"...Lone Pilgrims..."
The Sixties - God help us
all!
Recorded towards the end of
1968 at Vanguard's Apostolic Studios in New York (often home to Frank Zappa's
Mothers Of Invention) and finally released April 1969 in the USA (July 1969 in
the UK) - this completely forgotten Americana Folk-experimental double-album by
THE FAMILY OF APOSTOLIC is the very definition of the hippy-dream in all its
best and worst components.
Featuring a heady mix of
Band-like Folk and Folk Rock, Acoustic Blues and World Music influences
stretching from the fiddlers of the Appalachian Mountains to the oud-droning
Middle East and sitar-swirling rice fields of Pakistan - Vanguard Apostolic VDS
79301/2 did no business anywhere (God knows who bought it in Blighty). So of
course top-quality American reissue label 'Light In The Attic' couldn't wait to
put it out again using their 'Future Days Recordings' label imprint. And
actually in parts I can hear why. Let's get naked in the river me boys...
US released 22 April 2016 -
"The Family Of Apostolic" by THE FAMILY OF APOSTOLIC [aka THE FAMILY]
on Light In The Attic/Future Days Recordings FDR 613 (Barcode 826853061322)
offers the full 22-Track Double-Album from 1969 Remastered onto 1CD in gatefold
card-sleeve packaging and plays out as follows (58:37 minutes):
1. Redeemer [Side 1]
2. Zoo Song
3. Spring Song
4. Down The Road
5. Please Be Mine
6. Don't You Like The Party?
7. Fiddler A Dram [Side 2]
8. Bubbling Brook
9. I Won't Be Sad Again
10. Old Grey House
11. Dholak Gheet
12. Doin' A Stretch [Side 3]
13. The Lone Pilgrim
14. Water Music
[Instrumental]
15. Grotesque Silly Bird
16. Taking Me Home
17. O Splendour [Side 4]
18. Lilting Lil
19. Mabel's Umbrage
20. Devil's Yard
21. Personality
22. Saigon Girls
Tracks 1 to 22 are the debut
double-album "The Family Of Apostolic" (their only release) – released April 1969 in the
USA on Vanguard Apostolic VSD 79301/2 and July 1969 in the UK on Vanguard SDVL
1. Produced by JOHN TOWNLEY – it didn't chart in either country
NOTES:
Tracks 1 to 4, 6, 9, 14 and
21 written by John Townley
Tracks 15, 18, 19 and 20
written by Gilma Townley
Tracks 6 and 10 written by
Robert Berkowitz
Tracks 7, 8 and 11
co-written by John Townley and Jay Ungar
Tracks 4 and 13 are cover
versions of Blues and Folk Traditionals
Track 12 is co-written by
Gilma and John Townley
Track 15 written by Gilma
Townley
Track 16 written by Deirdre
Heather Townley
Track 17 written by David
Ames
Track 22 is an instrumental
written by Alan Gordon and Gary Bonner of The Magicians
Tracks 8, 14, 19 and 22 are
instrumentals
The gatefold card sleeve
features an outside Obi strip with details of the album and adverts for other
FDR releases. The chunky 28-page booklet with new liner notes from ALEX STIMMEL
of New York features recent interviews with Townley that explain how Apostolic
Studios imploded under financial messes thereby dooming any real effort to
promote the sprawling double. It's a fascinating read but the real deal is a
stunning Remaster from 12-track original tapes by JOHN BALDWIN – a top notch
done – up to a point where the listen feels like this could have been recorded
in 2008 as US Indie Folk – instead of 1968.
With a full cast of 19
musicians – principals included John Townley [ex The Magicians], Jay Ungar of
Cat Mother, Robert Berkowitz and Travis Jenkins of Archie Whitewater (Cadet
Concept Records), Jerry Burnham of The Fifth Avenue Band, Lyn Hardy [nee Ungar]
of Rude Girls with David Ames, Deirdre and Gilma Townley and many more.
Those expecting wild Psych
passages or even Avant Garde free form trip outs can very decidedly look
elsewhere. There is nothing Zappa or Mothers or even Quicksilver Messenger
Service about this. Imagine the Americana side of "Music From Big Pink"
by The Band got drunk with Scotland's The Incredible String Band and England's
The Amazing Blondel and then had a baby with Judy Henske and Jerry Yester of
"Farewell Aldebaran" fame – and you 'kind of' get there. The
double–album is mostly short two-minute Folk and Americana orientated songs
with the occasional drivel like "Taking Me Home" where a child sings.
In-between you stumble on surprising moments of prettiness like the Scottish
instrumental "Mabel's Umbrage" which feels like it should be on a
Boys Of The Lough LP.
With its doubled-vocals,
droning oud-sitar-sounding organ and plinking guitar - the opening
"Redeemer" could be an outtake from anything on the Straight label
including "Farewell Aldebaran". That is unfortunately followed by
animal noises in "Zoo Song" – an insufferable off-key vocal too.
Things go into where the album's real heart lies – rolling Folk – the acoustic
guitars and mandolins of "Spring Song" making Townley sound like Iain
Matthews of Matthews Southern Comfort at times. The knocked-out-loaded
junco-partner acoustic Blues of the Traditional "Down The Road"
sounds so damn good – beautiful remaster virtually minus any hiss and yet full
of air around the duet vocals and guitar string rattles.
Townley had been with The Byrds-sounding sixties band on Columbia called The Magicians and it seems some of that songwriting hitsville had remained. Sporting a weirdly
comforting sax solo, pretty female vocals and very CSYN organ - "Old Grey
House" could have grabbed radio play as a commercial single. Even more
impressive though is the reinterpretation of a Pakistani structure in the
superb "Dholak Gheet" – all Tabla beats with Karen Dalton-like vocals.
We then go all Leon Redbone drunk-piano up-the-river-daddy in "Doin' A
Stretch" - itself followed by another album highlight in the lovely
old-world way-out-West Folk feel to "The Lone Pilgrim" (gorgeous
audio too).
In a bizarre move, Vanguard
dragged two 45s from the album before its release in the spring of 1969. Both
apparently issued 24 December 1968 (and in picture sleeves) – they coupled the
trippy Side 1 opener "Redeemer" with "I Won't Be Sad Again"
from Side 2 and issued it on Vanguard Apostolic VRS-35084 credited to a made-up
band name called THE GOSPEL. Weirder again was the album ending instrumental
"Saigon Girls" (a thrown-over song by Alan Gordon and Gary Bonner
from Townley's time at The Magicians) put out as an A-side with the drossy
"Water Music" as the flip-side. But this time the sleeve credits the
fictitious group as THE SPIRIT OF KHE SAHN while the label tells us their real
name – THE FAMILY. Whatever someone was thinking, if I was a DJ of the time, I
would have viewed both not just as terrible, but the A-side "Saigon
Girls" as downright confrontational - and in all the wrong ways.
Banjos and tambourine shakes
introduce the short but menacing "Devil's Yard" – the doubled lady
vocals feeling like The Incredible String Band. Far better is the (again short)
but still gorgeous guitar-and-oud combo of "Personality" – a 'won't
somebody please tell me who I am' song. And it ends on the decidedly unfinished
instrumental "Saigon Girls" where angular guitars play over giggling
Vietnam ladies and a radio broadcast about occasional gunfire and bombings (its
both disturbing and horrible).
Mad, crap, brilliant,
touching – this blast – this double-album urge-splurge of creativity – won't be
for everyone for sure. But those Folk-beauty moments and all those instrumental
merges make me know why FDR wanted it back out there after 50 years in
obscurity. The Sixties man...oh yeah...
