Sixties Garage Pop: The Jujus - You Treat Me Bad "1965-1967" (2009 Cicadelic Records) Flac & mp3@320

Formed in Grand Rapids, MI in 1963 by a trio of Godwin High School students, the JuJus never recorded an album but released an impressive series of poorly recorded but wonderfully energetic singles on local labels, including the ragged and raw garage cult classic “You Treat Me Bad,” and if they weren’t exactly polished musicians, the band certainly understood what made the little girls scream.

Led by singer Ray Hammel and the throaty saxophone playing of Max Colley, Jr., the group played the state’s frat circuit, mixing in thinly disguised R&B licks with a dose of folk-rock, British Invasion echoes, and, later, a nice splash of psychedelia, sounding a bit like the Beau Brummels crossed with the early Kinks. “You Treat Me Bad” got a lot of play on the regional radio stations, but the band was no more by 1967. This set collects all of the group’s singles and adds in a live track and a handful of unissued sides to make a complete history of this fun little band.

Highlights include two versions of “You Treat Me Bad,” the breezy “There She Goes,” “Hey Little Girl” (in two versions), “Do You Understand Me” (which borrows the main riff from the Rolling Stones' “The Last Time” and somehow gets away with it), the impressive “Sometime or Other,” and the delightful “If You Really Love Me,” which may have been the band’s melodic peak and certainly deserved some airplay.

Countless garage bands like the JuJus sprang up in the mid- to late '60s, and most of those never did more than play a handful of gigs and left behind nothing but stacks of yellowed handbills in someone’s attic or basement, but the JuJus left behind at least 23 fun tracks of local garage band history, all of which is collected here.

Wonderful band from the US with great garage pop from the middle of the sixties.
Have fun
               SB1     Flac p1  &  Flac p2      -  mp3@320

Sixties Garage Pop/Bubblegum By The Five Americans - Western Union (1989 Sundazed) Flac & mp3@320

In 1966-1967, this Dallas group enjoyed some modest national success with the number five hit "Western Union," as well as a few other Top 40 entries, "I See the Light," "Zip Code," and "Sound of Love." Dominated by high bubbling organ lines and clean harmony vocals, the group favored high-energy pop/rock far more than British Invasion or R&B-inspired sounds, although a bit of garage/frat rock raunch could be detected in their stomping rhythms -- and their guitar-dominated tracks offered something else again, the harmonies and texture of "The Train" (which was very nearly their debut single) recalling the punchier work of Gene Clark with the Gosdin Brothers from the same period. Recording prolifically throughout the last half of the '60s (often with ex-rockabilly star Dale Hawkins as producer) and writing much of their own material, they were ultimately too lightweight and bubblegum-ish to measure up to either the era's better pop/rock or garage bands. Their 1966 hit "I See the Light" is their toughest and best performance.

Though they officially hailed from Dallas, the Five Americans had their origins in Oklahoma. Mike Rabon grew up in Hugo, the county seat of Choctaw County, in southeastern Oklahoma, founded in 1902 (and named after Victor Hugo, the novelist), 25 miles north of Paris, Texas, and 15 miles west of Fort Towson, site of the last Confederate surrender of the Civil War. He became interested in playing the guitar when he was eight years old, and saved up to buy a homemade instrument at a local pawn shop. He got a start on a few chords learned from his grandmother and quickly got the hang of the instrument. When rock & roll broke nationally, he was swept right in, and became a big fan of Elvis Presley and Carl Perkins, and later added singers such as Frankie Ford to his list of influences.

