After the trip to the basement to browse through the vinyl, I came up with five albums to put on the turntable and listen to and remember when. Tonight I listened to one side of each of the albums. The albums were: An Anthology of British Blues, featuring various British blues musicians, Lord Sutch and His Heavy Friends, The Souther Hillman Furay Band, A Long Time Comin’ The Electric Flag, and David Buskin.
As I said, An Anthology of British Blues released on Immediate Records in 1970 was a collection some of the best in British blues and featured tracks by John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers featuring Eric Clapton and Eric Clapton by himself. Clapton’s solo tracks were two of the best tracks on the side I listened to. “Snake Drive” and “Tribute to Elmore” are both tracks I remember liking particularly the later. Also, included on Side One were tracks by T.S. McPhee, who the liner notes say was acclaimed as being the greatest “bottleneck” exponent in the country at the time, Savoy Brown Blues Band (I was never a big fan) and Jo-Ann Kelly who provides a nice cover of “I Feel So Good” (I do prefer the Faces with Rod Stewart version). All in all the listen did bring back memories!
The second album, I picked out was Lord Sutch and his Heavy Friends for me Lord Sutch’s vocals on this album leave a lot to be desired but evidently he was a good live performer and popular in England. The reason to listen to this album are Lord Sutch’s heavy friends. His friends included Jimmy Page, Noel Redding (Jimi Hendrix Experience), Jeff Beck, John Bonham, and Nicky Hopkins. So while I don’t really like the vocals the music on the album is damn good!
The third album changes genres from Blues and Blues Rock to Folk Rock and is The Souther, Hillman and Furay Band self titled first album. The SHF Band also features those other guys whose faces and names always get put on the back of album, Jim Gordon, Al Perkins and Paul Harris. The album was a nice album and Side One contains two songs by Richie Furay, “Fallin’ in Love” and “Believe Me”, two by J.D. Souther “The Heartbreaker” and “Border Town” and one track “Heavenly Fire” penned by Chris Hillman. Listening to the album again for the first time in a long time I do think I like the Furay songs best and also “Border Town”. SHF Band only put out two albums before they broke up, my wife and I had tickets to go see them with Emerson, Lake and Palmer one night at the Spectrum, but when we got there there was a sign that said they could not make the show. We stayed for a little of the ELP show but it was too loud and we weren’t really there to see them so we left!
Time to do some yoga so albums four and five tomorrow!