Message to The Country

By 1971, it was clear that changes were in the offing for the Move. Message from the Country shows them carrying their sound, within the context of who they were, about as far as they could. One can hear them hit the limits of what guitars, bass, drums, and keyboards, with lots of harmony overdubs and ornate singing, could do. Indeed, parts of this record sound almost like a dry run from the first Electric Light Orchestra album, which was in the planning stages at the time. The influence of the Beatles runs through most of the songs stylistically. Particularly in Jeff Lynne's case, it was as though someone had programmed "Paperback Writer" and other chronologically related pop-psychedelic songs by the Beatles into the songwriting and arranging, but across its ten songs, the album also shot for a range of sound akin to the White Album, except that the members of the Move are obviously working much more closely together.

Apparently, the Move's discography is so complex that not even a lovingly compiled, rarities-laden, career-spanning box set like Salvo's 2008 Anthology 1966-1972 can fit everything within the confines of four discs. The devil is in the licensing, as it always is, something that always plagues Move compilations because their last album, Message from the Country, was on Harvest, while their first two - The Move and Shazam - were on EMI and the third, Looking On, was on Fly. Typically, the first three albums are grouped together - as they were on WestSide's 1997 box Movements - with Message from the Country left lingering on its own, a situation Salvo almost avoids on Anthology by cherry-picking the low-riding heavy blues-rocker "Ella James" and loading up the fourth disc with the wonderful post-Message singles that captured the band at some kind of a zenith: "Tonight," "Do Ya," "Chinatown," "California Man"…

Various Artists - Woodstock - Back to the Garden: The Definitive 50th Anniversary Archive (2019) {38CD Box Set Rhino X3CDWO001}
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© 1969, 2019 Rhino Records | X3CDWO001
Rock / Psychedelic / Acid Rock / Blues Rock / Folk / Rock & Roll

Fifty years after the three-day concert made rock’n’roll history, a gargantuan, 38-disc set attempts to tell the full story of the event for the very first time. The mythological status of 1969’s Woodstock Music and Arts Festival can sometimes feel overpowering. The festival is the ultimate expression of the 1960s. Moments from the three-day concert have crystallized as symbols of the era, with details like Richie Havens’ acoustic prayer for freedom, Roger Daltrey’s fringed leather vest, or Jimi Hendrix’s “Star Spangled Banner” held up as sacred countercultural relics.

This may be more Move than the casual fan wants, but it's not just another rehashed collection. From the remastered sound to the presence of various outtakes (including lost live tracks), the 30th anniversary triple-disc Movements is as definitive a set as we'll ever have on this band, containing everything except for the Message From the Country album…

Compared to the Move's long-gestating 1968 eponymous debut, their 1970 sophomore effort Shazam is unified. It was not culled from sessions from a period of 14 months but instead largely made at one time… but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's any easier to get a handle on the album. The Move changed greatly in the period between their first albums, with original bassist Chris "Ace" Kefford leaving in a cloud of acid in 1968. In his absence, rhythm guitarist Trevor Burton jumped over to bass, beginning an odd period where the group was cutting songs, most penned by Roy Wood but a few written by David Morgan, a fellow Birmingham-based songwriter signed to the publishing company of Move lead singer Carl Wayne…