That said, this 1970 release by the sometime Spooky Tooth bassist and future Matthews’ Southern Comfort member, does attempt to scale the heights of anticipation its somewhat wonderful artwork inspires… for the first two tracks anyway.

‘Magician’ and ‘Get Myself Together’ are a pair of corkers. The former begins with a burst of psychedelic recorder – yes, recorder!! The weapon of choice for folkies and five-year-olds everywhere – and electric sitar, before hitting a thoroughly enchanting bluesy groove that bounces heartily along beneath Leigh’s succession of tall, cautionary tales. It’s a more progressive bent that dictates the meditative ‘Get Myself Together’ (featured on last month’s ‘Prog Rock Mixtape‘); a superior blend of ivories and mellotron that incorporates classical elements into its sumptuous arrangement via a sublimely understated electric guitar and the lilting piano coda.

An enviable start, no less. Unfortunately, the rest of the album fails to live up to these early magical murmurings, instead mostly settling into a more traditional (for the time) blues and country-rock ensemble. There are still strains of folkie seraphicalness breaking through, such as on the distant ‘Windy Baker Street’, but it’s predominately routine fare – for instance the Stones-esque ‘Solitaire’ – that Leigh produces from his wizard’s sleeve.

That’s not to say it’s a bad album. Far from it, my friend. Just not as interesting as it might’ve been. Nevertheless, Magician’s original closer, ‘Up the U.S.A.’, is nine minutes of raw, prog-blues loveliness, featuring some great guitar licks, courtesy of young Andrew, and an itchy harmonica groove from Gary Farr that augments the sleazy fug of the track perfectly.

The reissue by the meritorious Sunbeam Records includes a princely bonus track in the shape of ‘The Passing’, later to appear on the 1971 Southern Comfort album Frog City. Here in its original form and underpinned by a solemn (Hammond?) organ lament, ‘The Passing’ provides a fitting conclusion to Magician that touches upon the brilliance of its opening components.

Magician by Andrew Leigh is reissued by Sunbeam Records and available to buy from Amazon.co.uk

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We may never know. If any of the Native American fraternity happen to be reading this and can shed some light on the matter, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. It has been known to keep me awake at night.

Which brings us to Dog Soldier, the short-lived outfit formed in the wake of the Keef Hartley Band’s collapse, and their 1975 self-titled album. The artwork maintains the American Indian look that Hartley sported in previous incarnations and during live performances, albeit with a futuristic slant, as was the vogue for album covers in the mid-70s, particularly among prog and some AOR acts.

Dog Soldier largely falls under the spell of the second of those musical pigeonholes, which, in my laziness, I am wont to crowbar in at every given opportunity. Those that stay the course, however, through this journey into the innocuous reaches of 1970’s American FM radio, are in for a reet royal treat at its close. One that rewards the perseverance of the less-than-inclined with 11 minutes of loveliness.

Prior to that it’s a festival of mid-Atlantic country/blues rock, occasionally rugged around the edges, whose sun-kissed Californian complexion revisits the likes of Steely Dan, The Eagles and The Band, courtesy of a bloke from the murkier climes of Lancashire.

The rum cove, who not only replaced Ringo Starr in Rory Storm & The Hurricanes but also drummed for – of all people – Freddy Starr in 1963, surrounds himself with talent new and old, pulling in former bandmates Miller Anderson and Derek Griffiths, along with new blood in the form Paul Bliss and keyboardist Mel Simpson. Anderson provides the brassy vocals, as well as writing the majority of the songs, while Hartley lurks behind his drumkit, dressed as Big Chief Sitting Bull. Nice work if you can get it.

It’s all fairly run-of-the-mill; an inoffensive journey along America’s west coast, lightly underscored by some nifty organ swirls. Unfortunately, the likes of ‘Thieves and Robbers’, ‘Long & Lonely Night’ and ‘Stranger in My Own Time’ suffer from an over-familiarity that renders them indistinguishable from a multitude of other album-orientated-rock songs of the 1970s.

