"Caribou" by ELTON JOHN – June 1974 UK and US LP on DJM Records – featuring Dusty Springfield, Tower Of Tower, Carl Wilson and Bruce Johnston of The Beach Boys, Toni Tennille of Captain & Tennille, Clydie King, Sherlie Matthews, Jessie Mae Smith (May 1995 UK This Record Co. Ltd/Mercury Expanded Edition CD Reissue – Part of The Classic Years CD Remasters Series – Gus Dudgeon Remasters) - A Review by Mark Barry...

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1974

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"...A Fragment Of Your Life..."

Super-hyped on EJ after the brilliance of "Don't Shoot Me I'm Only The Piano Player" in February and the twofer splurge of "Yellow Brick Road" in October 1973 (a single and double-album in one year) - I recall seeing the cover art for 1974's much-anticipated follow-up "Caribou" for the first time. What! My heart sank. What a dire sleeve - laugh-out-loud bad - especially after the tri-gatefold painting and photos cool of Yellow Brick Road. And the rear cover snap of Elton and Bernie Taupin sat on chairs in some toilet backdrop looking bored out of their cocaine-addled skulls didn't lift the hopes up much either.

Luckily though, the clearly strung-together album (named after the Studio in which it was recorded - another Honky Chateau moment) contained enough decency alongside the obvious filler to warrant a phew. And in 2020, the shifty little brute is still available on this huge-sounding Expanded Edition 'Classic Years' CD Remaster for under a fiver. Sneering, tarty, bitchy and cheap - the way I like my EJ. Let's get to the place where you don't want the sun to ever go down...

UK released May 1995 - "Caribou" by ELTON JOHN on This Record Co Ltd/Mercury 528 158-2 (Barcode 731452815828) is an Expanded Edition (Four Bonus Tracks) in 'The Classic Years' Remastered CD Series and plays out as follows (64:12 minutes)

1. The Bitch Is Back [Side 1]

2. Pinky

3. Grimsby

4. Dixie Lily

5. Solar Prestige A Gammon

6. You're So Static

7. I've Seen The Saucers [Side 2]

8. Stinker

9. Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me

10. Ticking

Tracks 1 to 10 are his tenth album "Caribou" - released June 1974 in the UK on DJM Records DJLPH 439 and June 1974 in the USA on MCA Records MCA 2116. Produced by GUS DUDGEON - it peaked at No. 1 in both countries.

BONUS TRACKS:

11. Pinball Wizard

(Recorded in 1974 for the March 1975 UK 2LP set "Tommy: Music From The Soundtrack Of The Film by Ken Russell" on Polydor Records 2657 014. Elton played the character 'The Pinball Wizard' in the movie. The single was eventually issued as a 45 in March 1976 on DJM Records DJS 652 with "Harmony" from the 2LP set "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" on its B-side)

12. Sick City

(24 May 1974 UK 45 on DJM Records DJS 302, non-album B-side of "Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me")

13. Cold Highway

(30 August 1974 UK 45 on DJM Records 322, non-album B-side of "The Bitch Is Back")

14. Step Into Christmas

(December 1973 UK 45 on DJM Records DJS 290, non-album track. Its non-album B-side "Ho Ho Ho (Who'd Be A Turkey At Christmas?)" and is one of the Bonus Tracks on the 40th Anniversary 2014 Box Set of "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road")

The 20-page booklet is a pleasingly chunky affair with the album's inner lyric sleeve reproduced across the pages along with the colour photos of Elt's band and new highly informative liner notes from JOHN TOBLER. Interviews with key players include Producer Gus Dudgeon and lyricist Bernie Taupin - both clearly proud of the roll all in EJ's stratosphere were on in those halcyon years. It's easy to forget now in 2020 that EJ was just huge in 1973, 1974 and 1975. "Caribou" hit the No. 1 spot in the USA and UK and many other countries around the world and he would replace that with his first "Greatest Hits" in November 1974 - again numero uno in both countries. The GUS DUDGEON appendage to the Tobler liner notes explains of how the master tapes were all carefully prepared for this CD Remaster Series - "...much closer to the reproduction we had originally intended." This is a great remaster and although there have been variants since (like Japan last year) - I didn't take too much to those 'flat transfers' - so for a fiver - I'll stick with this wee thing.

