Cargoe Cargoe

Cargoe is an American Band from Tulsa, Oklahoma, originally formed in the late 1960s as Rubbery Cargoe, whose lone studio album, engineered by phonon Terry Manning, was released on Memphis Tennessee’s legendary Ardent Records in 1972. Cargoe did an admirable job blending power-pop melodicism with various contemporary sounds - late Beatles, post-CS&N and Traffic soft/folk rock, blues lead guitar and some country sounds. Listening to Cargoe, it sounds like they just a bunch of Southern boys who loved the Beatles and others, and went in a different direction. Southern rock were their brethren, (you can hear it on the vocals, the acoustic guitar bedrock and the blues-rock guitar leads), but instead of founding a new tribe, Cargoe became a curious attempt. Had they become more popular, they might have been the American Badfinger, but even better. Very Rare CD!

Cargoe have the distinction of not only releasing one fantastic power pop album in 1972 but also being label mates with Big Star and making an impression on Eric Burdon. Unfortunately, bad luck and other negative factors brought them to an early end and made them stop. Cargoe was available briefly as a Japanese import CD, and the only domestic re-release of their music was an excellent live CD released by producer Terry Manning's Lucky Seven label.