Can we give some love to the unsung/underrated MEN of the 60s/70s?

Posted this on Rolling Country and Can We Talk About West Coast Country Rock? a while back:
Charles EstenVerified account ‏@CharlesEsten
So honored to sing the beautiful "The Rivers Between Us Are Deep" by our friend, Hall of Fame songwriter @JDSouther & Erik Kaz. #ThanksWatty
Watty, Souther's character, was Rayna's mom's secret musical lover, may have gotten her killed by jealous dad or "dad," since on Nashville the immortal series, musical biologicals are not uncommon. Blah-blah, but note the co-write with Eric Kaz, once known as Eric Justin Kaz. Never as well-known as Souther, I guess, but he's written or co-written a bunch of hits, ones most relevant to this thread are "Love Has No Pride," and several others recorded by Raitt and Ronstadt, maybe especially the former. He released several solo LPs before and after teaming up with Pure Prairie League's Craig Fuller in American Flyer, they also did a duo album. Think he was not considered such a good singer, but he can write good melodramatic vehicles, especially for denim divas. Anybody heard him on records?

I have since heard Kaz solo tracks a little bit: seems def sub-James Taylor-y vox-wise, but does have some songs, and anybody looking to cover and/or just jonesing for romantic buckskin ballads should check him out; ditto Souther, but more about him later.

Also I still need to look for this guy:
http://www.robertchristgau.com/get_artist.php?name=Bat+McGrath

Dow mentions Andy Fairweather Low--I think he's great and regard his '70s (and early-'80s) albums very highly indeed. Xgau (and prolly others) gave him props back in the day, but he's kinda forgotten now, though he did put out an album back in 2006, Sweet Soulful Music, I reviewed for the VV. I even interviewed him--what a thrill for me.
Don't think anyone has mentioned John Stewart, who I got into a couple years ago. Yeah, he's a commercial folkie with that familiar catch in his voice, but I think he was good--Signals Through the Glass (with longtime squeeze/wife Buffy Ford), California Bloodlines (cut in Nashville with A-list pickers, likely his career record, contains the great "Never Goin' Back" [to Nashville]), Willard and Sunspot are all excellent records. Kinda in the virile-yet-sensitive mode of Tom Rush, whom I also really like.
A guy who's pretty obscure but definitely fits in here is Bill Wilson, whom you may know from a somewhat critically lauded (or at least somewhat written about) 1973 record that Tompkins Square reissued about 4 years ago, Ever Changing Minstrel, cut with producer Bob Johnston in Nashville after Wilson showed up at Johnston's door one night. Came out on the Columbia imprint Windfall and vanished. I think it's fascinating record--sort of slightly more folk-rock Waylon Jennings, but with tantalizing glimpses of future-indie-country-Americana in the songwriting. Wilson was part of the Bloomington, Indiana Bar-B-Q Records scene and did the 1977 Talking to Stars there, a kind of woozy and slightly psychedelic thing. Made in the U.S.A., from '82, is worth tracking down, as is his Traction in the Rain, from 1992, the year before he died in Nashville. He claimed to have written "Sultans of Swing" for Dire Straits, but Josh Rosenthal of Tompkins Square told me that wasn't true (Wilson claimed to have helped Knopfler write lyrics during a session in Nashville). Good piece on Wilson here.

And Andy Fairwesther Low's 1980 Mega Shebang is one of the best white R&B records of that era--I like it better than, for ex., Jerry Lynn Williams' somewhat comparable work (Williams was mentioned above). Btw, Williams was in a group called High Mountain, whose 1970 Hoedown[ is a doleful, soulful record I need to track down. Here's the first 4 tracks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GsyJjVigc0

Hoedown and Canyon are both really good. FYI: Canyon was re-released in 1973 as Down Home Boy and credited to The Jerry Williams Group and that version is easier to find in dollar bins.

i can't say i'm a big andy fairweather low fan. i really don't like mega shebang! but what are ya gonna do? i'd rather listen to late 70's/early 80's chris spedding records.

i'd probably rather listen to whatever happened to benny santini than mega shebang...

or stevie wright's hard road album for that matter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lo2KhDu__1Y

Yeah, Fairweather Low is probably an acquired taste. I like his barely controlled frantic-ness, I guess. Spedding is great, I really like his version of Garland Jeffreys' "Wild in the Streets." Come to think of it, Jeffreys probably doesn't get any hipster love these days, perhaps because he is so all over the place stylistically, but I love his '70s albums, esp. his first one, the Grinders Switch Featuring Garland Jeffreys LP and Ghost Writer. Scott, I finally bought a copy of Hard Road recently after hearing cuts from it on tapes and stuff and being an Easybeats fan. Fantastic album.