The album was recorded in the States at the Caribou Ranch in the mountains of Colorado (his first proper studio outing there) with his regular band members in tow - Davey Johnstone (Guitars), Dee Murray (Bass), Ray Cooper (Percussion) and Nigel Olsson (Drums). Sessions were augmented with Keyboardist David Hentschel and the five-strong Tower Of Power Horns and Trumpets including soloist Lenny Pickett ("The Bitch Is Back", "You're So Static" and "Stinker"). In between are an array of cool backing singers from session darlings Clydie King, Shirlie Matthews and Jessica Smith to special guests Dusty Springfield (all four are on "The Bitch Is Back" with Tower Of Power) - while Carl Wilson and Bruce Johnston of The Beach Boys lent their arrangement superpowers to "Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me" (that song also features Billy Hinsche - associated with The Beach Boys - and Toni Tennille of Captain & Tennille). And unlike so many reissues I review, this one actually acknowledges the Four Bonus Tracks – and gives a good account of these non-album single-sides for the first time (the only downside is not reproducing the lyrics).

The album opens on a belter, the wicked guitar-groove sexiness of "The Bitch Is Back" - a tune so apt that Tina Turner opened sets with it and the audience ate it up (its said Elton returned the compliment by once turning up on an American stage dressed as the great lady). Pinky owes the world nothing (say the lyrics) - a typically lovely mid-tempo ballad from EJ - subtle ARP synth playing from guest David Hentschel while Davey Johnstone keeps it light with beautifully produced acoustic picking and clever backing vocals. I've always "Pinky" to be one of his lovelier moments. The grim trawler-boat English delights of "Grimsby" just about passes muster while the Country-Rock-fied twang-dangle of "Dixie Lily" gets a tasty Saxophone Solo from Tower Of Power's Lenny Pickett. The near three-minutes of "Solar Prestige A Gammon" has elicited as much ridicule as a cheesy Eurovision Song Contest entry and is the first time that the album is testing your patience.  "You're So Static" ends Side 1 with a neither here nor there franticness.

The Remaster for "I've Seen The Saucers" is superb - big and bold - even if the radar and something moving outside lyrics feel like both EJ and BT are reaching (the references to crazy wavelengths and other worldly alienation smacks of both men being lost in those heady days of drugs and touring). The low-down Seventies pimp-funk of "Stinker" is another one of the album's rare winners - a sexy crawling sleaze of a song aided hugely by Tower of Power's Chester Thompson on a Billy Preston-like Organ (so tasty). Then comes the biggy - 5:37 minutes of the ballad "Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me" now forever linked with George Michael's cover. "I can't light no more of your darkness...I just took out a fragment of your life..." - the lyrics etched into our memories like those harmonics Davey Johnstone hits as he introduces the guitar. Carl Wilson and Bruce Johnson from The Beach Boys add those gorgeous and distinctive California vocals to a song that contains so much pain and yet remains beautiful in some kind of epic way.

"Caribou" comes to an end with the near eight-minutes of "Ticking" - EJ's piano playing coming out of your speakers with such wonderful clarity. A child is taking interest in the subjects he's taught, and yet the squad comes come screaming. A man goes on a gun rampage in a bar called The Kicking Mule leaving a trail of bodies - a priest in St. Patricks rationalising all the violence with the image of pain as as 'ticking' bomb (don't ride on the Devil's knee). This track alone feels like the magnificence of "Love Lies Bleeding"on GYBR.

