The Festival Hall concert on June 29 was thus widely anticipated and, as Melody Maker’s review concluded, ‘Will go down on record as a great success and a highlight in the group’s career’. This was literally correct: the show was recorded for this, the second album, and featured an extraordinarily wide-ranging repertoire, utilising the quintet’s virtuosic membership in a whole range of solo, duo, trio, quartet and full band combinations. Never again would the balance between them be so perfect or the interplay so fresh and dynamic. Traditional and contemporary folk songs shared space with modern jazz covers, medieval dance pieces, blues and group originals closer to the folkish end of the rock underground than the whimsical style of their perceived rivals, the Incredible String Band.
The live half of the set includes most of the concert bar first-album material (pointless to issue at the time), a couple of solo tracks and a failed crack at Sweet Child – a complex piece which was subsequently done full justice for the equally eclectic studio half. Conversely, Haitian Fight Song was tried in the studio but the live version retained. The group reached a commercial peak with the UK Number 5 LP Basket Of Light the following year, but creatively and critically Sweet Child was the apogee.
The Smoke The Smoke
Forgotten American psych-pop in thrall to The Beatles and dedicated to Stuart Sutcliffe.Record label: TowerProduced: Michael LloydRecorded: Hollywood Boulevard Studios, LA; summer 1968Released: November 1968Chart peaks: None (UK) None (US)Personnel: Michael Lloyd (v, k, g, b, horn and string ar), Stan Ayeroff (g), Steve Baim (d)Track listing: Cowboys And Indians; Looking Thru The Mirror; Self-Analysis, Gold Is The Colour Of Thought, Hobbit Symphony; Daisy-Intermission; Fogbound; Song Thru Perception; Philosophy; Umbrella; Ritual Gypsy Music Opus 1; October Country; OdysseyCurrent CD: Currently unavailableFurther listening: Castle’s High In A Room (2002), a 2-disc retrospective of the band’s outputFurther reading: The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band Story by Tim Forster, published in Ptolomeic Terrascope magazine, 1999; www.marmalade-skies.co.uk/ smoke.htmDownload: Not currently legally available
Michael Lloyd was a precocious 12-year-old when he first decided to be in a band. It was 1962 and he was swimming with a friend. ‘We were far out from the shore and we heard music coming from the beach. It sounded great. So we paddled in and there were these local guys playing Ventures songs – they were very good – and that started us thinking. We’ve got to have a band!’
A couple of bands later, Lloyd started at the Hollywood Professional School, where he met Shaun and Danny Harris. Together they formed The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band and made an album in Michael’s bedroom. (He left before they signed to Reprise.) Still only 17, he was next handed a number of projects by young executive Mike Curb, under names such as The Laughing Wind and The Rubber Band, and for Epic Records he produced a group of fresh-faced teenagers called October Country. Although it flopped, that album gave him a taste of what he could achieve with good studio facilities at his disposal and he persuaded Curb to give him some studio time. Thus was born The Smoke.
Michael poured all he had learnt into the album, he produced, arranged, sang lead vocals and played bass and keyboards while Stan Ayeroff, who co-wrote three of the songs, handled guitar and Steve Baim played drums. The record opens with the organ-driven Cowboys And Indians, echoing Brian Wilson’s Heroes And Villains. There are overt Beatles references throughout, too. The chorus of Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds is quoted in the fade to Fogbound and its influence is clear in Gold Is The Colour Of Thought.
‘I didn’t really think of what I was doing as psychedelic,’ says the undoubtedly clean-cut Lloyd. ‘There may have been drug references in Beatles songs, but in my naïve way it just seemed to be some brilliant creative thing they were doing.’
Despite a wide release, nothing ever happened with the album. Curb subsequently appointed Lloyd Vice-President of MGM, where he finally achieved commercial success as a producer and composer with The Osmonds, Lou Rawls and Debbie Boone (he produced You Light Up My Life) and the multi-million-selling soundtrack to Dirty Dancing. But this non-moneyspinning nugget from his psych-pop roots is still one of his favourites.
