Nature's way (Stray) (LP 4936 - 4940)

Stray  Suicide (Vinyl, Transatlantic Records, 1971) ****  

Suzanne  Suzanne (Vinyl, Philips Records, 1971) ***  

The Dillards  Copperfields (Vinyl, Elektra Records, 1970) **** 

The Doobie Brothers  The Doobie Brothers (Vinyl, Warner Bros. Records, 1971) ****

The Hollies  Would You Believe? (Vinyl, Parlophone Records, 1966) ***

Genre: Rock, prog rock, pop, NZ music

Places I remember: Brian Smith Collection, The Little Red Bookshop, JB Hi Fi, Vinyl Room, Vinyl Vault Plus 

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Nobody (The Doobie Brothers)

Gear costume: Feelin' Down Further (The Doobie Brothers) 

They loom large in his legend (The Album Collection playlists): Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5; Part 6; Part 7; Part 8

Active compensatory factors: Stray were a band of four blokes from London, active in the seventies with a solid emphasis on guitars, with some mellotron on the side. That said, they had quite an original and multi-faceted sound. 

Suicide (dumb title) was their second and it's a great combination of quieter proggy songs and harder edged riff-a-rama hard rock.

Suzanne was the title of Suzanne Lynch's first solo album. The aim was clearly 'all around entertainer' so there are a lot of bases covered on the album - not all to my taste. She is so great as a pop/ rock singer but instead she's given quite a lot of middle-of-the-road material. Whatever the case, Suzanne's distinctive vocals still elevate everything thrown at her. I just wish they'd given her a proper pop/rock band as back up, as they did with Dinah Lee.

The highlights are the pop moments like Yesterday When I was Young and the big belting showband treatment for Goodbye - think Cilla Black (Mary Hopkins still owns the best version of this Paul McCartney song). 

The Dillards' Copperfields album was their fifth. It combines elements of bluegrass, rock, folk and country music to create an Americana album before it was called Americana. They even have a pop at Yesterday (an acapella version). It's very clear that various members of The Eagles were listening closely to those Dillard vocal harmonies. The legacy of many other bands, and people like John Denver, can be traced back to The Dillards as well. Not to mention The Hamilton County Bluegrass Band - one of my favourite bands of all time.

The Doobie Brothers first album came out in 1971 and the sound is right there from the first song on side one - Nobody, onwards. Nobody was released as a single but didn't do much, nor did the album, which is a bit of a mystery. I guess it took folk a while to wake up to the relaxed country rock vibe the band was putting down. 

Tom Johnson and Patrick Simmons have those great harmony vocals locked in already! Crazy that no one was listening in 1971, but then the world eventually caught up.

The Hollies' Would You Believe? was their fourth album, released in 1966. It was released in the US in a variety of other formats, which can drive a collector crazy. These tend to be bastardised versions where B sides and singles are added willy nilly to some tracks from Would You Believe?

Thus: in the US it became either Beat Group! or Bus Stop or I Can't Let Go/Look Through Any Window in Canada. Each with a different track listing. All up, I'll stick with the original UK one - Would You Believe? 

This is a New Zealand pressing and I was happy to pay Vinyl Vault Plus $50 for it, as I've been after a clean copy of it for ages. Musically, it's not a particularly strong set, which is one reason that studio execs decided it needed supplementary hits to sell it. AllMusic selects three highlights -  'the surprisingly tough folk-rockers' Hard, Hard Year and I've Got a Way of My Own, plus 'the ultra-catchy' Don't You Even Care. 

Where do they all belong? One final batch of catch-up albums to go before I get back on track with a return to the W's.