Album Review: Sugarloaf - Sugarloaf

Artist:  Sugarloaf
Album:  Sugarloaf
Released:  1970

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Sugarloaf is probably best known for the oh-so-awesome hit "Green Eyed Lady", which peaked at #3 in late 1970.  That's certainly where I know them from. It hooked me from the beginning, with a groove that appealed to the future bass player hidden deep within me.  Or, as another put it:  "A neat song with an interesting bass line that, I think, is borderline progressive…especially for a pop song."   I'm pretty sure I had it on 45 (in my original, long lost 45 collection, but that's another story).  But I later had it on a compilation album.

During the early 80's, I decided I needed to have the full-length album version (6:53) rather than the edited single version (3:33), so I searched out the album.  I'm pretty sure I found this new (but in the cutout bin, see the bottom right corner) at a record store in the DC area (rather than mail-order, or something else pre-internet).  [aside:  yes it is true, I don't remember every detail of  getting every album I own]

Anyway, this album is an interesting snapshot of 1970, starting with the album cover and straight into the music.  The album only has 6 songs, with all but 1 over 5 minutes in length.  Most surprising to me (back then) is that 3 of the 6 are instrumentals.  That includes versions of the Yardbirds' "Train Kept A-Rolling" and The Band's "Chest Fever" (with an intro segment from Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor.  Also a pretty standard 12-bar blues song:  "Gold And The Blues".  Along with Green Eyed Lady, the song with vocals include "West Of Tomorrow" and "Things Are Gonna Change Some".  West of Tomorrow is a particularly nice, in a sort of flower-power way:

"West of now and east of yesterday,    love explodes into a righteous day

sending me so high I'll always stay.   West of now and east of yesterday," 

"Things Are Gonna Change Some" is very Jazzy, complete with 5/4 time.

Not a great album, but certainly a good one.  I'll go 3.5 stars.  And I'll say "Pretty Obscure", because while it had one big hit, who even heard the rest?

And I have to include a transcription of this bit, from the inner liner, because it is awesome:

One of the truly encouraging facts about contemporary rock and roll is that its creative demon has spread to every corner of America. From Montana to Texas, from New Haven to Mendocino, wherever people of the new generation gather to listen to music, there is certain to be a good band putting down some exciting and original sounds. No longer does rock and roll have to be imported from San Francisco, Chicago or Los Angeles. New groups from the rest of the country have overtaken the establish centers and are going full speed ahead on their own.

Sugarloaf from Denver, Colorado, is in excellent example of this phenomenon. Here’s a group of young musicians that plays an incredibly solid brand of new music. Each member of Sugarloaf has been working within the rock idiom for more than a decade. Each of them has achieved genuine mastery of his instrument and uses every song as an opportunity to express his personal freedom. Together they form a very cohesive and resourceful musical organization which grows in creativity day by day. The people of the Rocky Mountains are fortunate to have such an accomplished group in their midst.

This album find Sugarloaf in an experimental mood which carries them into a wide variety of forms. On “Bach doors man/chest Fever” organist Jerry Corbetta discovers the spiritual links between JS Bach’s  toccata and fugue in D minor and Garth Hudson‘s Organ work for the Band.  A marvelous piece of synthesis!  On “things gonna change” the group leaves the Orthodox boundaries of rock rhythm and leaps into a 5/4 pattern reminiscent of Dave Brubeck “take five” and many of the compositions of Frank Zappa.  Bob Webber‘s guitar solo on the cut builds a compelling statement on top of the unusual groove.  Both “green eyed lady” and “the train kept a-rolling” are based on hard rock riffs which of avoid all semblance of the clichéd and redundant themes which prop up many new groups.  The imaginative baselines of a Bob Raymond and tasteful drumming of Bob MacVittie keep the songs moving with real force and direction.  “The train kept a-rolling” is particularly effective at for exactly this reason.

Sugarloaf will surprise you. They play free music and they play it together. Listen to Sugarloaf carefully and you’ll dig it.

Langdon Winner.  

Here's the back cover and inner liner, click for larger versions: