Grand Funk Railroad - Born To Die (1976)

1. Born To Die
2. Dues
3. Sally
4. I Fell For Your Love
5. Talk To The People
6. Take Me
7. Genevieve
8. Love Is Dyin'
9. Politician
10. Good Things
11. Bare Naked Woman (live rehearsal)
12. Genevieve (live rehearsal)

Alice Cooper - Pretties For You (1969)

Alice Cooper is a West Coast Zappa-sponsored group: two guitars, bass, drums and a vocalist who doubles on harmonica. Echoes of 1967 psychedelia in the oscillators and distorted guitars. Showing here the influence of The Mothers, here the first-wave San Francisco sound, there and almost everywhere the Beatles. But their overall texture and the flow of randomly-selected runs interspersed by electronic gimmicks place them closer to a certain rivulet in that deluge of pre-packaged groups which can be defined as marginal acidrock (references: recent debut albums by Aorta and Touch). Droning fuzz leads overlaid by droning (or is it whining?) Bee Gees vocal harmonies, and ponderous quasi-"baroque" organ wallowings a la Vanilla Fudge. Stereotyped guitar solos, a great many of which seem to derive directly (and not surprisingly) from Ray Davies' great fuzztone explosions on early Kinks hits like You Really Got Me and All Day And All Of The Night. Apocalyptic raveups patented by the Yardbirds. Spoken "poetry" or "trippy" declamations muttered half-comprehensibly over "atonal" guitar gimmicks (dragging the pick across the strings below the bridge, etc.).

I'm not trying to denigrate Alice Cooper's abilities: within the context of their self-imposed limitations, the album is listenable. But there is a way to do these things. I think simplicity and the imaginative use of the cliche are at the essence of rock; but the cliches have to hit you in a certain way, with a certain conviction and energy and timing, to get it on, to spark that certain internal combustion of good feeling and galvanized energies that lifts you out of your seat irresistibly and starts you dancing, balling, just whooping, or whatever—Black Pearl is the most stunning recent realization of this. And it is this that is lacking in Alice Cooper's music. Everything falls where it should, there are none of the gross, ugly, idiotic juxtapositions of the totally incongruous found in much other studio-assembled art-rock. But neither is there any hint of life, spontaneity, joy, rage, or any kind of authentic passion or conviction. As such, Alice Cooper's music is, for this reviewer at any rate, totally dispensable.

~ Review by Lester Bangs, Rolling Stone, Jul 12, 1969.



1. Titanic Overture
2. 10 Minutes Before The Worm
3. Swing Low, Sweet Cheerio
4. Today Mueller
5. Living
6. Fields Of Regret
7. No Longer Umpire
8. Levity Ball (Live At The Cheetah) - (live)
9. B.B. On Mars
10. Reflected
11. Apple Bush
12. Earwigs To Eternity
13. Changing Arranging

James Gang - Rides Again (1970)

With their second album Rides Again, The James Gang came into their own. Under the direction of guitarist Joe Walsh, the group — now featuring bassist Dale Peters — began incorporating keyboards into their hard rock, which helped open up their musical horizons. For much of the first side of Rides Again, the group tear through a bunch of boogie numbers, most notably the heavy groove of Funk #49. On the second side, the James Gang departs from their trademark sound, adding keyboard flourishes and elements of country-rock to their hard rock. Walsh's songwriting had improved, giving the band solid support for their stylistic experiments. What ties the two sides of the record together is the strength of the band's musicianship, which burns brightly and powerfully on the hardest rockers, as well as on the sensitive ballads.

~ Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, allmusic.com.



1. Funk #49
2. Asshtonpark
3. Woman
4. The Bomber: Closet Queen/Boléro/Cast Your Fate To The Wind
5. Tend My Garden
6. Garden Gate
7. There I Go Again
8. Thanks
9. Ashes, The Rain And I

Status Quo - Piledriver (1972)

Though Status Quo is best known for fast and undistinguished boogie rock, they were quite capable of subtlety when it suited them. Despite the name, most of the music on Piledriver is varied and subtle enough to be interesting.

The power boogie is indeed there, as represented by crowd-pleasers like Don't Waste My Time and Paper Plane, but so also are quieter, softer pieces with acoustic textures and progressive structures.

The melancholy A Year is a standout track, a stark, melancholy song about carrying on after a loved one has died. The soft rock intro gradually shifts to a more powerful guitar piece in a way that is reminiscent of early Fleetwood Mac and has that band's delicate sense of dynamics.

Elsewhere on Piledriver the band turns in a very credible slow blues piece and a folk-inflected duet for 12-string guitars. Still, most of the Status Quo fans wanted power rock, and the band obliged with one of their best pieces, the tempo-shifting Big Fat Mama, which actually managed some U.S. airplay, though no actual chart position.

