December 2025
Last month, SoundStage! Xperience posted part one of my list of LPs that I think are worth hearing. The records on my list aren’t as popular as others that get heavy airplay or show up in articles in classic rock mags, and they didn’t necessarily sell many copies. But I like them and think they deserve more notice than they often receive. Here are my remaining recommendations, to round out my list to ten.
The Beach Boys: Sunflower (1970)
When Brian Wilson’s mental-health issues rendered him unable to complete Smile in 1967, he handed production duties for the Beach Boys’ recordings to the rest of the band. The eight albums the group released over the next six years each listed the Beach Boys as producers.
All those albums have merit, and some are very good. Sunflower received glowing notices when it was released and has long been recognized as one of the Beach Boys’ finest—not quite Pet Sounds (1966), but as close as the band would ever come again.
Brian’s brother Dennis stepped forward with four songs for the album. “Slip on Through” embraces the easy-flowing pop songcraft and intricate harmonies of the band, but the production feels like a fresh move into the 1970s. The rollicking “Got to Know the Woman” is a stab at R&B that would have fit well on the band’s 1967 album Wild Honey. The Latin percussion on “It’s About Time” gives the track a contemporary twist and enlivens it. “Forever” is a lovely ballad that stands with any love song the Beach Boys recorded at their peak. The luscious harmonies on the song are a reminder that groups like Crosby, Stills & Nash learned a lot from the Beach Boys, but never surpassed them.
Brian Wilson was the primary writer of five songs and contributed to two others. “This Whole World” is the Beach Boys at their peak, with doo-wop vocal harmonies that don’t sound dated and a complicated structure that resolves itself in under two minutes. “Add Some Music to Your Day” is Brian’s mission statement, and “Our Sweet Love” is as pretty and delicate as anything on Pet Sounds. “Cool, Cool Water” is the longest track on the album and the most ambitious. The sessions for Smile included earlier versions of the song, and this final take embraces Wilson’s experimental streak.
Brian wrote “All I Wanna Do” with Mike Love, and when I played it while writing this piece, I was struck by the impression that it wouldn’t be out of place on a Tame Impala album. Al Jardine wrote “At My Window” with Brian’s help, and it’s a lightweight but likable track. Bruce Johnston and Brian wrote “Deirdre,” the track on the album that is most reminiscent of the old Beach Boys. Johnston also penned “Tears in the Morning,” which sounds like it wandered in from a different album.
Sunflower is remarkably fresh, even now, and it should have brought the Beach Boys back to the charts. It is among the group’s most consistent albums, and the arrangements retained the band’s signature charms while moving their music forward.
Alas, the Beach Boys were no longer hip. In the UK, where they remained popular, Sunflower reached number 29. In the US, it stopped at 151.
Rod Stewart: Gasoline Alley (1970)
Soon after Rod Stewart signed a recording contract with Mercury Records, he replaced Steve Marriott as the lead singer of the band Small Faces. The early years of his solo career coincided with his time with the Faces, as they came to call themselves. The Faces played great, slightly ragged rock’n’roll, while Rod cast a wider net stylistically on his solo records. Those records rocked plenty, though, and the Faces guested on quite a few tracks.
Stewart’s first album, An Old Raincoat Won’t Ever Let You Down (1970, but released in the US in late 1969 as The Rod Stewart Album), is a mix of rock and folk that would establish the template for his next few recordings. It’s a very good record, but Gasoline Alley, released about six months later, is his first masterpiece.
The acoustic guitars that open the title track give it a folk-music tint that never leaves the song, even when Ron Wood’s electric guitars chime in. Stanley Matthews’s mandolin helps maintain the slightly pastoral feel. Stewart has always been a talented lyricist, and this song about wanting to return home is filled with vivid imagery about memory and longing.
Bob Dylan didn’t release his recording of “Only a Hobo” until 1991 on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3. In the version on Gasoline Alley, Stewart’s vocal performance is sensitive and unforced. What could have been a mawkish song is instead a deeply moving tale of a difficult life that ends sadly but deserves a dignified acknowledgement. Acoustic guitars set the tone of the song. After each chorus, Ron Wood on electric guitar and Dick Powell on violin play a melody line that moves the song forward without breaking its spell.
Rod’s version of “Country Comfort” preceded Elton John’s by a couple of months, and he more convincingly expresses its celebration of a bucolic life. Stewart’s disarming and touching “Lady Day” is a wistful memory of unrequited love, rekindled when the narrator sees the object of his affection much later in life. “Jo’s Lament,” another Stewart tune, tells the story of a man who left his expectant lover to pursue his own ambitions. Stewart’s sharp eye for detail manages to create strong storylines in just a few lines.