He joined a local high-school band called the Rhythm Rebels, who played mostly instrumentals and whose gigs included some local radio appearances. While Rabon was honing his guitar skills and learning what he could from the playing of Carl Perkins, Scotty Moore, et al., John Durrill, who was a few years older, was living Bartlesville, OK -- near the Kansas border, originally part of Indian Territory, and the birthplace of Phillips Petroleum -- and already learning a lot by listening to Jerry Lee Lewis, whose playing inspired him to dress up his already freewheeling approach to the piano even more flamboyantly. Durrill entered Southeastern Oklahoma State College in the early '60s as an English major, and played frat parties and the like in his spare time. It was at one such event, playing for Sigma Tau Gamma, that he crossed paths with Rabon, who had started attending the school in 1962.
By that time, Rabon had in his mind the idea of putting together a group, and he approached Durrill. The others -- Norman Ezell (guitar), Johnny Coble (drums), and Jim Grant (maracas and later bass) -- fell into place quickly. The quintet, named the Mutineers, had a repertory built on the music of Duane Eddy and Bo Diddley, and played events around campus, including a regular Monday night gig at the student union. They were good enough to take a chance on recording, cutting their debut in Dallas in 1963 with "Jackin' Around," an instrumental that got some play on their college station. The British Invasion caused them to add some Beatles numbers to their set list and change their look slightly, as well as emphasize their singing a little bit more. Durrill also added a Wurlitzer electric piano -- purchased by Rabon's father, Smiley (who had also financed their first recording sessions) -- to their sound, though the big change came later, when he acquired a Vox organ, which became part of the group's signature sound when the band started recording.

By the summer of 1964, they felt ready to try competing in Dallas, but Coble backed out at the last minute, and they recruited drummer Jimmy Wright on a couple of hours' notice. The bandmembers spent a few weeks crashing at the pad of Durrill's girlfriend, and picked up their first serious gig -- appropriately enough, for a band called the Mutineers -- at a club called The Pirates' Nook, where they bumped an established band out of their spot there, mostly with their stage antics. They did well enough so that they decided to stick it out for a while longer, past the end of the summer. The Mutineers were booked into a club called Lou Ann's, where they chanced to be heard by John Abdnor, Jr., whose multimillionaire father owned a record label. He invited them to audition, and they were duly signed up to his Abnak label. The latter also involved a name change, and that was how the Five Americans got their new name, at Abdnor's insistence.
Their first single, "I See the Light," cut in late 1965 in Dallas, showed just how powerful a performing unit they'd become in the previous year, their instrumental attack resembling the best elements of such much-vaunted British bands as the Yardbirds and the Nashville Teens, with Durrill's singing supported by Rabon and Ezell. The single, which was leased to the HBR label -- a unit of Hanna-Barbera Studios, the cartoon producers -- reached number 26 nationally, and the group got the go-ahead to work on a debut LP. Equally important, the licensing deal got the Five Americans a trip to Los Angeles to meet the executives of the national label. That in itself was highly instructive to five Oklahoma boys who hadn't been anywhere more sophisticated than Dallas -- where their "long hair" (not nearly to the shoulders) made them "freaks" -- and their musical ambitions as well as the quintet's visual presentation advanced by leaps and bounds across early 1966, even as they made the rounds of venues such as the Whisky a Go Go and various TV music showcases such as Shivaree and The Woody Woodbury Show, turning into a national-level act in a matter of weeks. Oddly enough, at the time of its release, the band and its label hadn't been certain of "I See the Light"'s appeal, especially as its other side, "The Train," had some merit of its own.
Not too many bands coming off the college circuit by scarcely a year could have led with that kind of strength. There were similarly high expectations for their follow-up single, "Evol -- Not Love," a harmony-based rocker that seemed to carry them to the next step. Alas, it didn't do nearly as well, essentially dying in the womb in Dallas, owing to a local business-related "political" dispute involving Abdnor. But their next single, "Western Union," soared from the moment it reached the public, reaching the Top Ten. It also marked the beginning of Dale Hawkins, the guitarist/singer/composer of "Susie Q" fame, working as their producer. This should have been the beginning of a new phase in the group's history, and a leap in their fortunes and prospects, but differences with Abdnor and the limitations inherent in not being signed to a major label combined to sap whatever momentum the song generated. This was all especially tragic, as the Five Americans were generating music that was not only superb AM bubblegum pop, but also credible garage rock on occasion, and excellent pop/rock overall, with killer harmonies and excellent playing, filled with the kinds of hooks that most bands would kill for on their records.

