Silver Masked Man

The Nashville String Band made six records between 1969 and 1972, featuring Chet Atkins and the musical comedy team of Homer & Jethro with a group of Nashville session musicians. The ten instrumentals range from the very familiar "Colonel Bogey March" (easily recognized by fans of the film The Bridge on the River Kwai) to "Rocky Top," "Red Wing" (a favorite of musical comedy great Spike Jones in the 1940s), and the tearjerker country ballad "Green, Green Grass of Home." Although the session is a tad overproduced with a stingy length of just 24 minutes, and it doesn't sufficiently focus on the solo capabilities of each man, this long out of print RCA LP still has great appeal. One reason is the priceless album jacket, with the three players as gun-wielding masked bandits on the front cover, and smiling unmasked with their instruments in place of guns on the back.

Despite being renowned in certain parts of the world (especially in Italy and their hometown of Paris), the space-age outfit Rockets remains largely obscure – even though they arrived on the scene at almost he same exact time as Kraftwerk and prefaced Devo by several years. The multi-membered outfit originally formed in 1972, under the name Crystal, performing on-stage in their regular street clothes. But by 1974, Crystal had evolved into Rocket Men, issuing a debut self-titled single, while its members began to assume the identities of aliens; complete with silver makeup covering their skin, grey contact lenses, space suits, and bald heads. It was also around this time that the group hooked up with producer Claude Lemoine, who would remain behind the studio boards until the early '80s. Over the next year, the group went through another name (Rocketters), before finally settling on Rockets, and issuing further singles, including such titles as "Rocket Man," "Future Woman," and "Samurai."

Despite being renowned in certain parts of the world (especially in Italy and their hometown of Paris), the space-age outfit Rockets remains largely obscure – even though they arrived on the scene at almost he same exact time as Kraftwerk and prefaced Devo by several years. The multi-membered outfit originally formed in 1972, under the name Crystal, performing on-stage in their regular street clothes. But by 1974, Crystal had evolved into Rocket Men, issuing a debut self-titled single, while its members began to assume the identities of aliens; complete with silver makeup covering their skin, grey contact lenses, space suits, and bald heads.