Cat Stevens - Majikat

Steven Demetre Georgiou, known by his stage name Cat Stevens, is a greece-british singer/songwriter. His albums Tea for the Tillerman and Teaser and the Firecat were both certified as Triple Platinum in the US alone; his album Catch Bull at Four sold half a million copies in the first two weeks of its release. He has also earned two songwriting awards in consecutive years, for The First Cut Is the Deepest, which has been a hit single for four different artists. The great Cat Stevens converted to Islam at the height of his fame in December 1977 and adopted his Muslim name, Yusuf the following year. In 2006, he returned to music, with his first album of new songs in 28 years, entitled An Other Cup . His newest album, Roadsinger, was released on 5 May 2009.

The New Breed - Wants You

Here we have another pre-Eagles-pre-Poco-thing. The story begins in Sacramento, CA in 1965 when Timothy (B.) Schmit, Ron Floegel, and Tom Phillips, and George Hullin went by the name, the New Breed.
In 1965, the New Breed cut a single, Green Eyed Woman b/w I'm in Love which was quite successful as a regional hit in Northern California. The band's music mirrored the progressive changes that were happening in the music world around this time, and their single Want Ad Reader was, essentially, a New Breed re-write of Paperback Writer. Around 1968, the band signed on with a new label, Equinox, under producer Terry Melcher, who had the group change their name to Glad. Unfortunately, Glad did not sell particularly well, and in 1969, Timothy B. Schmit was offered the position of bassist for Poco. He accepted it and went onto record some of the most underrated music ever with the band. He became the replacement for Randy Meisner, who, ironically, he would replace again in the Eagles in 1977. With Poco, Tim released 11 albums. The remaining members of New Breed/Glad continued making music as Redwing.

Glad - Feelin' Glad

Pre-Poco-pre-Eagles act Glad was the natural continuation of The New Breed (no members left). Their sole 1969's album is in the flower power/soft psychedelic style, complete with rich harmonies and heavy orchestration.
When the band folded Timothy Bruce Schmidt achieved international success first with Poco and then with the Eagles. Tom Phillips, George Hullin & Ron Floegel regrouped to form Redwing who released a string of albums throughout the 1970`s and beyond. Interestingly there's a track Pickin' Up The Pieces on this album(NOT the Richie Furay number). So Tim hadn't to learn any words on this song ;-)
This is a cleaned vinyl rip @192, so some cracks may still exist.

Albert Hammond - First two albums (Remaster)

1972
It Never Rains in Southern California
(What a claim!)

1973
The Free Electric Band

Albert Hammond was born in London, where his family had been evacuated from Gibraltar during WW II. His family returned to Gibraltar shortly after his birth, where he grew up. In 1966 Hammond co-founded the British vocal group, The Family Dogg together with Steve Rowland and Mike Hazlewood. They were scoring a UK hit with A Way of Life in 1969. Hammond later moved to the US, where he continued his career as a musician. Recently I've listened to his first two albums and I must say he were a poor guy. This is a good example how record companys burned artists to ash. Albert simply is no Cat Stevens, Roger McGuinn or Paul McCartney! If You Gotta Break Another Heart and The Peacemaker are simply Cat Stevens remakes, Brand New Day is a Byrds/Bob Dylan tune and The Air That I Breath is a Beatles styled number. It seems Columbia had no clue what to do with him. But I like them both. I'm really interested in your thoughts about that.

Hollies - Hollies Sing Hollies

Here we have another British Invasion group from the early sixties, hugely overseen today. 1969's Hollies sing Hollies was made when Graham Nash already had decided to leave the Hollies to fund Crosby, Stills & Nash. It is the second album featuring Terry Sylvester.

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Kingston Trio - Goin' Places

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Living sign

Hey Guys,

I don't had the chance to log in this blog for nearly two years. So it's no wonder that the blog is in an unhealthy shape. I'm working on to repair, because

The Turntable will be back in 2013!

 

I wish you'll have a peaceful X-mas and a happy new year.

- The Seeker -

Kingston Trio Part 2

String Along was released in 1960. It was their fifth studio album in a row to reach number one on the Billboard charts and remained there for ten weeks. It was the last LP of the Trio to reach the number one spot. Two singles, Bad Man Blunder and Everglades were released. Both were the last singles of the Guard years Trio to chart. Sold Out was released in 1960.

It was their third LP to reach #1, stayed there for twelve weeks, and received a gold certification the same year. El Matador was its lead-off single, though it just made the Top 40. Sold Out remained in the Top 40 for 54 weeks, longer than any Trio album. The version of Raspberries, Strawberries included is a remake of the Trio's follow-up single to Tom Dooley. The Last Month of the Year is
considered the Kingston Trio's most musically ambitious and also one of the their least known. It was recorded in 1960. Nick Reynolds stated in an interview: "It wasn't your standard Christmas album. That's why we called it The Last Month of the Year. It was a pretty complicated little album, some very intricate stuff. Dave Guard brought in a lot of the arrangements with stuff like bouzouki instrumentation. David Wheat, the trio's bassist, played some wonderful guitar. We really worked hard on that one, laying down a lot of the instrumental tracks before we did the vocals, working on harmonies over and over. David was responsible for a lot of that album, but we all brought things in. Musically, it came off very well; it just didn't sell."
Make Way is the ninth album by the Kingston Trio, released in 1961. It reached number two on the Billboard charts, despite there being no US singles released from the album. En El Agua was released as a B-side in the US but as an A-side in Great Britain. Goin' Places was their tenth album, released in 1961. It peaked at number three on the Billboard charts and spent 41 weeks in the Top 40. The lead-off single
was You're Gonna Miss Me, a new arrangement of Frankie and Johnny.It's B-side was En El Agua. Goin' Places was the last album recorded with Dave Guard as a member.
The day after the completion of the Goin' Places recording sessions, the Trio embarked on their first foreign tour. After their return, Guard announced his intention to resign from the group. Guard stated in numerous interviews he left the Trio for two main reasons: He was upset with a discrepancy in publishing royalties and he felt the Trio needed to grow musically. The other members, Nick Reynolds and Bob Shane, disagreed on both counts. Guard stayed on to fulfill the group's concert commitments through November and Reynolds and Shane, having decided to keep the group going, hired John Stewart as Guard's replacement.
Guard later formed the Whiskeyhill Singers, which disbanded after one Capitol album and virtually no success. In an interview for Frets magazine in 1984 Reynolds stated: "Basically, David wanted to take it on to another level. Bobby and I were just hangin' out, having a good time. We were happy with the format and working way too hard to consider sitting down and learning how to read music... We were killing ourselves as it was with the work, and David was insisting that we take lessons. He was also upset about the publishing thing, and didn't think people were taking care of business, and he became dissatisfied with everything from photography to the management. It might have been an overreaction on Dave's part, but I believe that he honestly wanted to take it to a higher plane..."