Indeed, there are moments on "Now That It's Over" and "If I Could" where their mix of nicely woven harmonies and clean, sophisticated playing recall the work of the Beatles or the Searchers. "Sound of Love" and "Zip Code" -- issued in 1967 -- charted far lower than the records that had preceded them, despite hooks and harmonies that made them eminently hummable and memorable (especially "Zip Code"). They were doing work of at least the caliber of the Monkees without the Screen Gems publishing/arranging/producing factory backing them up, and if some of it was a bit derivative -- "Sympathy" did seem to recall the Beatles' "You Like Me Too Much" at times -- the music was presented with enough fresh twists to easily justify the purchase and the listening time.
The differences with Abdnor were worsening, however, and the members felt he was now compromising the music and any chance for growth by his insistence that they continue to record in Dallas. By 1968 Durrill and Ezell were both gone, replaced by Lenny Goldsmith and Bobby Rambo. The group continued on through 1969, but by then even their name was starting to sound quaintly out of date amid the burgeoning influence of the counterculture; they could probably have gone on indefinitely in Dallas, but their chances for national exposure were receding by the week. Among their last efforts was a double LP (credited to "Michael Rabon & the Five Americans"), before the remaining members went their separate ways. The band has mostly been remembered across the decades for its two biggest hits, "Western Union" and "I See the Light." In the 21st century, however, Sundazed Records reissued a big chunk of their catalog, giving the Five Americans their biggest exposure in decades, and revealing an astonishingly fine legacy, far beyond their best-known hits and all well worth hearing.(allmusic)

Around four months ago i posted already an album by the Americans called''Western Union'' and it's also released by Sundazed. But they are different. This is a collection of songs from 1965 till 1969 while the other record is a release of the Western Union album from 1967 with bonus track.
Enjoy it
            Frank    Flac p1  &  Flac p2         mp3@320

Sunshine Pop a little different: Doug Randle - Songs For The New Industrial State (1970) (2009 Lights In The Attic) Flac & mp3@320

Wow, i have not hear the record for a very long time until today and like every time it's great to listen to the album of Doug Randle, a musician from Canada. It's really a great album of sunshine pop with critical lyrics. The lyrics are not about the usual themes in this kind of music. The music is great orchestrated pop and sunshine pop. I highly recommend the album. To me it's a little masterwork!
Enjoy
          SB1

"I think there's a hell of a good buck to be made out of solving our problems. So we'll probably solve them for better or worse."
--Doug Randle, quoted in the original liner notes to Songs for the New Industrial State.
There's a funny mix of cynicism and optimism in that quotation from Canadian songwriter Doug Randle that nicely sums up the prevailing sentiment of his lone album. Originally recorded only for broadcast by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in 1970, the record was ostensibly given a new lease on life when the Kanata label picked it up the following year for release, but poor distribution ensured its quick trip into the recesses of Canadian music history, where it remained until now.

On its surface, Songs for the New Industrial State is a sunny pop record adorned with many of the baroque trappings of adult-aimed light music records and California pop-psych, but there's much at work within that glossy interior. Randle turns his background composing music for advertisements inside-out with lyrics that carefully dissect the very methods he employed to sell things and lay their phoniness bare. In the late 60s and early 70s, lyrics decrying the artifice of a plastic world and environmental degradation weren't uncommon, but Randle does it differently, sometimes with a charming awkwardness that leaves the notion of rhyme scheme behind. He'd written musicals for the CBC, and that background is evident here, too-- the album as a whole feels something like an inversion of the industrial musicals that large companies frequently staged at shareholder meetings and sales events from the 40s into the 80s.

Randle doesn't sing or play anything on the album, instead serving as the composer/conductor while steady studio hands take care of the instrumental parts. The dual vocals of Tommy Ambrose and Laurie Bower, which alternate between harmony and unison singing, give the record a distinctive, plush feel. They help to sell Randle's vision of commerce trampling nature and peace of mind amid the fanfare of trumpets and strings as surely as the lady who sang "My Bathroom Is a Private Kind of Place" sold American Standard fixtures. Randle's open-hearted sincerity and tendency to say exactly what he's thinking without irony means that a lot of modern listeners will have to make a bit of an adjustment for lines like "Warm wood/ It looks like warm wood/ Touch it/ It feels like colored plastic."

