The Chambers Brothers: Feelin' The Blues

THE CHAMBERS BROTHERS: FEELIN' THE BLUES (1970)

1) Girls, We Love You; 2) I Got A Woman; 3) House Of The Rising Sun; 4) Don't Lose Your Cool; 5) Just A Closer Walk With Thee; 6) Blues Get Off My Shoulder; 7) Travel On My Way; 8) Undecided.

General verdict: Another decent bunch of decent outtakes, no more, no less.

Guess what — another Vault Records release, and this time I cannot find any definitive info at all on where and when these studio and live recordings come from... and, frankly, nobody should really care just as nobody gave a damn back in 1970, when the very last thing on anybody's mind probably was to listen to half-decade-old outtakes from The Chambers Brothers' career. (Well, actually, it turns out that Rolling Stone gave the record a glowing review, right at the same time that they were busy trashing Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath).

In all honesty, this one, too, is a mess, as it continues to present The Chambers Brothers as dashing dare-devils, always unafraid of experimenting onstage — regardless of whether the experiment in question would end up boring, embarrassing, or inspiring. The first track is quite seriously inauspicious: ʽGirls, We Love Youʼ is a musical mish-mash of ʽMemphis, Tennesseeʼ and ʽThat's Alright Mamaʼ with new lyrics, a relatively low level of rock'n'roll energy and decent harmonica playing (which is still nothing that even Mick Jagger couldn't do). This is followed by the stupidest intro to ʽI Got A Womanʼ yet (stretching out on the opening "weeeeeeell..." until it becomes offensively out of tune) — fortunately, the main performance mostly redeems for that with some wild Hammond organ improvisation, and the brief inclusion of the chorus to ʽToo Fat Polkaʼ in the middle is actually a funny touch that could have been emphasized more sharply (as it is, most people will probably not even take notice).

The record then arguably hits its peak with the slow-dark-brooding six minute take on ʽHouse Of The Rising Sunʼ — this performance actually earned some gushing comments from the few people that heard it, and the lead / back vocal arrangements are indeed impressive, but the instrumental work seems sluggish, except for the drummer, who is the only band member here trying to rise above the «just sit and play it» approach. Another problem, perhaps, is the lack of context: it is hard to take this version of ʽHouseʼ with all the seriousness it deserves when it is wedged in between so many tracks that rather have a comedic disposition or, at least, a positive outlook on life. (Admittedly, the second side of the LP does feature a cover of Bobby Parker's ʽBlues Get Off My Shoulderʼ — which sounds exactly the same as the cover of ʽHouseʼ, just shorter by three minutes).

In the end, the record's most redeeming quality — typical of all Vault Records releases — is the diversity: we have blues, rock'n'roll, R&B, doo-wop, polka, soul, gospel, in short, a nice mini-ency­clopaedia of everything that was cool about the Fifties. Why precisely we had to get it in mid-1970 remains a bit of a mystery, but that's all water under the bridge anyway. Well worth listening to at least once for a bit of peculiar fun; otherwise, chalk this one up for completists who are on a quest to hear every song ever made performed by The Chambers Brothers.

The Chambers Brothers: Love, Peace & Happiness

THE CHAMBERS BROTHERS: LOVE, PEACE AND HAPPINESS (1969)

1) Have A Little Faith; 2) Let's Do It; 3) To Love Somebody; 4) If You Want Me To; 5) Wake Up; 6) Love, Peace & Happiness; 7) Wade In The Water; 8) Everybody Needs Somebody; 9) I Can't Turn You Loose; 10) People Get Ready; 11) Bang Bang; 12) You're So Fine; 13) Undecided / Love! Love! Love!.

By 1969, it was clear that The Chambers Brothers had become indoctrinated slaves to their formula of success — but it was also clear that it did not work so well on its own and that light­ning couldn't be bothered to strike twice in the exact same way. So what could be the remedy? Columbia Records decided to make it a double album — a studio LP, recreating the structures of vibes of the previous two, and a live LP (recorded at the Fillmore East, no less) that would hearken back to the boys' oldest days, even throwing in another live version of ʽPeople Get Readyʼ because, you know, nobody can withstand a good take on ʽPeople Get Readyʼ.

