Edgar Broughton Band
Speak Down The Wires: The Recordings (1975-1982)
Esoteric
★★★★

This is an excellent four-CD set by the doyens of the ’60s counterculture — the trailblazers of political heavy rock.

Their 1969 debut album Wasa Wasa was cut for EMI’s underground label Harvest.

Nary a gig ended without mass chanting of Out Demons Out started by the The Fugs who carried out an exorcism of the Pentagon in 1967.

Fights and vandalism broke out at some student union gigs and Tony Blackburn made their Hotel Room 1971 single his record of the week.

The four album’s include Bandages (NEMS), Live Hits Harder (BB Records), Parlez Vous English (Babylon) and Superchip — The Final Solution (Telex Records).

Bandages features Mike Oldfeld who also engineered the album; Live Hits Harder was recorded live at various British gigs; Parlez Vous English was self-produced and Superchip was an “concept” album.

A fine collection by a loved, overlooked and quintessentially British band.

Pure Prarie League
Firin’ Up/Something In the Night
BGO Records
★★★

Named after a fictional temperance union in Errol Flynn’s Dodge City film from 1939, they were formed in 1970 making their debut in 1972 for RCA Records.

Their album covers featured a distinctive Norman Rockwell Saturday Evening Post illustration of a trail-worn cowpoke named Luke, who appeared on every PPL album thereafter.

With the hallmarks of country rock — electric guitars augmented by peddle steel guitars and fiddles — they were in the same camp as The Byrds, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Dillard & Clark and The Flying Burrito Brothers, but they were dogged by continual line-up changes.

Adding string arrangements, they aimed their albums at the same market as The Eagles — even with the addition of stellar bluegrass picker Vince Gill.

Cut in 1980 and 1981 for the disco label Casablanca Records, they were very successful — but are more FM soft rock than The Byrds Sweetheart Of The Rodeo.

Dirty Work Going On: Kent & Modern Records Blues into the 60s Vol 1
If I Have to Wreck LA: Kent & Modern Records Blues into the 60s Vol 2
Ace Records
★★★★★

Modern Records — and its other labels Kent, RPM, Crown and Meteor — was the most important independent blues and R&B record company of the post-war period.

Commencing business in 1945 in Los Angeles, Modern was owned by brothers Jules, Saul and Lester Bihari at its zenith in the 1950s they released records by BB King, Howlin’ Wolf, Elmore James, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Etta James, Johnny “Guitar” Watson and countless others.

When R&B was eclipsed by soul in the mid-1960s, they still recorded blues aimed at African-American record-buyers by artists, included here, who plyed their trade in juke joints and bars on the “chitlin’ circuit” — Fillmore Slim, Little Joe Blue, King Solomon, Willie Headon, Smokey Wilson plus T Bone Walker and Lowell Fulson.

Both volumes have stacks of rare and unissued solid blues recordings along with informative booklets.

1960s blues never sounded so good.