"Nicolston Dam" has some of the album's best imagery as Randle contrasts the pace of modern life with just sitting and watching trout leap over a dam, which nicely ties in the environmental themes that are also on his mind. On the odd, harpsichord-stuffed "One-Way Swimming" he offers to a hypothetical partner a way to get even further from the modern world: swimming out into the middle of the ocean. It doesn't quite advocate suicide, but it does suggest that falling off the edge of the world might be a nice escape. At the other end of the record, "Vive La Company" is a satirical portrait of a company man and his wife who tailor their interests and conversation to help him up the corporate ladder while their children walk to school singing commercials.

Randle's battle between cynicism about modern life and wide-eyed optimism is ultimately won by the latter, as he ends the album with "Life Will Be Worth Living". Naturally, many concerns on the record still ring true today, even if our ways of talking and singing about them have evolved as our society has moved from industrial to post-industrial. I wouldn't call it a masterpiece, but the album is a work of singular vision that earns its second airing through Randle's inventive sense of arrangement and to-the-point honesty.(pitchfork.com)

         
       Flac p1  & Flac p2         mp3@320

The 13th Floor Elevators - Bull Of The Woods 1969 (1993 Collectables Records) Flac & mp3@320

While the 13th Floor Elevators' debut album caught them as they were still buzzing with the excitement of their musical journey through inner space and Easter Everywhere found them exploring the possibilities of the recording studio as well as their own creative process, their final studio set, 1969's Bull of the Woods, documented a band that was running out of gas. Legal problems were dogging the Elevators and preventing them from touring, they were justifiably unhappy with their record company, lead vocalist Roky Erickson was beginning to buckle under the group's steady diet of LSD, and lyricist and founder Tommy Hall was growing tired of the demands of the group after the difficult process of writing Easter Everywhere.

As a consequence, guitarist Stacy Sutherland became the de facto leader of the group during the recording of Bull of the Woods, writing most of the songs and singing lead on several numbers, and in his hands the 13th Floor Elevators were a very different band. Sutherland's compositions on Bull of the Woods are more languid and pastoral than the material that dominated the first two albums, and while there's still a psychedelic undertow to this music, Sutherland's music was gentler and his lyrics more solidly grounded in the real world than what he created in tandem with Erickson and Hall. At the same time, Bull of the Woods also showcases Sutherland's consistent strength as a guitarist, and his fluid lead lines and melodies rooted in country and blues figures are Texas psychedelic music at its purest and most refreshing; after the psychic roller coaster of the 13th Floor Elevators' first two albums, Bull of the Woods is a relatively quiet trip to the countryside, and it's joyous, frequently beautiful stuff. Unfortunately, the sessions for Bull of the Woods were recorded quickly, and producer Ray Rush overdubbed an incongruous horn section on several numbers at the insistence of International Artists Records, but even in compromised form, Bull of the Woods is a testament to Stacy Sutherland's talents and his often overlooked role in one of America's trulyvisionary rock bands.(allmusic.com)

In my ears a very comfortable album by the band and maybe it was the right step into the right direction at the right time. And i think the band and the environment had known that some things must change. If you are interested in the Elevators and don't know the album give it a try.

Have fun
              SB1                              Flac p1  &  Flac p2         mp3@320

Psychedelic, Jazz, Pop, Folk, Rock: Roger Bunn - Piece Of Mind 1969 ( 2013 Airmail Archive Japan mini LP CD) Flac & mp3@320

Roger Bunn was hardly ever a household name in music, even at the peak of his career during the last three years of the 1960s. He somehow managed to play with lots of important people and bands, and at major gigs -- and intersected with the early career of David Bowie, as well as playing a role in the founding of such outfits as Roxy Music -- but he only ever got known especially well among musicians, rather than to the public.
Bunn was born in 1942, the son of a deceased and highly decorated war hero. By his own account, his childhood -- during which he was mostly separated from his mother -- was lived out either in relative emotional isolation or, at brief moments at annual public ceremonies, in the shadow of his father's war record. By the end of the 1950s, he was enjoying the skiffle boom -- which was represented locally in Norwich by a band called the Saints -- and also gravitating to the work of the American beat poets and jazz musicians. Bunn had started playing guitar in his teens, and by the end of the decade had taken the lead guitar spot in a group called the Bishops. In the early '60s, however, he made the switch to playing jazz bass, and was working for Cockney rockabilly icon Joe Brown. He was back on guitar for a stint with Wee Willie Harris in Hamburg, and later bounced back to East Anglia and a soul outfit called the Bluebottles, whose members included Mike Patto.

