Soho

Originally recorded in Scotland in 1971, this album never saw a release until 1991 on the same German label that gave us the first German Oak album. This is some very good early 70’s psych/hard rock somewhat in the Budgie vein though much sludgier. Unfortunately not much seems to be known about this group. One track is over 10 minutes, the other five clock in around 5 to 6 minutes. Obscure gem that will appeal to most lovers of early 70’s rock.

3CD compilation focussing on the mid-60s haunt of the emergent folk and blues scene in London. Featuring a host of big names who visited the venue many of whom went on to national success. Les Cousins was a folk and blues club in the basement of a restaurant in Greek Street, in London’s Soho, which became a home and the epicentre for the folk revival of the mid-1960s, a venue where musicians met and learnt from each other. As such, it was influential in the careers of so many pioneers – Al Stewart, Davey Graham, Bert Jansch, John Renbourn, Sandy Denny, John Martyn, Alexis Korner, Strawbs, Roy Harper, Paul Simon and many others.

The sheer ubiquity of Soft Machine live recordings ensures that most fans look askance at any new arrivals to the collection. Too many poorly recorded, badly annotated, and, quite honestly, just plain boring CDs have crept out over the years - hey, is another one really necessary? In this case, yes. Somewhere in Soho was recorded during the band's residency at Ronnie Scott's in London in late April 1970, with the classic Softs lineup of Mike Ratledge, Hugh Hopper, and Robert Wyatt joined by saxophonist Elton Dean - the sole survivor from an earlier experiment with a brass section. The sound quality is not superb, but it's certainly eminently listenable, and the bandmembers themselves sound as relaxed as they ever could be, basically improvising around the contents of their second and third albums (Volume Two and Third) and taking some familiar material to fascinating places…

The core of this group – John Surman, Alan Skidmore, Peter Lemer, Tony Reeves, and Jon Hiseman – recorded an LP titled Local Colour for ESP-Disk in 1966. The plan, conceived the year after the 50th anniversary of the recording session, was to reunite the original quintet, which had existed for six months back in '66, but unfortunately Nisar Ahmad (George) Khan, tenor saxophonist on the original album, came down with something and couldn't appear. Alan Skidmore (Lemer bandmate in SOS) was deputized and, as all familiar with his career would expect and you will hear, came through with flying local colors at the concert on February 20, 2018 at noted London jazz club Pizza Express. Four months later, Jon Hiseman passed away at age 73 after battling a brain tumor.

On Sunday April 5th 1998 Ronnie Scott's, the world famous jazz club, was taken over by a blues crowd. Gone was the cool reserve of the jazz buffs and in its place came blues fans set for a raucous good time, and Green fans eager to see how the Fleetwood Mac legend was doing two years into his comeback. The recording includes many of Peter Green's most famous compositions such as 'Albatross', 'Black Magic Woman', 'Rattlesnake Shake', 'The Green Manalishi' and 'The Supernatural', plus versions of other blues classics as 'Travelling Riverside Blues' and 'Steady Rollin' Man'.