Rather than feeling like filler, his cover of The Who's "Pinball Wizard" is fantastic and the Remaster huge. It's rare that a Townshend tune suits someone else so perfectly, but on this occasion it did. "Sick City" was the non-album B-side of "Don't Let The Sun..." - a greasy, cute and mean funk number that should have replaced some of the lesser crap on Side 1 of the album IMO. In pretty much the same vein, "Cold Highway" feels too good to be relegated to a flipside. Your 64 minutes and 12 seconds ends with the fun of "Step Into Christmas" – yo ho ho Prancer and Donner and thanks for the good year...

"Caribou" used to turn up in secondhand record collections being sold into us at Reckless Records with alarming regularity - like the punter selling it figured he'd get "The Bitch Is Back" and "Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me" on "Greatest Hits" and that'd be enough. 

But while its never going to win an Unsung Masterpiece of 1974 gong in Mojo or Record Collector magazines - I'd genuinely forgotten the other goodies contained within. And this CD bolstered up with those four cracking bonuses, great audio and a price tag that's less than a cod 'n' chips in 2020 - and I'll find it in my heart to forgive that cover art (what a guy, a song for guy, oh stop it)...

"Hero And Heroine" by STRAWBS – February 1974 (USA) and April 1974 (UK) LP on A&M Records featuring Dave Cousins, Dave Lambert, John Hawken (ex Nashville Teens and Renaissance), Chas Cronk and Rod Coombes (ex Stealers Wheel) (August 1998 UK A&M ReMasterPieces CD Reissue with Two Previously Unreleased Bonus Tracks – Roger Wake Remasters) - A Review by Mark Barry...

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"...Out Of The Cold..."

Band's catalogues can be funny - especially big groups of real longevity. After six whole albums with A&M Records since 1969, The Strawbs finally hit commercial paydirt with their brand of melodious Folk-Prog when the catchy "Part Of The Union" 45 and its parent album "Bursting At The Seams" both made No. 2 in the UK single and LP charts in early 1973. An impressive feat, and surely their next platter would follow the same success in Progressive Rock obsessed Blighty? Well, yes and no.

John Ford and Richard Hudson had left after "Bursting..." to an alternative career as HUDSON-FORD whilst Keyboardist Blue Weaver went to the big money of The Bee Gees ("Jive Talkin' ahoy) - leaving the core duo of Dave Cousins and Dave Lambert to recruit new band members. They called in John Hawken - an ex Nashville Teens Keyboardist whom they'd heard on recently accomplished Renaissance LPs and Chas Cronk and Rod Coombes - both ex the recently imploded Joe Egan and Gerry Rafferty's Stealers Wheel. The five gelled and fresh songwriting seemed to promise great new symphonic things.

But as I recall, "Hero And Heroine" arrived in shops with a whimper in Britannia whereas it 'made them' in the USA - something "Bursting At The Seams" had not done despite its huge success in England. In fact A&M Records released "Hero And Heroine" in America two months 'before' the UK long-player and The Strawbs toured the new LP there first. So the band now finds that even with a meagre No. 93 placing on the US Billboard Rock LP charts in the USA – being just inside the top 100 has guaranteed them hundreds of thousands of sales Stateside (steady sales too) with mega audiences of 17,000 and more lapping it up. But when they returned home, the new Strawbs line-up scraped a No. 35 LP chart placing in April 1974 (and for only 3 weeks) and got to play halls of 200 people in Leicester - much of the good work of 1973 evaporated and the group all but forgotten on their own turf.

So in some respects, their rather brilliant and musically accomplished "Hero And Heroine" album has been a wee bit of a lost gem in the UK for decades now and in post pandemic-lockdown 2020, seems to remain so. I say let's give its music a second go-round and get it 'out of the cold'. Here are the silver suns...

