Missionaria Protectiva

  DEKE LEONARD  Kamikaze  (UA,1974) - Rock       After being sacked by Man in early 1972 Deke recorded his first solo album Iceberg , starting in May of that year, with the album eventually being released in 1973.       Mixing rock’n’roll stompers with souped up psychedelicised country rock, Leonard is joined by a fine cast of the Manband family past, present and future, and by members of the closely related band Help Yourself. Dave Edmunds lends production assistance on future Man track A Hard Way To Live , a song released as a single. Deke had to deconstruct Edmunds’ layered production, lest it sounded “exactly like a Dave Edmunds record”. Deke ponders in his wryly humorous way that had he left it alone he might have had a hit with it.       All in all this album is a fine representation of Leonard’s good time vibe. TRACKLIST : Cool Summer Rain                       ...

  SHUGGIE OTIS  Inspiration Information  (Epic,1974) - Psychedelic soul       A blues guitar prodigy who’d been playing with his father  (pioneering R&B bandleader Johnny Otis) since he was 11, Otis played on Frank Zappa’s Hot Rats when he was 16, and released an album with blues-rock gadabout Al Kooper before he was 20.  Upon release in October 1974, Inspiration certainly sounded like the work of an isolated L.A. savant. Smooth, organ-driven California funk, quasi-new age psychedelia, loungey jazz instrumentals, string interludes-- all propelled by the same kind of analog drum machine that had piqued Ralf & Florian's interest at the same time .       Inspiration instantly earned comparisons to Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye, and reportedly made Sly Stone’s jaw drop upon hearing it.  The album failed to live up to Columbia’s expectations, such as they were, and Otis was unceremoniously dropped from the label after its...

  VAN DYKE PARKS  Discover America  (WB, 1972) - Progressive pop, Calypso       On paper, Discover America is a calypso record, with Parks remodelling traditional songs in a celebration of Trinidadian culture. It does that, and it sounds joyous. But it’s not all sunlight. Hidden behind the breezy rhythms, he’s also making a sly comment about post-colonial Trinidad and, by implication, race relations in the US. That sounds grim, but it’s largely playful, and sometimes straightforwardly funny (see “G-Man Hoover”, which tirelessly mocks the fabled FBI chief). Little Feat provide the salty atmospherics on “FDR in Trinidad”, and the gangster theme is continued on the lazy, tropical-sounding “John Jones”. Ry Cooder is an obvious point of reference, but, really, it’s not too much of a stretch to suggest that The Clash colonised this territory a decade later in their pan-global phase (though Parks is slower to anger, and has superior table manners). TRACKLIST: Jac...

  JESSE WINCHESTER  Learn To Love It  (Bearsville,1974) - Folk rock       As the title suggests, making a virtue of necessity had always been one of Jesse Winchester's goals, and by the time of the release of his third album, the American expatriate had gone ahead and assumed Canadian citizenship. This seemed to free him to comment explicitly on his antiwar exile in "Pharaoh's Army" and especially a version of the old campaign song "Tell Me Why You Like Roosevelt" updated with new lyrics: "In the year of 1967, as a somewhat younger man, the call to bloody glory came, and I would not raise my hand." Elsewhere, Winchester continued to write love songs to his lost South ("L'Air de la Louisiane," "Mississippi You're on My Mind") and, to a lesser extent, to pursue the wistful philosophizing found on Third Down, 110 to Go ("Defying Gravity").  TRACKLIST : Wake Me                     Every Word You Say   ...

  MADDY PRIOR & JUNE TABOR  Silly Sisters  (Chrysalis,1976) - Folk rock       Maddy Prior and June Tabor’s Silly Sisters is a magical hinge album, a meeting of two transcendent voices and a jolly band of British folk masters. Recorded in 1976 but somehow outside of time, its ancient songs, close harmonies, and loose, luminous performances summon something older than the British folk revival itself. Fifty years on, it remains a timeless gem hiding in plain sight: raw, sophisticated, and mysterious. TRACKLIST: Doffin' Mistress                          Burning Of Auchindoon                          Lass Of Loch Royal                          The Seven Joys Of Mary                          My Husband's...

         In Lee Kerslake, we have another example of a drummer who while you probably have never heard his name mentioned (not often, at least), you most certainly have heard his thunderous playing. Case in point, if you’re a Heavy Metal fan, then you probably are a fan of Ozzy Osbourne, and if you’re a fan of Ozzy, then I am sure you’ve looked into his seminal albums Blizzard of Ozz and Diary of a Madman . Have you ever wondered who played drums on those albums? Yes, that is the one and only Lee Kerslake AKA “The Bear” backing up Ozzy on the radio staple and instantly recognizable track  'Crazy Train'.   Sadly, it seems that Lee had some sort of falling out with Ozzy, and while he did handle all of the drum tracks on Diary of a Madman , Tommy Alderidge continues to be unfairly credited for work he did not perform on the record. Perhaps lesser known is the fact that Lee Kerslake was the long-time drummer for seminal Progressive Rock outfit Uriah Heep....