz" are upbeat soul rockers, the latter with nice piano instead of the usual Hammond. "Chwila Ciszy" features some sizzling electric guitar and funky bass, "Nie Jestes Moja" his most emotive vocal, and "Sprzedaj Mnie Wiatrowi" some folk-prog flute. Side 4 of the (double) LP closes with "Muzyko Moja". The combination of Hammond organ, hard rock guitars and soul vocals is reminiscent of contemporary Atomic Rooster (with P.J. Proby on vocals). Overall I'm once again impressed with how much with the times (if not ahead of them) a rock band from East Europe could be. Maybe the "Iron Curtain" wasn't that impenetrable after all? Or -maybe, just maybe- it was shielding us Westerners from learning that on the other side there was youth culture, rock'n'roll and modern art. Meanwhile, the Western stereotype of East European youth at the time was uniformed soldiers and androgynous women working out beneath portraits of Lenin, training to beat our athletes at the Olympics. I wonder which side was consuming more propaganda. But in any case, this LP is just as as progressive as anything coming from the UK at the time - and more so than most U.S. groups. It's notable for its fresh mix of jazz, soul and hard rock, excellent musicianship, and some experimental touches that nevertheless take care not to alienate the audience. I must admit that, despite him having a strong and soulful voice, I can't warm up to Niemen's vocals. I think it has to do with the Polish language - not because I am unfamiliar with it, but because I don't think it fits with this kind of music. In any case, this is an excellent album well worth discovering. I'm now eager to delve deeper into Polish rock - I already have a compilation of Niemen's early pop soul stuff, but I'd like to find more albums in this style. SBB and Skaldowie are two more Polish prog groups worth hearing, as well as new wavers Republika and the Anglo-Polish Porter Band - all to be presented in this blog sometime.

**** for Człowiek Jam Niewdzięczny, Aerumnarum Plenus, Italiam Italiam, Enigmatyczne Impresje, Wróć Jeszcze Dziś, Sprzedaj Mnie Wiatrowi, Zechcesz Mnie Zechcesz, Chwila Ciszy 

*** for Nie Jesteś Moja, Mój Pejzaż, Muzyko Moja

The Rising Sons "Rising Sons" 1965-66(rec)****

One might consider the Rising Sons as the first blues rock supergroup... except that they were formed the opposite way than how supergroups usually do: None of the members was famous before or during their time with the group, but they went on to become famous later: Taj Mahal & Ry Cooder as solo artists (they've released around 40 albums - each!), initial drummer Ed Cassidy played in psych rockers Spirit (along with his stepson, Randy California) and his replacement Kevin Kelley in The Byrds. According to the liner notes Cassidy can be heard in some of these tracks, but that's probably false as he left early in 1965. The band also included the (lesser known) Jesse Lee Kincaid (rhythm guitar & vocals) and Gary Marker (bass). They came together in 1964 when Cooder was only 17 years old and Mahal (née Fredericks) 22, fresh out of agricultural college. Both were students of traditional folk blues at a time when that genre was almost forgotten: black audiences were listening to R&B soul, white ones were about to discover the electric blues via the British invasion bands or "purists" like Eric Clapton and Paul Butterfield, but the downhome sound of the Delta was something that belonged in the Library of Congress. Cooder and Mahal, though, took those old Skip James and Sleepy John Estes songs and gave them life, playing constantly around L.A. They only released one 7' single (Candyman/The Devil's Got My Woman, 1965) but seem to have had a pretty big influence in what was later called the San Francisco sound (Grateful Dead, Quicksilver M.S., Charlatans etc) with their mix of electric and acoustic instruments, folk, blues and rock. Another aspect that was before of its time was the integrated nature of the band. Arthur Lee's Love and the Butterfield Blues Band would follow soon, but mixed race bands remained contentious till the late 60's. They recorded a bunch of songs that remained unreleased until 1992 - or almost: there were already some bootlegs around for a time. The source for this (by a label called Israphon, probably Israeli) CD must have been this vinyl bootleg, seeing as the the titles coincide (the songs were given different titles later). It found its way into my collection before the official release, also at a time before file sharing, so I can brag I've heard these songs before 99% of the rest of the world. 

