Grapefruit Records

Various Artists - A Slight Disturbance in My Mind: The British Proto-Psychedelic Sounds of 1966 (2020) {Grapefruit Records}
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© 1966, 2020 Grapefruit Records / Cherry Red | CRSEGBOX066
Rock / British Invasion / British Psychedelia / Freakbeat / Psychedelic / Mod

Another lovingly curated rock & roll gem from Cherry Red's archival Grapefruit Records imprint, A Slight Disturbance in My Mind is an expansive three-disc set entirely devoted to the opening phases of Britain's budding psychedelic movement. By late 1965, the American underground, particularly San Francisco's LSD-inspired drug culture, had begun to infiltrate popular music. The Byrds and other West Coast groups began to adopt a more experimental attitude while in the U.K. bands like the Yardbirds and, more prominently, the Beatles forged their own new directions away from rock's more easily digestible conventions.

Various Artists - Across the Great Divide: Getting It Together in the Country 1968-1974 (2019) {3CD Set, Grapefruit Records}
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© 1968-74, 2019 Grapefruit Records / Cherry Red | CRSEGBOX061
Rock / Folk Rock / Country Rock

As the Day-Glo tide of psychedelic that swept over the U.K. in the late '60s began to recede, something far less ornate and flashy took root in its place. Spurred on by the artistic and commercial success of Traffic's folk- and jazz-influenced debut album – which was recorded out in the countryside – the Byrds headlong plunge into country-rock on Sweetheart of the Rodeo, and the Band's brilliant slice of backwoods Americana, Music from Big Pink, all sorts of groups and artists sprouted up to play loose and wooly blends of organically grown folk, country, jazz, and rock. Some of the bands were beat group leftovers looking to evolve past paisley (the Searchers, the Tremeloes), some were city boys gone to seed (Mott the Hoople, the Pretty Things), and some were just weirdos like Greasy Bear, or lazy-Sunday balladeers like Curtiss Maldoon, all doing their own freaky thing.

Various Artists - Gathered from Coincidence: The British Folk-Pop Sound of 1965-1966 (2018) {3CD Set, Grapefruit CRSEGBOX043}
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© 1965-66, 2018 Grapefruit Records / Cherry Records | CRSEGBOX043
Rock / Pop / Folk Pop / Folk Rock / Psychedelic Rock

Prior to the early Sixties, folk and pop musicians inhabited largely different worlds. There were folk records that had become crossover pop hits, but in essence there was little or no common ground in terms of instrumentation or ideologies. But in the wake of the British beat/R&B boom (or, if you were in America, the British Invasion) and the emergence of Bob Dylan, such barriers were broken down for good. With British acts making music that, for the first time in nascent pop history, matched the quality of their American counterparts, suddenly everything was grist to the mill and musical cross-pollination was almost de rigueur.

Various Artists - New Moon's In The Sky: The British Progressive Pop Sounds Of 1970 (2019) {3D Set, Grapefruit CRSEGBOX0}
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© 1970, 2019 Grapefruit Records / Cherry Red | CRSEGBOX059
Rock / Pop / British Psychedelia / Prog-Rock / Art Rock / Psychedelic Pop

Having documented the British psychedelic scene with anthologies devoted to the years 1967, 1968 and 1969, Grapefruit's ongoing series fearlessly confronts the dawn of the Seventies with a slight rebrand. New Moon's In The Sky: The British Progressive Pop Sounds Of 1970 features (appropriately enough) seventy tracks from the first year of the new decade as the British pop scene adjusted to life without The Beatles. The 3-CD set concentrates on the more song-based recordings to emanate from British studios during 1970, whether from a pure-pop-for-then-people perspective or the more concise, melodic end of the burgeoning progressive rock spectrum.

VA - Dust On The Nettles: A Journey Through The British Underground Folk Scene (1967-72) {3CD Grapefruit CRSEGBOX030 rel 2015}
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© 1967-72, 2015 Grapefruit Records / Cherry Red Record | CRSEGBOX030
Folk Rock / Pregressive Folk / Psychedelia / Pop Fok / Electric Folk / British Folk

With 63 tracks and a total running time of just under four hours, Dust On The Nettles examines the metamorphosis that British folk underwent during the late 1960s, when the influence of psychedelia and the counterculture saw the idiom being twisted into all kinds of new and exotic shapes, as the finger-in-the-ear folk clubs of yore were inexorably drawn into a brave new world of Arts Labs, free festivals and the nascent college/university circuit.

One minute The Action were the ultimate mod cult band, belting out exuberant Anglicised approximations of Tamla/soul material in clubs across the country, the next they’d shed singer Reggie King and mutated into questing countercultural adventurers Mighty Baby.
Under the leadership of guitarist Martin Stone, they would become increasingly insular as four of the five band members converted to Islam and they moved slowly towards a more improvised sound. By the end of 1971, fasting for Ramadan had left them almost too weak to perform onstage, at which juncture they came to the reluctant conclusion that rock’n’roll and the Muslim faith were incompatible…

Various Artists - Milk Of The Tree: An Anthology Of Female Vocal Folk & Singer-Songwriters 1966-73 (2017) {3CD Set}
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© 1966-73, 2017 Grapefruit Records / Cherry Red Record | CRSEGBOX039
Folk Rock / Pregressive Folk / Psychedelia / Pop Fok / Electric Folk / Singer- Songwriters

Notwithstanding one or two isolated exceptions, it wasn’t until the mid-Sixties that independent female voices really began to be heard within the music industry. The feminist movement naturally coincided with the first signs of genuine musical emancipation. In North America, Joan Baez and Buffy Sainte-Marie emerged through the folk clubs, coffee-houses and college campuses to inspire a generation of wannabe female singers and musicians with their strong, independent mentality and social compassion, while the British scene’s combination of folk song revival and the Beatles-led pop explosion saw record company deals for a new generation of pop-folkies including Marianne Faithfull, Dana Gillespie and Vashti Bunyan.

Established in 1967 at the height of their powers, The Beatles’ Apple operation saw the group embrace and encourage a wealth of contemporary musical talent, offering studio time and demo facilities alongside recording and publishing contracts. This unique opportunity attracted artists and songwriters from across the musical spectrum, and GOOD AS GOLD presents a snapshot of that talent, spanning the years 1967 to 1975. From the psychedelic tinged sounds of the mid-late 1960s onwards, the label matured and evolved alongside its audience and remains as compelling today as it did during those halcyon days.