Hard Road really is fantastic and almost completely unknown in the 21st century. in the U.S. anyway.

A folkie private-press record from '71 I like, by Bob McAllen, McAllen, on a Michigan label, Spirit. Big Pink in Korea reissued the CD in 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOnkvOMjfEk

Yeah, Scott, you'd think the passing of Stevie Wright would've gotten people onto Hard Road, to at least reissue it on CD. I've been a hard-core Easybeats fan for years and always knew about the record, and was so glad to finally spot a well-preserved (Atco) copy of it.

i've been listening to this album a lot lately. it is on some people's radars though. a la early 70's dion and tim hardin.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZYBb-HxKy8

(several more we might mention reissued by xpost Josh R.'s label, already on the Tompkins Square thread).

Haven't heard GJ with Grinders Switch (not to be confused w the 70s Southern Rock group), but his self-titled debut is totally cool, like an imaginary album from the real transition of Dion: acoustic guitar grooves and denin jacket above, sharkskin suitpants and pointy leathah toetapping below. And already one of the best ever North American reggae performers, way ahead of the pack, such as it was---but his tracks held up well next to what was then the best known reggae album around here, The Harder They Come soundtrack). (Michael Cuscana adds juicy details, as on Bonnie Raitt's early classic Give It Up, did he produce any other rock etc. albums?)
Yeah, xpost Ghost Writer maybe his peak overall, but Escape Artist, with heavy friends perking along, is excellent too (I've got the original LP + bonus 7" EP feat. Linton Kwesi Johnson).
The King of In Between, from 4-5 years ago, has some rock geezer looks-at-life lyrics, but as usual he's got the vox, tunes, musos cookin' along.
Oh yeah, Mega Shebang is not the place to start w Low; def check those 70s albums I mentioned, also another one, Be Bop N Holla---and (maybe after that, Amen Corner's Singles As and Bs [the original "Bend Me Shape Me" for one] and his own transition from mod teenbeat, fronting mainstream x art rockers Fairweather).

Good to hear some more Scott McKenzie, and looks like the whole album may be there on the same page, track by track.

Fairweather Low got a good one-disc comp, Wide-Eyed and Legless, which gets the good stuff from those 3 A&M LPs (which are all found for cheap these days in used record stores, at least around here). Mega is Low on the downside of that career arc, but I quite like it anyway, Jeffreys strikes me as a neglected near-major artist--the Grinders Switch[, which is on Vanguard and is hard to find (I only found it a couple years ago), is one of the best Band rips in history, and as such is notable for the way Jeffreys twists the vernacular of the first 2 Band albums into something that begins to hint at the urban amidst the somewhat vague imagery. First solo is his folk-rock record and really unique, Ghost Writer is like the missing link between singer-songwriterdom and new wave--I hear some Television in it, whether or not it hit before the first Television album or he even knew who they were (probably did, given his astute reading of the marketplace back then), and Escape Artist is his Elvis Costello move, with "Jump Jump," maybe his single greatest recording, getting into Willful but Necessary Escape Routes from Oppressive History. King of In Between is a great album, and 2013's Truth Serum contains some pretty convincing blues, proof that he is comfortable doing just about anything. He came to Nashville in 2013 and I damn sure made it a point to write about him and interview him at length, here. Caught the show--he could still sing great.

first garland i ever heard was his so retro it's new wave cover of 96 tears which i saw him do on the ABC show Fridays. first time i think i ever heard 96 tears.

i ALMOST bought the album at Caldor that next week but i chickened out.

a couple of years ago Garland played at this place about 50 feet from my store. he came in my store the next day and was devastated. he said it was the worst show he had EVER played. i spent about a half hour apologizing to him. even though i didn't have anything to do with it. i felt terrible.

(it was the venue owner's fault. he no longer owns/runs the place...)

Garland's show in Nashville wasn't hugely attended--seems like half the audience was writers old enough to have seen him when he last came thru town in the '80s, probably 1982. He's worked with Levon Helm sidemsn Larry Campbell a bit, and he's another guy the Americana crowd ought to give some kind of award to, because he helped invent the stuff.

Speaking of xpost Steve Marriott, early AF Low: James Hunter is another English guy who can get the raspy Brownian grooves just right, currently in a "Ooo-Poo-Pa-Dooh'' type thang (PJ Proby was an American expat, but still):
http://livestream.com/pickathon/events/5911922

ian matthews and mickey newbury are gettin the reissue treatment now so i guess they can't count.
what about steve young?? his records are awesome.