That said, I should stress that the studio LP, at least, is a slight improvement this time around. The obligatory big psychedelic jam at the end (title track) is now presented in the form of a slow blues-rock romp with surprisingly threatening (for a song with such a name) backing vocals and some drawn-out, simplistic, but tense and shrill wah-wah guitar solos. Midway through, the groove dies down, giving ground to a crescendo, out of which emerges a much funkier pattern; but all the movements are united by a single vibe that is actually closer to ʽGimme Shelterʼ than to anything having to do with love, peace and happiness — either somebody duped these guys or they, too, were feeling that «despair» was gradually replacing «love» as the chief vibe of the times. Perhaps boring drum solos or primitive escapades with volume controls do not do all that much for enhancing that vibe, but on the whole it is an interesting transition from light to dark­ness that, in its own way, preceeds a similar transformation that would happen to Sly & The Family Stone in between 1969 and 1970.

The shorter songs on the first side are not as bitter, divided between soulful ballads (including a rather perfunctory rendition of the Bee Gees' ʽTo Love Somebodyʼ) and funky grooves, at least one of which features a surprisingly melodic and memorable bassline (ʽLet's Do Itʼ); ʽWake Upʼ concludes the sequence with a short and fun mix of pop-rock and gospel overdrive, although waking you up this way, only to plunge you into the gloomy shuffle of ʽLove, Peace & Happi­nessʼ might be a pretty inefficient way to allocate your resources. Nevertheless, the overall level of energy is higher than last time around, and the decision to stay away from acoustic folk is a wise one — loud rave-ups work better for these guys.

The live half, unfortunately, is very hit and miss. The central (actually, the first) piece is another long bluesy groove, ʽWade In The Waterʼ, gruff, repetitive, and with too much emphasis on the drums — not to mention the surprisingly low quality of recording for Fillmore East (almost making me suspect that the brothers were always lugging around their own recording equipment, and that they had not bothered upgrading its shitty quality since 1965). Another drawn-out piece, ʽBang Bangʼ, is a silly vocal gimmick loosely based on the ʽLouie Louieʼ riff: much to the band's honor, they seem to be capable to get that demanding Fillmore East hippie audience on its feet with the thing, but in retrospect, this seems somewhat embarrassingly Sha-Na-Na-ish. In the end, the live part of the record is about as disappointing as that Now! album — and, more importantly, shows that the brothers' live act was getting even more stale at the time than their studio activities. In other words, all of this is completely passable, though occasionally fun.

The Chambers Brothers: Shout!

THE CHAMBERS BROTHERS: SHOUT! (1968)

1) Johnny B. Goode; 2) Blues Get Off My Shoulder; 3) I Got It; 4) Shout; 5) There She Goes; 6) Seventeen; 7) Pretty Girls; 8) Rained The Day You Left; 9) So Fine; 10) Love Me Like The Rain.

In the mid-to-late Sixties, the Chambers Brothers had pretty much two parallel careers going on: the adapt-to-new-reality «psychedelic» one, and a more traditional one — supported by their old label, Vault Records, who apparently had so much material in stock and so much free time on their hands that they could allow themselves to issue at least one «new» album per year without anybody really giving a damn. Since I assume that all of them were released without the artist's consent, hearing them is a strictly completist affair, and one must always be careful when going through the Brothers' discography: at the very least, remember to look at the label before going all indignant about the subpar quality of the material and the shitty quality of the recording, like I just went for a brief while before composing myself and remembering to do just that.

In this case, fortunately, the results are not all bad, but still messy. One side is given over to live recordings, probably from 1965-66, the other side consists of studio outtakes (including, for instance, a brief and concise take on ʽSo Fineʼ that is overall more listenable than the pointlessly endless version on Now!). The live side starts out quite inauspiciously, with a mediocre version of ʽJohnny B. Goodeʼ that lacks true rock'n'roll excitement and seems to think that replacing Chuck Berry's lead guitar playing with Mississippi-style harmonica might be a good idea. But things pick up later, with a convincing slow blues number (ʽBlues Get Off My Shoulderʼ — here, the harmonica fits in just fine with the heavy, depressing piano chords) and an energetic gospel / R&B medley of ʽI Got Itʼ and ʽShout!ʼ — the latter part is particularly interesting, since the pre­dictable yeah-yeah-yeah rave style here is mixed with the band's first attempts at going psyche­delic: they throw in a sharply distorted, hallucinatory lead guitar part with echo and delay effects, inconspicuosly transforming the performance from a vocal-driven chant into an acid jam, some­thing that neither The Yardbirds nor The Who ever really tried at their early shows (The Who sometimes came close, but they preferred to carry the music away into the realms of aggression and chaos, rather than psychedelic tripping).