The Beau BrummelsBradley’s Barn
Psychedelic San Franciscan pop outfit turns up in Nashville. With creamy results.Record label: Warner BrothersProduced: Lenny WaronkerRecorded: Bradley’s Barn, Wilson County, Tennessee; 1968Released: 1968Chart peaks: None (UK) None (US)Personnel: Sal Valentino (v); Ron Elliott (g); Jerry Reed (g); Wayne Moss (g); Harold Bradley (g); Billy Sanford (g); Norbert Putnum (b); David Briggs (k); Kenny Buttrey (d)Track listing: Turn Around; An Added Attraction; Deep Water; Long Walk Down To Misery (S); Little Bird; Cherokee Girl (S); I’m A Sleeper; The Loneliest Man In Town; Love Can Fall A Long Way Down; Jessica; Bless You CaliforniaRunning time: 31.50Current CD: Collector’s Choice COLC3172Further listening: The Brummels’ Triangle (1967) is well worth casting back over and there’s a good Rhino retrospective Best Of The Beau Brummels (1981) if you want to scan their whole career from Mersey to flower power and beyondFurther reading: www.beaubrummels.comDownload: iTunes
The Beau Brummels had spent the early ’60s interpreting the British invasion from the safety of their San Francisco home. Impressed by the Fabs and The Searchers, they’d hit on an angular version of beat music which songwriter Ron Elliott perfected for the deep, country-toned voice of singer Sal Valentino. Their early records on the Autumn label (some produced by hip young house producer Sylvester Stewart AKA Sly Stone) were state-of-the-art pop rock and they enjoyed several American hits, but Autumn crumbled in 1966 and members of the band started to peel off.
Moving to Warner, they cut Beau Brummels ’66 and then in 1967 hit on a folk vein which they mined for the moderately successful but quite exquisite album Triangle. Their Warner contract demanded another album forthwith, and the last remaining original members, Valentino and Elliott, decided to decamp to Nashville to come up with the goods. It was to prove a real culture shock for them. ‘To be sure, Dylan and Ian And Sylvia had recorded there,’ sleeve note compiler Stan Cronyn pointed out. ‘But this was The Beau Brummels who flew down to meet the younger Nashville musicians on common ground.’
‘We arrived in a Chrysler and all the Nashville guys had Cadillacs,’ recalled Sal. Musical differences were also on the cards when they sat down with the local musicians and unveiled their songs. ‘It was a 180-degree shift from what Nashville was about.’
The venue for the showdown was, of course, Bradley’s Barn and the resultant collection, although not the style-shattering opus the press and public at the time were led to believe, is an exceptional example of roomy country playing which envelops Valentino’s rich, resonant voice. Cronyn’s notes conclude that ‘In Bradley’s Barn a pop album was created in a hush!’ and indeed the far-reaching effects of this mild-mannered country rock can’t be underrated. Bradley’s Barn is as much about the ambience of its setting as anything else. In that, it’s a quiet classic.
The Insect Trust The Insect Trust
Hippy visionaries who deserve to be in the dictionary under ‘eclectic’.Record label: CapitolProduced: Steve DuboffRecorded: 1968Released: 1968Chart Peaks: None (UK) None (US)Personnel: Bill Barth (g, Swiss warbler, pc); Bob Palmer (as, alto & soprano recorders, clarinet, pc); Trevor Koehler (bs, piccolo, sewer drum, thumb piano, upright bass, ar); Nancy Jeffries (v, pc); Luke Faust (banjo, banjo guitar, v, pc); Buddy Saltzman (d); Bernard ‘Pretty’ Purdie (d); Hugh McCracken (g); Joe Mack (b); Chuck Rainey (b); Steve Duboff (conga drums, pc)Track listing: The Skin Game; Miss Fun City; World War I Song; Special Rider Blues; Foggy River Bridge Fly; Been Here And Gone So Soon; Declaration Of Independence; Walking On Nails; Brighter Than Day; Mountain Song; Going HomeCurrent CD: Currently unavailableFurther listening: Hoboken Saturday Night (1970)Further reading: www.furious.com/perfect/insecttrust.htmlDownload: Not currently legally available
Even by the standards of an era that constantly broke down musical boundaries, The Insect Trust were quite extraordinarily unusual, being described in Rolling Stone at the time as ‘absolutely original and unique’. Combining elements of rock, jazz, bluegrass, soul, Dixieland, folk, raga, blues and – well, practically every genre of music there is – they made two visionary, under-appreciated albums that still sound truly unlike anything else.
Every member of the band had a varied and scholarly musical background. Forming in New York in the mid 1960s, after spending time soaking up influences in Memphis they decamped to Hoboken, New Jersey and moved into a large tenement together. After landing an unexpected $25,000 advance from Capitol Records through contacts, they set about synthesising their extraordinary range of experience into an album. This classic debut, recorded in 1968, shows up one major difference between them and almost all other major US bands of the time. While the majority were in thrall to Eastern sounds, The Insect Trust sound resolutely homegrown. Banjos, clarinets and saxophones were of far greater interest to them than sitars or tablas. Their obviously deep love of traditional American music shines through in the beautiful bottleneck guitar on Going Home and the fiddle and banjo exchanges on Foggy River Bridge Fly. But that is not to say for a moment that they sound old-fashioned: whilst rooted in their country’s musical heritage, The Insect Trust sounded contemporary.