Bunn's real love lay with jazz, and not the trad style that was dominant in commercial circles -- he was a serious Charlie Parker devotee. But he found most of his opportunities playing rock and soul, and the Bluebottles got gigs with the likes of Manfred Mann and the Animals; working in those musical surroundings, Bunn spent most of what free time he had at Ronnie Scott's jazz club. During the mid-'60s, he worked with a wide array of players, including Graham Bond, Zoot Money, and Joe Harriott, and crossed paths with Jimi Hendrix. By his own account, he also used a massive amount of recreational, often hallucinogenic drugs across the years leading up to the late '60s, which caused a memory lapse on aspects of his life that lasted well into the 1980s. He played with the Ken Stevens dance band and in Marianne Faithfull's backing band, and also lost out to Mick Taylor in a bid to join John Mayall's Bluesbreakers. After a stint playing with the expatriate South African Blue Notes, Bunn ended up working alongside Glenn Sweeney and Dave Tomlin in a trio called Giant Sun Trolley, which played on the same bills as Pink Floyd, Soft Machine, the Crazy World of Arthur Brown, and Procol Harum at the UFO Club. He was, through the trio, part of "The 14 Hour Technicolor Dream," a renowned psychedelic extravaganza. Bunn spent a significant chunk of 1967 and early 1968 traveling around the Middle East, especially Afghanistan, Iran, and Turkey. Back in England, he founded Djinn, a quartet that became a footnote in music history (but missed out on a page of its own) by allowing a youthful David Bowie into its ranks very briefly, part of a professional liaison that didn't last, though it led to Bowie taking up the song "Life Is a Circus" as part of his repertory for the next several years. Alas, Bunn somehow managed to lose control over the copyright and never saw any reward or recognition come from his use of the song. He also enjoyed a short-lived collaboration with lyricist/singer Pete Brown.

Bunn's solo career seemed to take off after he walked into the Apple offices on Baker Street and -- apparently based on the fact that Paul McCartney remembered him from the Beatles' days in Hamburg -- was able to talk his way into getting the use of one of their studio facilities to cut a series of demo sides. Those eventually became the basis for his recording contract with Philips Records, which resulted in the album Piece of Mind. Even that release wasn't simple and straightforward, however, as Philips licensed the new recording to Major-Minor, a tiny outfit that went bankrupt soon after. It took some doing to get the album issued a couple of years later, and in the interim Bunn received an invitation from an old friend, drummer Laurie Allen, to join the progressive rock band Piblokto, which brought him back to Pete Brown's orbit and made a brief musical splash in the turn-of-the-decade art rock world. It was after leaving them and forming his own outfit, Endjinn, that Piece of Mind was finally issued, but his work with the group proved more fortuitous at the time. Endjinn led to Bunn's most musically important gig, as the original guitarist for Roxy Music, from November of 1970 to the summer of 1971. He was long gone by the time they were signed to a recording contract, but his name has occasionally come up in recollections by Bryan Ferry. Since the early '70s, Bunn had more or less dropped out of music, apart from one-off projects such as one album by McCartney's brother, Mike McGear, and much later, releases by Davy Graham and Peggy Seeger.

He became much more focused on politics, and was especially concerned with issues of national and corporate malfeasance and greed, and the specific issue of South African apartheid; he also happily helped to inform anyone who would listen of the CIA's complicity in the Afghan opium trade, among other nefarious goings on around the world, and sides to the West's involvement in the Middle East that are almost never discussed. Bunn passed away in July of 2005, just a few days after his 63rd birthday, in the same year in which the CD reissue of Piece of Mind -- long regarded as one of the great lost albums of the psychedelic era -- had finally been arranged.