The studio side is cleaner, louder, but to a large degree expendable: ʽThere She Goesʼ is a Stones-style blues rocker that is totally let down by a criminally flabby rhythm section (think ʽNow I've Got A Witnessʼ with severely loosened screws), ʽSeventeenʼ is slow dark blues that used to be done far better by Otis Rush (cool gravekeeper falsetto backing vocals, though), ʽPretty Girlsʼ is second-rate Isley Brothers, and ʽRained The Day You Leftʼ is third-rate Byrds — though, you have to admit this, having all these styles enacted by the same bunch of those former country bumpkins is quite a feat by itself. The only salvageable track here is the lovely ʽLove Me Like The Rainʼ, an original folk ballad played and recorded with exquisite tenderness, and also some­what unusual in its combination of gentle folk chord picking and low-pitched lead vocals (typi­cally, you associate The Byrds or The Searchers with this kind of sound). However, this is actually an alternate version — a much better produced one can be found as a bonus track on The Time Has Come, implying that Columbia ultimately got the better side of the deal.

Still, while this was clearly an obsolete release for 1968, out of the two Chambers Brothers albums that came out this year I would rate Shout! as the superior one — with the exception of ʽJohnny B. Goodeʼ, nothing here seems particularly irritating. This was their usual shtick: trying to prove to the world that they could do passable imitations of 'em all, and it is a more honorable shtick, I believe, than milking the exact same «Artistic Formula» a second time. In other words, mediocre music that accepts its own mediocrity is preferable to mediocre music that pretends to be something more than what it really is. Plus, that version of ʽShoutʼ is actually worth hearing just for the sake of novelty.

The Chambers Brothers: A New Time, A New Day

THE CHAMBERS BROTHERS: A NEW TIME, A NEW DAY (1968)

1) I Can't Turn You Loose; 2) Guess Who; 3) Do Your Thing; 4) Where Have All The Flowers Gone; 5) Love Is All I Have; 6) You Got The Power To Turn Me On; 7) I Wish It Would Rain; 8) Rock Me Mama; 9) No, No, No, Don't Say Goodbye; 10) Satisfy You; 11) A New Time, A New Day.

Honestly, I do not like this at all. A band with a magnificent musical formula can allow itself to milk said formula until the end of time; but if you are merely competent and mildly amusing, the act of stubbornly sticking to your guns ends up becoming irritating. The Chambers Brothers (or, perhaps, Columbia Records as the self-imposed market brain behind The Chambers Brothers) were so happy to finally be noticed through the success of ʽTime Has Come Todayʼ that they wasted little time producing another album that not only sported a very similar title (because, you know, if The Chambers Brothers sing about TIME, that's a frickin' quality mark!), but had the exact same structure — a random mix of blues, R&B, and folk covers and originals, capped off by one lengthy psycho-R&B freakout.

ʽTime Has Come Todayʼ was actually fun — catchy, with a good beat, a freaky guitar solo, and, most importantly, freshness of approach, as you could hear the guys actually having fun in the studio. In contrast, its follow-up, ʽA New Time, A New Dayʼ, is not nearly as memorable, and the freakout section offers not a single new idea: they simply pick a slightly different groove and tempo, then proceed to offer the same mix of psychedelic guitars, keyboards, and vocal whooping. In relation to ʽTime Has Come Todayʼ, it is precisely what, say, ʽBye Bye Johnnyʼ is to ʽJohnny B. Goodeʼ: everybody remembers the original, but who really gives a damn about the sequel? (Other than the Stones occasionally covering it in their 1970s shows, probably because they were too bored playing the first part).

As for the rest, it all gives the impression of having been assembled and recorded in great haste: considering that ʽTime Has Come Todayʼ only began climbing up the American charts in the fall of 1968, while the official date of release for this album is given as October 8, this seems to have been exactly the case. So, for instance, most of the «originals» here are really just semi-impro­vised funky grooves — on ʽDo Your Thingʼ, they go for a modern James Brown vibe, predictably nowhere near as impressive as the real «thing»; ʽNo, No, No, Don't Say Good-Byʼ (sic!) shifts the rhythmics to a slightly more «Latinized» mode, but the only interesting thing about the song is a wildly ecstatic piano part (no idea who is actually behind the keyboards, but he sure cared more about the performance than all the other members of the band put together).

