Opens The Seven Gates Of Transcendental Consciousness
Ebos Records, 1972
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California mail-order mystic Master Wilburn Burchette was first known from his ads, hidden in the back pages of Fate Magazine, Beyond Reality, and Gnostica News. On offer: Burchett’s seven-part, block-printed “Psychic Meditation Course,” designed to teach people how to listen to music. To go along with his lessons, Burchette sold a series of instrumental guitar and electronic records featuring ornate hand-drawn cover designs, complete with listening instructions from the Master himself. Since just his twelfth year, Burchette had been transfixed by the parapsychological, spending as much time reading books on Tibetan mysticism fundamentals as he did practicing guitar, the vibrations of which he used to create tonal pictures and patterns. After time spent teaching classical guitar, Master Wilburn Burchette released seven albums in the seven years spanning 1971 through 1977, before abruptly burning and discarding everything related to his musical explorations.

Writing as Will Loy, Burchette (and his brother Kenneth, as the Burchette Brothers) published Will Loy’s News Bulletin (or Will Loy’s Psychic Prophecy News Bulletin), a monthly periodical, beginning in 1979. It was advertised in such tabloids as the Weekly World News, where it was described as a compendium of information ranging from impending economic, geologic, and climatic catastrophes to the Second Coming, super computers, ancient spaceships, and similar matter.

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George Gerdes (1948-2021) spent over 30 years playing bit parts on television series, including “X-Files” and “NYPD Blue,” as well as taking on small roles in films, such as “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” and “Amistad.”

Prior to all of this, George cut a couple records in the early 1970s that went largely unnoticed in the United States while making a slightly bigger splash in England.  Released on United Artists, Gerdes first album, Obituary, was unveiled via a live performance in England by the man himself right before a screening of UA’s most recent picture, Frank Zappa’s “200 Motels”.  The album received enough critical praise and overall “buzz” to justify UA funding a follow-up release.

Gerdes, working with producer Nick Venet (The Beach Boys, Bobby Darin, Sam Cooke, Linda Ronstadt, Karen Dalton, The Walker Brothers, Lou Rawls), requested that the instrumental personnel for his sophomore release be none other than the session musicians from Bob Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde.  The times afforded this luxury to be so, and in summer of 1972, Gerdes found himself in Nashville recording Son of Obituary with legendary Area Code 615 session players such as Charlie McCoy, Henry Strzelecki, and Kenny Buttrey.

The result was a record quite ahead of its time, a brand of country rock/pop that veers a bit more toward eccentric than early country rock musicians like Gram Parsons and Michael Nesmith.

Nancy & Lee Again
Light in the Attic Records, 2023
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The years that elapsed between Nancy & Lee (1968) and the follow-up Nancy & Lee Again (1972) saw a lot of change for the duo. Sinatra’s star faded and she gradually retreated from the spotlight, while Hazlewood moved to Sweden and cut a series of albums that weren’t popular or well received. Both were looking for two things: to reconnect with an old friend and to possibly squeeze out another hit. Although the album didn’t deliver on the latter, hearing them reconnect and recapture the spirit of their early work is satisfying.

The record is made up of a mix of Hazlewood-penned songs and covers. The blend of their voices and sensibilities is still magical, though, and for the most part, the album is a success. The opening tearjerker “Arkansas Coal (Suite)” leads right into the rip-roaring goof “Big Red Balloon.” There’s a tonal shift that happens throughout the record, with songs as bleak and brutal as their take on Dolly Parton’s “Down from Dover” balancing precariously next to the country novelty track “Did You Ever?” Highlights include “Paris Summer,” which captures the psychedelic swoon of earlier duets, and “Friendship Train,” which could be seen as Hazlewood’s apology to Sinatra for moving to Sweden without so much as a goodbye. Overall, Nancy & Lee Again may not be quite the equal of their first album of duets, but it’s better than if they had never patched things up at all.

[The audio tracks above are from the 2023 reissue by Light in the Attic Records]

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With a relatively slight body of recorded material and a trajectory as mysterious and uneven as their music, Neutral Milk Hotel became one of the more important and influential bands in indie rock on the strength of how unique and connective their songs were. Centered around the songwriting of founder and key member Jeff Mangum, NMH explored faith, spirituality, sex, and mortality from skewed and unpredictable angles all their own.