UK released August 1998 - "Hero And Heroine" by STRAWBS on A&M 540 935-2 (Barcode 731454093521) is part of their A&M ReMasterPieces CD Reissue Series. It offers the 1974 LP with Two Bonus Tracks (one Previously Unreleased) and plays out as follows (44:26 minutes):

1. Autumn [Side 1]

2. Sad Young Man

3. Just Love

4. Shine On Silver Sun

5. Hero & Heroine [Side 2]

6. Midnight Sun

7. Out In The Cold

8. Round And Round

9. Lay A Little Light On Me

10. Hero's Theme

Tracks 1 to 10 are their seventh album "Hero And Heroine" - released February 1974 in the USA on A&M Records SP-3607 and April 1974 in the UK on A&M Records AMLH 63607. Produced by DAVID COUSINS and TONY ALLOM - it peaked at No. 94 in the USA and No. 35 in the UK LP charts.

BONUS TRACKS (Previously Unreleased):

11. Still Small Voice

12. Lay A Little Light On Me (Early Version)

STRAWBS were:

DAVE COUSINS - Vocals, Acoustic and Electric Guitars

DAVE LAMBERT - Vocals, Acoustic and Electric Guitars

JOHN HAWKEN - Keyboards - Piano, Electric Piano, Organ, Mellotron and Synthesizer

CHAS. CRONK - Bass, Synthesizer and Vocals

ROD COOMBES - Drums, Percussion and Vocals

The 8-page booklet features JOHN TOBLER liner notes benefitting greatly from new interviews with principal songwriter Dave Cousins. He talks of rehearsals in Devon, Lambert's "Round And Round" being loosely based on "Substitute" by The Who and even weirder, the moody start of the eight and half minute three-part album opener "Autumn" being edited by A&M USA and circulated as a B-side 45 to "Round And Round", only to find the 'sexy Prog funk' of The Strawbs being featured on black radio stations and the band being applauded by African Americans as they debuted it at gigs. It's an informative and affectionate read but the real meat and potatoes lies in the new ROGER WAKE Remaster and two Previously Unreleased Bonus Tracks – one a sessions outtake "Still Small Voice" and the other an alternate version that a body can see why it was left in the can (doesn't work nearly as well as the released version). To the music...

"Autumn" nails its three-part epic Prog Rock credentials to the mast as "Heroine's Theme" ushers into your room with a surprisingly sinewy Bass followed by Mellotron - only to usher in a pretty duet battle between acoustic and electric guitars called "Deep Summer's Sleep". The last part "The Long Winter" gives us a jaunty hold-on-to-me chorus, as Cousins and the boys wax lyrical about soft falling snow. New boys Rod Coombes came up with the very Greenslade "Sad Young Man" - a sort of Rock meets Prog ballad with great playing and production. The band suddenly morphs into The Flamin Groovies meets the New York Dolls with the out-and-out Rock 'n' Rolling of "Just Love" - a Dave Lambert rocker. Things return to pastel with the lovely "Shine On Silver Sun" and an old song as far as the album was concerned. Trying to capitalise on "Part Of The Union" - A&M had issued "Shine On Silver Sun" in the UK as a stand-alone 45 as far back as August 1973 with "And Wherefore" on the flipside (A&M Records AMS 7082). Despite its strong melody and catchy chorus, it managed No. 34 on the UK charts and di naught when it was issued November 1973 in the States.

"Hero And Heroine" has never been a fave - too heavy-handed for me. But "Midnight Sun" is where the record really takes off - a song co-written with Cousins and Cronk and apparently inspired by graffiti on a loo wall. At three minutes eleven, "Out In The Cold" feels like a mash up of Cat Stevens meets The Ozark Mountain Daredevils with its rolling acoustic guitars, harmonica and sudden electric guitars. Now I know how it feels to be old, and out in the cold, Cousins songs. With its very Prog heavy synth opening and Aerosmith rock guitar verses, "Round And Round" was given a 45 in the USA with "Heroine's Theme" on the flipside. Empty creeds and themes to suit shysters - Cousins asks to "Lay A Little Light On Me". I'd admit its over ambitious nature might put some off, but I have to say that "Lay A Little Light On Me" and its very ELO Prog riffage as it segues into "Hero's Theme" (the LP's last track) is one of the reasons I love it. The two and half-minute Spanish guitar of "Still Small Voice" Cousins advises was an unfinished idea - its Prog second half trying to find a place to go but not quite finding it (a cool bonus actually). And although the alternate "Lay A Little Light On Me" has more guitars, it's not a good way, but too busy busy for its own good.

