Big Surf (Ace Records compilation)

Rating: 5/5

Review:
A cracking compilation

This is an absolutely cracking compilation of surf instrumentals from Ace Records. The five groups here may be slightly less well known than people like The Ventures or Dick Dale, but they are really good – plenty of atmospheric echoey guitar, prominent drums and so on, and some terrific tunes.

Some of these tracks were familiar to me but many weren’t, and I’m delighted to have them all. The sound quality is excellent as you’d expect from Ace and it’s a gem of a collection all round. Very warmly recommended.

Mason Profitt - Wanted

Rating: 4/5

Review:
Still a good album

Mason Profitt were a good band; they were a little derivative, so you can hear CS&N, The Byrds, Creedence, The Dillards and others in various places here, but they do it well and the material is good without being spectacular. Personally, I could do without the over-emoted version of Skewball and the rather adolescent-sounding Two Hangmen which follows it, but the general, standard is good with some excellent banjo playing in particular, and I can recommend this to anyone who likes country rock of this era.

Robin Scott - Woman From The Warm Grass

Rating: 3/5

Review:
Pretty forgettable

The sleeve notes describe Woman From The Warm Grass as a lost folk classic. Well...lost? Yes. Folk? Maybe. Classic? No.

Robin Scott released this album in 1969 and it is rather typical of a lot of the mediocre stuff which came out then. There are a lot of rather inane lyrics masquerading as profundity, including a tuneless, rhymeless stream of consciousness thing in Song Of The Sun, and the whole album sounds as though it was conceived through mind-altering substances and was intended to be listened to in the same way. As so often, this makes it pretty dull to those of us who haven’t indulged. It’s not terrible and it has its moments, but it certainly doesn’t stand out from all the other trippy, forgettable stuff around then and I can’t really recommend it.

VA - The Beatles Dans Leurs 14 Plus Grands Succes

Rating: 2/5

Review:
A curiosity

This is a genuine curiosity. It’s a 1965 collection of Beatles covers and it’s a mixed bag, to say the least. Many of the acts here are largely forgotten, and frankly, it’s not hard to see why.

To be fair, there are some genuinely interesting takes on some songs, like The Score’s strange but compelling version of Please Please Me and an enjoyable jangly psych take on She’s A Woman by The Northwest Corporation. There’s also some unobjectionable but rather dull stuff from Del Shannon, The Beach Boys and others, but there are also some real turkeys here. Just as examples, there’s a cringingly bland version of She Loves You and the embarrassing absurdity of The Moving Sidewalks trying to give a serious heavy rock treatment to an honest-to-God light pop song like I Want To Hold Your Hand. (I would also have been interested in Chuck Berry’s views on Roll Over Beethoven and Rock And Roll Music being included as Beatles covers.)

These are early Beatles songs which relied for much of their greatness and individuality on the Beatles’ performance, and it shows here. For example, The Blue Things’ version of Twist And Shout simply highlights how great Lennon’s vocals were and how ordinary the song sounds without them. As an album, it has some historical interest but not all that much musical interest. One for real collectors and Beatles fanatics only, I’d say.

Compton & Batteau - In California

Rating: 4/5

Review:
A good album

This is a very nice album. Obscurities like this, originally released in 1971, are often obscure for a very good reason, but In California is a very decent example of the sort of folky, baroque, slightly-jazzy-in-places genre of the time. The songs are pleasantly melodic, well sung and very nicely arranged. The whole feel is helped by some classy musicians including people like Jim Messina and Randy Meisner and Robin Batteau’s violin is inventive and adds some real musical interest.

This isn’t a “long lost classic”; it’s long lost, possibly, but not a classic – but then very few albums are genuine classics. In California is a good, enjoyable album, though, which I can recommend to anyone with an interest in the more folky music of the late 60s and early 70s.

William C. Beeley - Gallivantin'

Rating: 4/5

Review:
A nice album

This obscurity from 1971 has aged rather well. It’s a decent album rather than a long-lost classic, but it’s well worth a listen, I think.

Beeley’s songs are enjoyable, with decent tunes and lyrics, he plays a nice guitar in a style which reminds me rather of Donovan and he has a fine, straightforward voice a little reminiscent of Gordon Lightfoot. I’m glad to see this available at last, and if you like folk of the late 60s/early 70s I can recommend Gallivantin’.