Label logo for this (bootleg) reissue

Also, apparently the official release contains some contemporary overdubs by Taj Mahal, so the original raw recordings are still difficult to find. Now when I say raw, that doesn't mean that the performance of sound quality is sub par; these are not demos, it's a finished album produced in a real studio by the producer of The Byrds, Terry Melcher. It just stayed on the shelf for almost 3 decades. Rev. Gary Davis' "Candy Man" is a jaunty sped-up country rock tune, and Skip James' "Devil's Got My Woman" is notable for Cooder's superb slide guitar. Both songs are included  in two (quite similar) versions, apparently one of them is from the 7' single while the other comes from the aborted LP. Jesse Lee Kincaid has written a few tracks here, all quite good: "32-20" is a blues rocker with cool harmonica and electric guitar, "She Don't Love Me No More" sounds like a pop-fied Elmore James. The folky "Spanish Lace Blues" is reminiscent of Dylan, "Sunny Street" of Donovan, and "Sorry To Tell You" of The Beatles. Another pop song is The Monkeys' "Step Outside Your Mind" (AKA "Take A Giant Step") played here as garage blues. Taj Mahal would later record a slow acoustic blues version - similar to what he does here with "Corrina" and "2:10 Train". "Walking Down The Line" and "Down To Mexico" are jangly folk rock ala Byrds, "By And By" is a slow blues dominated by Cooder's slide guitar, while Estes' "Diving Duck Blues" and Howling Wolf's ''Got My .44" is the closer they get to electric Chicago Blues. Had the album been released in its time it might not have been a hit but it'd be considered a classic seeing as it moves slightly ahead of the times. Still very much worth discovering, a veritable "Buried Treasure" album in any time.

***** for Candyman, The Devil's Got My Woman, Step Outside Your Mind (AKA "Take A Giant Step")

**** for Diving Duck Blues, Untitled 1 (AKA Spanish Lace Blues), Got My .44, Sorry To Tell You (AKA Flying High), Down To Mexico (AKA Tulsa County), Untitled 2 (AKA 2:10 Train), She Don't Love Me No More, 32-20 (AKA I Got A Little), By And By, Sunny Street, Walking Down The Line, Candyman v.02, The Devils Got My Woman v.02, Corrina

*** for Sorry To Tell You (Reprise)

John Prine "Pink Cadillac" 1979****

I've said it before, I wouldn't want to turn the blog into a series of obituaries, but I had been thinking about presenting this album anyway when news came that John Prine had died at 73, from complications related to a COVID-19 infection. Hopefully the virus will not rob us of any more great musicians and songwriters, but with such erratic world leaders as Donald Trump and Boris Johnson I'm afraid that's just wishful thinking.

Prine has never been a commercial artist, but he's considered by connoisseurs an expert songwriter and storyteller, given accolades ranging from the all-too-banal "new Bod Dylan" to the most flattering "Mark Twain of songwriting", a reference to the warmth, humor and astuteness of his observations of everyday life in America. He was also a firm opponent to the Vietnam war - although he had safely served at the U.S. bases in Germany, he witnessed too many friends return from Vietnam mentally and physically damaged to stay silent, and he put their plight into song. Pink Cadillac isn't among his best records; in fact Rolling Stone magazine called it at the time "an almost unqualified disaster". I added it nevertheless to my collection for two reasons: firstly, it has the reputation of being his most rocking record; secondly in an interview of his that I read in Uncut, he defended it more than any other of his albums, and said that its bad reception and lack of promotion by his label prompted him to forswear major labels and establish his own indie company. Apparently his object was to get rid of the studio sheen and make a raw, live-sounding, record as a tribute to the early days of rock'n'roll - and what better place to do that than Memphis' Sun Studios, where Elvis, Jerry Lee, and others started the career? The album was produced by Sam Phillips' sons Knox and Jerry, while the old man himself came out of retirement to produce two tracks: the acoustic country ballad "How Lucky" and rocker "Saigon" (about a PTSD-ridden Vietnam vet). In the latter, Philips deliberately overloaded and blew up the guitar amp, giving it a noisy, fuzzed-out, sound. 

