What Do People Know About These Not-Much-Talked-About 1971 Albums...

...that were named on individual Pazz & Jop ballots that year (see here)

http://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/pnj/pj71.php

From another thread:

Some 1971 LPs from those ballots I am now officially curious about (many but not all of them by artists I know absolutely nothing about):

Steeleye Span: Please to See the King
Bonzo Dog Band: Beast of the Bonzos
Mose Allison: Western Man
Smokey Robinson & the Miracles: One Dozen Roses
Nils Lofgren & Grin: 1 Plus 1
Marc Benno: Minnows
Stoneground Family Album
Family: Anyway
Soup: The Album Soup
Mother Earth: Bring Me Home
Art Ensemble of Chicago: Le Stances à Sophie
Fairport Convention: Angel Delight
Mordecai Jones
Hackamore Brick: One Kiss Leads to Another (actually, been curious about this one ever since I read Stranded. Savage Rose, too, though I actually used to own that one and got rid of it for some reason, and now I'm curious about it all over again.)
Gordon Lightfoot: Summer Side of Life
John Hartford: Aereo-Plain
McGuinness Flint
Crabby Appleton: Rotten to the Core (might've used to own this one, too)
Daddy Who? Daddy Cool!
Detroit (w/ Mitch Ryder, I guess - I've never heard this!)
Siren: Strange Locomotion
Ian Matthews: If You Saw Through My Eyes
Marvin, Welch & Farrar
Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen: Lost in the Ozone
Colosseum: Daughter of Time
The Fourth Way: Werewolf
Alice Stuart: Full Time Woman

― xhuxk, Saturday, 24 October 2009

Family are great, chuck.

― pfunkboy (Herman G. Neuname), Saturday, 24 October 2009

John Hartford: Aereo-Plain
Ian Matthews: If You Saw Through My Eyes
Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen: Lost in the Ozone

I'll rep for these 3 1971 releases--

I assume the best track from the Com. Cody appear on some comp.

The Hartford is an absolute delight, in particular the track "First Girl I Loved." One of my all-time favorite songs.

― President Keyes, Saturday, 24 October 2009

1 + 1 and Detroit are pretty good, tho no way are they top ten material. the latter features covers of "Rock 'n' Roll" and future Ziggy track (KJB, take note) "It Ain't Easy."

― the not-fun one (Ioannis), Saturday, 24 October 2009

The Ian Matthews is nice folk rock à la Fairport Convention (of which he was a member).

Les Stances à Sophie is great---Fontella Bass on vocals! "Theme de Yoyo" is thrilling.

x-post

Art Ensemble of Chicago: Le Stances à Sophie

"Theme de Yo-Yo" is especially stand out (going from funky/soulful to skronky and back repeatedly), but parts of the rest of it are good if I'm in the right mood. It's a movie soundtrack.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=perVFDDy_xg

angel delight - fairport

first post-richard thompson album, supposedly consisting of a series of attempts at singles demanded by Island. decent but a bit patchy

please to see the king - steeleye span

second album, first line-up collapsed after debut and never toured, brit-folk legend martin carthy joined and went electric for this line-up. first 3 records by this band are good.

Beast of the Bonzos is a greatest hits comp - was my intro to the Bonzos as a kid (my kindergarten teacher used to play stuff off it for us). Solid but there are better compilations nowadays.

please to see the king - steeleye span

second album, first line-up collapsed after debut and never toured, brit-folk legend martin carthy joined and went electric for this line-up. first 3 records by this band are good.

I'd change that to first 3 records by this band are absolutely essential, maybe the best folk-rock records of the period imo. I've got them on a double cd called The Lark In The Morning (complete first 3 albums), seems to be available cheaply enough.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51IxNgaVJhL._SL500_AA240_.jpg

"Detroit (w/ Mitch Ryder, I guess - I've never heard this!)"
Killer Rock n Roll cover aside, its good and good fun.

I'm probably the biggest (the only?) Italian fan of the Hackamore Brick lp: they had this obsession for the Velvet Underground that at times made sound like Modern Lovers before Modern Lovers. There's also a long keyboard-led freakout thrown in for good measure.

"Oh Those sweet bananas" is so so good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lawYWr02a4s

"its good and good fun"

I don't know what I wanted to say here...

Nils Lofgren & Grin: 1 Plus 1

lofgren's best IMO. sorta like proto-powerpop w/heavy flourishes and some almost country-rock numbers. great album/

Detroit (w/ Mitch Ryder, I guess - I've never heard this!)

HEAVY covers of "rock & roll" and "it ain't easy" and wilson picket. reissue has mitch rasping thru "gimme shelter" his voice is about halway shot but the band w/johnny bee on drums and steve hunter on gtr is ace. an early early bob ezrin production before alice cooper etc/

Ian Matthews: If You Saw Through My Eyes

post-Fairport country rock w/guest appearances from Richard Thompson & Sandy Denny. good place to start w/Matthews. I like his LA cowboy album Valley Hi even better.

Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen: Lost in the Ozone

sloppy hippies do stoner country loose boogie woogie approximate western swing etc not authentic or virtuosic but they definitely have the spirit/feel down. goofy but fun.

Detroit (w/ Mitch Ryder, I guess - I've never heard this!)

xuxhk you must've heard this version of rock and roll on the radio when you were a kid in detroit.

