A really wonderful album from the lovely Barbara Keith – a singer who's a bit folksy at points, but also has all the cool Cali touches you'd expect from the canyon scene at the time – that special blend of elements that can make an early 70s album like this such a unique treasure! Barbara sings lead vocals, and provides acoustic guitar – and backing shifts from track to track, and features great contributions from folks like Spooner Oldham on Fender Rhodes and Danny Kootchmar and Lowell George on guitars! With company like that, you'll get a good idea of the style – a mode that's faithful to roots, but really pushes things forward – and with an approach that's maybe more subtle than some of Barbara's male contemporaries, but in a nice way. Titles include "Detroit Or Buffalo", "Shining All Along", "The Road I Took To You", "The Bramble & The Rose", "Rolling Water", and "A Stones Throw Away". (Rock, Folk/Country) LP, Vinyl record album

Amazing work from the legendary Tim Buckley – and one of the records that truly shows why his music was unlike anything else that ever came before! The blend of folksy and jazzy roots really takes off here – stretching forth at times with a spacious feel that's airy, yet full of feeling – as Tim's magnificent vocals are backed by key instrumentation from Lee Underwood on guitar and organ, plus a small lineup of tenor, flute, trumpet, and bass – all bringing some jazzy phrasing to the mix. Tim himself plays 12 string guitar, at a level that's both complex yet completely organic – and titles include the sublime "Song To The Siren", a heavenly tune that perfectly sums up his genius, and which would be enough of a legacy, even if it was the only cut he ever recorded – plus "Monterey", "Come Here Woman", "Jungle Fire", and "Starsailor". (Rock, Folk/Country) LP, Vinyl record album

... LP, Vinyl record album

... CD

Pretty great later work from Dan Hicks & The Hot Licks – not the immediately-retro style of their earlier albums, but instead this wonderful blend of so many different jazz and acoustic elements – set forward with a style that's wonderfully groovy overall! There's a hip, scatting vibe to the music that almost puts Hicks in the same 70s territory as Ben Sidran – although maybe a few notches earlier in terms of his inspirations – yet coming across with a breezy warmth that's really beautiful, almost like the shift that Maria Muldaur had made from her trad styles of the 60s to the groove of "Midnight At The Oasis". Fender Rhodes warms the record up at all the right moments – and titles include "Boogaloo Jones", "Cruzin", "Garden In The Rain", "Dizzy Dogs", "Vinnie's Lookin Good", "Lovers For Life", and "Collared Blues". Great CD issue features the full material originally recorded for release as a soundtrack – the tracks on the album, plus 9 more unreleased bonus tracks – including "Gone With The Wind", "Hummin To Myself", "Lulu's Back In Town", "You Belong To Me", and "Walkin My Baby Back Home". (Rock, Folk/Country) CD

(Rock, Folk/Country) LP, Vinyl record album

(Rock, Folk/Country) CD

A fantastic all-star acoustic group – produced by Joe Boyd – and featuring David Grisman on mandolin, Peter Rowan on guitar, Richard Greene on violin, and Clarence White on guitar! LP, Vinyl record album

A really unusual album from actor Jack Palance – unusual in that it may well be his only vocal performance on record, and even more unusual in that it came out during a very hip stretch of Warner Brothers at the start of the 70s! Yet the pairing of Palance and the budding genius of Warner maybe makes perfect sense – as the aging actor is a great fit here for the sorts of moods that you'd find in the bluer songs of Van Dyke Parks, or the subtle drama of Neon Philharmonic – even though the whole thing is less of a Los Angeles affair overall – as it was produced by Buddy Killen in Nashville, with some arrangements by Bergen White. You could call the record a country album, and there's definitely some country elements here – but Jack kind of sing/speaks, and maybe presents the whole thing as a meaner, more mature take on modes that some of the other cowboys on the screen were recording a decade before. Palance also wrote some of the songs – including "The Meanest Guy That Ever Lived" – and other titles include "Goodbye Lucy", "Blackjack County Chains", "A Little Bitty Tear", "Love Can Only Mean You", "Dancing Like Children", and "Brother River". CD

... LP, Vinyl record album

... LP, Vinyl record album

... LP, Vinyl record album

The lasting legacy of the enigmatic Ted Lucas – a somewhat mysterious figure who moved between Detroit and Los Angeles in the late 60s – but who works here with a sound that's completely his own! Part of the record was created as demo tracks for Warner Brothers – who'd issued some of Ted's earlier singles with other bands – but the material never got released on the bigger label, but has the kind of completely individual vibe that really captures the spirit of the best underground work Warner was handling at the time. Lucas sings shorter tracks on side one – but often with this weird sort of overlapping production style – creating his own vocal harmonies that resonate with slightly jagged guitar lines – flowing out in modes that partly illustrate his experience studying sitar with Ravi Shankar on the west coast, partly just show a love of unusual tunings that would have made Lucas great even as a solo instrumentalist. Side two definitely moves more into those modes – territory that resonates nicely with Sandy Bull or Robbie Basho – and titles include "Plain & Sane & Simple Melody", "Now That I Know", "Baby Where You Are", Robins Ride", "Sonny Boy Blues", and "Love & Peace Raga". (Rock, Folk/Country) LP, Vinyl record album