They’re known for their experimental sound, which has been described as a mixture of indie rock and psychedelic folk, with lo-fi production. Critics have noted many other musical influences, including Eastern European choral music, Canterbury Sound, circus music, marching band music, musique concrète, drone music, free jazz, and Tropicália. Neutral Milk Hotel songs typically involved simple chord progressions that Mangum would strum on an acoustic guitar. Often as the song progressed, more instruments would be introduced. The band members played a wide range of instruments; on In the Aeroplane Over the Sea for example, conventional instruments like drums and distorted guitars were paired with unique instruments like the singing saw, uilleann pipes, and Digital Horn.

The Fort Mudge Memorial Dump
Mercury Records, 1970

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Identified with the Bosstown Sound (a marketing campaign to promote psychedelic rock and psychedelic pop bands in Boston), it was the only album from the Walpole, Massachusetts band. Members were Caroline Stratton (vocals), Dan Keady (guitar, vocals), Richard Clerici (guitar, vocals), David Amaral (bass), and James Deptula (drums).

Active from 1969-1973, they were relatively obscure among the era’s psychedelic rock sound collective. Stratton and Keady guided the vocal and guitar elements of their acid-rock approach. By the way, the band’s name came from Walt Kelly’s comic “Pogo”.

Golden Earring
Polydor Records, 1970

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The eponymous sixth studio album from the Dutch prog-rock band deserves a second listening. It’s a comprehensive introduction to their musicianship, especially if you were only aware of 1973’s Moontan, their first U.S. release that charted.

Active since 1961, founding members Rinus Gerritsen (bass, keyboards, guitar) and George Kooymans (guitar, vocals) were later joined by Barry Hay (vocals, guitar, flute, saxophone) and Cesar Zuiderwijk (drums, percussion). Despite a few personnel changes, that quartet remained as the core from 1970-2021. The group then dissolved due to Kooymans’ health issues.

Hay’s flute has a prominent role on Golden Earring, so comparison with Jethro Tull is natural. Although not a virtuoso like Ian Anderson, he adds flavor to such excellent tracks as “Yellow and Blue,” “Big Tree, Blue Sea” and “Back Home.”

They released 25 studio albums from 1965-2012 and achieved international fame when the single version of “Radar Love” became a hit in both the U.S. and Europe.

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The variation between the content of British and American albums of the same name by the same artist was often puzzling. It was common, for example, on the early catalogs of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones to have alternate track listings with minor changes (or a totally different release exclusive to the respective country). The American marketing strategy for LPs at the time was to feature songs that were released as singles, and with fewer overall tracks than the UK counterpart.

For the release of Manfred Mann’s debut album it involved totally different titles. Eleven of the twelve tracks on The Manfred Mann Album were taken from their British release, The Five Faces of Manfred Mann. The later included “I’m Your Kingpin”, “Mr. Anello” and “You’ve Got to Take It”. These three are excluded from the American debut version, which instead has “Do Wah Diddy Diddy” as the twelfth track. To make it even more confusing, Mann’s second American album was also called The Five Faces of Manfred Mann but included “Sha La La”, “Come Tomorrow”, and “Hubble Bubble (Toil and Trouble)”; not used on the British version of Five Faces. Enough of that!

Reviews of the UK and US releases were favorable. Especially notable are the cover versions of R&B standards like Howlin’ Wolf’s “Smokestack Lightning”, Muddy Waters’ “I’ve Got My Mojo Working”, and Bo Diddley’s “Bring It to Jerome”.

Manfred Mann were formed in London in 1962. The lineup included Mike Hugg (drums, vibraphone), Paul Jones (lead vocals, harmonica, 1962-66), Mike d’Abo (lead vocals, 1966-69), Manfred Mann (organ, piano), Tom McGuinness (bass guitar), and Mike Vickers (guitar, alto saxophone, flute). Jack Bruce and Klaus Voormann were also in the band, for a few years in the mid-60s. Manfred Mann’s Earth Band evolved in 1971 with much success and several charted hits.

If you’re interested in a comprehensive collection of their early works, check out the 4-CD box set “Down the Road Apiece – Their EMI Recordings 1963–1966”.

[Note that Mann’s debut in the UK was on His Master’s Voice (HMV), a major British record label created in 1901 by The Gramophone Company Ltd. The name is taken from the title of a painting by English artist Francis Barraud, which depicted a Jack Russell Terrier named Nipper listening to a wind-up disc gramophone and tilting his head. In the original painting the dog was listening to a cylinder phonograph. It was also used as the trademark and logo of the Victor Talking Machine Company, later known as RCA Victor.]