Despite having made a slew of great albums (I've also reviewed the Cousins solo set "Two Weeks Last Summer" from 1972 that is a fabulous find) - The Strawbs always seem to be the fourth bridesmaid of four at the big Prog Rock wedding. This is a cool album in so many ways, maybe not the masterpiece many think it is, but so worth your investigation. And platter seven is available for under an English sixer in most places. Enjoy peeps...

"Long John Silver/Thirty Seconds Over Winterland" by JEFFERSON AIRPLANE – July 1972 (Studio) and April 1973 (Live) LPs on Grunt Records (USA and UK) featuring Paul Kantner, Grace Slick, Jack Casady, Jorma Kaukonen, Papa John Creach and John Barbata with Guest Drummers Joey Covington and Sammy Piazza on the Studio Album and Guest Vocalist David Freiberg on the Live LP (27 March 2020 UK Esoteric Recordings Reissue – 2LPs onto 2CDs (No Bonuses) – Ben Wiseman Remasters) - A Review by Mark Barry...

"...Trial By Fire..."

Jefferson Airplane's seventh and final studio album (as JA) "Long John Silver" was US released in late July 1972 on their own Grunt Records with a 7-track live reminder of their August/September 1972 US 'Silver' tour captured on "Thirty Minutes Over Winterland" – released April 1973. Both albums (minus any bonus material) are gathered here by England's Esoteric Recordings with New Remasters from original Grunt Records tapes in another typically exemplary reissue.

"Silver" charted well at home - peaking at No. 20 but only made No. 30 in the UK LP charts at the beginning of September 1972 and for only one week. "Winterland" pushed it to No. 53 in America in April 1973 but failed to ignite any real interest in Blighty where the band was seen as something of a 60ts spent force. And that's where this reissue comes in.

Typically rated in music guides as 5 out of 10 type-material from the classic line-up pens of Paul Kantner, Grace Slick, Jack Casady, Papa John Creach and Jorma Kaukonen - Esoteric wants you to reconsider. Like most fans at the time, I liked the elaborate and clever packaging for both records but wasn't too fussed on the music in the actual grooves. And I didn't start listening again until I heard Craig Chaquico's incendiary lead guitar playing on December 1974's "Dragon Fly" LP when it was featured by Bob Harris on 'The Old Grey Whistle Test' - by which time the group was now the newly-named Jefferson Starship.

Maybe I missed something, Esoteric say. And having honestly not heard these platters in over 45 years and with these new remasters - the dapper English reissue lads may have something of a point (in places). Let's get to the cigar-box and the flying clock-toasters...

UK released 27 March 2020 - "Long John Silver/Thirty Seconds Over Winterland" by JEFFERSON AIRPLANE on Esoteric Recordings QECLEC22707 (Barcode 5013929480780) offers two albums from 1972 and 1973 newly Remastered onto 2CDs (no bonus tracks) that plays out as follows:

CD1 (42:19 minutes):

1. Long John Silver [Side 1]

2. Aerie (Gang Of Eagles)

3. Twilight Double Leader

4. Milk Train

5. The Son Of Jesus

6. Easter? [Side 2]

7. Trial By Fire

8. Alexander The Medium

9. Eat Starch Mom

Tracks 1 to 9 are their seventh studio album "Long John Silver" - released July 1972 in the USA on Grunt Records FTR-1007 and August 1972 in the UK on Grunt Records with the same catalogue number. Produced and Arranged by JEFFERSON AIRPLANE - it peaked at No. 20 in the USA and No. 30 in the UK.

