Your Sister’s (Record) Rack, Part 9.5: More singles!

I had this entire series finished late last night – then I found these.  I listened to every one – twice – then decided to just throw them out there without documentation.  Hope that’s OK!

MP3: “Dark Star” (single version) by the Grateful Dead

MP3: “War Song” by Neil Young and Graham Nash

MP3: “Ride Captain Ride” by Blues Image

MP3: “Shakedown Cruise” by Jay Ferguson (I used the LP version because my single was so scratched up)

MP3: “The Family Of Man” by Three Dog Night

MP3: “Lost Her In The Sun” by John Stewart

MP3: “Thoroughfare Gap” by Stephen Stills

MP3: “Down By The River” by Albert Hammond

Sampler Daze: WB/Reprise Loss Leaders, Part 4

By 1972, the world was still rockin’ in a sort of Sixties-era hangover: newly freaky 18-year-olds had been given the right to vote for the first time (only fair, since they were long qualified to be drafted into the military), and men were still walking on the moon way up there.  Warner/Reprise issued a whopping four – count ’em – 2-disc sets in 1972, so for brevity’s sake we’ll break ’em up here.

The Whole Burbank Catalog showcased the variety of the label’s stable: rockers like Jethro Tull and Alice Cooper were mixed in with Jerry Garcia, Jackie Lomax and Bonnie Raitt.  T. Rex and Faces would spotlight their best albums with “Bang A Gong (Get It On)” and “Memphis,” respectively.  Cuts from old radio shows were interspersed with the music, to really make it sound like a free-form FM radio show – that technique is still in use today.   A new group making their first appearance in the Loss Leaders series was the trio America, represented by “Sandman,” a deep cut from their first LP.  That album would of course yield the big hits “Horse With No Name” and “I Need You,” and was the springboard for a long career.  It would take another album for the Texas-born duo of Seals & Crofts to hit it big – here they offer “Sudan Village,” a cut from their first album.  They’d cash in later in the year with the title song from their next album: Summer Breeze.

Lost Classics! John Stewart

In the early 1970s, John Stewart was a leading, although unappreciated, practitioner of the country rock movement.  This singer-songwriter with the booming voice actually got his big break when he replaced Dave Guard in the Kingston Trio in 1961.  The Kingston Trio was one of the best-selling folk acts of the early ’60s, and Stewart toured and recorded with them until their breakup in 1967.

Stewart went solo and wrote songs for other people, most notably “Daydream Believer,” a big hit for the Monkees (and later, Anne Murray).  In the early ’70s he signed with RCA and in 1973 recorded Cannons In The Rain, critically acclaimed but not a hit.  Wingless Angels, from 1975, followed a similar pattern.