Discussion
My music streaming service has surfaced what appears to be an "official bootleg" recording from the band Mountain called "The Man and the Mountain"
This is the kind of thing I would usually listen to, so I was pretty interested in it.
The first track was a recording I'd never heard before. The second seemed real familiar though, familiar enough that I clicked back to the tab to figure out what the hell I was listening to.
And now I'm kind of irritated by it.
(small thread, apparently.)
The next Mayall record, which gets left out of a lot of discographies because it's a live album is The Turning Point.
It opens with a track called "The Laws Must Change" which is a very centrist take on the concept of social change, which is a shame because musically it's a barn burner of a track, but the lyrical heart of it is "don't throw rocks at policeman" and "you've got to see both sides, or you'll find yourself in jail" and "you're shouting at policeman, but they're only doing a gig"
And ... yeah, okay, the laws must change. But while the laws remain unjust, we got no obligation to respect it John. Stop moralizing or justifying police brutality.
Musically the album is great, and he was almost saying something interesting on this track, but ultimately it comes across as "don't protest, vote" which ... 🙃
The next track appears to be about choosing not to seduce a 15 year old, which is a weird thing to write a song about.
The album features Jon Mark (who played with a bunch of people, including Johnny Almond who also appears here) and Johnny Almond who played in Fleetwood Mac and Mark-Almond with Jon Mark.
It was recorded at the Filmore East, and I can't imagine the audience was receptive to the first (two?) track(s), but the rest of the record is solid and the band is good.
After that we get Empty Rooms which has much the same lineup, but ads an appearance from bassist Larry Taylor (who went on to do lots of other things, including I think, Canned Heat.)
Just after recording this record, Jon and Johnny would leave to form Mark-Almond.
(and then we get into the best of the 70s stuff)
Mayall's next record was called USA union and it features a whole new lineup.
Larry Taylor returns for more than a single track, and he's joined by Don "Sugarcane" Harris, who is an accomplished guitarist and violinist who played with a bunch of people and release a bunch of solo albums, and Harvey Mandell, who is perhaps my favorite of Mayall's Guitarists. We'll talk more about Harvey in a minute.
USA Union is a good record, but it is far from the best thing Sugarcane or Mandell did.
It features the same kind of relaxed styling as The Turning Point, and if you liked the musicianship on that record you'll find that style done even better here (with better subject matter, and the addition of Sugcarcane's violin which absolutely elevates everything they're trying to do.)