The only major misstep is a version of Roadhouse Blues that only serves to remind the listener what a good vocalist Jim Morrison was. On the whole Piledriver is still an enjoyable listen, one that has aged much better than later albums by the same band or much other hard rock from this period.

~ Review by Richard Foss, allmusic.com.



1. Don't Waste My Time
2. Oh Baby
3. A Year
4. Unspoken Words
5. Big Fat Mama
6. Paper Plane
7. All The Reasons
8. Roadhouse Blues

The Grateful Dead - The Grateful Dead (1969)

The Grateful Dead's eponymously titled debut long-player was issued in mid-March of 1967. This gave rise to one immediate impediment — the difficulty in attempting to encapsulate/recreate the Dead's often improvised musical magic onto a single LP.

Unfortunately, the sterile environs of the recording studio disregards the subtle and often not-so-subtle ebbs and zeniths that are so evident within a live experience.

So, while this studio recording ultimately fails in accurately exhibiting the Grateful Dead's tremendous range, it's a valiant attempt to corral the group's hydra-headed psychedelic jug-band music on vinyl.

Under the technical direction of Dave Hassinger — who had produced the Rolling Stones as well as the Jefferson Airplane — the Dead recorded the album in Los Angeles during a Ritalin-fuelled "long weekend" in early 1967.

Rather than prepare all new material for the recording sessions, a vast majority of the disc is comprised of titles that the band had worked into their concurrent performance repertoire. This accounts for the unusually high ratio (seven:two) of folk and blues standards to original compositions.

The entire group took credit for the slightly saccharine Golden Road (To Unlimited Devotion), while Jerry Garcia (guitar/vocals) is credited for the noir garage-flavored raver Cream Puff War. Interestingly, both tracks were featured as the respective A- and B-sides of the only 45 rpm single derived from this album.

The curious aggregate of cover tunes featured on the Dead's initial outing also demonstrates the band's wide-ranging musical roots and influences. These include Pigpen's greasy harp-fuelled take on Sonny Boy Williamson's Good Morning Little School Girl and the minstrel one-man-band folk of Jessie "the Lone Cat" Fuller's Beat It On Down The Line.

The apocalyptic Cold War folk anthem Morning Dew (aka [Walk Me Out in The] Morning Dew) is likewise given a full-bodied electric workout as is the obscure jug-band stomper Viola Lee Blues.

Fittingly, the Dead would continue to play well over half of these tracks in concert for the next 27 years.

~ Review by Lindsay Planer, allmusic.com.



1. The Golden Road (To Unlimited Devotion)
2. Beat It On Down The Line
3. Good Morning Little School Girl
4. Cold Rain And Snow
5. Sitting On Top Of The World
6. Cream Puff War
7. (Walk Me Out In The) Morning Dew
8. New, New Minglewood Blues
9. Viola Lee Blues

David Bowie - Space Oddity (1969)

When Man Of Words/Man Of Music first appeared in late 1969, David Bowie was riding high. His first ever hit single, the super-topical Space Oddity, had scored on the back of the moon landing that summer, and so distinctive an air did it possess that, for a moment, its maker really did seem capable of soaring as high as Major Tom.

Sadly, it was not to be. Space Oddity aside, Bowie possessed very little in the way of commercial songs, and the ensuing album (his second) emerged a dense, even rambling, excursion through the folky strains that were the last glimmering of British psychedelia.

Indeed, the album's most crucial cut, the lengthy Cygnet Committee, was nothing less than a discourse on the death of hippiness, shot through with such bitterness and bile that it remains one of Bowie's all-time most important numbers — not to mention his most prescient.

The verse that unknowingly name-checks both the Sex Pistols ("the guns of love") and the Damned is nothing if not a distillation of all that brought punk to its knees a full nine years later. The remainder of the album struggles to match the sheer vivacity of Cygnet Committee, although Unwashed And Slightly Dazed comes close to packing a disheveled rock punch, all the more so as it bleeds into a half minute or so of Bowie wailing Don't Sit Down — an element that, mystifyingly, was hacked from the 1972 reissue of the album.

Janine and An Occasional Dream are pure '60s balladry, and God Knows I'm Good takes a well-meant but somewhat clumsy stab at social comment.

Two final tracks, however, can be said to pinpoint elements of Bowie's own future. The folk epic Wild Eyed Boy From Freecloud (substantially reworked from the B-side of the hit) would remain in Bowie's live set until as late as 1973, while a re-recorded version of the mantric Memory Of A Free Festival would become a single the following year, and marked Bowie's first studio collaboration with guitarist Mick Ronson.

Man of Words/Man of Music itself, however, would prove another dead end in a career that was gradually piling up an awful lot of such things. [Man Of Words/Man Of Music was re-released in 1972 as Space Oddity.]