However, there is a light, quite literally, at the end of the tunnel. The royal treat I alluded to, what seems like three days ago… Actually it was three days ago. Such would be the piss-poor findings if I was to submit to a time and motion study.

But I digress. ‘Looks Like Rain’ is loveliness in a bag. Eleven minutes long and bristling with driving guitars, Hartley’s powerful drum patterns and the unadulterated joy that is the Hammond organ. The mid-section of the song is even given over to an extended instrumental passage, awash with the enigmatic swell of the erstwhile instrument’s unmistakably affecting cry. If that isn’t enough to tickle the discerning fancy of the prog contingent, then included as a bonus track is the first, slightly uptempo, version of this song, clocking in at an equally pleasing 15 minutes.

Dog Soldier tentatively hands over its GCSE report card to reveal the legend: Must try harder. The A+ and attached gold star for ‘Looks Like Rain’ just about saves it from a term consigned to the corner of the class, sporting a less than fetching dunce’s hat.

Dog Soldier receives its first official CD release courtesy of Esoteric and is available to buy from Amazon.co.uk

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Bad news for McPhee, good news for us. For it explicitly informs at least one track on his 1973 solo effort, The Two Sides of Tony (T.S.) McPhee, as well as dictating the prevalent mood of the remainder.

Taking its title at face value, The Two Sides… offers just that. Two wildly differing styles, separated by the flip of a platter.

Side 1, as it would’ve been in the days of vinyl, shoots from the hip, with a collection of extremely raw, largely acoustic blues numbers that hark back to McPhee’s salad days as a blues guitarist in the earlier part of the 1960s. It also delivers the musical equivalent of a bloody nose to his ex-wife. Side 2 is given over to a single, nineteen minute progressive piece entitled ‘The Hunt’. More of which, in a moment.

The blues side of Tony McPhee is the vocalist/guitarist alone with his weapon of choice, the acoustic and electric varieties, ruminating on the collapse of his marriage and picking at that particular open wound as if it’s a bag of chips, not yet cooled down enough to eat. Without apology, it festers and oozes a particularly melodic sap of greenish-brown purulence that is deeply personal and possibly not the ideal subject matter for somebody anticipating a chart-topping album. Not that I’m suggesting that, at any point, young McPhee was.

Two songs in particular underline the especially sour note that the first side of Tony McPhee begins, proceeds in an orderly fashion, and ends on. ‘Dog Me Bitch’ is a less than subtle dig at the wife; one draped in a veil of the flimsiest metaphor, whereas ‘All My Money, Alimony’ dispenses with the metaphor altogether and ladles a king-size bucket of vitriol over the marital disharmony, pretty much summed up by the line: “All your loving ever done for me in our time together, Was to provide me with another mouth to feed…” Ouch!

Over on Side 2, ‘The Hunt’ sees the object of McPhee’s ire turn from his former wife to the so-called “sport” of hunting, thankfully now banned in the UK. This barbaric pastime of the landed gentry and idle rich comes in for as much stick as the collapse of his wedding vows, as McPhee once again waxes lyrical with a bottle of caustic soda and a wire scrubbing brush. This time around he breaks out the synthesisers (ARP 2600 and a Rhythm Ace drum machine, for the analog retro-geeks out there) as well as the electric piano; providing a sonic Yin to the acoustic-blues Yang of before.

The bastions (bastards?) of privilege and bloodsports receive their verbal spanking against a backdrop of layered, slightly sinister keyboard patterns, powered on, like a pack of hunting dogs, by the relentless tick of the Rhythm Ace’s far from convincing approximation of a drum. With McPhee creating a one-man wall of synthesised sound, he uses the 19 minutes to chop and change tempo, throw in all manner of otherworldly noises and create a patchwork soundscape to represent his savage attack on a rich man’s vulgar and cruel pastime. And finally, as if to label the point as to the type of human being his barrage of electronic melody is aimed at, there’s a distorted version of ‘God Save the Queen’, shot to ribbons by a healthy dose of buckshot, afore silence and the bitter end. Phew! Quite the ride.