Take the opening track, The Skin Game, for example. Starting with a mellow acoustic guitar and Nancy Jeffries’s delightful voice, it unexpectedly veers off into squalling guitar and avant-garde saxophone, anchored only by echoing cowbell – and then, as abruptly as this interlude has begun, it ends. The acoustic guitar fades back up, Jeffries resumes her glorious singing, and the listeners are left to ponder whether or not they actually heard what they just heard.
Tuneful, intelligent and highly musical, The Insect Trust truly forged something new out of the past – and what makes the success of their experiment particularly extraordinary is that they had no permanent rhythm guitarist, bassist or drummer, employing instead a variety of session players. In fact, that was one of the major factors in their split. Despite universal critical acclaim, when few bought their records it became increasingly hard to support the cost of a hired rhythm section capable of keeping up with them, especially for their sporadic concerts. Coupled with certain members’ overly enthusiastic drug use, they finally called it a day in 1971, leaving behind them two of the most beguilingly strange and original rock albums ever recorded – a claim that few of their far more successful contemporaries can make.
The Open Mind The Open Mind
London hippies make the world’s first heavy metal album.Record Label: PhillipsProduced: John FranzRecorded: Stanhope Place Studios, London; summer 1968Released: 1969Chart Peaks: None (UK) None (US)Personnel: Terry Martin (g, v); Mike Brancaccio (g); Timothy du Feu (b, p); Philip Fox (d); Kiki Dee, Maggie Bell (bv)Track listing: Dear Louise; Try Another Day; I Feel The Same Way Too; My Mind Cries; Can’t You See; Thor The Thunder God; Horses And Chariots; Before My Time; Free As The Breeze; Girl I’m So Alone; Soul and My Will; Falling AgainCurrent CD: Sunbeam SBRCD5019 adds: Magic Potion; Cast A SpellFurther listening: This was pretty much everything they recorded give or take a few B-sidesFurther reading: An interview with bassist Timothy du Feu: www.pooterland.com/index2/looking_glass/open_mind/ open_mind.htmlDownload: Not currently legally available
As The Beatles bowed out and Led Zeppelin took off, many other excellent bands slipped between the cracks. Amongst them The Open Mind are prominent – and some would say pre-eminent. In 1969 they released a thunderously heavy psychedelic album and a legendary 45, both of which vanished so completely that mint copies now fetch truly terrifying sums on the collectors’ market.
Their roots lay in London’s fertile blues scene, where they gigged for years as The Drag Set before embracing the emerging psychedelic scene in 1966 and becoming a fixture in underground clubs such as the Middle Earth, the UFO and The Marquee. ‘Bluesy bands started to go psychedelic, and we were no exception’, says Tim du Feu, their bassist. In keeping with the changing times, they rethought both their name and image. Far from the standard hippy threads on show all around them, The Open Mind opted to reflect their proto-metal psychedelia in the leather suits they always wore. ‘It was very unusual at the time’, he continues. ‘You could say that we started the look that people like Iron Maiden took up later.’
Their music was evolving as well. ‘The later it got at gigs, the wilder things became, and we’d experiment’, says Tim. Playing alongside such legends as Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd and The Electric Prunes, by 1968 they were red-hot and ready to record. Landing a deal with Phillips, they made their sole album that summer.
Standing today as an unquestionable high point of UK psychedelia, it’s arguably the first album in the style that came to be known shortly afterwards as ‘heavy metal’.
Album completed, the band returned to the live circuit and eagerly awaited its release. They were to be disappointed, though. Too heavy for hippies and too snappy for progressive rock fans, The Open Mind vanished at once when it appeared in early 1969, though du Feu believes it went to Number 1 in Japan. Resisting disillusionment, they returned to the studio shortly afterwards to record the mighty ‘Magic Potion’, a single whose frantic riff, demented drumming and furious guitar solos make many consider it to be the finest heavy psychedelic rock 45 ever produced in Britain. If anything was going to break them, it was this. John Peel put his weight behind it and it seemed reasonable to expect a breakthrough, especially give the heavier direction that rock was starting to take. Fate, however, intervened again. The censorious British media panicked at the song’s unabashed celebration of the joys of acid, and the single was swiftly banned. In the wake of this blow, a split became inevitable. The Open Mind was closed for business, leaving some of the heaviest music of the decade in their wake.