Of the covers, the only element of surprise is encountered on their rather unorthodox arrangement of ʽWhere Have All The Flowers Goneʼ, redone here as a passionate gospel-soul number with very little other than the lyrics to connect it with the original; not sure if I like it, but at least they did try — which is more than I could say about the inferior rendition of Redding's ʽI Can't Turn You Looseʼ, or the boring six-minute long bluesfest of ʽRock Me Mamaʼ. And it was generous of their producer Tim O'Brien to write a slow soul ballad for them (ʽSatisfy Youʼ), but, unfortunate­ly, while the brothers' collective harmonies have always been their strongest side, in terms of solo delivery none of them could ever compete with the tones, timbres, and delicate phrasing of the genre's true masters. In short, whatever future hopes for artistic growth and commercial success they might have raised with ʽTime Has Come Todayʼ, all of this was effectively buried with this mediocre (not too horrendous, but flashbang-obviously mediocre) rushjob — which, in the context of their overall career, only merits a disappointing thumbs down.

The Chambers Brothers: The Time Has Come

THE CHAMBERS BROTHERS: THE TIME HAS COME (1967)

1) All Strung Out Over You; 2) People Get Ready; 3) I Can't Stand It; 4) Romeo & Juliet; 5) In The Midnight Hour; 6) So Tired; 7) Uptown; 8) Please Don't Leave Me; 9) What The World Needs Now Is Love; 10) Time Has Come Today; 11*) Dinah; 12*) Falling In Love; 13*) Love Me Like The Rain.

By mid-'67, the brothers' tenaciousness had paid off — they landed a contract with Columbia, who put them under the supervision of young and aspiring producer David Rubinson, not too well known at the time but far more familiar from his subsequent work with Moby Grape, United States Of America, and Herbie Hancock. Essentially this meant that, for the first time in their life, the Chambers Brothers could quit dicking around, lay off the novelty acts and gimmicks, and concentrate on trying to make their own mark on the world of progressive pop music.

This may not be a great album, but this is their first proper album (not counting the Barbara Dane collaboration) that does not sound like a shit, and properly reflects all of their talents — as arran­gers, songwriters, performers, and wannabe cultural heroes. No fewer than half of the tracks are self-penned, and the rest are a respectable mix of groovy R&B, funk, soul, and balladry. Since the brothers seem to insist upon playing all the instruments themselves, the level of tightness, inten­sity, and energy is incomparable with the average quality of contemporary Atlantic records, or of James Brown's or Sly Stone's backing bands; the brothers have to compensate for this less capti­vating sound with diversity and pure entertainment value — thus, Rudy Clarke's ʽAll Strung Out Over Youʼ, a song whose melody would later be appropriated for Sweet's ʽBallroom Blitzʼ (I had to all but crack my head open to realize that), is a tight and speedy pop-rock romp where not a single element is outstanding per se, but the overall combination is a great anti-boredom kick delivered from the very outset. And then there is no better way, from a contrastive perspective, than to follow it with another, cleaner and subtler version of ʽPeople Get Readyʼ than the old live version — even if this one, too, is hardly preferable to the Impressions.

The brothers' originals, too, are getting more ambitious. ʽI Can't Stand Itʼ is a hybrid of R&B groove, blues-rock, and pop hooks (the latter mainly reflected in the falsetto backing vocals), allegedly reflecting the brothers' interest in the British scene, since the bass / drum / guitar inter­play is rather reminiscent of The Who or Small Faces than the American acts by whom the Brits were influenced themselves. ʽSo Tiredʼ generally follows the standard Fifties' progression, but the lush, nearly operatic vocal delivery is more Tom Jones-like. On the other hand, something like ʽPlease Don't Leave Meʼ, a colorless Jimmy Reed rewrite, shows that there is, as of yet, no question about trying to eliminate filler.