Madder than a biscuit tin full of randy frogs, The Two Sides of Tony (T.S.) McPhee is a one-off. Side 1 jangles along nicely with its Jack Saw-edged, bilious blues, but ‘The Hunt’ provides the real gold, weaving, as it does, a rich tapestry of experimental analog sound, courtesy of one pissed-off Groundhog and his semi-modular synths.

The Two Sides of Tony (T.S.) McPhee by Tony McPhee is reissued by Talking Elephant Records and is available to buy from Amazon.co.uk

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Psychedelia beckoned and being both an early adopter of the Hammond organ and the first man in Britain to introduce audiences to the wonders of the Mellotron, the underground rock scene was ripe for a dose of Graham Bond exuberance.

A diet of heroin, the occult, depression and his eventual suicide in 1974, meant the creative flame that burned early in his career never really reignited and certainly didn’t rekindle the audience interest previously enjoyed. Love is the Law and Mighty Grahame Bond were recorded and released solely in America during 1968 and 1969 respectively, at a time when personal demons were taking a hold, the money was running out and the offer from a US label seemed hard to turn down. He never received a penny in royalties for either album.

Despite what was going on behind the scenes, neither Love is the Law nor Mighty Grahame Bond sound as bad as such turbulent circumstances might portend.

The cover of Love is the Law depicts a dishevelled and troubled looking Bond stood against the backdrop of a sun-worshipping flower child. This image pretty much sums up the music, with the Hammond and Mellotron-rich sound typical of the West Coast hippy psychedelic vibe, juxtaposed against the raw blues vocal that Bond belts out between gargles of broken glass.

The fact the Americans seemed not only incapable of paying him for his services, but also of spelling his name correctly – with an erroneous ‘E’ finding its way onto the crediting of both albums – didn’t prevent them from managing to coax a full-blooded performance from the anguished artiste. For Love is the Law, Bond played all the instruments aside from drums, setting down a fertile foundation of blues tropes upon which to layer his psychedelic keyboards. There’s undoubtedly a raw energy bubbling away, which gives Love… an almost homemade feel and despite the inclusion of some gospel-styled female backing throughout, it remains very much a Lo-Fi affair.

With a perspective that changes like the weather, from the loved-up flower power of the title-track and the unbridled hope of ‘The World Will Soon be Free’, through to the sour darkness of ‘Bad News Blues’ and pessimism of ‘Strange Times, Sad Times’, Love is the Law is very much a mixed bag of emotions, possibly denotive of Bond’s then frame of mind.

Mighty Grahame Bond broadens the remit of its predecessor to include a full band, but aside from that it is very much more of the same. Bond remains on vocal, Hammond and Mellotron duties; this time injecting a gothic eeriness to the compositions with a heavier organ sound, signposted at the beginning of opener ‘Water Water’, with its Dr. Phibes’ flourish. The slightly queasy ‘Stiff Necked Chicken’ sees Bond affecting a deep Southern drawl and making a departure into Rolling Stones’ territory with a raunchiness that doesn’t quite gel. Elsewhere its mostly psychedelic blues all the way, with a rare tender moment touched upon on the elegant ‘Walk On to Me’, the highlight of Mighty Grahame Bond with its sumptuous Mellotron arrangement.

For some, the clearly untrained, blistering vocal that Bond demonstrates, may well grate. Nevertheless, what his voice may lack in style, it makes up for in sheer bruised character.

Neither Love is the Law nor Mighty Grahame Bond are perfect albums. Far from it, in fact. But when they hit their stride, the combination of richly abundant Hammond organ showboating and the raw, gut-wrenching sadness hinted at throughout, makes for a compelling listen.