Euphoria A Gift From Euphoria
Two musical nomads take psychedelic rock, bluegrass and orchestral ballads into lasting obscurity.Record label: CapitolProduced: Hamilton Wesley Watt Jr, William D Lincoln, Nik Venet aka Nikolas VenetoulisRecorded: Western Studios & Sunset Sound Recorders, Hollywood, Nashville & Pye Studios, London; 1967–68Release date: 1969Chart peaks: None (UK) None (US)Personnel: Wesley Watt (v, g, d); William Lincoln (v, g, b, p, harmonica); David Briggs (p); Bobby Thompson (banjo); Lloyd Green (sg); Irwin Webb (ar); musicians of the Los Angeles Philharmonic OrchestraTrack listing: Lisa; Stone River Hill Song; Did You Get The Letter; Through A Window; Young Miss Pflugg; Lady Bedford; Suicide On The Hillside Sunday Morning After Tea; Sweet Fanny Adams; I’ll Be Home To You; Sunshine Woman; Hollyville Train; Docker’s Son; Something For The Milkman; Too Young To Know; WorldRunning time: 43.05Current CD: Rev-Ola CRREV55Further listening: These were their only recordings together.Further reading: You just read it!Download: Not currently legally available
Even for an era renowned for eclectic musicianship, A Gift From Euphoria treads a particularly fine line between grandeur and folly. This extraordinary record was the culmination of a musical odyssey that had begun five years earlier, when Bill Lincoln and Wesley Watt met while playing in rival groups in West Hollywood. They went on to cut singles under a variety of names, and worked with hit vocal group The Platters (they shared a manager). Success, however, remained elusive and by 1966 the two friends were on different continents. Watt headed for the thriving music scene in Houston, Texas while Lincoln had married an English girl and was living with her family above a greengrocer’s shop on the outskirts of Manchester. The experience would later inspire one of his most memorable songs: ‘Docker’s Son was written about her brother – their father was a watchman on the docks at the Salford shipyards just down the street. I used to hear the rag-bone man come by daily. It was a poor, working-class area, but it was full of interesting things to a young American.’
When Lincoln returned to the States he and Watt conceived their ambitious new project. The entire album was funded without any record company involvement after a family friend arranged a bank loan. Recording followed four distinct stages, beginning at Western Studios, Hollywood, where the orchestral tracks were laid down with the help of a young arranger named Irwin Webb and over 60 musicians from the Los Angeles Philharmonic. For the country songs they enlisted the help of a trio of session veterans in Nashville before travelling to London’s Pye Studios to complete the remainder and overdub vocals. Finally, they returned to Hollywood to add sound effects and sweetening and record one exuberant final track, Suicide.
Now all they had to do was find a record deal. Pitched unsuccessfully to the Apple label, the album eventually found favour with staff producer Nik Venet at Capitol Records. However, the band became caught in a power struggle within their new label: ‘It all got very ugly, Nik lost his job, we lost our album and the rest is non-history.’
Still friends today, Watt now runs a country music saloon in Sheboygan, Wisconsin while Lincoln works as an administrative assistant for a community college in Oregon. Until recently both were completely unaware that their album had been reissued.
Gandalf Gandalf
Bar band record hypnotic one-off psychedelic classic.Record label: CapitolProduced: Koppelman–RubinRecorded: Century Sound Studios, New York; late 1967Released: 1969Chart peaks: None (UK) None (US)Personnel: Peter Sando (g, v); Frank Hubach (p, ep, o); Bob Muller (b); Davy Bauer (d)Track listing: Golden Earrings (S); Hang Onto A Dream; Never Too Far; Scarlet Ribbons; You Upset the Grace Of Living; Can You Travel In The Dark Alone?; Nature Boy; Tiffany Rings; Me About You; I Watch The MoonRunning time: UnknownCurrent CD: See For MilesFurther listening: Gandalf 2 (1970)Further reading: There is little to be found on the band, something that is made harder by the fact there is an Austrian new ager and a contemporary metal band under the same name.Download: Not currently legally available
In the explosion of record company interest occasioned by flower power, many excellent groups were treated shamefully. Take The Rahgoos. Having paid their dues for years in the bars and clubs of New York and New Jersey, they were offered a regular gig at the legendary Night Owl Cafe in Greenwich Village. Refining their set night after night at the centre of a scene including such luminaries as Fred Neil, The Lovin’ Spoonful and Tim Hardin, they were excellently placed for signing – and so it proved to be. Their friends Bonner and Gordon (writers of Happy Together amongst other hits) urged their managers Charlie Koppelman and Don Rubin to catch the band live in the summer of 1967. Blown away, they swiftly added The Rahgoos to their impressive roster, and a deal to release albums on Capitol via their own production company had just been struck. It all seemed too good to be true – and it was.