The Faces appear on “My Way of Giving,” a song Small Faces had recorded a few years earlier. Two other tracks, “It’s All Over Now” and “You’re My Girl (I Don’t Want to Discuss It),” feature members of the Faces, with some substitutions. All three tracks are played on electric instruments and rock fiercely. But even the songs that are largely acoustic on Gasoline Alley have a strong rock’n’roll spirit.
That spirit is especially prominent in Stewart’s take on “Cut Across Shorty,” a tune singer Eddie Cochran recorded shortly before his death in 1960. Cochran’s rockabilly version has a country-and-western streak that fits the story told in the song about two young men who “Had to prove who could run the fastest / To win Miss Lucy’s hand.” Stewart’s arrangement, meanwhile, uses acoustic guitars and fiddle to help relocate the story to the English countryside. Micky Waller’s presence on drums provides assurance that the tune will rock with force.
Of the two men in the story, Dan has the advantage of money and looks, but when Rod sings that his opponent, Shorty, “musta had that something, boys / That can’t be found in books,” he sounds both knowing and sly. Stewart seems to be, with a wink, referring to himself in those lines. Cochran’s recording barely hits the two-minute mark, but Rod’s runs over seven, and not a moment is wasted. His interpretation expresses contempt for the British class system while telling us that rock’n’roll—and life—can transcend it.
It’s hard to believe Stewart could top Gasoline Alley, but a year later he did with Every Picture Tells a Story. The title tune on the latter album is one of the greatest in rock’n’roll history. Never a Dull Moment followed in 1972, and it was a strong outing that fell just a bit short of the sheer brilliance of the two that preceded it. Smiler (1974) felt like a contract fulfillment. Rod signed with Warner Bros. in 1975 and has caused head scratching among listeners ever since.
Spirit: Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus (1970)
I covered Spirit in detail in my Curator column three years ago, but this seems like a good place to remind people about the group’s best album. Spirit had recorded three very good records when they moved from Ode Records to Epic Records. Producer Lou Adler owned Ode, and he’d produced Spirit’s first three albums there. David Briggs oversaw the group’s fourth LP.
Briggs brought some focus to the group in the studio while still allowing them to indulge their taste for improvisation and experimentation with other genres of music, especially jazz. Guitarist Randy California wrote seven of the album’s twelve tracks, and singer/keyboardist Jay Ferguson penned four others.
California’s “Prelude—Nothing to Hide” announces the album’s recurring themes of environmentalism and consumerism. A subdued, acoustic-guitar-based opening quickly moves to a harder-rocking section that features Randy California on guitar. He was one of the best and most inventive guitarists in rock and deserves wider renown. “Nature’s Way” is the one Spirit tune that still gets airplay on classic-rock radio, and for good reason. It has a radio-friendly melody and majestic harmony vocals.
Ferguson’s “Animal Zoo” states the album’s themes with brutal force:
Looking at my body, I’m slipping down (so far)
The air I breathe and the water I drink
Is selling me short and turning me ’round
A touch of humor helps the tune avoid being heavy-handed. California and John Locke, the group’s primary keyboard player, co-wrote “Love Has Found a Way,” which uses synthesizers to good effect and injects some optimism into the mood of the album. California then snaps the listener back into reality with “Why Can’t I Be Free,” singing, “I cry, when you say / That you can’t free me (please free me).”
Locke’s lone solo composition is “Space Child,” another synth-heavy track that transcends its somewhat dated sound because of Locke’s nicely done jazz improvisation on piano. Ferguson’s “Mr. Skin” is a successful mix of soul and rock, with a great horn chart by jazz arranger David Blumberg. Blumberg also wrote the arrangement for “Morning Will Come,” a guitar rave-up that could have been a hit for the group if Epic had released it as a single.
Ferguson’s “When I Touch You” is as close as the group would come to prog rock, with swirling, jagged guitars and a thumping bass line by Mark Andes. “Street Worm,” another Ferguson song, describes the life of a street person. It’s undoubtedly a romanticized portrait of a person who’s unhoused, but it is exhilarating hard rock.
“Life Has Just Begun” is an introspective ballad, played with gentle sensitivity by the band. California sings with restrained passion, and the rest of the band sings beautiful harmonies behind him. A string arrangement, uncredited, enhances the track without overpowering it. “Soldier” brings Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus to a subdued close with entrancing vocals and a brief return to the album’s opening theme.
Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus was Spirit’s lowest-charting album when it was released, but over time it became the band’s biggest seller. Aside from “Nature’s Way,” the group hasn’t gained traction on classic-rock radio, but Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus is one of the finest records of the classic-rock era.