― one dis leads to another (ian), Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Steve Young definitely deserves some kind of reassessment. Renegade Picker, from '76, has to be one of the most underrated country-rock records ever made. Rock Salt & Nails, from '69, also pioneering 'Mericana-outlaw-alt. Dead Voices: I did a Guy Clark story a few years ago, a fairly long one, and after I finished, Guy Clark asked me to deliver the paper with the story to him at his house. I wrote about Steve Young in the piece, since he'd appeared in the Heartworn Highwaysmovie along with Clark. Clark was in poor health. I got the paper, knocked on the door, waited a few minutes until a guy dressed in turquoise blue, with white hair, answered the door. I told him why I was there, and asked him, "I don't believe I know you." He said, "I'm Steve Young." Now they're both gone.
Yup, P.J. Proby. A great parody artiste. Three Week Hero's title track, from '69, was written by...John Stewart.

Yeah, Young had the songs and a big voice, esp. for such a little guy. During a local stay, wrote "Montgomery In The Rain", "Seven Bridges Road"(AKA Woodley Rd., wise to use the older name), and others. Too overtly hip for mid-60s Alabama, too Southern to do without some cultural bemusement out West (Tosches said Young told him he was to perform at some Baez family event, the Farinas' wedding, I think, but Queen Joan nixed it, said she couldn't stand to look at a white Southerner just then)(however, she did record a good version of "Seven..." a few years later---fast tymes!).
Van Dykes Parks could prob relate, since his family was originally from Mississippi (though lived in Pittsburg before L.A.). Said he wrote "The All Golden" about Young ( I've never quite grokked that lyric, must listen again).

rock salt and nails by steve young is a serious hepcat totem. very hard to find a copy these days cuz people want it so much. a record that you could get for nothing for years and now it goes for $$$.

only ever seen that going for around about 30 (nz dollars) gene clark AND gram parsons are on it i believe!

This thread needs some Tony Joe White. Beyond the tunes and that lush low voice, his guitar playing is ace and he gets real funky with a wah wah on some tunes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agVThMVjnTM

That Murray Head tune up thread is good.

that s/t tony joe white is hard to beat. i always listen to it 4 or 5 times in a row before i put it out in the store if i get a copy.

say it ain't so joe is all time

Willie and Laura Mae Jones is an amazing tune.

Here's Roger Daltrey doing "Say It Ain't So" with Andy Fairweather-Low on backing vocals (but not in the video) (and Moon's in the video, but not on the recording):
https://youtu.be/9bVGTVrQd6M

AF-W was also Townshend's stand-in while the Who started It's Hard, waiting for Pete to finish rehab. There's a couple songs on it without Pete/with A F-W.

Thanks---forgot about his involvement w The Who; he also sang on a bunch of Who Are You tracks, also toured with them I think, later backed some Townsend solo activities etc.

True about the Who Are You backing vocals, but AF-W didn't tour with the Who...are you thinking of Billy Nicholls (who also sang backup on Who Are You, and toured with them in 1989, 1996, and 1997) ?

Hadn't heard of Billy Nichols! Speaking of Garland J again, I was vaguely thinking this morning bout how he hung out with Reed and Cale way back, and have read that early VU sometimes covered his "Josephine", with Cale singing it---which cued up this GJ-written track in my headbox (if can't see it: "Fairweather Friend", as performed by Mr. JC on Vintage Violence)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GN1SkL8WsQo

ace sound, good video, even

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RzBZsOeqOQ

Wild in the Streets is my pride and joy. I consider it my "first" Rock 'n' Roll record, written and released in 1973, and recorded with Dr. John and his band, with Alan Freedman, Michael Brecker, David Sanborn, David Spinozza, David Peel, Produced by Roy Cicala..............
---Garland
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Single written and released in 1973. Also on the album "Ghost Writer" (A & M Records, 1977) and reissued on the album "I'm Alive" (Universal International, 2006).
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Garland Jeffreys: Lead vocal and acoustic guitar
John Boudreaux: Drums
Rick Marrotta: Drums
Johnny Ace: Bass
Alan Freedman: Acoustic electric guitar
Sugarbear: Electric guitar
Dr. John: Clavinet
Michael Brecker: Tenor sax
Randy Brecker: Trumpet
David Sanborn: Soprano sax
Phil Messina: Trombone
David Peel and Friends: Background vocals
Produced by Roy Cicala and Garland Jeffreys
Arranged by Garland Jeffreys and Dr. John
Recorded and mixed by Roy Cicala at Record Plant, 1973
Mastered at Atlantic
-----------------------------------
Video compiled and edited by Doug Webb / Images by Webb (http://www.imagesbywebb.com).
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WILD IN THE STREETS (Music and Lyrics by Garland Jeffreys)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vK8NQhn-ecI

"She plays a pure white slave"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MO_l81MljWI