Firstly, they were made to rename themselves Gandalf, which they resented but agreed to. After a month of intensive rehearsals, they entered the studio at the end of 1967. The sessions were swift, and the band felt increasingly sidelined. ‘Don Rubin and Brooks Arthur, the engineer, were great to work with initially, but when they got what they needed, we were cut out of the sessions’, says their leader Peter Sando today. Cover versions dominate the album, including three by Tim Hardin, two by Bonner and Gordon and a magnificent rendition of Eden Ahbez’s much-loved Nature Boy, featuring a gut-wrenching, heavily distorted solo from Sando, whose own songwriting confidence was not yet fully developed. This is a great shame as, wonderful though the covers are, the group’s finest performances are reserved for his mere two originals – the wistful Can You Travel In The Dark Alone? and the thundering I Watch The Moon. The former features a dizzying blend of electric sitar, vibes and organ and the latter ends with a full-on psychedelic jam, complete with great swathes of fuzz guitar.
With such strong performances on tape, the group was understandably excited about its prospects – but as quickly as opportunity had beckoned them, they were spurned. Unbeknownst to them, the deal with Capitol was collapsing. When the record finally appeared in early 1969, in a glorious psychedelic sleeve, yet another blow was to befall them. Shipped with the wrong disc inside, all copies were recalled, and any momentum it may have gathered was lost. Barely promoted, it sank without trace – but its reputation and price tag have never stopped growing since. As Sando puts it today, ‘it’s great to get a little credit – even after 35 years!’
Silver Apples Contact
Second album from pioneers of loops and ambience. Now active again after belated recognition.Record label: KappProduced: Silver Apples and Barry BryantRecorded: Universal Studios, Los Angeles and Apostolic Studios, New York; late 1968Release date: February 1969Chart peaks: None (UK) None (US)Personnel: Simeon Coxe III (oscillators [often known as ‘The Simeon’], banjo, v); Danny Taylor (pc, v); Jack Hunt (e)Track listing: You And I (S); Water; Ruby; Gypsy Love; You’re Not Foolin’ Me; I Have Known Love; A Pox On You; Confusion; FantasiesRunning time: 40.21Current CD: Radioactive MCD 11680 adds: Silver Apples; Oscillations; Seagreen Serenades; Lovefingers; Program; Velvet Cave; Whirly-Bird; Dust; Dancing Gods; Misty MountainFurther listening: Long-lost third album The Garden (1970) is now available; two recent albums, Beacon (1997) and Decatur (1998): see also the collaborations The Alchemysts And Simeon (2000) and A Lake Of Teardrops (1998), with Sonic Boom from Spacemen 3Further reading: Long interview with Simeon in Ptolemaic Terrascope 22, February 1997 (www.terrascope.org); www.silverapples.comDownload: Not currently legally available
In 1967, Simeon Coxe III began to spice up the performances of his conventional rock band by adding electronic effects. ‘One of my best buds then was a serious composer called Harold Rodgers. He had an old Second World War oscillator. He used to get loaded on vodka and try to play along with Beethoven, Bartok, etc. One day I put on a Stones record and played along. I was hooked!’
The band quickly became a duo, based around Simeon’s rapidly multiplying and interlinked battery of audio-generators and Danny Taylor’s massive, carefully tuned drum kit. Their 1968 debut introduced the maverick coupling, but Contact marks the apotheosis of their sound. ‘The first album was a recording studio project, whereas Contact was recorded during and after a three-month tour and my pipes were road-toughened,’ says Coxe. It’s a harder record than their debut – titles such as A Pox On You and the harsh, edgy wailings of Cox’s electrickery speak volumes.
