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Tracks by McKendree Spring (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: Tracks
  • Group name: McKendree Spring
  • Year: 1972
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: Decca Records
  • Collection: Brenner / Gessner
  • Distinguishing characteristics: “G” written inside album cover, indicating that my father owned it
  • Buy it on Amazon: $29.99

Tracks by McKendree Spring

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I thought that I might have heard of McKendree Spring, but I couldn’t be sure, and mentioned this record to my parents. My father said that their music was very lively and pleasant, and that they were one of the first groups to use an electric violin. Then I checked, and realized that I actually had reviewed Second Thoughts (1970) less than five weeks ago – and liked it[1]! Ooops!

What I expected

Folk, folk rock, electric country.

What it was actually like

Most of the songs on this record were basically country rock, and they sounded fine, but I didn’t find them special or interesting for the most part. Shoot Me was more of a hard rock song, but still country rock at its core.

The Man In Me is definitely not one of my favorite Bob Dylan songs, but McKendree Spring’s version was very strong, much richer than his and without his annoying voice.

I also thought that Watch Those Pennies was great, even though it was quite Oompa Loompa and sounded kind of like a 1920s dance hall tune. It was quite entertaining, and I loved its electric violin.

Probably my favorite was Friends Die Easy II, with an electric guitar that sounded like Santana.

Two Of Me had an interesting sound like on Second Thoughts with very extensive violin, but I disliked it overall because it sounded atonal, and Train To Dixie had an appalling saxophone solo.

Grade

3/5: interesting, but not for me

References

References
↑1 I credited a lot of the interesting sound on Second Thoughts to a synthesizer, but now I suspect that I was actually describing their electric violin! Ooops!

Year of Sunday by Seals and Crofts (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: Year of Sunday
  • Group name: Seals and Crofts
  • Year: 1971
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: Warner Bros. Records
  • Collection: Brenner / Gessner
  • Distinguishing characteristics: “G” written on top left of album, indicating that my father owned it
  • Buy it on Amazon: $5.19

Year of Sunday by Seals and Crofts

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I have never listened to this record, but it will be my third by Seals and Crofts. The previous two were:

What I expected

Soft rock.

What it was actually like

When I Meet Them had much more of a country sound than I anticipated, with good vocal harmony, and was pretty lively. I thought it was the best song on the record. Springfield Mill also was pretty country, with some fiddle, but it was not as good a song.

Parts of Antoinette had an interesting sound, perhaps from a Spanish style guitar, or even oud, and High on a Mountain had some electric guitar parts that I liked.

Sudan Village, for some reason, sounded like a calypso song. Last time I checked, Sudan was not in the Caribbean, but hey, I’m just a Geography Bee winner.

Cause You Love was easy listening crap, and pretty representative of most of the rest of the record.

The worst song was certainly the title track Year of Sunday, which was slightly Oompa Loompa and had some truly awful lyrics, such as:

Along came Moses
Gave the world a push
Climbed upon a mountain high
He got the Ten Commandments from a burning bush[1]
And put together his first tribe

And also:

And then time passed, soon the dark clouds
Came and covered up Mohammud’s sun
But the young Báb, down in persialand
Came to tell us of the Promised One

Good grief. I don’t mind religious music, and some of it is actually really good, but trying to shoehorn the latest hippy fad religion that you discovered last month into your pop record is hopelessly lame[2].

Grade

2/5: weak, but I was able to listen to the whole thing

References

References
↑1 Umm, no. The burning bush story is in Exodus chapter 3, while the Ten Commandments story is in Exodus chapter 20 – those are two completely different stories that were set at completely different times and different places. Did these illiterates even bother to crack open a bible? Obviously not.
↑2 And by the way, Bahá’í people are wonderful, and I think there should be more of them.

I’m A Lover, Not A Fool by Randy Burns (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: I’m A Lover, Not A Fool
  • Artist name: Randy Burns
  • Year: 1972
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: Polydor
  • Collection: Brenner / Gessner
  • Who owned it: my father
  • Buy it on Amazon: $29.76

I'm A Lover, Not A Fool by Randy Burns

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I’ve never listened to this record before, but it will be the fifth by Randy Burns that I’ve reviewed. The previous four were:

What I expected

Since this record is from 1972, I assume it will be most like his 1971 record Randy Burns and the Sky Dog Band, which was country rock and folk rock.

What it was actually like

This was an interesting mix of rock, folk rock and country rock, and many of the songs were more complex than on his previous records, with a lot more going on musically.

