Old Enough to Forget

Blind Faith released one album in 1969 bringing together the talents of Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, Ginger Baker and Rick Grech. This album was infamous when I was a kid because it had a topless young girl holding what looked like a chrome airplane. The photograph by Bob Seidemann was titled "Blind Faith" and it would end up being the name of the band and the album. I never knew there was an alternate cover until I found this one in the dollar bin. I have to admit the cover had seen better days, but the lyric insert was still inside the jacket and the album itself ended up cleaning up quite nicely. All in all a win win. Now I was just a wee lad when this came out, so my introduction to some of the songs would come many years later on radio when they'd have their '60s themed lunch hours, or the occasional oldie would crop up on rock radio. The song that seemed to get the most play was "Can't Find My Way Home" which is a brilliant song written by Steve Wi...

Man, the '60s were cool. I mean it seemed like you could package an album for just about anyone or anything. Case in point, take this 1969 release, Season's Greetings & Joyeux Noel To Canada From Barbra Streisand . At first blush this looks like a Christmas album by Barbra Streisand ... until you turn it over and see the ... and Friends. Those friends were Doris Day, Jim Nabors and Andre Kostelanetz. I doubt they met up to discuss the album. What made this so interesting, was that it was a Columbia Records special products release produced exclusively for Canada Dry. Yeah, Canada Dry . I wonder how you got the album? Did you have to send in bottle caps? Before Celine Dion, it was Barbra Streisand who had the pipes. While I was never really a fan, I will admit that as a little kid I did like some of her songs from the movies. It's interesting that of all the holiday standards I never even knew Babs recorded Christmas songs. Well of course she did. The songs included on t...

Recorded live in front of over 18,000 fans September 12, 1969 in Los Angeles the album captures the band as they run through some of their earlier hits, and a number of covers ... they're all covers, but man the band would make the songs their own. I found this quite a while ago, and was in better shape than it first appeared. From what I've read this is an original pressing, which was cool.  At this stage in their career the band had only released two albums, and to come out with a live album so soon must have seemed a little weird. Apparently Steppenwolf was recording a number of their shows for a potential live album, and Three Dog Night was opening for them the night this was recorded. As both bands were Dunhill and they were recording the show anyway they just got extra tape and captured the opening act as well. Turns out that was a pretty smart move as the album was a hit and would go gold. What makes this so cool is that it really is a performance captured l...

Hailed as one of the greatest rock and roll albums ever, Led Zeppelin II would peak at number one on most charts around the world when it was released, and would go on to sell more than 12,000,000 copies in the US and just shy of a million here in Canada. My earliest memories are hearing this constantly on my cousin's record player. "Whole Lotta Love" would be a confusing song to me for years and years as I had no idea Robert Plant wasn't saying, "You need Kool-Aid." Make no mistake it was an awesome song, but it was too weird for me at the same time. It didn't help that when Houses of the Holy came out the only song I heard on the radio was "D'yer Mak'er" a song that to this day makes me throw up a little in my mouth when I hear it. The cover was cool though, and my cousin's had it tacked to their bedroom wall. My cousin's were cool. When the band released In Through the Out Door in 1979 it was a perplexing record, as "...

A new year and the whole Five for Fighting thing was fun but it's run it's course. I still like the idea of shorter blurbs so I'll do the same thing with a different name and see how it goes. After all who doesn't love it  when you repackage the same old shit and give it a new name? Given the volume of stuff I have on my desk I may end up doing this more often ... or not.  Let's under promise and over deliver. Les Dudek - Les Dudek (1976) Bay City Rollers - Bay City Rollers (1975) Smith - A Group Called Smith (1969) The Inmates - First Offence (1979) Sniff n' the Tears - Fickle Heart (1978) Les Dudek - Les Dudek (1976) The dollar bin giveth, and the dollar bin taketh away. Today it was in a giving mood, and I stumbled upon cover that just screamed "LOOK AT ME!" Good lord, who doesn't want to hear an album where the guy is playing a wicked looking Gibson Goldtop with P90s that had a parrot perched on the headstock? What sealed it was a scan o...

This was an interesting score. A Canadian first pressing of the Zager and Evans classic 2525 (Exordium & Terminus) . Finding albums like this for a buck always seems like a surreal score. The vinyl was is passable shape with some expected wear, but nothing too visible. It did though clean up remarkably well, and then while I was putting it into the sleeve I dropped it on the floor.  Putting the record on there's something undeniably appealing about "In the Year 2525" that seemed to sum up all of trepidation people were feeling about the future and the headlong charge to oblivion through the wanton pursuit of technology. Or something, it's a lot to take in for my little brain. It's always been a weird and goofy song that managed to go number one all over the world. Heck, even the official science fiction nerds who ran the Hugo Awards nominated it for some type of special award - although it's not clear if they won or not but it's an interesting bit of t...

Johnny Nash is probably best for his 1972 hit "I Can See Clearly Now" a song I once thought my uncle Lloyd had written because he sang it when I was a kid. When I finally heard Johnny Nash's version on the radio I was pretty excited. "My Uncle wrote that!" Sigh, the innocence of youth. But before his big breakthrough he recorded on his own label JAD records, which was named after himself, producer Arthur Jenkins and his manager Danny Sims. They would record in Kingston, Jamaica, which was a pretty tropical place to record a holiday record - it kind of explains why songs like "Baby It's Cold Outside," "Winter Wonderland" and "White Christmas" are absent. - but record a Christmas record he did, and in 1969 The Prince of Peace was released. I'd never heard any of these songs before, which gave me a moment's pause, but the album looks really cool with the 3D image of Johnny on the cover. As an added bonus it was still in it...