The Beau Brummels: Triangle (1967)
The Beau Brummels were an American band that had enjoyed success beginning in late 1964, just as the British Invasion was ramping up. They scored three Top 40 hits over the next seven months: “Laugh, Laugh,” “Just a Little,” and “You Tell Me Why.” Sly Stone, who would soon go on to great success on his own, produced those singles, as well as the group’s first two LPs.
One of life’s great mysteries is that the fourth Beau Brummels single, “Don’t Talk to Strangers,” only reached number 52. Stone once again produced, and it has all the elements of a surefire hit. The group finished out its run of singles with Autumn Records in December 1965 with a cover of the Lovin’ Spoonful’s “Good Time Music,” a puzzling choice made by a different producer.
When Autumn Records shut down in the fall of 1966, it sold its holdings to Warner Bros. Records. The sale did not, apparently, include the publishing rights for the Beau Brummels, so their first album for Warner Bros. was composed of songs written by the Beatles, John Phillips, Bob Dylan, and others. Although it’s often dismissed by fans and critics, Beau Brummels ’66 has some fine moments, including a tough cover of “Louie, Louie” and a surprisingly effective interpretation of “These Boots Are Made for Walking.”
Still, the Beau Brummels had demonstrated that they wrote good songs and could make the charts. They deserved to have that chance again. Singer and guitarist Ron Elliott had been writing the group’s songs from the beginning, sometimes in collaboration with Bob Durand, who was not part of the band. Beginning with Triangle, Elliott also started writing with Sal Valentino, the group’s lead singer. Lenny Waronker produced that album and gave the Beau Brummels enough room to follow their impulses.
By 1967, the Beau Brummels were down to three members: Elliott, Valentino, and bassist/guitarist Ron Meagher. The original bass player and drummer had moved on, so Waronker brought top session players into the studio, including guitarist James Burton, bassist Carol Kaye, drummer Jim Gordon, and arranger/keyboardist Van Dyke Parks.
1967 was an exciting year in rock, with bands taking great leaps in style and recording techniques. Waronker encouraged the Beau Brummels to take advantage of that freedom. The Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, and other bands were giving country music a try, and several songs on Triangle have a strong country flavor. Elliott and Durand wrote “Are You Happy?,” which successfully mingles country and pop. Some great guitar picking from Burton gives the track depth and complex beauty.
A banjo line, not listed in any credits I’ve seen, helps give “The Keeper of Time” a firm base in tradition, but a string arrangement adds a strain of baroque rock that, somehow, doesn’t clash with everything else going on in the song. “And I’ve Seen Her” also uses a pronounced banjo line and contains elements of folk, country, and rock.
“The Keeper of Time” is the kind of country pop that Glen Campbell was starting to take to the charts in 1967. Ironically, the one song with a strong country pedigree, Merle Travis’s “Nine Pound Hammer,” gets a lively folk-rock reading from the Beau Brummels. Acoustic guitars intermingle with a terrific tremolo-heavy guitar from Burton and a typically killer bass line from Kaye. Burton’s sharply etched slide guitar in the closing of the song adds a slight blues touch.
The other cover song on the album is a clever take on Randy Newman’s “Old Kentucky Home,” three years before Newman recorded it.
Psychedelia took many unexpected turns in 1967, including the practice of using strings to create intricate layers of sound. The lush string arrangement for “Only Dreaming Now” is reminiscent of some of the work the Beatles, the Left Banke, and even the Rolling Stones were doing. Van Dyke Parks added an accordion that gives the song a Paris-café vibe. He brings his accordion along for “Magic Hollow,” but also plays harpsichord on the song.
Triangle is not a rock’n’roll album, but it’s a sophisticated pop record by a band that decided to follow its instincts and create something unique. The only album I can think of to compare it to is Love’s Forever Changes, which has a darker undercurrent. Triangle is vaguely mystical. I don’t really know what “Painter of Women” is about, but the mingling of folk guitars and Middle Eastern melodies is enchanting. “Keeper of Time” is similarly evocative rather than explicit, but the melody and instrumentation, along with Valentino’s exuberant vocal, get the song’s point across.
By the time the Beau Brummels recorded Bradley’s Barn in 1968, Ron Meagher was gone. Waronker was once again the producer and brought in session players to help Elliott and Valentino make an early country-rock classic. Neither that album nor Triangle went anywhere commercially, which is puzzling from this distance.
Triangle is like a rich holiday dessert, and the first time through it helps to pace yourself and let it settle. Elliott did much of the arranging on the album, and it is filled with small details that reveal themselves over time.
Personnel changes probably led to difficulty in putting together a tour, which helps explain Triangle’s poor commercial performance. It’s also possible that it just got lost in rock’s creative outpouring in 1967. Do yourself a favor and discover it now.