~ Review by Dave Thompson, allmusic.com.



1. Space Oddity
2. Unwashed And Somewhat Slightly Dazed
3. (Don't Sit Down)
4. Letter To Hermione
5. Cygnet Committee
6. Janine
7. An Occasional Dream
8. Wild Eyed Boy From Freecloud
9. God Knows I'm Good
10. Memory Of A Free Festival

Manfred Mann's Earth Band - Glorified Magnified (1972)

The second album by Manfred Mann's Earth Band to be released in 1972, Glorified Magnified is as solid a heavy rock album as you're likely to find from that era, and it still holds up three decades later, mostly because these guys are smarter than the music they're playing and don't mind indulging their taste as well as their dexterity.

They can romp and stomp through Meat or I'm Gonna Have You All, complete with a slashing guitar solo by Mick Rogers on the latter, or throw in a synthesizer interlude by Mann on One Way Glass that's so quietly and carefully executed as to be worthy of a classical piece — and not skip a beat doing it.

Between Rogers' bold yet tasteful leads, Mann's beautifully assertive yet virtuoso synthesizer and general keyboard work, and Colin Pattenden's muscular bass playing, this is a consistently inspired group, even when their material isn't as interesting as what they do with it, which is the case here.

On Look Around, for example, Rogers' playing on the break starts off as brief, fragmentary digressions off from a not too terribly diverting central riff that turn into longer progressions that eventually take the entire band with him — and just when you think you've got this band pegged in terms of what it's about, along comes Ashes To The Wind, opening side two of the original LP, which includes room for an acoustic guitar amid the high-wattage excursions, all leading into a surprisingly effective synthesizer workout by Mann on Wind, before moving onto the acoustic guitar-driven It's All Over Now, Baby Blue.

The latter, which adds instrumentation until it's so totally removed from its opening section as to be a different song, is one of the best Dylan covers of its era, and is almost worth the price of admission by itself. And then there's the title instrumental, a mix of rock and synthesizer sounds — with a choir in there somewhere — that sounds like mid-'70s King Crimson in rehearsal.

~ Review by Bruce Eder, allmusic.com.



1. Meat
2. Look Around
3. One Way Glass
4. I'm Gonna Have You All
5. Down Home
6. Our Friend George
7. Ashes To The Wind
8. Wind
9. It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
10. Glorified Magnified

James Taylor - Gorilla (1975)

James Taylor pretty much wrote the book for the singer/songwriters of the Seventies. That may be a dubious distinction but Taylor's early work, characterized by subdued singing and restrained, clean backings, was also marked by an undercurrent of extreme agitation and angst. It was this sense of powerful emotions barely held in check that gave Taylor's music its dramatic tension. When that undercurrent diminished and disappeared after the definitive Sweet Baby James, Taylor's music lost its urgency. Thus began a gradual process of personal reorientation and musical redefinition. The most fascinating part of Taylor's more recent albums has been their suggestion of a search for a new raison d'être.

With Gorilla, Taylor is well on his way to staking out new ground. What he's hit upon is the unlikely mating of his familiar low-keyed, acousticguitar-dominated style with L.A. harmony rock and the sweet, sexy school of rhythm and blues. David Crosby and Graham Nash add their fluent harmonies to Taylor's sleepy-voiced leads in the panoramic Lighthouse and the delightful Mexico, both of which make intelligent use of country-rock elements. More central to the album, though, are Taylor's soul-based songs, Music, You Make It Easy and I Was A Fool To Care.

The inclusion of a relaxed rendition of the Marvin Gaye hit, How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) is an indirect acknowledgement to this great singer, surely a primary source of inspiration for the new Taylor who shares Gaye's sense of romantic languor. You Make It Easy, a terrific soul ballad with a classic theme—the lure of adultery—makes this comparison with particular clarity.

The Newmark-Weeks rhythm section, David Sanborn's saxophone, Clarence McDonald's piano and a full-blown string section push Taylor to the most overtly urgent vocal he's ever recorded. Music isn't a particularly strong piece of material but the introduction of a pedal steel into an airy, limber arrangement reminiscent (thanks to Weeks and Newmark) of Gaye's Let's Get It On gives the track more than a little charm, nevertheless. I Was A Fool To Care evolves from a typical guitar-plunking Taylor tune into a big, vibrant and convincing love song. This last tune and You Make It Easy are sure to sprout cover versions before long.

Taylor is too cool and contemplative to become the singer/songwriter sector's answer to Gaye but the influence has given Taylor new life by placing a healthy dose of happy eroticism (what's that about the sugar cane, James?) into the space vacated by his dark melancholy.

~ Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, Jul 17, 1975.



