And Then... Along Comes The Association

The Association is an American sunshine pop band from California. During the late 1960s, the band had numerous hits at or near the top of the Billboard charts and were the lead-off band at 1967's Monterey Pop Festival. They are noted for intricate vocal harmonies by the band's multiple singers. The group's debut album may be better listening today than it was in 1966, because it can be appreciated more - and it definitely deserves a better reputation than it has among folk-rock, psychedelic pop, and pop/rock enthusiasts.

Renaissance was a difficult album for the Association to record. Coming in the wake of a serious hit album (And Then…Along Comes the Association) and two huge hit singles ("Along Comes Mary," "Cherish") and at a time when the group was experiencing more bookings than its members had ever dreamed possible, Renaissance was rushed out under pressure from the band's label. Alas, Renaissance bore little resemblance to its predecessor. For starters, the Association had lost the services of producer Curt Boettcher, who was the architect of the earlier album's extraordinary sound.

Having made an enormous contribution to the establishment of the Nashville Sound and the modernisation of country music, Anita Kerr felt the need to expand her artistic horizons and in 1965, made the move from Nashville to Hollywood. She wanted to work with different people, to get her own songs recorded, to play jazz, to conduct an orchestra, to take on more ambitious and more varied projects musically, and to form a vocal group which, rather than be confined to studio sessions, might also appear in club and concert settings. Her arrival on the West Coast was well timed. She had just fought off The Beatles to win a Grammy for the album We Dig Mancini and she was quickly able to assemble a stellar Anita Kerr Singers (B.J Baker: alto, Gene Merlino: tenor; Bob Tebow: bass, with Anita herself as soprano and soloist) and secure a contract more tailored to her needs with Warner Brothers. The result over the next two years, were these five superbly fashioned albums.

This programme features concert music by composers who also wrote film scores for Hollywood. While this was just one string to the considerable bows of Gershwin and Copland, Bernard Herrmann and Franz Waxman are best known for their music for Hitchcock films (Vertigo, North by Northwest, Marnie and Psycho for Herrmann; and Rebecca and The Paradine Case for Waxman). Centre stage is Gershwin’s Song-book, arranged by the composer for solo piano in order to present the songs ‘as George Gershwin plays them himself’.

Wow, this set of 4 CDs from seminal punk pioneers, Alternative TV and their stuff from the 1970’s is as comprehensive and varied as you would expect 68 tracks to be. ATV were lead by Mark Perry who was also the founder of the fanzine Sniffin’ Glue. Mark hailed from Deptford in South East London and was turned onto punk when he heard the Ramones in 1976. By 1977 he had teamed up with Scottish guitarist Alex Fergusson (no, not the manager of Aberdeen) and they formed Alternative TV.

The husband and wife songwriting team reunite here for their first set of new songs in ten years. In truth the songs have been written by Julie in the period Buddy was busy working with a host of luminaries from the world of Americana. Back in 2009 the duo released ‘Written In Chalk’ and eight years before that their ‘Buddy and Julie Miller’ album won the “Album of the Year” Award from the Americana Music Association. The 2010s have seen the couple have quite different experiences. Julie struggled with illness and that led to some depression. Buddy on the other hand was still in demand, a list of the people he worked with would take up the rest of this review. It’s worth throwing in a few to get a sense of the geography of his experience; how about Emmylou Harris, Linda Ronstadt, Steve Earle and Gillian Welch. And that is before we mention touring with Robert Plant and Alison Krauss with ‘Raising Sand’ and joining Plant’s Band of Holy Joy.

The Orb's Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld is the 1991 debut album by British electronic music group The Orb. There were two versions of this album originally released: a single disc and a double disc and this is the double CD version (there was also a 3CD Deluxe Edition.) This album featured the surprise hit "Little Flurry Clouds". This was released by Inter-Modo in association with Island Red.