Sunday, October 13, 2013

Gordon Jackson: The Journey



Nothing to do with Mr Hudson or The Great Escape, this is another slice of Brummie psychedelia from the 1960s.

It comes from Thinking Back, a 1969 album by Gordon Jackson, which is sometimes viewed as a lost Traffic LP.

A review on the Sunbeam Records site explains why:
Gordon Jackson's only album sounds a little like a Traffic LP with a singer who isn't in the band. The similarity is really no surprise, since Traffic men Steve Winwood, Dave Mason, Jim Capaldi, and Chris Wood all played on the record, and Mason produced. Other notables with connections to the Traffic family tree or Marmalade label also appeared, including Luther Grosvenor; Rick Grech, Jim King, and Poli Palmer of Family; and Julie Driscoll. 
There's a languid, minor keyed jazz-folk-psychedelic vibe to the songs, which have a meditative, spontaneously pensive air, appealingly sung by Jackson . Touches of Indian and African music are added by occasional tabla and sitar. 
What keeps this from being as memorable as Traffic or some of the other better late-'60s British psychedelic acts is a certain meandering looseness to the songs that, while quite pleasant, lacks concision and focus.
I think that is fair comment, but this is a lovely track.

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