1. Mexico
2. Music
3. How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)
4. Wandering
5. Gorilla
6. You Make It Easy
7. I Was A Fool To Care
8. Lighthouse
9. Angry Blues
10. Love Songs
11. Sarah Maria

Carole King - Thoroughbred (1976)

As straightforward a singer as she is a lyricist and composer, Carole King projects one of the most integrated personalities in pop. Her musical and intellectual scope is narrow, but her seven albums, with the exception of Fantasy (an overly self-conscious concept work), stand as one of the most consistently listenable collections of the rock era. King's melodies are seldom sophisticated but they're almost always catchy, and her lyrics embrace the pop cliché with economy, honesty and good will, turning it into a metaphor for shared experience.

Since the phenomenal success of Tapestry (still on the charts after five years and moving up again), King's skeletal piano and vocal approach has been enriched in various ways, almost always at the expense of freshness. A triumphant return to the basics makes Thoroughbred King's finest album since Tapestry, and though none of the ten new tunes carry quite the melodic clout of You've Got A Friend, Up On The Roof or A Natural Woman, taken together they form one of the most emotionally charged pop albums in quite some time. King's new songs are her typical slow-to medium-tempo ballads. They restate the dominant theme of all her work—the relation between romantic love and friendship—though she has never before worked with it so directly.

The emotional extremes of the earlier songs are gone, replaced by a new maturity and vibrancy. Four of the new songs reunite her with Gerry Goffin, her most reliable collaborator: their We All Have To Be Alone evokes a universal experience in affectingly plain language. And It's Gonna Work Out Fine and Daughter Of Light express adult sentiments remarkably untinged by anxiety and filled with hope.

For me, So Many Ways most intensely distills the album. Recorded with just voice and piano (King's masterful pseudoclassical arrangement has a strong devotional fervor), the song celebrates a romantic partnership in broad, urgent strokes. King sings with a verve and confidence she has seldom exhibited before, and the fact that a flat note in her upper register is allowed to stand somehow makes the performance all the more gripping. It is no small gift that King can write and sing basic pop lyrics in a way that makes them feel like much more:

We have so much in common
Although we come from places worlds apart
When you reach out and touch my hand
Without a word you say I love you
You're beautiful
You are in my heart

Lou Adler's outstandingly spare production is propelled by King's excellent keyboard work and the ideal bass-drum combo of Leland Sklar and Russ Kunkel. David Crosby, Graham Nash and James Taylor contribute beautiful background singing to Goffin and King's transcendental love song, High Out Of Time and again on King's I'd Like To Know You Better. Taylor duets movingly with King on There's A Space Between Us, another peak moment, which appears to use est vocabulary to express deep friendship almost as compellingly as You've Got A Friend.

The joy of rediscovering Carole King is not unlike the joy of first discovering popular music and reveling in its guileless humaneness and democratic power. When Carole King sings, "Only love is real/Everything else illusion" (the most cogent statement of her personal and artistic philosophy), I believe her.

~ Review by Stephen Holden, Rolling Stone, Mar 25, 1976.



1. So Many Ways
2. Daughter Of Light
3. High Out Of Time
4. Only Love Is Real
5. There's A Space Between Us
6. I'd Like To Know You Better
7. We All Have To Be Alone
8. Ambrosia
9. Still Here Thinking Of You
10. It's Gonna Work Out Fine

Lou Reed - Rock And Roll Heart (1976)

Rock And Roll Heart was Lou Reed's first album for Arista Records, and one senses that he wanted to come up with something saleable for his new sponsors.

Uptempo numbers with pop hooks dominate the set, the 12 songs zip by in an efficient 38 minutes, and instead of Reed's trademark meditations on the dark side of life, the lyrics are (for the most part) lean bursts of verse and chorus, in which the artist sings the praises of good times in general and rock & roll in particular (then again, on I Believe In Love, Reed pledges his allegiance to both "good time music" and "the iron cross," a bit of perversity to remind us whose album this is).

But if Rock And Roll Heart sounds like "Lou Reed Lite," there are more than a few flashes of Reed's inarguable talent. His band is in fine form (especially Marty Fogel on sax and Michael Fonfara on keyboards). Banging On My Drum is a crunchy rocker that recalls his work with the Velvet Underground; A Sheltered Life is an amusing bit of VU archeology (the Velvets demoed the song, but this marked its first appearance on record); and the closer, Temporary Thing, is a bitter, haunting narrative that foreshadows Reed's next album, the harrowing masterpiece Street Hassle.

~ Review by Mark Deming, allmusic.com.



1. I Believe In Love
2. Banging On My Drum
3. Follow The Leader
4. You Wear It So Well
5. Ladies Pay
6. Rock And Roll Heart
7. Chooser And The Chosen One
8. Senselessly Cruel
9. Claim To Fame
10. Vicious Circle
11. A Sheltered Life
12. Temporary Thing