CD2 (37:48 minutes):

1. Have You Seen The Saucers? [Side 1]

2. Feel So Good

3. Crown of Creation

4. When The Earth Moves Again [Side 2]

5. Milk Train

6. Trial By Fire

7. Twilight Double Leader

Tracks 1 to 7 are the live album "Thirty Seconds Over Winterland" - released April 1973 in the USA on Grunt Records BFL-1-0147 and April 1973 in the UK on Grunt Records FTR 0147. Produced by JEFFERSON AIRPLANE - it peaked at No. 53 in the USA (didn't chart UK) and the band featured David Freiberg on Vocals as well as the "Long John Silver" line-up of Paul Kantner, Grace Slick, Jack Casady, Jorma Kaukonen, Papa Jon Creach and John Barbata.

The three-flaps foldout card digipak feels substantial and it includes the artwork for both LPs spread across the digipak and 20-page booklet. You get '9 Fine Blends Of Fragrant Weed' artwork that came with original copies of the elaborately packaged 'Silver', the JA cigars inner and band photos, the lyrics to both sets, the fat man cartoon for the live Winterland set, period photos and the marijuana pictured on the original vinyl has even been repro'd beneath each see-through CD tray. It's nicely done and toped of with new liner notes from MIKE METTLER called "Oh, I Think That's Something You Might Have Missed!"

For sure JA fans may lament that the extended concert versions which appeared on the "Last Flight" 2CD reissue in 2007 would have complemented the live CD here and there was room to place some of the tracks too. But I think the New Remasters by BEN WISEMAN from original Grunt Records tapes more than makes up for any omissions. Both of these forgotten LPs feel alive and kicking anew - especially the studio set which is way better than I remember it. Let's get to the music...

The deliberately muddy production of "Long John Silver" combined with Slick's vocals feeling like they're in some adjacent hotel room lends the rollicking song about a man who's like a clock that needs no winding a sort of ramshackle magnificence. The same doomy vibe permeates Slick's "Aerie (Gang Of Eagles)" but this time the guitar work feels plodding. Creach and his violin come into the fore on "Twilight Double Leader" - the treated guitars now with more punch. "I just want to ride it some of the time..." Slick howls on "Milk Train" which feels like a rage at drugs taking much of her body and getting close to relieving her of most of her mind too. It's angry and one of the LP's better full-frontals.

The tirade continues with two attacks on organised religion - "The Son Of Jesus" and "Easter?" where JA speculate that Jesus may have had a daughter and Pope John should stop talking in a language no one understands or wants (Latin). The acoustic opening of "Trial By Fire" sounds great on this Remaster - Jorma Kaukonen making his vocal and songwriting presence seen for the first time. Love that sloppy guitar too and that final solo as he attacks some judgemental jerk with "...don't try to tell me just who I am when you don't know yourself..." Kantner sounds unconvincing on "Alexander The Medium" - another JA tune that threatens to be great but never quite gets there. It ends on the guitar riffage of "Eat Starch Mom" where Grace rants at men and their machines and their dumb statements.

The Live LP opens with a performance of "Have You Seen The Saucers?" from San Francisco's Winterland Ballroom taped in September 1972, the band sounding more coherent than they did on the studio album. They give it some Lou Reed Rock 'n' Roll Animal guitar groove in the eleven and half minutes of "Feel So Good" - Creach and crew stretching out in what feels like a really good Grateful Dead jam. The August 1972 Chicago Auditorium crowd roars their approval for "Crown of Creation”. They give it some Rock 'n' Roll on "Milk Train" - guitar and violin doing battle. Even better is "Trial By Fire" - five minutes of moving on out to the highway - Kaukonen adding some Allman Brothers cool to proceedings with his slinky groove. And it ends with a stretched out "Twilight Double Leader" - five and half minutes of guitars and combined vocals.

Both platters and their congested kind of Rock are of course period pieces now and you wouldn't say either album deserves more than five out of ten in 2020. But this reissue has done their forgotten grooves proud. Wings on clock toasters - well of course there are...