Greatest Hits Vol. 2 – SMOKEY ROBINSON & THE MIRACLES*****

Going To A Go Go/The Tracks Of My Tears/I Second That Emotion/Ooh Baby Baby/My Girl Has Gone/Come On Do The Jerk/Whole Lot Of Shakin’ In My Heart/The Love I Saw In You Was Just A Mirage/(Come ‘Round Here) I’m The One You Need/More Love/Choosey Beggar/Save Me

This second greatest hits package from Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, is considered to be just as good as the first and an essential purchase for sixties soul music fans. (US:7)

"Smokey Robinson may have been the greatest songwriter of his era. No one else was coming up with such splendidly clever turns of phrase. Certainly, no one was able to combine the writing and the beautiful voice as he did. Back in the day, he was the one to sing the young sisters into a swoon. When someone put Smokey's Ooh Baby Baby or More Love on the record player, the party was going to get serious."

"Smokey was one of the most amazing songwriters of the 20th century, and his best work was with his group, The Miracles. And we can't forget about Smokey's pristine falsetto voice sailing over the music, with the tight harmonies of Bobby Rogers, Ronnie White, Warren 'Pete' Moore and Claudette Rogers Robinson holding it down in the background."

"This LP took me back into the past, to a time in my life that the music, the harmony, and the words of Smokey Robinson & The Miracles were as essential to me as bread and butter. This music made my day brighter then and still does now."

"Robinson's voice evokes a visceral, emotional response. It has an ethereal beauty that sounds more suited to heaven than earth. The precision of the back-up harmonies and arrangements makes for an effect that is uniformly appealing, and genuine. This music is never overtly clever or self-conscious - it is masterfully crafted and sincere."

"The Tracks Of My Tears was a definitive Smokey Robinson composition which is quite breathtaking with its sweeping, tempo-shifting musical arrangements where the fantastic range of harmonies all gel so divinely with each other. I Second That Emotion was a mid-beat number where Smokey's cool, sensual voice oozes such genuine emotion."

The Good,The Bad & The Ugly – SOUNDTRACK****

The Good The Bad & The Ugly Main Title/The Sundown/The Strong/The Desert/The Carriage Of The Spirits/ Marcia/The Story Of A Soldier/Marcia Without Hope/The Death Of A Soldier/The Ecstasy Of Gold/The Trio-Main Title

The iconic spaghetti western The Good, The Bad & The Ugly starred Clint Eastwood and showcased the imaginative and evocative soundtrack composed by Ennio Morricone. (US:4)

"By any stretch of the imagination, the score that Morricone composed and conducted for The Good The Bad & The Ugly is one of the most imaginative and intense scores composed for any movie, western or otherwise. Its familiar theme is so unmistakable and so pulse pounding. What seems to have escaped quite a few people is how a lot of this music happens to be in minor keys, emphasizing the broiling landscape of this movie's Civil War setting."

"With this score, Morricone pushed to its limits his rough, weird style of Western music that he developed in his two previous Westerns. The famous Main Title sums up Morricone's approach perfectly: bizarre instruments, jagged changes in sound, and a thunderous tempo. This main theme appears throughout the score in many variations, depending on which member of the unholy trinity it is describing."

"From the moment I finished watching The Good The Bad & The Ugly, I knew I needed the soundtrack. It's one of the best things about that awesome movie, which happens to be one of my favourites. It's what makes the movie more cool, and even more fun to watch. The soundtrack includes songs from some of the coolest parts of the movie, and the best part has to be the main title."

"The brilliant complexity of the main title theme, with its counterpoint and mixture of traditional and electric instrumentation, is nowhere else to be found on the album until deep into side two where we get The Ecstasy Of Gold and The Trio - Main Title. A masterpiece of an album this is not. Just because the movie is great - and so is its composer - doesn't mean that its soundtrack album representative has to be."

"Italian composer Ennio Morricone's finest moment, and by far the best soundtrack of all time in my opinion. This is just dusty, gritty, death refined into music. It is legendary, revolutionary and epic."

The Eyes Of – THE BEACON STREET UNION***

Recitation-My Love Is/Beautiful Delilah/Sportin’ Life/Four Hundred & Five/Mystic Mourning/Sadie Said No/Speed Kills/Blue Avenue/South End Incident/Green Destroys The Gold/The Prophet

The Eyes Of was the debut album from the Boston psychedelic rock group The Beacon Street Union. Their music featured a liberal use of fuzz guitar and organ. (US:75)

“Strong songwriting, hard edged guitar/organ interplay and a fair amount of punky energy all combine to make this an album that should appeal to anyone looking to dig a bit deeper into (relatively) obscure '60s sounds.”

