"Revolution: Underground Sounds Of 1968" by VARIOUS ARTISTS (February 2019 Esoteric Recordings 3CD Box Set) - A Review by Mark Barry

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Exceptional CD Remasters

Covering 1967 to 1977 - It Also Focuses On

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"...Chariots Rising..."

In truth I faltered at the basket stage on this one. Looking at the track list across 3CDs (42 cuts) - I realised being an ardent fan of that wildly creative decade and a major collector of CD reissues for over 30 years now that I'd at least 75 to 80% of the entries offer here - so what's the point? Do I need another remaster of overdone 1968 hits like Arthur Brown's "Fire!" or Fleetwood Mac's "Black Magic Woman" or The Bonzo's "I'm An Urban Spaceman" or Julie Driscoll and Brian Auger's "This Wheel's On Fire" or even for that matter the lesser-heard "Race With The Devil" by Gun – the answer is not really...

But then those reissue hairy-types over at Esoteric Recordings (part of Cherry Red) know suckers like me; it's the gaps in between that I'm after. And they have filled out the well-endowed discs with clever inclusions. An unreleased song overture to Island Records from 1968 by The Action (hoping for a signing) that hasn't been available since it first saw light of day in 1985, rare B-sides by The Bystanders and Genesis, even rarer A-side single-only releases from Dave Mason, The Pretty Things and The Moles and an EP cut from Sam Gopal. And there is much more too...

There's the emergence of Seventies Prog Rock giants in former incarnations - the Gods featuring Ken Hensley later with Toe Fat and then of course Uriah Heep, Steve Howe with Tomorrow before Yes, The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown that featured a teenage Carl Palmer who would bash the kit for Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Ray Shulman dreaming of a Gentle Giant when he was with Dantalian's Chariot, Jeff Lynne plucking a bow with The Idle Race before he formed The Electric Light Orchestra, Cheerful Insanity from Robert Fripp in Giles, Giles & Fripp before changing the course of music with King Crimson and even a young Andy Somers who many years later would become the zippy guitarist Andy Summers in another tiny group - The Police. There's a lot to love here and it's been presented in Esoteric's usual top quality way (audio and looks). Here are the chariots rising...

UK released Friday, 22 February 2019 (1 March 2019 in the USA) - "Revolution - Underground Sounds Of 1968" by VARIOUS ARTISTS on Esoteric Recordings ECLEC 32662 (Barcode 5013929476202) is a 3CD, 42-Track Clamshell Box Set of Remasters that plays out as follows:

Disc 1 (73:24 minutes):

1. And The Address - DEEP PURPLE

2. This Wheel's On Fire - JULIE DRISCOLL, BRIAN AUGER & THE TRINITY

3. Talkin' About The Good Times - PRETTY THINGS

4. World War Three - DANTALIAN'S CHARIOT

5. A Saying For Today - THE ACTION

6. Crossroads Of Time - EYES OF BLUE

7. Sunshine Help Me - SPOOKY TOOTH

8. Early Morning - BARCLAY JAMES HARVEST

9. All Day, All Night - BLONDE ON BLONDE

10. Happy Birthday/The Birthday Party - IDLE RACE

11. Revolution - TOMORROW

12. We Are The Moles (Part 1) - THE MOLES

13. Blackberry Way - THE MOVE

14. One Eyed Hound - GENESIS

15. On A Saturday - KEITH WEST

16. Sovay - PENTANGLE

17. Cave Of Clear Light - THE BYSTANDERS

18. Soma (Parts One & Two) - DANTALIAN'S CHARIOT

19. Fire! - THE CRAZY WORLD OF ARTHUR BROWN

20. I'm The Urban Spaceman - THE BONZO DOG DOO DAH BAND

Disc 2 (72:39 minute):

1. Shapes Of Things - JEFF BECK

2. Black Magic Woman - FLEETWOOD MAC

3. Pearly Queen - TRAFFIC

4. People You Were Going To - VAN DER GRAAF GENERATOR

5. Reality - SECOND HAND

6. Love Is The Law - EYES OF BLUE

7. Dusty - JOHN MARTYN

8. In Her Mind - ECLECTION

9. Summertime - LOVE SCULPTURE

10. Fly Tomorrow - JOHN MAYALL

11. Place Of My Own - CARAVAN

12. No Title - TEN YEARS AFTER

13. Child Of My Kingdom - THE CRAZY WORLD OF ARTHUR BROWN

14. I Never Knew - THE GODS

Disc 3 (71:42 minutes):

1. My Sunday Feeling - JETHRO TULL

2. Sabre Dance - LOVE SCULPTURE

3. Flames - ELMER GANTRY'S VELVET OPERA

4. Somewhere To Go - THE DEVIANTS

5. Cold Embrace - SAM GOPAL

6. Shine On Brightly - PROCOL HARUM

7. Paradise Flat - STATUS QUO

8. That's Me - GENESIS

9. Suite No. 1 - GILES, GILES & FRIPP

10. Mist On A Monday Morning - THE MOVE

11. Ten Thousand Words In A Cardboard Box - THE AQUARIAN AGE

12. Mr. Sunshine - BARCLAY JAMES HARVEST

13. Just For You - DAVE MASON

14. S.F. Sorrow Is Born - PRETTY THINGS

15. Magic Man - CARAVAN

16. The Half-Remarkable Question - THE INCREDIBLE STRING BAND

17. Race With The Devil - GUN

18. Mandrake Root - DEEP PURPLE

The incredibly chunky 48-page booklet lines up the artists in alphabetical order (The Action and The Aquarian Age to Van Der Graaf Generator and Keith West) with MARK POWELL pouring on the biographies and details (he also compiled and researched the set). Page after Page offers promo photos, trade adverts, concert posters, men in fields communing with nature (or mushrooms) and so forth. It's a properly huge and thorough read (each of the singular CD card front sleeves features a montage of the photos used within the booklet). BEN WISEMAN has done the new Remasters at Alchemy with the Audio being uniformly great throughout - stuff like Love Sculpture and The Incredible String Band leaping out of the speakers.

