Although Jackie Lomax was fortunate enough to be one of the first signees to Apple, it was a cross to bear as well as a blessing, since his Beatles connections -- George Harrison produced the album and donated a tune -- interfered with his shot at being evaluated on his own merits.
Truth to tell, had the exact same record come out on a different label without any Beatles involvement, it would have made even less of an impact than it did. Lomax is a passable but unarresting singer and songwriter, and most of the tracks chug along in a humdrum blue-eyed soul-rock vein.
Whether consciously or not, Lomax's better compositions sometimes bear Beatlesque influences, like the title track, which has a casual resemblance to "I Am the Walrus" (recorded after this album's release), and the uncommonly tender "Fall Inside."
The George Harrison-penned tune, "Sour Milk Sea," is nothing special; the Beatles' own version, cut in demo-like circumstances as they were rehearsing tunes shortly before starting work on The White Album, has long been available on bootleg. (Richie Unterberger, allmusic.com)
This is again a review that I can't understand. But the beauty lies in this case in the ears of the listener...namely mine. And they hear an album that has only few weaknesses and presents a lot of strong songs. And that's the reason why I like this album. Enjoy.(Frank)
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Thanks, Frank! This is a strange album for many reasons: It has got a kind of morbid atmosphere when you discover that more than half of the personal that played on it passed away since. Although it ranks as one of the first "supergroup" meetings (three fourths of the Beatles + honorary Fabs Klaus Voorman and Billy Preston + While My Guitar-Mysterioso + Nicky Hopkins + Leon Russell + Beaver & Krause + Mal Evans + assorted Wrecking Crew members), musically it's more a thing of too many cooks spoil the stew. Lomax often astonishly sounds like The Small Faces' Steve Marriott but he's lacking the latter's melodically controlled yet exuberant R'n'B style and amazing vocal accuracy.
ReplyDeleteWhile there are a lot of very promising tunes on the album it's a pity that Lomax didn't continue the interesting path he grounded with Liverpudlian band The Undertakers where, when interpreting a pop or beat song, he didn't do vocal excursions and detours into Northern Soul and R'n'B shouting.
Past Apple, in 1970, Lomax recorded an album with Heavy Jelly (one half of The Aynsley Dunbar Retaliation with the wonderful John Morsehead on guitar) that wasn't released officially because of contractional reasons.