Amnesty for the undiscovered

Amnesty for the undiscovered

We all have them, sometimes tucked away for our own pleasure. Sometimes we like to share them or use them to impress. Generally though, we all wish that they remained our little secret – those scarce, beautiful and ultimately personal pieces of audio gold.

I’m talking best kept secrets. I’m talking about the rare and ‘undiscovered’ nuggets that constantly amaze us by their obscurity.

Well, how about an amnesty for the undiscovered? I know we all have a widget for recommendations, last played and all manner of check this out features. Looking at many Mogs I know some of you have a wide pallet of taste. I’m talking about the ones that you really don’t want to share because the bubble may burst, they may become famous and then everyone will have one, they may make it big and start producing endless albums that are all the same (no not Aerosmith or Oasis).

I’ll kick it off with two (Yes you may say, Ah I know them, I’ve got that track, that’s not new) but for someone who may have spent 20 years tracking down an obscure 45 or hunting down that track you heard once and it never appeared again, lets go on the assumption that your immediate family, friends and audio anonymous club haven’t heard it – it therefore qualifies as a best kept secret.

I’m going to kick off with

Who: Terry Reid
Which Track/ LP: ~Dean from the LP River
Why: Living legend. He’s an oracle of anecdotes and should by all reason be one of the biggest vocalists in the history of rock music.

From the blue- eyed soul-belter in the vein of Steve Marriott to the funky groove and mellow acoustic country tinged Seeds of Memory and full blown rock cranked up vocals and jazz tinged ballads – he covers a wide range in his career.

He is also marked (In a very Lemony Snicket’s way) by a series of unfortunate events. Original choice as singer in Jimmy Page’s new band to be Led Zeppelin, Allegedly ‘replacement’ for Jim Morrison, asked to join Deep Purple ~ In short a musician’s musician. This has led to a strange ZELIG of rock history character, always somewhere in the background of key events and seen next to (But out of the limelight of) key people.

Check out biographies that go into far more detail here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Reid

http://www.fernsduncan.com/trt/bio1.html

The track Dean, although I could cite many brilliant tracks from all stages of his career, first impressed me when, not having ever seen him perform on film I caught a late night screening of the original Glastonbury Fayre (1971). The band looked stoned, he looked stoned, the audience were definitely stoned but the music was magic! His voice, raw and cutting but soulful. Ranging from Steve Winwood to Rod. I was blown away, the opening track – Dean.

Next up

Who: Czeslaw Niemen
Which Track: Strange is this world
Why: I’m not suggesting that you have to pick ‘Obscure’ as your guide for this blog but I came across this guy on one of those old CBS compilations. You know, the ones that came out in the 70’s with preposterously titled double albums like ‘Fill your head with rock’ and sometimes stretching the back catalogue over a generous 3LP set.

Polish born Niemen from what I can gather was huge in the iron curtain, managed to gain cult following but not mainstream success elsewhere on the planet. He worked with Jan Hammer. His voice is amazing spanning octaves and achieving harmonics on his own vocals that would send your dog running under the table. The nearest I can compare him to is a Polish Prog rock version of James Brown!. He was also a poet and artist - setting ancient Polish poetry and scripts to huge orchestral compositions. Check him out if you can. I prefer the late 60’s early 70’s stuff before it became to prog and ponderous and after he developed out of the folk balladeer phase.

More here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czeslaw_Niemen

http://www.answers.com/topic/czes-aw-niemen

And finally (Because any more than 3 at a time and your really giving all your sweets away)

Who: Focus Three
What: 10,000 000 years behind my mind
Why: I first heard this track on a compilation called Psychedelia at Abbey Road 1965-1969. It’s reported to be a singer called Earl Jordan. It’s essentially a bunch of top session musicians playing a freaked out, full blown Deep Purple style epic. The vocals are huge but very restrained and it wouldn’t have been out of place alongside the soundtrack of HAIR or German band Frumpy (Life without pain). They only cut one single which is tantalizingly short and understandably hard to find and it now appears on further compilations of sixties psych sometimes credited under his individual name (http://www.cdconnection.com/details/_Under_the_Silent_Tree_-_Under_the_Silent_Tree_/214025&source=googbase)