Love is the Law and Mighty Grahame Bond are reissued by Esoteric and available to buy on CD, for the first time, from Amazon.co.uk

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And there’s an element of blues rock bubbling away beneath the psychedelic/progressive mix that forms The Answer, particularly with regards to Bardens’ vocal delivery, which is a full-bodied blues drawl and, on occasion, remarkably similar in sound to another royal lady-roisterer, a certain Michael Jagger.

The title-track, first up on the album, is awash with energetic blues guitar licks, in this case provided by an uncredited Peter Green, which is bolstered throughout by Bardens’ elaborate organ artistry and pseudo-philosophical lyricism, popular in progressive and underground rock circles of this era.

The blues guitar continues through the eerie mire that is ‘Don’t Goof With a Spook’, where the Jaggerisms are possibly at their strongest, and the excellent acid-soaked freak-rock of ‘I Can’t Remember’, with its hedonistic tribal undercurrent in addition to the masterclass of swirling keyboard extravagance.

‘I Don’t Want to Go Home’ and ‘Let’s Get It On’, both of which also feature an uncredited Peter Green on lead guitar, are more in the standard blues-rock vein and as such a little more formulaic, but following on from something as undeniably strong as the three aforementioned tracks that open The Answer, is always going to be a thankless task.

Which brings us nicely to the B-side spanning closing track of the original album. Running just shy of 14 minutes, ‘Homage to the God of Light’ is a spectacular journey into the outer reaches of psychedelic-prog, bringing to mind the early instrumental excursions of Pink Floyd and the exalted voyagers of space rock, Hawkwind. Bardens really gives the organ a punishing workout on this captivating, and lengthy, illustration of finest, ye olde underground gallivanting. A worthy highlight to an all round worthy album.

The reissue also throws in The Village’s excellent psychedelic single ‘The Man in the Moon’ and its instrumental B-side, ‘Long Time Coming’. Two more reasons, if any more are needed, why Peter Bardens’ The Answer makes a wonderful start to the New Year.

The Answer by Peter Bardens is reissued by Esoteric and available to buy from Amazon.co.uk

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Centred around the scorching riffs of steel guitar legend Glenn Ross Campbell, previously of US psychedelic rock band The Misunderstood, Juicy Lucy was a band earthier than Percy Thrower’s potting shed.

Juicy Lucy features the unique vocal drawl of Ray Owen and a solid contingent of British musicians, knocking out raucous and weighty, blues-seared rock numbers that reach their rasping zenith with the Bo Diddley cover ‘Who Do You Love?’, the single release of which would break the UK Top 20 in 1970.

With song titles such as ‘Mississippi Woman’ and ‘Chicago North-Western’, Juicy Lucy don’t stray far from the Honky-Tonk blueprint they’ve set themselves and although nothing surpasses the superb ‘Who Do You Love?’, Juicy Lucy still makes for a decent listen.

Drawing from the same sources that fired The Rolling Stones to global stardom, the band may not have shared Keef and co’s success but they had the chops to pull off a similar sound to their Sticky Fingers era, with the mix of horns, organ, steady-as-a-rock bass and drums, and, of course, the galvanic guitar-work of Glenn Ross Campbell. And with Ray Owen on lead vocals, they had a singer with a voice as distinctive as Jagger’s.

On occasion, it sounds as though Owen has gargled with Jack Daniels and razorblades prior to stepping into the studio, particularly on the aforementioned ‘Who Do You Love?’, which really is quite an astounding vocal performance that reaches out from the depths of a skull-adorned, New Orleans Voodoo hat, one that’s been soaked in the harshest of fire-water beforehand.

A rip-roaring version of Chuck Berry’s ‘Nadine’ feels like a precursor to Dr. Feelgood and beyond that, the Juicy Lucy originals keep things grooving along at a pace similar to that of the titular ‘Train’ in their dynamic cover of the Buddy Miles’ song.

