LPCDreissues: Looking forward to the past

day in 1969 on Bob Shad's Mainstream label (Mainstream S/6108), an imprintmore familiar to jazz and blues fans than devotees of psych/pop. Shad, who hadworked as an A&R man for Mercury, Savoy and Emarcy in the '50s, working withthe likes of Sarah Vaughan, Blue Mitchell and Curtis Fuller, had the fortune tosign the then-unknown Big Brother And The Holding Company, whose contract,along with that of the band's vocalist Janis Joplin, Shad wisely sold for a notinsignificantsum to Columbia.Perhaps Shad thought he was going to repeat his commercial triumph with TheGrowing Concern. However, the band was a different proposition altogether withits emphasis on beautiful vocal harmonies and fantastic guitar and organ workrather than the Joplin-dominated R&B of Big Brother, and consequently Shadonly allowed the group into the studio on a single occasion, dropping them fromthe label after this, their eponymous debut.All in all this is a fine album. The support of vocalists Bonnie MacDonald andMary Garstki are an intrinsic part of the band's distinctive sound, and the songscontributed by organist Dan Passaglia, bassist John Pedley and guitarist RalphToms are more than equal to the offerings from more illustrious contemporaries,such as Mike Hugg (Mister You're A Better Man Than I) or Stephen Stills (SitDown I Think I Love You).The album, which is brilliantly recorded, is of a consistently high musical qualityand the band surely deserved a better fate than the obscurity that Shad'sindifference consigned them to. Highly recommendedSide 11. Hard Hard Year2. Edge Of Time3. Tomorrow Has Been Cancelled4. A Boy I Once Knew Well5. All I Really WantSide 21. Mister You're A Better Man Than I2. What Kind Of Life3. Other Side Of Life4. I Know A Girl5. Sit Down I Think I Love You