Wonderful album and highly recommend.
Enjoy
         SB1      Flac p1  & Flac p2  & Flac p3         mp3@320

The Beach Boys - Sunflower 1970 (1990 Epic Records)

After Reprise rejected what was to be their debut album for the label, the Beach Boys re-entered the studio to begin work on what would become a largely different set of songs. The results signaled a creative rebirth for the band, a return to the beautiful harmonies and orchestral productions of their classic mid-'60s material. Though the songwriting didn't quite reach the high quality of "California Girls" or "God Only Knows," Sunflower showed the Beach Boys truly working as a band, and doing so better than they ever had in the past (or would in the future). Many of the songs were co-compositions, and the undeniable songwriting and performance talents of Dennis Wilson and Bruce Johnston were finally allowed to flourish: Dennis contributed "Slip On Through," "Forever," and "Got to Know the Woman," while Bruce wrote "Deirdre" and "Tears in the Morning." After a succession of spare, unadorned lead vocals on rock-oriented albums like Wild Honey and 20/20, Sunflower returned the Beach Boys to gorgeous vocal harmonies on the tracks "Add Some Music to Your Day," "Cool, Cool Water," and "This Whole World." And the arrangements, tight and inventive, showed Brian Wilson once again back near the top of his game (though the production is credited to the entire band). Sunflower is also a remarkably cohesive album, something not seen from the Beach Boys since Pet Sounds. As with that album, Sunflower earned critical raves in Britain but was virtually ignored in America. [Sunflower was made available in 2000 as half of the two-fer collection Sunflower/Surf's Up.](allmusic.com)

I don't know what Reprise rejected but it looks like a good decision if i hear what they recorded after re-entering the studio. On the album is not one weak track and also no average song. You can listen to twelve top notch songs, all different, all with great arrangements and strong vocal lines.The album is a conglomerate of a lot different songs but all with a positive musical feeling. This was for years their strongest work and one of their best. I highly recommend it.
You will have fun
                            SB1     Flac p1  &  Flac p2       mp3@320

The Two Last Volumes: A Collection Of Rare '60s British Psychedelic And Mod Era Singles: Various Artists - A Perfumed Garden 1965 -1973, Vol.4+5 (2003 Past & Present Records) Flac & mp3@320

Hello Folks, it's weekend once again and i am very glad about it. The last week had a lot work and other aggravating things so i am now ready to enjoy the weekend.
I want start today with the last two volumes of the marvelous ''Perfumed Garden'' series and i hope you enjoy the music as well as i do. Enjoy it and here are the links:

  Vol.4 Flac p1 &  Vol.4 Flac p2        Vol.4 mp3@320

 Vol.5 Flac p1  &  Vol.5 Flac p2        Vol.5 mp3@320

Have fun
              SB1 

Cupid's Inspiration - Yesterday Has Gone 1969 (1995 Repertoire) mp3@320 only

Based in Stamford, Lincolnshire, England, and initially known as the Ends, this pop attraction secured a recording contract with NEMS on the strength of vocalist T. (Terry) Rice-Milton (b. 5 June 1946). The line-up was completed by Wyndham George (b. 20 February 1947; guitar), Laughton James (b. 21 December 1946; bass) and Roger Gray (b. 29 April 1949) and featured on ‘Yesterday Has Gone’ (1968), a song originally recorded by Little Anthony And The Imperials. Cupid’s Inspiration’s cover version rose to number 4 in the UK chart, during which time pianist Garfield Tonkin (b. 28 September 1946) was added to the line-up.

However, despite enjoying a subsequent minor hit with ‘My World’, the quintet was unable to repeat the success of their powerful and catchy debut single. The line-up was disbanded at the end of the year, but within weeks Rice-Milton and Gray re-emerged alongside newcomers Bernie Lee (guitar) and Gordon Haskell (b. 27 April 1946, Bournemouth, Dorset, England; bass, ex-Les Fleur Des Lys). A new-found, more ‘progressive’ style, failed to reverse declining fortunes and the band disintegrated.