Juicy Lucy ends on ‘Are You Satisfied?’, the second song on the album to sport a question mark and one that’s a slow-burning cauldron of sleazy gumbo deviance, resplendent in the perpetually repeated refrain of the title and sounding more like the Stones than the randy rock ‘n’ rollers themselves.

Add it all up and you have a fully charged, sometimes bruising experience. So if crunching blues-rock is your thing, why not get your hands dirty with Juicy Lucy.

Juicy Lucy is available to buy from Amazon.co.uk

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There was Chris Copping doubling up on bass and organ, alongside BJ Wilson and Robin Trower from the classic era, on drums and guitar respectively. Then, of course, there was the one constant factor in Procol Harum’s lifespan: Gary Brooker, singer, pianist and songwriting partner to the band’s lyricist, the ever-present Keith Reid.

Home had seen the psychedelia of A Whiter Shade of Pale, and the earlier albums, shown the door in favour of a harder rock sound that kept the progressive edge and cemented Procol Harum’s reputation as one of the most innovative acts doing the rounds.

Broken Barrricades saw them continue along this road, paring back the symphonics that had really come to the fore on A Salty Dog and Home’s ‘Whaling Stories’, to produce an album that’s still chock full of ideas, despite seeing them in their rawest form.

Robin Trower’s guitar dexterity dominates throughout, with Gary Brooker’s piano often content to provide depth as opposed to the usual lead, whilst BJ Wilson’s drumming really comes into its own, particularly on ‘Power Failure’ where a solo sees him punishing the skins without becoming needlessly pretentious or overstaying his welcome.

Kicking off with ‘Simple Sister’, a song bursting with robust enthusiasm and utilising Brooker’s R ‘n’ B vocals to maximum effect, the eight tracks on the original release contain some real gems, worthy of immortality within the extensive Procol Harum canon.

The title track is a joy of melody, juxtaposed against its apocalyptic if suitably abstract lyrics, whereas ‘Song For a Dreamer’, a fitting tribute written in the wake of Jimi Hendrix’s untimely death, will feel familiar to anybody who has heard the guitar legend’s ’1983… (A Merman I Should Turn to Be)’ from Electric Ladyland. Also worthy of mention is ‘Luskus Delph’, the only song on the album to slip into the symphonic rock territory Procol Harum made their own.

Broken Barricades is a superb continuation of the band’s legacy, marking themselves out as a matured, serious rock act for the 1970s.

The Salvo reissue sees the label teaming up with Strongman Records and maintaining the high standard set by their collaboration with Fly. There are four bonus tracks, two alternate takes and two backing tracks – but once again it’s the lush packaging and booklet that gives the major labels, carelessly popping out reissues like they’re going out of fashion, something to aspire to.

Broken Barricades is reissued by Salvo Records and available from Amazon.co.uk

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The Idle Hands deliver the goods, firing on all cylinders to produce an album worthy of a band who enjoy a formidable reputation as a live act, injecting it with the same passion that I’m sure also stokes their stage shows.

All Night Sinnin’ draws on a mixture of influences, with a Zeppelin feel being noticably prevalent, particularly on ’40 Nights’ and ‘Honey Tree’. But there’s shades of Hendrix, Taste, Free, Jeff Beck, Blind Faith, early Cream and even AC-DC interweaved throughout the entire fabric, as well as a classic delta blues framework to songs such as ‘I Don’t Mind’ and ‘A Friend Like You’.

Rick Wakeman has featured the album on his Planet Rock FM show and in the world of British classic rock, such a recommendation is a seal of quality. HFoS agrees with the ex-Yes keyboard noodler and prog elder Statesman that All Night Sinnin’ is worth a listen and one to blow the frosty cobwebs away during the imminent autumnal and winter months.

All Night Sinnin’ is available to buy from the Idle Hands’ website.

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