The line-up of tracks is smartly done. Disc 1 opens its account with "And The Address" - one of two Stereo cuts from Deep Purple's September 1968 UK debut album "Shades Of..." on Parlophone PCS 7055 (the second is "Mandrake Root" which ends Disc 3). The Jon Lord/Ritchie Blackmore "And The Address" instrumental fades in a suitably doomy way only to eventually explode into a four-and-half minute Rock-Funk groove that allows ace axeman Blackmore room to bend and ping followed quickly by that huge organ sound Lord specialises in. It's so 60ts, so Deep Purple and so 1968.

The familiar sway of April 1968's "...does your memory serve you well..." from Julie Driscoll and Brian Auger follows nicely, the flanged rhythms of "This Wheel's On Fire" doing the Rick Danko and Bob Dylan composition a solid. The A-side of Columbia DB 8353 from The Pretty Things (February 1968) is "Talkin' About The Good Times" where our heroes (Dick Taylor and Phil May) produce an bona-fide slice of 60ts brilliance - The Who meets, well The Pretty Things.

To hell with pretty - let's rock is the mantra for "World War Three" by the fuzz-guitar grooving Dantalian’s Chariot - a band featured Zoot Money on Vocals, Pat Donaldson of Fairport Convention and Andy Summers of The Police. DC's wild guitar-driver recorded in January 1968 perfectly compliments one of this set's genuine joys - a melodic gem from The Action called "A Saying For Today”. Its an Ian Whiteman composition recorded in the summer of 1968 that only surfaced in 1985 on a rare UK 5-Track Mini LP called "Action Speak Louder Than..." on Dojo Records DOJOLP003 (one of Charly’s budget labels). Great stuff. Other winners on Disc 1 are Gary Wright's "Sunshine Help Me" - a Spooky Tooth sexy Rock groove from their Island Records debut album "It's All About" - sitar hippy dippy from Blonde On Blonde as he spends all day and all night dreaming of you - and shades of future brilliance as you barely recognise singer Peter Gabriel's voice on the May 1968 Genesis B-side "One-Eyed Hound" - a £400+ rarity originally on Decca 12775. Keith West gets an acoustic pop moment on the lovely "On A Saturday" - a July 1968 British 45 on Parlophone R 5713 featuring a hidden cache of stars - Steve Howe of Yes on Guitar, Ronnie Wood of the Faces and Stones on Bass and Aynsley Dunbar on Drums. Clive John and Micky Jones (later of Welsh rockers Man) penned the incredibly pretty and pure 60ts waft of "Cave Of Clear Light" – a rare and fab psychedelic B-side by The Bystanders – where these mind-travellers have clearly been spending too many hours on translucent lakes whilst watching a hermit meditate outside his cave, silent and free of the world (but maybe a little smelly though). Disc 1 finishes with Neill Innes having some fun on "I'm An Urban Spaceman" – a changing society song that caught the mood of the times, propelling it to an unlikely No. 5 spot on the UK singles chart in November 1968 on Liberty Records.

Discs 2 and 3 give us genius stuff like John Mayall in Laurel Canyon territory on the yeah man "Fly Tomorrow" (Mick Taylor of the Stones guesting to such wonderful effect) – the soft acoustic beauty of John Martyn plucking on "Dusty" from his second album "The Tumbler" (December 1968) with Harold McNair accompanying on Flute - the surprising Mamas and Papas meets The Moody Blues musicality of Eclection's gorgeous "in Her Mind" and Dave Edmunds getting all guitar-wild on the classical "Sabre Dance" in his band Love Sculpture (their cover of the Gershwin standard "Summertime" is another surprise ballad moment – very early Fleetwood Mac actually).

Changes were everywhere - Roy Wood would leave The Move doing their pastoral clavinet ditty "Mist On A Monday Morning" to form Wizzard and lash into the full-on glam of "Ball Park Incident", the Quo would abandon the frilly shirts and Pop-Psych of "Paradise Flats" and go no-nonsense Rock Boogie in 1970 with "Ma Kelly's Greasy Spoon" - while "My Sunday Feeling" from Tull's debut "This Was" is again a very clever choice - showing just how much styles were being mashed into each other to create new sounds and new angles. And as you touch on Van Der Graaf Generator, Caravan and even the normally rocking Ten Years After (their eight-minute-plus "No Title" is trippy 1968) – it's not a large musical leap to 1973 where Mike Oldfield's "Tubular Bells", Pink Floyd's "The Dark Side Of The Moon", Tull's "As Thick As A Brick" and the Yes double "Tales From Topographic Oceans" would actually take the chart top LP spots all in the same year. Five years earlier and 1968 was surely the beginning of all that...the revolution's starting point.

There's a knack to these releases and Esoteric seem to have it down pat these days. Great stuff and thoroughly recommended...