Rice-Milton began a short-lived solo career in 1970 with a revival of Cilla Black’s ‘You’re My World’. Haskell joined King Crimson and recorded several low-key solo albums, before emerging from obscurity in 2001 to almost hit the top of the UK Christmas singles chart with ‘How Wonderful You Are’.(allmusic)

            mp3@320

Unfortunately only in mp3. Fine pop album from the late sixties. I think the band was better as their reputation.
Enjoy
          SB1

A Collection Of Rare '60s British Psychedelic And Mod Era Singles: Various Artists - A Perfumed Garden 1965 -1973, Vol.3 (2003 Past & Present Records) Flac & mp3@320 + Complete Artwork 1-5

Hello Folks,
today comes the artwork for the series. I post it here together with vol.3. There is a lot of information about the bands the songs and all the other worth knowing things.

Enjoy
         SB1    Flac p1 & Flac p2    -  mp3@320
                                                                                 Artwork Perfumed Garden 1-5

Glen Campbell - Reunion: The Songs Of Jimmy Webb 1974 (2001 Capitol Records, remastered) Flac & mp3@320

It doesn't really matter if Glen Campbell was Jimmy Webb's best interpreter or if Webb gave Campbell his best songs -- in other words, it doesn't matter who helped the other more -- because it doesn't change the essential fact that the duo fit each other so naturally. Webb's intricate, idiosyncratic compositions sounded warm and accessible in Campbell's hands, while the songs revealed Campbell's musical range and ambition. Other singers had big hits with Webb's songs and Campbell made tremendous music with other people's songs, but there was something special about their collaboration that was evident on their big hits of the '60s: "By the Time I Get to Phoenix," "Wichita Lineman," "Galveston," "Where's the Playground, Suzie?."

These songs provided the background for Reunion, the 1974 album where Campbell and Webb reunited for a set of Webb songs. Well, that's not exactly accurate, since Webb never produced or arranged the hits Campbell had in the '60s, and the record isn't entirely written by Webb, since it features Susan Webb's "About the Ocean" and Lowell George's "Roll Um Easy" (here retitled "Roll Me Easy")

 

So, this marks the first time that Webb arranged a full album of Campbell's, along with providing the majority of the songs, a move that in many ways made this closer to a Jimmy Webb record than a Glen Campbell LP. Certainly, it favored Webb's idiosyncrasies, particularly his elliptical songs with winding melodies and no straightforward songs.

Not a song here outside of "Roll Me Easy" announces itself as a potential single (which very well may be why this tremendous song was added to the play list, particularly as the first single, since it might be the easiest way into the record for most listeners). Since most of the songs share a similar easy mid-tempo pace and have similar lushly interwoven arrangements, it's not necessarily the most accessible of Campbell's records; it doesn't set out to alienate, it's just that Webb's songs and arrangements call for close listening, which is precisely why it's an album beloved by Campbell/Webb connoisseurs.

So, it's not entirely surprising that the record didn't make much of an impression, certainly nothing close to their big hits of the '60s, but rather that it's become a cult item, with some fans regarding it among Campbell's best work. And, in many ways, they're right. Reunion has a quiet power that grows with repeated listenings since it does indeed showcase Webb at his best as songwriter/arranger and Campbell as an interpretive singer.

But this is very much a record for the dedicated, those that are already convinced of the strengths of both men, because it reveals its gifts slowly, and even when they're out in the open, the songs are so delicately, if exquisitely, crafted they're best appreciated by listeners with an eye for detail. Those listeners will surely find Reunion among Campbell's best work, and it is certainly among his most consistent and ambitious records, but it's just a little too reserved to play to an audience outside of the already converted.(S.T. Erlewine, allmusic)

This is one of his best albums as a whole but it's hard to claim that because Glen Campbell's body of work is huge and there were a lot of great albums he recorded in more than fifty years. Nonetheless, for me personally it is one of his best efforts. How can i give reasons for my claim? The most touches me the arrangements of the songs and how Campbell perform the vocals in the songs. The songwriting here is on a very high level for this kind of music and all this things together working like a precise clockwork on an emotional flat. And this album touch me very very close if i listen to it in the right moment and/or situation. I think that's it why i rate this album on a very high rank in my personal Campbell album charts. Okay folks, enough said. I hope you like it as much as i do and will have fun with the album.

Enjoy
         SB1    Flac p1  &  Flac p2     - mp3@320