Big Star: Third/Sister Lovers (1974, released 1978)
Big Star released two critically acclaimed albums in the early ’70s: #1 Record (1972) and Radio City (1974). Unfortunately, the band was signed to Ardent Records, a subsidiary of Stax Records. Stax was in decline at that point, and Big Star’s records were poorly distributed. In addition, Big Star made melodic, rock-based pop in an era hungry for what critic John Mendelsohn derisively called “da boogie blues.” Both albums sold poorly upon release.
By the time the group recorded its third album, it was down to two members: guitarist/singer Alex Chilton and drummer Jody Stephens. Chris Bell, who wrote half the songs on #1 Record and arranged the vocal harmonies, left after that album to pursue a solo career. Bassist Andy Hummel, who contributed songs to both #1 Record and Radio City, decided to return to college.
Chilton and Stephens went into Ardent Studios in Memphis in the fall of 1974 with producer Jim Dickinson, who played on the sessions and hired other Memphis-based musicians to fill things out. The album’s stark, reserved feel reflects the mood of its creators. Big Star hadn’t succeeded, despite its talents. Its failure only reinforced Chilton’s cynicism about the music industry. He had been a member of the Box Tops when he was still in his teens and was aware of how exploitative and wearying a life in music could be.
Chilton, Stephens, and Dickinson recorded a lot of material, but by 1975 Stax had closed its doors; this meant Big Star’s third album languished unreleased, although Ardent had done a test pressing. The album finally saw the light of day in 1978 when Aura Records in the UK released it as The Third Album, and PVC Records in the US released it as 3rd. The two releases had slightly different song lineups and sequencing. In 1991, Rykodisc released Third/Sister Lovers, an expanded CD version of the album that included 19 tracks from the original sessions.
Omnivore Records released the album on vinyl in 2011 with the cover and song lineup of Ardent’s test pressing. The cover says Big Star III, but Omnivore’s catalog lists it as Third [Test Pressing Edition]. I have a re-pressing of the album that Omnivore did in 2022. I also have the Rykodisc CD. I like the brevity of the vinyl release, which contains 14 tracks, but the Rykodisc set has some terrific songs that help fill out the story.
The string arrangement on “Stroke It Noel” leans towards grandly appointed pop music, but Stephens’s drums add punch and a rock’n’roll foundation. Chilton’s anguished vocal gives the song resonance and emotional power. The strong melody and structure are good examples of Chilton’s songcraft.
“Thank You Friends” has all the elements of a great pop song. Chilton’s ringing guitar chords pull you in, Stephens’s kick drum helps keep things moving, and the harmony vocals and strings are luxurious touches that don’t undermine the tune’s force. They also contrast with the bitter sarcasm of Chilton’s lyrics, which take aim at everyone, including music fans, that ignored Big Star:
Thank you, friends
Wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you
I’m so grateful
For all the things you helped me do
“O, Dana,” “Blue Moon,” and “For You” are the kind of intricately arranged melodic rock that should have gained Big Star a large following. “O, Dana” has off-kilter lyrics that suggest a relationship gone wrong, but the other two songs are romantic and sweet. “Take Care” is a tender ballad, but it carries an ambivalent message: “Beware of the need for help / You might need too much.”
The inclusion of a version of “Femme Fatale” that is as drugged-out and slow as the Velvet Underground’s original gives us a clue as to where Chilton was leaning by the time Big Star was ending its run. “Kanga Roo” is distorted and dallying, edging towards anarchic noise at some points. The piano on “Holocaust” is distant and dark-sounding, and the slide guitar is eerie and unsettling. “Downs” dives into noise and chaos to create a track as disturbing and uncompromising as the Velvet Underground’s “Heroin.”
“Jesus Christ” is unironic, but everything is open for interpretation on Third, and the closing line, “And we’re all gonna get born now,” feels a little bit snarky. Even the ballads on the album feel tentative, as if Chilton and Stephens weren’t sure it was worth the effort. A cover of the Jerry Lee Lewis hit “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” is a deconstruction, a signal from Chilton that we can’t even trust rock’n’roll.
Third has moments of real beauty, however, and Chilton defaulted towards pleasing melodies more often than not. Even if he wanted to thwart those intentions, he couldn’t quite bring himself to do it.
As I noted earlier, these records weren’t big sellers, but that is part of their charm. Overplayed records, even ones I like, often lose their appeal for me. Such records belong to everyone, whereas albums like these are known to a smaller number of listeners who’ve made the effort to hear them. Make that effort.
. . . Joseph Taylor
josepht@soundstagenetwork.com