But none of this is really why we are here, right? The real reason is, of course, the title track, unquestionably the Chambers Brothers' signature song — though just how much it would be re­membered remains a question, had it only been released in its truncated single release. The main part of the song, after all, is a rather monotonous vamp, not unlike the Stones' ʽGet Out Of My Cloudʼ with less prominent rhythm guitar. The real fun starts when the main melody disappears and is replaced by a psychedelic freakout, with echoey vocals, dark spooky basslines, and fuzzy, Eastern-influenced guitars that were probably the very last thing anybody would expect to hear on a Chambers Brothers record — this is way more like Jefferson Airplane in nature. Later on, the guitar freakout dissipates as well and is replaced by just a general freakout: leave a steady beat and let everybody except the rhythm section go crazy.

I would be lying if I called this a quintessential psychedelic track or anything: next to Hendrix or Pink Floyd, hell, even next to the Stones' much-maligned ʽSing This All Together (See What Happens)ʼ the craziness of ʽTime Has Come Todayʼ is quite restrained, not to mention secondary in origin. But it has plenty of appeal as a symbol of creative liberation: it works much better if you bear in mind that all of this was the creative product of four brothers from rural Mississippi who, in another age, would have probably spent all their lives recycling same old blues formulas. The track really works far better in context — not only the context of The Chambers Brothers' overall career, but in the overall context of African-American popular music; in fact, this track may have been the single biggest creative breakthrough for it all after Hendrix. And you can cer­tainly hear, say, the seeds of Funkadelic planted somewhere in the middle of this crazy romp. For this alone, the album deserves a thumbs up. Whether it actually transcends the basic level of historical importance and moderate enjoyability — that is your choice to make.

The Chambers Brothers: Barbara Dane And The Chambers Brothers

THE CHAMBERS BROTHERS: BARBARA DANE AND THE CHAMBERS BROTHERS (1966)

1) It Isn't Nice; 2) You've Got To Reap What You Sow; 3) You Can't Make It By Yourself; 4) Pack Up Your Sorrows; 5) I Am A Weary And A Lonesome Traveller; 6) We'll Never Turn Back; 7) Come By Here; 8) Freedom Is A Constant Struggle; 9) Go Tell It On The Mountain.

Both technically and substantially, this is a Barbara Dane album rather than a Chambers Brothers album — all the material is chosen (and some of it written) by Barbara, she takes lead vocals on all the tracks, using the brothers largely for backup, and the record was released on the Folkways label, with which Dane had already had an association. However, since this is one of the best albums ever to feature The Chambers Brothers anyway, and also because I am unlikely to ever separately cover Barbara Dane — not because she does not deserve it, but because her disco­graphy is such an utter mess — I might as well drop this short, but grateful evaluation along the way, as a reasonable detour before continuing along the main road.

Apparently, Barbara Dane, of whom I'd never even heard before digging in the Brothers' disco­graphy, had been a permanent fixture on the jazz/blues/folk circuit since the late Fifties, perfor­ming solo as well as in various liaisons with everybody from Louis Armstrong to Muddy Waters and beyond, earning much critical praise but fairly little publicity — mass audiences were not particularly interested in listening to a white girl putting on the shoes of Bessie Smith, even if most had to admit that they fit her fairly well. On the social side, though, she was more akin to Nina Simone than to Bessie — constantly revitalizing old blues and spirituals with new lyrics, making her sound thoroughly relevant back in the day, but somewhat dated today, now that even American audiences will probably have trouble remembering who McGeorge Bundy and Robert McNamara were in the first place.

Regardless, what does not sound dated is the voice: Barbara Dane was an admirable singer, and the nine tracks here, more or less evenly spread between light folk, dark blues, and multi-colored gospel, are more than enough to prove it. Without trying to engage in a discussion of just how close to «authentic African-American» her voice is, I will just state the simple and obvious — it is a strong, rich, energized sound that she delivers, with a great sense of phrasing and just a small touch of humor and irony and irreverence, to ensure that the listener be not obliged to treat the songs as sacred vessels of the divine human spirit (looking at you, Joan Baez). It is even pleasant to listen to her brief spoken introductions to some of the songs on the first side, with an ever so slight Arkansas accent and a subtle aura of bittersweet wisdom; and as for versatility, there is quite a distance from the friendly, but still troubled optimism of the Appalachian upbeatness of ʽPack Up Your Sorrowsʼ to the doomed self-resignation of ʽI Am A Weary And Lonesome Travellerʼ (a particularly harrowing number of the kind of which I sure wish there'd been more on here: one too many gospel stompers can seriously distort the picture).

