Alan Price

1976's Shouts Across the Street arrived decked out in a fabulous Ralph Steadman cover, but the album itself did little to entertain an audience who wanted more from the wee Geordie of Price's Between Today and Yesterday peak. Rather, the album rattled along without ever really getting out of first gear, a collection of songs that were "nice," but never demanded anything more from the listener than a politely tapping foot. The strange thing was, in concert at this same time, Price remained a vivid performer, with memories of the period live show certainly imbibing songs like "The World's Going Down on Me," "I Know When I've Had Enough" and the title track with considerably more energy than the vinyl ever mustered…

Alan Price's second album consolidated the change of direction he'd started in early 1967, when his cover of Randy Newman's "Simon Smith and His Amazing Dancing Bear" became a big British hit. Moving away from the jazzy Animals-styled R&B-rock that he'd presented on his first album and singles, Price moved into a more original, if less powerful, brand of Newman-influenced vaudevillian pop…

Price's first album (released in the U.K. only, although some tracks would come out in the U.S.) is a rather routine set of club R&B/soul. Fronting a six-piece that includes three horns, Price sticks mostly to covers of familiar American tunes like "Mercy Mercy," "Ain't That Peculiar," "I Can't Turn You Loose," and "Barefootin'" on this amiable, but hardly remarkable, set. Price's voice is appealing, but lacks power, and in all it sounds like a clump of covers ground out hurriedly to get an album on the market…

Like most of his largely fantastic post-Animals work, Alan Price's soundtrack to the 1973 film, O Lucky Man!, went almost completely unnoticed in the United States at the time of its release. It is a shame too, because the soundtrack holds together as one of the best albums Price ever put out…

This is a very good live album from Alan Price which features a good mix of his old and new original material and a nice set of covers, such as Simon Smith and I Put a Spell on You. While the songs from O Lucky Man would be the best known, there are other gems here, such as Between Today and Yesterday (the LP which followed O Lucky Man) and the set as a whole is great listening. The musicians are top-notch and the production sounds really good; the drum sound is well captured, for example. Alan is in fine voice and sounds as if he's really enjoying the show(s). Highly recommended for fans of Alan Price, R&B or Randy Newman type songwriters.

Price moved to Jet Records in 1977 and recorded a series of successful albums throughout the rest of the decade. In 1980, he crossed the big pond to record an unusual album in Los Angeles: entitled Rising Sun, it included a reworking of the song The House Of The Rising Sun, which picked up quite a bit of air play in the UK.