VA - Legend Of A Mind, The Underground Anthology [2003] (3 x CD's)

DECCA / DERAM 

VA - Legend Of A Mind, The Underground Anthology [2003] (3 x CD's)

"Legend Of A Mind, The Underground Anthology" is a collection of songs from bands between the years of 1968 and 1974 from the off-shoot record label of Decca Records, neatly called Deram. Deram Records was actually set up in 1966 by the suits at Decca, who had already made the cringe-worthy mistake of turning down the Beatles. They realized then that the young folk of the day did not only want to buy Englebert Humperdink records, but needed something with a bit of street cred that they just plain did not understand.  This was a lucky break for them. In the summer of 1967 the Beatles turned the rock world on its head with the release of  "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", allowing all serious minded musicians to break out of the 4/4 structures of 3-minute songs. There were literally hundreds of bands out there wanting to sign up to a record company to get their sound out to an eager public; some with 2½ -minute songs of cleverness, others with 20-minute epics. Deram was keen to sign them all, the good and the bad (How would they have known the difference?) and here, spread over three 77-minute discs, is a selection of arguably the best.

Some bands on this collection went on to be household names like Thin Lizzy, Moody Blues, and Camel; some miraculously are still going on today in one form or another like Caravan, Savoy Brown, and Ten Years After; and some went on to become bigger and better things namely Giles, Giles & Fripp of course became King Crimson, who went on to be both household names and are still going strong today. After a fine career Trapeze gave us Mel Galley for Whitesnake; Dave Holland for Judas Priest; and Glen Hughes for Deep Purple, insuring gainful employment for the trio years after they bit the dust. Other bands like Black Cat Bones, Leafhound, and Egg gained legendary status years after they had disbanded. Some bands were plainly a little too ordinary or too way out to make it. East Of Eden had a massive hit single with `Jig-a-Jig', which is included here, but their other material never quite lived up to their early hit, although after the band's demise violinist Dave Arbus turned up on the Who's Baba' O'Reiley playing the fiddle solo that brings the song to a rousing conclusion. Others, alas, only lasted one album, but that is where you come across some unexpected delights. If you like heavy metal guitar riffing to bang your head to, then look no further than the eight minutes of T2's 'No More White Horses'.  How Aardvark missed the boat to rock superstardom will always be a mystery. I mean they even had the perfect name. When you walked down your local record store racks Aardvark's album must of been the first album you came across, they would of even been in front of Abba. The marvelously monickered `Once Upon A Hill/Put That In Your Pipe And Smoke It' is Aardvark's tour de force over ten minutes of keyboard mayhem that only Keith Emerson or Jon Lord could of equalled.  The reason that Clark-Hutchinson did not last long is evident in their sole contribution song title here. (Amazon)

"Legend of a Mind" has lots of surprisingly bold psychedelia and progressive jazz and blue and It's quite fun just to read the names of the bands with the title of the song(s) they play and then to imagine the sound and see if you were correct.  Whatever your taste you just have to like something. (Amazon)

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Track list

CD1

01 Moody Blues Legend Of A Mind 6:37

02 Bill Fay Screams In The Ears 3:22

03 Giles,Giles & Fripp Suite No. One 5:36

04 End Introspection Part One 4:04

05 Ten Years After I Can't Keep From Crying Sometimes 5:23

06 Bulldog Breed Austin Osmanspare 2:55

07 Egg The Song Of McGuillicudie The Pusillanimous 5:06

08 Johnny Almond Music Machine Voodoo Forest 3:44

09 East Of Eden Nymphenburger 6:15

10 Aardvark Once Upon A Hill 10:29

11 T2 No More White Horses 8:35

12 Caravan Hello Hello 3:13

13 Leafhound Freelance Fiend 3:10

14 Granny's Intentions Nutmeg, Bitter Suite 3:10

15 Rattles The Witch 2:31

16 Alan Brown! Still As Stone 2:47

CD2

01 Human Beast Maybe Someday 6:20

02 Black Cat Bones Chauffer 5:16

03 Pacifik Drift Tomorrow Morning Brings 2:38

04 Zakkarias The Unknown Years 6:56

05 Clark-Hutchinson Free To Be Stoned 7:43

06 Room Cemetery Junction Part One And Two 8:30

07 Keef Hartley Band Roundabout 6:08

08 Moody Blues Question 5:45

09 Ten Years After Love Like A Man 7:37

10 East Of Eden Jig A Jig 3:44

11 Caravan Golf Girl 5:01

12 Mellow Candle Boulders On My Grave 3:28

13 Keef Hartley Band Theme Song 8:05

CD3

01 Savoy Brown Hellbound Train 9:13

02 Khan Stranded 5:55

03 Thin Lizzy The Rise And Dear Demise Of The Funky Nomadic Tribes 7:08

04 Trapeze Seafull 6:31

05 Caravan C'Lu Thlu 6:11

06 Thin Lizzy Whisky In The Jar 5:44

07 Camel Lady Fantasy 13:00

08 Pete Brown & Friends Nights In Armour 3:53

09 Curved Air Propositions 7:53

10 Camel Air Born 5:01

11 Darrel Way's Wolf The Envoy 6:27

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