The Chambers Brothers, though relegated to purely secondary services, still provide them loyally on every track. The first side of the album features instrumental backing, usually in the form of a quiet rhythm section and one or two electric (always electric, although Dane herself sometimes strums an acoustic in addition) guitars, sometimes with extra harp thrown in by brother Lester; the second one, however, is completely a cappella, with the brothers' harmonies providing the only support for Dane's lead, and this is where they really become inexpendable — their harmonization with Dane is perfect, and the sound engineer also has to be thanked for near-perfect channel separation, so that, by slightly adjusting your ear, you can concentrate either on each individual pitch, or on all of them together. The effect is so cool that, with only a few people present at the mikes, you still get an «all the people» feel from the performances, much stronger than from quite a few gospel choirs.

Commenting on the melodies or on the meanings of the songs is rather pointless — one look at the titles is probably enough to make you realize you've probably heard it all before, with the possible exception of the lead-in track, Barbara's self-penned ʽIt Isn't Niceʼ which is a fairly catchy folk protest tune of the Peter, Paul, & Mary kind. What matters is not the source material, but the sound of it, and it all really works — ironically, The Chambers Brothers' first truly out­standing service to mankind is in the capacity of a support act. This is why the predictability of the melodies, or the dragged-out length and repetitiveness of the tunes is never a big bother: as long as they got this great groove going, with Barbara as the inspiring leader of the pack and The Chambers Brothers as the inspired members of the back, nothing else really matters. Thumbs up, for an album that may have never properly transcended its time but is still worth revisiting just to remind yourself of the rather unique type of fun that time was capable of.

The Chambers Brothers: Now!

THE CHAMBERS BROTHERS: NOW! (1966)

1) Introduction To; 2) High Heel Sneakers; 3) Baby Please Don't Go; 4) What'd I Say; 5) Long Tall Sally; 6) Bony Maronie; 7) It's Groovin' Time; 8) You Don't Have To Go; 9) C. C. Rider; 10) So Fine.

All right, this one is eminently skippable. Maybe the decision to stick to live recordings can be qualified as a gesture of toughness and determination, and I have nothing against this in theory, but in practice, this is pretty disappointing. Seemingly recorded at the same venues in Boston and L.A. as last time, Now! would sound as just a bunch of outtakes that did not make it onto the first album — except I think that these are different dates, because the recording quality is much worse: there is an ugly echo marring all the performances, creating the illusion of a deep well, rather than an intimate club, and also completely obscuring any musicianship that may or may not have been concealed behind the singing.

Another problem is the setlist: less diverse and original than last time, it consists mainly of covers of well-known standards, ranging from the early rock'n'roll of ʽLong Tall Sallyʼ and ʽHigh Heel Sneakersʼ to Jimmy Reed and Ray Charles. As much as I respect the vocal prowess of The Cham­bers Brothers, I really do not need another (and poor quality at that) version of ʽWhat'd I Sayʼ in my collection; nor do I need an extended, monotonous, slowed down version of the pop song ʽSo Fineʼ which, for several minutes, they try to transform into an ecstatic soulful groove without much success.

The only «new» tune is ʽIt's Groovin' Timeʼ, which, judging by its title, should be a fast, exciting rave-up, but in reality it is a slow, harmonica-driven piece of Chicago blues, as generic and for­gettable as they come; next to its drabness, the covers of ʽLong Tall Sallyʼ and ʽBony Maronieʼ are true salvation in the flesh... if only I could hear those guitar solos on the latter, though — the guitarist almost seems to intentionally wish to remain unheard.

Technically, you can dance to this, and I can even imagine the album having some use in college parties around that time — especially the ones where nobody needs anything but a good beat, anyway — yet in career terms, especially considering that this is frickin' 1966 we're talking about, with Hendrix on the horizon and shit, they pretty much shot themselves in their brotherly feet. It is highly likely, though, that Vault Records simply released this crap without the artists' explicit permission: I cannot imagine why they'd want to have this out on their own. Regardless, this is as proverbial a thumbs down as they ever come (for some reason, Bruce Eder gave it a positive review in the All-Music Guide — but the man has a passion for praising obscurities just because they are obscure and ever so slightly out-of-field; I also like to engage in musical archaeology from time to time, but have no interest in overstating its delights).