“It's one of the great releases of 1968, at least as good if not greater than many an album by more famous bands from that year. It's a mystery to me why they are not more well-known. If you like late 60s rock, this album is a must.”

“Incredible, inspiring, varied and spectacular first release by the legendary 'Boston Sound' group The Beacon Street Union. Every track on this LP is very enjoyable and interesting. The styles are varied from bluesy to psychedelic to very Queen like. Truly amazing.”

“This album is very good from beginning to end. A few different styles of songs but overall a good psychedelic album.”

“All the hallmarks of the psychedelic genre can be found on this record. It's filled with powerful drumming, piercing guitar leads, droning, hypnotic basslines, eerie organ fills and plaintive, expressive vocals and it rocks pretty convincingly. The bulk of the record is made up of stellar tracks, many made up of moody, edgy mid tempo songs like Sportin' Life and the awesome The Prophet. Their uptempo stuff is even better.”

“The record contains a fairly diverse blend of garage driven material, with liberal doses of fuzz guitar and organ, yielding a strong psychedelic flavour. Decent production manages to remove most of their rough garage edges, but fails to overcome the relatively weak vocal performance.”

Boogie With – CANNED HEAT****

Evil Woman/My Crime/On The Road Again/World In A Jug/Turpentine Moan/Whiskey Headed Woman No.2/ Amphetamine Annie/An Owl Song/Marie Laveau/Fried Hockey Boogie

The commercial breakthrough for Los Angeles blues group Canned Heat came with their second album Boogie With. Contains the hit single On The Road Again, No. 16 in the US and No. 8 in the UK. (US:16 UK:5)

"This is a great electric blues album. On The Road Again would be the band's first big hit and you still hear it on the oldies stations once in a while. Amphetamine Annie is a cool tune with a humorous and dry lyrics from the charismatic Bob 'The Bear' Hite while My Crime and World In A Jug are more old school blues that work very well. An Owl Song has Alan Wilson's distinctive vocals and harmonica but with a horn section while Marie Laveau is an instrumental with some great solos. Fried Hockey Boogie is a long jam where the entire band get a turn to show off."

"This a great blues rock album. On The Road Again is one of my favourites. Alan 'Blind Owl' Wilson had great vocals reminiscent of Robert Johnson and a nice contrast to Bob Hite's more gruff belting style. He also played a mean slide guitar and harmonica. Evil Woman has a blistering guitar solo from Vestine and Fried Hockey Boogie is a Canned Heat classic, a long jam with Bob Hite talking a bit about each of the guys before they solo."

"This is the first Canned Heat record I ever bought and/or listened too. I was overwhelmed with joy when the needle first hit the vinyl and the bass line of Evil Woman started playing. From there to the end is nothing but a feel-good sounding record. I also like listening to this album because it sounds like the band are having a lot of fun. Even though the album is mostly covers, the originals blend in with the rest of the music, and are also good tunes. From one of the most overlooked bands of the 60s, this album really reflects the period and is great to just put on, chill out."

"With their second album Canned Heat showed how best to adapt country blues to west coast psychedelic rock and roll. Most of the songs are originals but they clearly show their roots and sources. On The Road Again featured Al Wilson's tremulous near falsetto voice and Henry Vestine's electric guitar innovations, all in service of delivering the song. Anyone interested in what Canned Heat were about should check out this record."

Bonnie & Clyde – SOUNDTRACK**

Foggy Mountain Breakdown/Bonnie Meets Clyde/I Ain’t Much Of A Lover Boy/I Ain’t No Rich Man/Buck & Blanche Meet Up With Bonnie & Clyde/The Law’s Outside/Captain Hamer Spits At Bonnie/Bonnie & Clyde/ Family Reunion/Buck Falls/Bonnie Wounded-The Okies/Bonnie’s Poem/The Ambush & End Title

The immensely popular movie Bonnie & Clyde starred Warren Beatty & Faye Dunaway as the two notorious thirties gangsters. The soundtrack was scored by Charles Strouse. (US:12)

"This purports to be a soundtrack of Charles Strouse's period score, but it is actually full of sound-clips from the film. We get constant snippets of dialogue that have no value without the visual. The only uninterrupted music is the main title - Foggy Mountain Breakdown by Flatt & Scruggs. This is superb, in a country/bluegrass vein. All the other tracks are sound effects and dialogue that segue into the composer's background score. The music sections are very short, but I would gladly have a very short album than a truncated thing like this. Strouse has written some very winning music that has a hint of Americana in Copland mode, with occasional flavourings of banjos and trumpets. If I was Charles Strouse, I would sue the album producers. What in heaven were they thinking?"