‘I was fortunate enough to know Hendrix [Danny Taylor had drummed with Jimi’s Blue Flames]. We traded gear and talked about new sound distortions. He called me Mr Apple and I called him Mr Experience.’ The influence is apparent on the bucking electro-ballistics of You’re Not Foolin’ Me and Gypsy Love, while Taylor’s urgent, human-drum-machine beats provide the perfect underpinning. Coxe: ‘By 1969 a lot of the hippy dream had faded. I’m not sure the world had become dystopian, but I was sure feeling the darker side.’ This finds a perfect expression in the dissonant flower-power anthem I Have Known Love, a perfectly curdled pop song. And if things didn’t sound weird enough, Simeon – who was raised in the Tennessee mountains – found time to play banjo on Ruby and Confusion, to create a sort of techno-bluegrass.
Unfortunately, Kapp had no money to promote Contact, and Silver Apples went into cold storage for almost 25 years before enjoying a renaissance thanks to the patronage of bands like Stereolab, Moonshake and Spacemen 3. ‘At the time,’ Coxe notes ruefully, ‘electronics as a musical concept had not yet been embraced by musicians and fans as something that could stand on its own, other than in universities and laboratories. We embraced that concept.’
The Youngbloods Elephant Mountain
New York quartet go West to make sprawling Sgt. Pepper-inspired masterpiece.Record label: RCAProduced: Charles E Daniels with Bob Cullen and The YoungbloodsRecorded: RCA Studios, New York City; RCA’s Music Center of the World, Hollywood; autumn 1967–winter 1968Released: April 1969Chart peaks: None (UK) 113 (US)Personnel: Jesse Colin Young (v, b); Lowell Levinger, aka ‘Banana’ (g, ps, p, k, o, harpsichord, v); Joe Bauer (d, pc); David Lindley (fiddle); Victor Feldman (vibes); Plas Johnson (s); Joe Clayton (t); Richie Schmidt, Hank Cicalo, Mickey Crofford (e)Track listing: Darkness, Darkness (S/US); Smug; On Sir Francis Drake; Sunlight; Double Sunlight; Beautiful; Turn It Over; Rain Song; Trillium; Quicksand; Black Mountain Breakdown; Sham; Ride the WindRunning time: 39.51Current CD: Beat Goes On BGOCD741 adds: The Youngbloods and Earth Music albumsFurther listening: The Youngbloods (1967) contains the band’s two biggest hits, Get Together and Grizzly Bear, while Best Of The Youngbloods (2002) is a good introduction despite being a little thin at 10 tracks.Further reading: Jesse Colin Young raises coffee in Kona, Hawaii. The web page for his business – www.jessecolinyoung.com – also has some music information.Download: HMV Digital
In 1967, two years before a television ad promoting brotherhood turned it into a national smash, The Youngbloods’ Get Together had been a regional hit on the West Coast. Excited by its success, the New York City-based quartet headed west, settling in bucolic Inverness, California, 30 miles up the coast from San Francisco. The dominant feature of the landscape was Black Mountain, which resembled an elephant’s back, so when it came time to name the ambitious album they seemed to have been working on forever (two years, in fact), The Youngbloods did not hesitate: it was Elephant Mountain.
‘Recording actually began in New York,’ says Lowell Levinger, who played just about every instrument on it except bass and drums, and also wrote arrangements. ‘When we were all living out here, we would fly down to LA for two or three weeks at a time to work on it. We’d stay at the Tropicana Hotel and go to the studio every night.’ The commute cost them their second guitar player, Jerry Corbitt.
‘Just about when we first began flying down to Los Angeles, Jerry developed an aversion to flying,’ says Levinger. ‘Then he developed an aversion to a lot of other things.’ The Youngbloods’ sound was always distinguished by the soft, airy tenor of founder Jesse Colin Young, ‘the Golden Throat’, as Levinger calls him. But they were actually one of the more eclectic, adventuresome bands of their time, with a repertoire of styles ranging from folk and upbeat country to jazz, blues and even ragtime. Inspired by the ambitiousness of Sgt. Pepper and their own live shows, which often sprawled over three hours, the band conceived Elephant Mountain as an organic whole. Its 13 tracks flow into one another with the help of short instrumental segues and studio banter.
‘We used to do a lot of improvising in the studio with the tape running,’ says Levinger. ‘Joe spent a lot of time going through those tapes and finding good snippets.’ One amusing snippet is Turn It Over: an obsolete 12 seconds since no one needs to be reminded to turn a record over in the CD age. The album’s centrepiece is Darkness, Darkness, a minor-key meditation on the seductiveness of oblivion. ‘Producing that song took forever,’ says Levinger. ‘I played the echo on Jesse’s voice the same as I would any other musical instrument.’ Levinger’s raw, intense guitar solo is just one high point of this beautiful, ambitious record.
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