The Chambers Brothers: People Get Ready

THE CHAMBERS BROTHERS: PEOPLE GET READY (1965)

1) Yes, Yes, Yes; 2) Tore Up; 3) Reconsider Baby; 4) You've Got Me Running; 5) The Family Story; 6) People Get Ready; 7) Money (That's What I Want); 8) You Can Run (But You Can't Hide); 9) Hooka Tooka; 10) Call Me; 11) Summertime; 12) Your Old Lady; 13) It's All Over Now.

The Chambers Brothers were probably more interesting as a cultural phenomenon than a creative musical outfit: a bunch of hard-working folks from Mississippi that, instead of choosing a predic­table career as a vocal band, specializing in gospel and spirituals, decided to become... well, not exactly a «rock'n'roll band» as such, but a fairly eclectic ensemble, choosing their own material, playing their own instruments, and breaking as many stereotypes of «Southern African-American boys» as could be found to break.

Even this debut album of theirs, though hardly spectacular on its own, is an unusual artefact. Having relocated from Mississippi to Los Angeles in the early 1950s, the four Chambers brothers did not actively seek to record as long as they were still performing acoustic versions of tradi­tional folk and gospel tunes — but everything changed once they witnessed Bob Dylan going electric. That same year, they signed up with the small surf-rock (!) label Vault, and put out an LP of recordings culled from two live shows — one in their now-native L.A., and one in Boston, as they now actively sought to expand their presence to the East Coast as well. Thus, People Get Ready is a fully live, electric, eclectic album of cover tunes by four African-American guys from Carthage, Mississippi, who had only recently exchanged their washtubs for Danelectros, and were also supplemented by white guy Brian Keenan on drums. Interesting, right?

The eclecticism does not run too deep, actually: most of the numbers represent various forms of R&B, from the minimalist blues-rock of Jimmy Reed to the soulful rave-ups of the Isley Brothers and the gospel-influenced compositions of Curtis Mayfield. But with Motown (ʽMoneyʼ), pure blues (ʽReconsider Babyʼ), hully gully (ʽHooka Tookaʼ), and the inescapable omnipresent ʽSum­mertimeʼ, it is quite clear that these guys are not going to box themselves into any one single corner; nor do they shun provocatively jarring moments of unpredictability — for instance, I would say that it actually takes guts to launch from ʽPeople Get Readyʼ straight into ʽMoney (That's What I Want)ʼ: not that ʽMoneyʼ was ever a non-ironic song, of course, but still there is something potentially unsettling about singing "don't need no baggage, all you need is faith" one moment and then "just give me money, that's all I want!" the very next one.

As for the actual musical merits, well, these are all competent, but unexceptional renditions. As instrumentalists, the brothers show no special gifts and only very basic training — the only musi­cian worth paying attention to is brother Lester on harmonica, which probably makes sense, since this is the only instrument here that one of the brothers had played for more than a decade prior to these concerts; however, he does not get the spotlight to himself very often (the slow blues ʽRe­consider Babyʼ being the only exception). As vocalists, they have a rough, gutsy collective sound going on, with none of the suaveness typically associated with doo-wop or Motown acts, but they never really work themselves up to an ecstatic state; individually, they can trade baritone and tenor passages effectively (ʽIt's All Over Nowʼ), but not awesomely. Yet somehow, through their clever alternating of different sub-genres, an overall above-average level of energy, and a certain «protest charm» stemming from the very ruggedness of the performances, they may be able to keep your attention up throughout the whole show.

Midway through, in order to endear themselves to you even more, they give a brief rundown of their life story ("people sometimes ask if we're really brothers...") which, although I usually do not approve of extended banter passages on live albums, totally belongs here: the whole idea of The Chambers Brothers is to show how a deep country family, without losing its roots, can adapt to living and creating in the big city, adapting to modern times, and their brief summary of what it used to be back then and what it is now is perfectly suitable as an extended intro to the odd pairing of ʽPeople Get Readyʼ with ʽMoney (That's What I Want)ʼ. Perhaps it is still not enough to earn the album a thumbs up rating, but, after all, this was only a rough beginning for the boys, and the truly important thing here is that there is sufficient intrigue concealed in this LP in order to warrant further exploration of their discography.