"As was common with film soundtrack albums of the 1960s, Bonnie & Clyde consists of audio dubs directly from the movie, dialogue that only sometimes includes music. There's barely enough Charles Strouse and Flatt & Scruggs here to justify the 'original score' claim on the LP's front cover. Thus, we have a lot of Warren and Faye, such as his embarrassed 'lover boy' speech and her recitation of a number of verses of doggerel that Bonnie Parker herself entitled The Trail's End, a lengthy poem that, after the bank robber's demise, became known as The Story of Bonnie & Clyde. Fans of Arthur Penn's movie may find this assemblage interesting; those seeking only the music are almost certain to be disappointed."

"The instrumental banjo piece Foggy Mountain Breakdown by Flatt & Scruggs was introduced to a worldwide audience as a result of its frequent use in the movie. Its use is strictly anachronistic as the bluegrass style of music dates from the mid-1940s rather than the 1930s, but the functionally similar 'old time music' genre was long established and widely recorded at the period in which the film was set."

The Beat Goes On – VANILLA FUDGE*

Sketch/Intro:The Beat Goes On/Medley/The Beat Goes On/Fur Elise & Moonlight Sonata/The Beat Goes On/The Beat Goes On/Voices In Time/The Beat Goes On/Merchant: The Game Is Over/The Beat Goes On

Colossal self indulgence such as was found on The Beat Goes On destroyed what little musical credibility Vanilla Fudge might have once possessed. Why do musicians do this kind of thing? (US:17)

"There aren't any real 'songs'. It's a scattershot sound collage featuring anything and everything under the sun that would make it interesting. The voices of world leaders, the band reciting pre-written mantras and reflections, and Beatles and Sonny Bono covers. Not their best, however genuine the intention."

"It has to be the disappointment of the decade. It sucks. It's full of covers, tedious sections, speaking, filler, just a plain dud all around. The few places it sounds like they are going to pick up the pace, they don't. I think these guys might have been on something bad when they recorded this one."

"I don't like writing negative reviews but this album is not listenable. I really don't like all the quotes and speeches included in a collage of sound and ambiance. It may have been very hip back in 1968 but it really does not work for me."

"If you want a truly incoherent album strung together in a twisted way, then this is it. Quite possibly the worst album ever recorded by anyone."

"One of the oddest albums of the 60s rock. it’s divided into four 'phases, without the least sense of cohesiveness. In phase one can be found anything, like in a schizophrenic bazaar: Sonny Bono mixed with the Mozart’s Divertimento No. 13 In F Major, Cole Porter playing domino with Leiber & Stoller; and then, they dispatch a version of In The Mood a la carte, which crashes abruptly against a Lennon & McCartney 'medley'. The phase two insists with Sonny Bono, but now encrusting it into the sacrosanct Beethoven’s Fur Elise: the listener is now considering seriously doing drugs to stand the trance cum laude. Phase three has no music, just spoken word. The voices, mostly taken from old, scratched vinyls, pass by, one by one like phantoms of yesterday. Finally comes phase four, a 13 minutes spaced-out session either asking and answering random and goofy questions of each other, like in a Saturday TV show, with a dumbo psych/rock as background."

A Beacon From Mars – KALEIDOSCOPE (US)***

I Found Out/Greenwood Sidee/Life Will Pass You By/Taxim/Baldheaded End Of A Broom/Louisiana Man/You Don’t Love Me/Beacon From Mars

A Beacon From Mars was the follow up LP from the Los Angeles folk rock group Kaleidoscope. Featuring a variety of different styles, it was a little too eclectic for some critics.

“Expertly navigating many different musical cultures from Irish to Indian this modest release matches the band's moniker effectively. Although these worldly recordings may be looked upon as glorified samplers more then authentic replications, the playing and production remains adept enough to engage even cynical listeners.”

“Brilliant musicians who wrote and recorded excellent songs. They could be psychedelic, country, straight rock, Middle Eastern, Eastern European, or even pop. Cool vocals, amazing musicianship, and quality songwriting and cover choices made for fantastic albums. And the title track is among the great extended psych tracks I've ever heard.”

“The best psychedelic-folk album I have ever heard. Esoteric from the first to the last second. And the two long tracks are live recordings with no overdubs, an absolute joy for the ears.”

“One of those forgotten classics from the late 60s psychedelia. Great package with two fantastic over ten minute songs and the rest is between two and four minutes. A bit odd but also a great record. Needs a lot of playtime before you can make up your mind.”

“Very similar to its predecessor, in that it truly suffers from over diversity, to the extent that it appears Jekyll and Hyde like. A mix of eastern and bizarre psych, with country rock and jugtown blues.”

“This album's big centrepieces are the two epic twelve minute jams, the authentic sounding Mid Eastern workout Taxim and the psychedelic freak out title track. These are fantastic, but another one I really liked is the creepy traditional English murder ballad Greenwood Sidee.”