I’m catching up here with four albums that are worth a mention, even if they don’t get their own entries.
Runt, originally attributed to Runt but later to Todd Rundgren alone, is a classy debut that stands out from the crowd in terms of new US releases. I get the impression that it was conceived as a calling card for Rundgren as a writer, producer and performer.
The album is stylistically varied, occasionally veering into that borderline area between homage and pastiche. I’m In The Clique tells us he’d been listening to Zappa and the Mothers; ‘Laura’ in Baby Let’s Swing is clearly Laura Nyro.
It doesn’t do much for me, but there’s nothing wrong with it.
***
Parachute was the fifth album by The Pretty Things. It is ‘progressive’ in the usage of the day: serious, earnest, more than competent, occasionally dated. Some tracks are decidedly Beatle-ish r’n’r. I appreciate their talent, without connecting to the album at all.
***
Dave Mason’s Alone Together starts well and sticks to a high standard. It sounds remarkably American for a bloke from Worcester, but that was the way of it. Mason may have been the man who wrote Hole In My Shoe for Traffic, but there’s no psychedelic whimsy here; it’s closer to the sound of Derek and the Dominoes later in the year.
The album is well played, and better than a lot I’ve heard this year. Had I heard it in the seventies I would probably have got into it in a big way: not so much now.
***
Very ‘eavy… Very ‘umble…’ by Uriah Heep, released 13 June 1970, took me by surprise. I’m not a fan of Uriah Heep at all, and never have been, and I expected to hate this; it isn’t my thing, but I didn’t hate it. If forced, I would listen to this rather than, say, Deep Purple, any time.
It is the only album by this line up, I believe, and although it clearly comes from a pub/club/college circuit background, it is varied and competent throughout, even if it sounds in parts like a trial run for This Is Spinal Tap, particularly lyrically. I was particularly taken by Come Away, Melinda, previously recorded by the Weavers, and given a tasteful arrangement here. In fact the arrangement of the song seems to me to foreshadow some of what Roger Waters later did from The Wall onwards, but much better than Waters.
All are available either on Spotify or YouTube (except Alone Together which is on YouTube only.)
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