This review is part of my Series "SOUNDS GOOD: Exceptional CD Remasters 1970s Rock And Pop" Download Book available to buy on Amazon to either your PC or Mac (it will download the Kindle software to read the book for free to your toolbar). Click on the link below to go my Author's Page for this and other related publications:
Originally released on CD in May 2004 - this September 2013 reissue (again on the excellent Beat Goes On label) gives me a damn good excuse to review this cool and overlooked nugget of an album.
The vinyl LP was originally released June 1976 in the UK on ABC Records ABCL 5162 (ABCD-935 in the USA) and was his 4th label outing. His 1968 US debut LP on Epic "Bang Bang You're Terry Reid" and the UK follow up on Columbia "Terry Reid" from 1969 marked his more rocking side - while the mellow and slinky "River" from 1973 on Atlantic is more akin to what you get here.
Living in the USA at the time - his buddy GRAHAM NASH produced and brought on board an array of West Coast top players for "Seed Of Memory". Names like DAVID LINDLEY, AL PERKINS and TIM WEISBERG give the proceedings a very Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young feel with a little Boz Scaggs "Silk Degrees" and Neil Young's "On The Beach" thrown in for good measure (if that makes sense).
Reid famously turned down the lead vocalist spot in both Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple - and why they wanted him is in evidence here - his raspy pipes in full-on Eddie Hinton/Frankie Miller mode. All tracks are self-penned and it's mellow one moment, sexy the next and so on. The languid acoustic strumming of "Brave Awakening" feels like a mid-Seventies CSYN or Graham Nash song while "The Way You Walk" is the lone rocker - feeling like Neil Young let loose in the studio (great stuff). And his ability to pen a moving and plaintive ballad goes all the way back to his first US 45 "Mayday" (off "Terry Reid") on Epic 10498 which is fabulous stuff - that skill reappears on one of the album's undoubted highlights "To Be Treated Rite". Silly spelling of 'right' notwithstanding - it feels huge even now - acoustics and strings swirling around with a lonesome Bob Dylan harmonica refrain too (lyrics from it title this review).
ABC tried a 7" single by issuing the wonderfully funky Rock/Soul/Reggae vibe of "Ooh Baby (Make Me Feel So Young)" backed with "Brave Awakening" on the B in August 1976 on ABC 4137 - but it tanked despite being such a good track and as commercial as anything around at the time. "The Frame" is slinky Steely Dan/Boz Scaggs territory with lovely brass fills. At first the 7:21 minutes of the album finisher "Fooling You" feels overly long and slightly schmoozy but it works it ways into you - especially the gorgeous harmony vocals with Nash and James Brown's main man Fred Wesley floating in on some lovely horn. So why don't you know about this record? ABC ran into financial difficulties soon after the album was released and "Seed" never received the due plug it deserved (the terrible cover artwork didn't help either). And its been kind of underground ever since..
It doesn't say who remastered this Beat Goes On CD on BGOCD619 (43:15 minutes) - but the sound is really great - so well done - full of power and never compressed. It was superbly produced in 1976 anyway - but the remaster has brought that out big time.
Reid made another album for Capitol in 1979 called "Rogue Waves" (also re-issued in 2004 by BGO) and then a WEA album in 1991 called "The Driver" (which features a storming cover of the old Sixties fave "Gimme Some Loving"). Since then its been occasional live appearances to adoring audiences.
A cracking good album that you will return to again and again and make you want to track down everything he's ever done.
This is a good place to start that journey...
