The Flock was harder-edged than either of those acts. Chase's LPs were released on CBS label Epic, sister to Columbia Records while the CBS family might have had its hands full with Chicago and BS&T, the label group also shepherded another horn-rock band. It's tempting to consider Chase's "Run Back to Mama" as a BS&T pastiche, but the song co-written and sung by The Ides' Jim Peterik is very much in the spirit of his own "Vehicle." Chase's five trumpets, led by founder Bill Chase, gave the band a sound of its own bolstered by guest Peterik's sharp-as-ever pop instincts. Those "funky guitar grooves" promised in the compilation title are also evident on this lost gem. There's even a dash of BS&T as the gritty lead can't help but recall Clayton-Thomas. Lighthouse's rhythmic "One Fine Morning" is in the same high-octane vein as early Chicago and The Ides of March, another Windy City group sadly not included here. It's unfortunate that Chicago isn't represented here (whether for licensing or creative reasons), because the band's specter hovers over many of these tracks. (There's even a climactic saxophone spot.) Lydia Pense's lead vocal style compares favorably to Janis' own sound, while the song takes in R&B and jazz influences with its prominent organ and insinuating brass, respectively. San Francisco band Cold Blood, a favorite of Janis Joplin's, also had Stax as a touchstone. One track here was actually released on Stax: Delaney and Bonnie's "It's Been a Long Time Comin'." Recorded with producers Duck Dunn and Don Nix and featuring The Memphis Horns, it's much more R&B than rock, but with Delaney's persuasive growl and Bonnie's earthy rasp at their finest, it's hard to argue with the inclusion. The BS&T track, 1973's "Roller Coaster," was written by "Suspicious Minds" author Mark James and featured a seeming reference to the band's ubiquitous "Spinning Wheel" with the lyric "the wheel will keep on spinning." Featuring Jerry Fisher on lead vocals and an emphasis on jazz fusion, "Roller Coaster" boasts a very different sound than either the Kooper or Clayton-Thomas periods, but the horns still blowing at full force on this funky little number. Add in the soulful backgrounds of The Blossoms, and the result is a driving slice of blue-eyed soul from a musical renaissance man. A Stax tune previously recorded by Sam and Dave, "Toe Hold" lent itself to down and dirty horns. Kooper continued in the vein of his BS&T for his first solo album, the fittingly-titled I Stand Alone. Horn Rock doesn't feature any of those familiar songs from the band but instead spotlights co-founder Al Kooper's "Toe Hold" and a later BS&T track from the post-Clayton-Thomas era. Frontman Al Kooper moved on, and with the addition of lead singer David Clayton-Thomas, and the band hit its commercial stride with December 1968's eponymous LP which spawned three top 5 entries. BS&T's debut, Child Is Father to the Man, was an ambitious blend of pop, soul, classical, and jazz, but failed to yield any hit singles. "I am the thousand trumpet lines that were an afterthought/Intended as a way to get a dying record sold," Rupert Holmes knowingly observed in his powerful meditation "Studio Musician." Those countless pop songs adorned with a dash of brass aren't on the menu here instead, the selections mainly feature horns fully integrated into the mix.īlood, Sweat & Tears' debut album arrived in February 1968, about fourteen months before the same label, Columbia Records, introduced the band then known as Chicago Transit Authority. ![]() This 17-track sampler from artists both unfamiliar and unknown touches, if fleetingly, on many of those sounds as well as straight-ahead R&B. The phrase "horn rock" immediately brings to mind the sound popularized by Chicago and Blood, Sweat & Tears (only one of which is represented here) but the added colors afforded by horns were applied to recordings in the baroque-rock, art-rock, psych-rock, and jazz-rock idioms, just to name a few. That's because it's dedicated to Horn Rock (with the equally-important subtitle And Funky Guitar Grooves), that boldest and brassiest of rock subgenres. The new collection on Ace Records' BGP imprint packs a mighty punch.
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