Artwoods

The Artwoods were pioneers of British R&B, and thanks to Dick Jordan and his tape recorder you can travel back to the swinging sixties, and the cool vibe of the Klooks Kleek club in west London where jazz, R&B, and the roots of the mod sound were rubbing up against each other. Hear the sound of this band when they were young, hungry and serving up some wonderful R&B!

Comprehensive 3CD set featuring all of The Artwoods’ A and B sides, plus four previously unissued early acetate recordings by the Art Wood Combo. Also includes several BBC radio sessions with unique tracks and a long-lost live recording from Denmark at tail-end of their career. The compilation benefits from the involvement of the band’s guitarist Derek Griffiths and basisst Malcolm Pool, plus legendary blues producer Mike Vernon.
Back in the mid-‘60s, The Artwoods were one of the most vital, impressive R&B bands on the circuit, fronted by Art Wood (elder brother of future Faces/Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie) and also boasting future Deep Purple organist Jon Lord, renowned drummer Keef Hartley, guitarist Derek Griffiths and bassist Malcolm Pool. Between 1964 and 1967, the band recorded seven singles, the ultra-rare EP ‘Jazz In Jeans’ and a nearly as scarce LP, ‘Art Gallery’, mostly for Decca…

The Artwoods' only album was an enjoyable mixture of club-oriented soul, R&B, and jazz with a strong organ spice, although it found them falling seriously behind their contemporaries in the British R&B scene in a crucial respect. Not one of the dozen tracks was a group original, and their vocal and interpretive ability was not so strong as to make that shortfall an irrelevance. Still, it did give them a chance to stretch into some jazzy workouts and rave-ups that probably couldn't have been contained on 45s, particularly the swinging cover of "Walk on the Wild Side" (with excellent jazz organ by Jon Lord); Allen Toussaint's "Can You Hear Me," with an arrangement reminiscent of the Spencer Davis Group; and Bobby Bland's "Don't Cry No More," one of their best R&B covers…

The 18 songs on this CD, comprising the group's entire single and EP output, are some of the best British-spawned R&B of their time, and can stand alongside the best work of the Animals, Manfred Mann, or the Yardbirds in that vein. The Artwoods were a virtuoso outfit from the get-go, with a natural feel for the music as singers and players, whether they were working in the vein of Sam & Dave or Booker T. & the MG's, or just having fun in the studio as they do on several of the B-sides represented here…

Various Artists - A Slight Disturbance in My Mind: The British Proto-Psychedelic Sounds of 1966 (2020) {Grapefruit Records}
FLAC (tracks) - 16bit/44.1kHz - Digital Download -> 1.04 Gb | MP3 @320 -> 547 Mb | Cover | 5% repair rar
© 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.

Deep Purple co-founder and organist Jon Lord was remembered at the Royal Albert Hall back in April this year when some friends and musicians (Glenn Hughes, Bruce Dickinson, Ian Paice, Don Airey and Rick Wakeman and Paul Weller) assembled to pay tribute to him…