Opener "Chinatown" is a rootsy rocker with loud guitars that reminds me of latter-day Dylan, mostly because of the nasal vocal. "Automobile" is a worthy successor to the classic rockabilly cut in the Sun studio, with great guitar and harmonica. "Down By The Side Of The Road" could easily have come out of Dylan's contemporary LP Street Legal, judging from the instrumentation and style, right up to the female backing vocals. The rest of the songs are all covers. Three of them are rockabilly classics: "Ubangi Stomp", "Baby Let's Play House" and "No Name Girl" -  the latter is a duet with Billy Lee Riley who co-wrote the song with "Cowboy" Jack Clement, and has a nice Bo Diddley beat. Lastly, there are a couple of country ballads: Roly Salley's "Killing The Blues" has some R&B elements (Hammond organ, sax, and female backing vocals), while Floyd Tillman's "Cold War (This Cold War With You)" is straight-up honky-tonk material. The covers didn't go down well with critics but, maybe because I like old-timey rockabilly or because I don't necessarily expect literature from rock and country records, I don't see why they dis this LP. I guess that Prine isn't in his best vocal form - writing like Dylan is an admirable quality, sounding like him much less so. Nevertheless there's a spontaneous, fun, vibe about the album that I like. Too bad that the man who beat cancer twice was defeated by what many still think of a "kind of flu". Well, the guy had his own ideas for the afterlife: "When I Get To Heaven...I'm Gonna Have A Cocktail/ Vodka And Ginger/ And I'm Gonna Smoke A Cigarette/ That's Nine Miles Long" he sang in his last record. Sounds like The Plan, John! R.I.P.

**** for Automobile, Killing The Blue, No Name Girl, Saigon, Down By The Side Of The Road, How Lucky

*** for Chinatown, Cold War (This Cold War With You), Baby Let's Play House, Ubangi Stomp

The Backbeat Band "Backbeat-Songs From The O.S.T." 1994****

Now that we're locked down because of the COVID-19 situation it's a good opportunity to watch some of our favorite movies again. Until recently I used to host movie nights at my house, now I'm sort of curating an online rock movies festival, picking music films for the usual crowd to watch - each from their own home. "Backbeat" was among my first choices. I like the way it combines music biopic, romance and buddy movie and, as the film stops just before the band becomes famous, it manages to eschew some of the worst movie biopic cliches.

  

For those who haven't seen the movie, and who don't recognize any famous bands on the cover, this is a movie about the 5 Beatles: John, Paul, George, Pete and Stu. You've probably heard of the Beatles referred to as the fab FOUR, and of someone called Ringo. But there really were 5 of them to start with, and the movie is focused on the 5th Beatle Stuart Sutcliffe, his friendship with Lennon, and the love story between him and German photographer Astrid Kirchherr. I don't want to give away too many details, but I guess I'm not spoiling anything if I tell you that Stu leaves the band to be a painter in Hamburg, Pete is replaced by Ringo Starr, and The Beatles embark on a journey to fame and success. 

When it came to the soundtrack, one has to remember that these are the young Beatles as straight-ahead rock'n'rollers, before they encounter their manager Brian Epstein who re-invented them as a pop band. The music had to convey the excitement of the time as well as to appeal to 90's youths, because this is basically a youth film about love, friendship, and opening up to the whole wide world, not a nostalgia trip for those who had lived through the 60's. So producer Don Was managed to gather an impressive cast of musicians from the 90's alternative music scene: Greg Dulli (The Afghan Whigs) and Dave Pirner (Soul Asylum) on vocals, Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth) and Don Fleming (Gumball) on guitar, Mike Mills (R.E.M.) on bass, and Nirvana's Dave Grohl on drums. They play the same rock'n'roll covers the The Beatles did in Liverpool and Hamburg clubs when they started out. The performances are wild, energetic, and authentic if probably a bit louder than The Beatles were at the time. It's fair to say that the musicians involved are much better than The Beatles were at that stage of their career, but they bring more than their professionalism to the project; they bring their sense of fun and excitement, which is what makes this album work as a standalone garage rock'n'roll record regardless of its connection to the film. Highlights include "Money", "Bad Boy", "Twist and Shout", "Please Mr. Postman", "Good Golly Miss Molly" (all lead vocal by Dulli) and "Roadrunner" (by Mike Mills, even if he sounds too American for a Beatle). David Pirner takes the lead vocal on "Long Tall Sally", "C'mon Everybody" and "Twenty Flight Rock". There are no bad or dull moments in this 11-song, 27-minute LP, but of course it's a covers album so there's nothing revolutionary either. Just a short, fun, rock'n'roll record. Isn't that enough?

