Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#1052 in the Series) is Doug Dillard & Gene Clark, The Fantastic Expedition of Dillard & Clark They may have only recorded together for (roughly) eighteen months but in that short but productive period of time Dillard & Clark made some of the best music you’ll ever hear, two albums and a single which still sound fantastic all these years later. Best of the material though is undoubtedly this superb debut album from October 1968. It’s an album which is a definitive document, and a cornerstone release, of the (then) burgeoning country-rock movement, an album which took the traditional forms of bluegrass, country and folk, gave them a shake, added electric instruments...

Today’s Cool Album the Day (#945 in the Series) is Al Kooper, Stephen Stills, Mike Bloomfied, Super Session. Blues, Blues, Blues. Blues at its best. This album was a project put together by Al Kooper. Al had just left Blood, Sweat and Tears. It was 1968. He recruited Mike Bloomfield to play guitar for this project.  They had known each other since playing together on Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 revisited.  He also had Stephen Sills in on the project. Still was in the process of leaving The Buffalo Springfield at the time. Al Kooper played the VERY well-known keyboard part in ‘Like a Rolling Stone.’ In fact, he got the gig mostly by accident.  He was invited to the...

Song Of The Day – “Harper Valley P.T.A.” by Jeannie C. Riley Today’s Song Of The Day goes out to all of those “Harper Valley hypocrites” who scorn mini-skirts, casual sex and casual drinking. Jeannie C. Riley’s recording of “Harper Valley P.T.A.” sold six million copies worldwide in 1968 and catapulted her to instant notoriety, earning her a Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance and the Country Music Association Single of the Year award.  The Tom T. Hall-written ditty topped both the Country and Pop charts in 1968, a feat that would not be repeated by a song until Dolly Parton did the trick with “9 To 5” in 1981. Jeannie C. Riley had been a receptionist...

Song Of The Day by Eric Berman – “Break Away” by The Next Exit Here’s a slab of psycho-delicatessen from the original “Fab Four!” What’s in a name? The Next Exit recorded two psychedelic singles for Warner Bros. Records in 1968 that went nowhere on the charts, and for some, that would’ve been the end of the story. However, The Next Exit’s convoluted history had them recording numerous singles under a myriad of names for many years, and at the end of the day, they still found no commercial success. Today’s Song Of The Day is a prime slab of psychedelia that in a perfect world would have made The Next Exit household names. The track was originally released...

Song Of The Day by Eric Berman – “The Horse” by Cliff Nobles & Co. Cliff Nobles was a gospel singer from Alabama who relocated to Philadelphia to break into the recording industry. He was quickly signed to Atlantic records where he recorded three singles: “My Love Is Getting Stronger,” “Let’s Have A Good Time” and “Your Love Is All I Need” that failed to find any action on the charts. As a result of his affiliation with Atlantic, he was signed to a local Philadelphia record label called “Phil-L.A. of Soul Records” by independent producer Jesse James and formed the group Cliff Nobles & Co. consisting of Benny Williams on bass, Bobby Tucker on guitar, and Tommy Soul...

Song Of The Day by Eric Berman – “Soulful Strut” by Young-Holt Unlimited It was a breath of funked out fresh air when “Soulful Strut” hit the charts in 1968, and today the song is one of the most refreshing instrumentals of all time. Eldee Young (bass) and Isaac “Red” Holt (drums) were Chicago musicians who made up the rhythm section for The Ramsey Lewis Trio. After gigging with Lewis for ten years and scoring the monster hit “The In Crowd,” Young and Holt left to form their own jazz combo called The Young-Holt Trio with pianist Don Walker. Together, the trio scored a top 20 R&B hit with “Wack Wack,” and recorded several records for the Brunswick record...

Song Of The Day by Eric Berman – “Classical Gas” by Mason Williams It’s an album that starts with an Overture. No, it’s not a Broadway Cast album or film soundtrack to a musical; however, it is an album with lofty levels of conceit and pretension that could only have been recorded in the late ‘60s by Mason Williams. And for The Mason Williams Phonograph Album, it all makes sense since Williams is an artist of high conceit and pretension with a supreme talent level to match. Fortunately (for him and his fans), he was coddled by the most artist friendly record labels of the 1960s, Warner Bros. Records, for otherwise, a record like The Mason Williams Phonograph Album...

  Song Of The Day by Eric Berman – “Knocking ‘Round The Zoo” by James Taylor It is indeed an amazing story as to how a recovering from heroin singer songwriter from America came to the attention of The Beatles in 1968, leading to the release of the first album by an American artist to be released on The Beatles’ newly-christened Apple Records. James Taylor came from a wealthy family and grew up in Chapel Hill, North Carolina where he learned to play cello and then guitar. The family vacationed in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts during the summers where he first met Danny “Kootch” Kortchmar at the age of 14. Even at their young age, Kootch realized that Taylor’s singing...

Song Of The Day by Eric Berman – Okolona River Bottom Band” by Bobbie Gentry Bobbie Gentry performed one of the greatest disappearing acts in all of music history. Unlike Elvis Presley and the still persistent Elvis sightings, Gentry really is alive and well and living in California…in glorious obscurity. But back in 1967, you couldn’t turn a radio on without hearing her single “Ode To Billie Joe,” or tune into a variety show on TV without seeing her performing it. In her wake, Gentry left seven interesting albums of varying quality including Ode To Billie Joe, the album that established her, a duet album with Glen Campbell, and one bona-fide lost classic, The Delta Sweete, which is the...

  Song Of The Day by Eric Berman – “Groovy Movies” by The Kinks The Great Lost Kinks Album isn’t really The Great Lost Kinks Album. That distinction goes to Reprise Records RS-6309 which would have been released in late 1967 or early 1968 as Four More Respected Gentlemen. But for reasons unknown, that record was never released and ultimately its best tracks finally saw the light of day on The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society, and judging by the quality of that platter, we can all be thankful that The Great Lost Kinks Album never materialized anyway. You follow? By 1971, The Kinks jumped ship to RCA Records and released the also wonderful Muswell Hillbillies album,...