This is a recording of a two day concert from a Catholic church in Venice, CA. I like the design of the cross on the front cover. It is revealed on the back cover’s song list, roughly hand-written in green marker, that Ed McMahon narrates a twenty plus minute skit about the rise of Pope [...]
Here’s some Los Angeles based, hard synthesizer rock from 1979 on the small Parliament label. It isn’t all that great, in my humble opinion; like a second rate Thin Lizzy. The tripped out cover art and version of the Stones’ “Paint It Black” make it worth it.
Mr. Tapia is a flamenco guitarist, in the same vein as Jose Feliciano, who performed at lounges and Mexican food restaurants in the San Fernando Valley. He is backed by The Classmates, a band on the drums, guitars and vibes. Dig on this bad-ass cover while chowing on carne asada and sipping on margaritas. Charle [...]
Cecilia Valencic and her group from Cleveland, Ohio created this obscure LP to demostrate their ability to fuse polka with the “now sounds” of rock, funk and soul. The standout is “He Left Me Behind” which has a “Tighten Up” groove and a trombone solo. Check out the cover which features a chalk drawing of [...]
This is a Los Angeles based jazz quartet from 1976, which consists of drums, upright bass, alto sax and piano. This one’s pretty straight forward except a creative version of Art Blakey’s “Moanin’”, which features a beaty intro and refrain that sounds like “Dead”.
This comes from a live 1983 concert in Baltimore, MD. Musically, this is gospel soul with a ‘modern’ feel to it. “Even So, Come, Lord Jesus”, with it’s Revelations-based lyrics, moves me as she lets her sweet voice really belt it out. Also, for someone who is celebrating, Diann looks a little worried on the [...]
Here’s a James Bond exploitation jazz album on the Los Angeles-based Mirwood label, which other than this LP, released soul 45s. The sextet features local session players such as bassist Jimmy “James” Bond and sax/flutist Buddy Collette along with Harold Land and Bobby Bryant. Audio coming soon…
This is a soundtrack from 1971, performed by Denny Vaughn and anonymous Los Angeles based session musicians, to an obscure Love Story-esque film. It also was recorded shortly before the Canadian, Glen Miller-associated bandleader died. The sountrack is all over the place, from a fuzz guitar and organ fueled funk instrumental called “Ride Home Rock”, [...]
This pianist and Richard Karn lookalike brings the marina rock soul with female backup singers, Rhodes and an analog synth on “Bringing It Back” and the cover of “50 Ways To Leave Your Lover”. Mr. Patterson was a studio musician and composer before he released this solo project on his Beverly Hills, CA based vanity [...]
On the small Los Angeles label, Pzazz, this is a Petula Clark soundalike with soulful instrumentation which gets funky in places. Her voice doesn’t really gel with the musical backing, in my opinion. That’s a seductive picture of her, though. Listen
This is a Corona Del Mar, California, based Christian folk-rock album circa 1971. The Phoenix Sonshine are a quartet with one female singer and two guitarists on backup vocals. One song in particular that moves me is “Broken Wing”. The first half of the song has a brooding feel to it but with a strong [...]
Spaced out experimental music on the obscure Daagnim label, recorded live at the 1979 New Dallas Arts Festival in Dallas, TX. Here, Ron plays guitar and piano; (Heinasirkka) Dennis Gonzalez plays trumpet, cymbals, various small instruments and is pictured playing the cello on the back cover and Jim Hunter plays the upright bass. The three [...]
Sakura was a popular multilingual female singer in the Singaporean go-go/rock scene during the 60s and 70s. On this particular LP, she covers James Brown’s “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag”, which is dominated by a loud fuzz guitar. The Thai surf group, The Quests, provided the rhythm on Mrs. Teng’s songs for many years [...]
This is from a group of accoustic guitar playing nuns from Los Angeles who sing about friendship and Jesus. I really like the cover with the design and clashing colors. The sisters are still active in missionary work according to their website. I take it this LP recorded in 1973 was a suppliment to their [...]
This is from a teenage musical department based in Las Vegas from Valley High School. The front, which contains a red-white-and-blue silhouette motif of the band and the back, a list of all list of personnel with a flattering foreward by the director are both copied pieces of paper hand pasted on the jacket. The [...]
Here’s a recording of an 11th annual concert hosted by the Hollywood Bowl to showcase teenage musicians and singers. The participants are either independent or associated with high schools. There’s your standard horn heavy stage band numbers from Montebello, Dorsey and Pico Rivera High Schools, as well as contributions from folk duos, such as Two [...]
The year and location of this record are ambiguous. However, apparently, this is apart of a series of recordings where a songwriter would submit their work through mail order to have their works performed by a professional singer. The singers on this compilation are ones named Marie Bain, Kay Weaver and Ralph Lowe. The women [...]
This comes to us from ‘The Scientific Peace Builders Foundation’ out of Santa Monica, CA. On side one, narrator Charles Evans explains to us how the world is and always has been: war, power struggles and greed pitting human against human, racism, disease, etc. Side two has the nasally voiced alien-human Mr. Uman explaining how [...]