Of course!! I heard it all the time -- Think I've had it on a compilation or two, too. Just never heard the entire album, for some reason!

i like that steeleye span album. and, duh, the bonzo band album. all bonzo band is essential. everything. every album and single. i like the family album a bunch. mcguinness flint were okay country rock, but i actually like the first two albums by the similarly unimaginatively named gallagher & lyle (G&L were in MF and then went solo. or, um, duo). i like the albums that marc benno made with leon russell okay, but i've never thought much of his solo stuff. never been a big grin fan. maybe i don't have that album though? nils was in a band called dolphin prior to grin and they were way more rockin'. that crabby appleton album isn't so great either. the ian matthews album is pretty essential, but i'm a big fan up to and possibly including stealin' home. the farina cover is stellar and i'm a devotee of farina covers. never dug the daddy cool album much, but it's been a long time and you might like it chuck. um, that isn't a dig, i swear! alice stuart album is kind of a drag too. the hackamore brick album is pretty cool. and the art ensemble of chicago are the art ensemble of chicago. the rest i would buy for a dollar if i saw them for a dollar. or most of them anyway. oh and the mordecai jones album is really just a link wray album so buy that if you see it cuz link in the 70's ruled. s/t album is in my top hundred faves of the 70's. oh and i would actually pay like 20 dollars for the soup album cuz i need a copy.

"all bonzo band is essential"

Truer words never spoken!

Family are great, chuck

I've never ever actually heard them, I don't think, but Roger Chapman's post-Family Streetwalkers LP I bought this year disappointed me, and I'm told they had a similar bent. Wrote about it some at the permalink below; George Smith talks about Family a couple posts after that:

Rolling Past Expiry Hard Rock 2009

honestly, i think every Family album is worth hearing. maybe you don't need to own them all, but they all have something good and interesting on them. the first album is the "classic" but i was listening to bandstand the other day - one of their last albums - and i had forgotten how good it is!

Bonzo Dog Band: Beast of the Bonzos

Still have this. A good place to start if you know nothing of the Bonzos. Not so great if you really like them, you'll want to get to the proper albums. Rockaliser Baby, Canyons of Your Mind and You Done My Brain in are my best. Jollity Farm gives the old avuncular British music hall thing that no one else can pull off.

McGuinness Flint

When I'm Dead and Gone ought to be covered by a country band in 2009-2010. It needs an update.

Detroit (w/ Mitch Ryder, I guess - I've never heard this!)

Still have it, never listen anymore. Hey, Bob Ezrin produces and Steve Hunter's on this one and he's be doing 'Rock 'n' Roll" with Lou Reed in a couple years. But Hunter's no Jim McCarty, who isn't on this. Same kind of band as the Rockets, only the singer's more famous.

never dug the daddy cool album much, but it's been a long time and you might like it chuck

Good chance you're right. Plenty of talk about them on that Past Expiry Hard Rock thread, too. I like the 12-inch EP I found this year, and the Aztec Music reissues of albums by bands the members were in post-Daddy Cool, but I've still never heard a whole album by Daddy Cool themselves.

"Go Back" by Crabby Appleton by the way is very catchy Badfinger-or-whoever-style hard pop-rock (and a #36 pop hit). But that was off their 1970 self-titled LP, it turns out, and I've got no recollection of what the rest of that album was like. Never heard the 1971 one.

Steve Hunter is a good to great guitarist, but my taste was that he just wasn't so well suited to shouting rock 'n' roll. His solo album a few years later proved it, pulling off a pretty good movie theme instrumental version of Sail on Sailor.

That Detroit album placed, I'm pretty sure, in a New York Rockerreaders poll once about "best band to only put out one studio album" -- not as high as Derek & the Dominoes or X-Ray Spex (or Thunderclap Newman, maybe? Did they only have one album?), but it got a couple votes.

love that solo album. but i am a fanboy. it's kind of a fanboy album. i will basically listen to anything that steve hunter or dick wagner had a hand on.

x-post

Mose Allison - Western Man

Too late to listen to it tonight, but I've always liked Mose Allison. this is a different one for him because his is on electric piano in a trio with Chuck Rainey and Billy Cobham on Atlantic Records. I remember it as his most rock.

Just listening to one track before bed, it's weird fusiony hard rock sounding, but still Mose Allison being laid back vocally and meandering keyboard wise on top. Stranger than I remembered.

Art Ensemble of Chicago: Le Stances à Sophie

I always want to throw this on mixes, and I love the first 3 minutes and last 3 minutes so much, but god, THAT TAMBOURINE during the middle section. Someone finally shoots the fool with horse tranquilizers at 6:30 and it's like an irritatingly noisy fishtank filter finally being repaired.

Scott Seward OTM about Family. A lot of people couldn't get past Roger Chapman's voice and in yer face persona at the time, which is a shame. There's no thread dedicated to them on ILM. Also a shame.

Colosseum: Daughter of Time

pretty listenable until it ends with an 8-minute live drum solo

Art Ensemble of Chicago: Les Stances à Sophie

"Theme de Yoyo" is indeed amazing. But every review I've read ignores the rest of the album which, as Rudipherous said, is soundtrack fare.

That Fourth Way album is actually misspelled (presumably on purpose) as Werwolf. It's live spacefunk jazz with too much room for solo violin. "Colours" would've fit unobtrusively on Jazz Satellites.

Co-sign on Please to see the King. 'Prince Charlie Stuart' will chill your spine.