The songs that I liked the least – Seasons, Lisa and Christmas Lights – made heavy use of piano and orchestral backing music, with whiny vocals.

I tended to enjoy his country style songs more, however, such as the title track I’m A Lover, Not A Fool, which had country vocals and steel guitar, and Rocky Road.

I also liked Lady Rain Again, a folk rock song with a country rock chorus, and thought that the best song on the record was probably Country Rain, a kind of Oompa Loompa rock song with a country fiddle chorus and soul backing vocals. Sing Out was kind of similar, a folk rock with soul backing vocals in its chorus.

One very pleasant surprise was She’s No Good, a great cover of Bob Dylan’s You’re No Good (which was not actually a Bob Dylan song), but with a totally different musical interpretation.

Grade

4/5: would listen again

In Search of the Lost Chord by The Moody Blues (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: In Search of the Lost Chord
  • Group name: The Moody Blues
  • Year: 1968
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: Deram Records
  • Collection: Brenner / Gessner
  • Distinguishing characteristics: “G” written on top left of album, indicating that my father owned it
  • Buy it on Amazon: $35.98

In Search of the Lost Chord by The Moody Blues

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I’ve never listened to this record before, but it will be my fifth by the Moody Blues. The previous four were:

What I expected

More progressive rock with Space Oddity vibes.

What it was actually like

The weird and completely unnecessary narrator did reappear on on In Search of the Lost Chord, and he was as annoying as he was on the other records, but fortunately the narration was limited to just two brief tracks, Departure and The Word.

The Best Way to Travel had some really irritating sound effects, but otherwise sounded more or less like the Beatles of 1968-9.

I thought that Legend of a Mind was the best song on the record, with a weird, psychedelic riff from what sounded like a keyboard and organ, and it also passed the flute test. A bunch of other songs failed the flute test, however, most notably Visions of Paradise. The flute test, by the way, comes from my review of Loggins and Messina (1972):

…I’m maybe slightly more forgiving of flute being used in rock music [than saxophone], if only because it’s so uncommon, but there’s a simple standard that I would apply: are you Jethro Tull? Are you better than Jethro Tull, or engaged in a serious attempt to do something that Jethro Tull hasn’t done or can’t do? If you answer no to all of those questions, then you probably should leave the flute out of your rock song.

Another song that I liked was Ride My See-Saw, which was basically a solid rock song with vocal harmonies, that reminded me of surf rock. House of Four Doors and House of Four Doors (Part 2) were similar, but slower.

A few songs on the record had a bit of Indian style instrumentation, but the most interesting was Om, which was heavily Hindustani with sitar (but still with unnecessary flute). I would not exactly say that it was a great song, but it did feel exploratory.

Dr. Livingstone, I Presume, an Oompa Loompa song that also would have qualified as Faul’s granny shit, was the worst.

Grade

4/5: would listen again

Bee Gees’ 1st (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: Bee Gees’ 1st
  • Group name: Bee Gees
  • Year: 1967
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: Atco
  • Collection: Brenner / Gessner
  • Distinguishing characteristics:
    • “Gess” written on top right of album front, indicating that my father owned it
    • “GESSNER” written on top right of album back, indicating that my father owned it
  • Buy it on Amazon: $17.14

Bee Gees' 1st

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I’ve never listened to this record before, or indeed any Bee Gees record, though I am familiar with them, and they came up on this site ten months ago when I reviewed Saturday Night Fever: The Original Movie Sound Track (1977). Not surprisingly, I was not a fan.

What I expected

Of course, when I think of the Bee Gees, I think of disco, but this record is from 1967, which is way too early for disco. It’s also got some wholesome, record company-approved psychedelia on the cover. I don’t really know what to expect.

What it was actually like

From the first few notes of the first song, Turn of the Century, I knew exactly what this record was not – disco – and exactly what it was – a cheap knockoff of Sgt. Pepper. That should not, of course, have been possible, since the Beatles released Sgt. Pepper in late May 1967 and the Bee Gees must already have been recording 1st before then, but it sure sounded awfully like a moderately talented group trying to to mimic the Beatles from exactly that era, at every single step.

To what extent did this record copy the Beatles? It even managed, somehow, to include some of Faul’s granny shit, the extremely Oompa Loompa song Craise Finton Kirk Royal Academy of Arts.

I may have recognized To Love Somebody, a pretty bad song with totally unnecessary orchestral backing.

The only song that did not sound entirely like a Beatles impersonation was Please Read Me, which sounded at parts like a Beach Boys impersonation.

Grade

3/5: interesting, but not for me