**** for Money (That's What I Want), Bad Boy, Twist and Shout, Please Mr. Postman, Roadrunner, Good Golly Miss Molly

*** for Long Tall Sally, C'mon Everybody, Rock & Roll Music, Slow Down, Carol, Twenty Flight Rock

Eric Burdon & the Animals "Winds of Change" 1967*****

"The Black Plague" by Eric Burdon & The Animals keeps revolving in my mind since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is a lively account of a medieval epidemic, totally out of synch with the rest of the album which is full of warm Summer Of Love vibes. I wonder what prompted Burdon to write something like that. One thing's for certain, neither he nor any of us could have guessed we'd be living through similar times in the 21st Century.

I discovered this album in 1988, and it immediately made my all-time Top Ten. It's still a favorite of mine, though the fact that it reminds me of my freshman year in the university may have something to do with it: many new friends, parties, late nights out, political discussions and discovering a lot of cool music. My (slightly older) girlfriend of the time was a bit of a hippy chick with a penchant for psychedelic rock, she was the one who introduced me to this album. Of course I already knew Eric Burdon, I had even seen him live earlier that year and was impressed by his soulful and energetic performance. But this was a different side of him, mellow and often introspective. You see, in 1967 he had recently met a little chemical called LSD and embraced a whole new philosophy and sound. On opener "Winds Of Change" he half-sings/half-murmurs lyrics drawing a straight line from jazz and blues pioneers to new counter-cultural icons (Zappa, Dylan, Ravi Shankar). This, and the following "Poem By The Sea" feature violin, sitar, gong, reverb-heavy vocals and guitars, and special effects (splashing waves, rustling wind etc). The latter segues into a majestic version of "Paint It Black" that arguably surpasses The Stones' original. Saturated in John Weider's electric violin (reminiscent here of John Cale's viola in early Velvet Underground) it starts off slow and builds in intensity with propulsive drumming and a passionate and dramatic vocal performance by Burdon. Its performance (and the unveiling of the New Animals) at the Monterey Pop festival and film was one of its highlights. It's followed by "The Black Plague", one of the weirdest pop songs in a mainstream rock album. It's a Gothic piece featuring acoustic guitars, Gregorian psalms, chiming bells and the recitation of a tale reminiscent of Edgar Allan Poe's Masque Of The Red Death: The Black Death comes to a Medieval town and the peasants' bodies pile up everywhere while the rich lock themselves behind the sturdy castle walls hoping they will keep them safe. As big a contrast as one can find to the sunny vibes of "San Franciscan nights", a paean to Haight-Ashbury "flower children" that caught the zeitgeist and became a Top Ten hit on both sides of the Atlantic. "Anything", another mellow ballad, is a love song - to a lover, or to a friend, or to the whole wide world; the new "experienced" Eric Burdon loves everyone and everything, he says so on the album cover. "Yes I Am Experienced" refers of course to psychedelic drugs. It comes as a direct answer to (his friend) Jimi Hendrix's "Are You Experienced?" and adopts a similar musical style. "Man-Woman" is an everyday tale of (extra) marital love recounted over some funky drumming and sparse electric guitar, seguing into wistful ballad "Hotel Hell" embellished with Spanish guitars and melancholic trumpets. The album's second single is "Good Times", a catchy and beautifully orchestrated tune about "all the good times that's been wasted having 'good' times" - i.e. drinking booze instead of dropping acid. The closing "It's All Meat" is the meatiest track of the LP, a funky hard rocker about one-ness or something similar. I can see why cynics abhor this album's hippy-dippy philosophies, but I applaud Burdon for his earnestness. You can see he means every word and isn't just jumping on the 1967 "Peace & Love" bandwagon (yes I mean you, Mick and Keith!). Musically the album is quite bold, featuring complex instrumentation and trying out many different styles, though not always successfully. 

The Double CD Edition of "Winds"..." and "The Twain..."

There's a CD reissue adding two nice R&B rockers in classic Animals style ("Ain’t That So" and "Gratefully Dead") which, while good, sound out of place here. Another reissue (which I have, no bonus tracks) couples this with its similarly-sounding successor The Twain Shall Meet. Usually if I owned an album both on vinyl and CD form, I'd sell the vinyl (yeah, I know...OK? No use rubbing it in now!). These two Animals albums, though, are among the few that survived the great vinyl purge - that shows appreciation! At best this is a psychedelic masterpiece, at worst it's a time capsule that transports you straight to the "Summer of Love" - in any case I don't see how you can go wrong with adding it to your collection.

***** for Paint It Black, San Franciscan Nights, Hotel Hell, Good Times

**** for Winds of Change, The Black Plague, Anything, It's All Meat

*** for Poem by the Sea, Yes I Am Experienced, Man-Woman