SEEDS OF CHANGE

1980 was a transitional year for Kansas and Kerry Livgren. While band mate and lead vocalist/organist Steve Walsh was off doing his own solo project Kerry Livgren was recording this one. While Steve Walsh was laying the groundwork for his departure from Kansas to his rock and roll band Streets with Schemer Dreamer Kerry was trying to explain his conversion to Christianity and doing something on his own. Unfortunately instead of Kansas taking the year off to refresh the creative juices they went full steam ahead with Audio Visions so now we have three albums in 1980 and not enough material for each. If it wasn't for the fact that No One Together was left off Monolith AV would have been a complete dud. It isn't hard to imagine given the best songs on this CD that AV would have been much stronger without Seeds of Change. Try to imagine AV with Mask of the Great Deceiver, Live for the King and Ground Zero instead of Relentless, Got to Rock On and Loner.

So then what about this album? Uneven, experimental and sometimes brilliant in both composition and performance this is album really does represent a "solo' album. The idea of solo works is usually to try music and work with musicians you couldn't do in your band and not worry so much about sales as to make a statement about yourself. As Steve Walsh boldly proclaimed " I am a rock and roll singer" with Schemer Dreamer Kerry pronounces himself as a Christian and as a songwriter who has many layers to him. Kerry explores the blues, pop and symphonic music on this collection.

The best of this from a symphonic view are Mask of the Great Deceiver, Live for the King and Ground Zero. The best of the Pop/Rock songs are Just One Way and How can You Live. So 5 out 7 are really good songs. The other two Whiskey Seed and Down to the core are just filler. Guest appearances here by fellow Kansas members Phil Erhart, Steve Walsh and Robby Steinhardt and other artists such as David Pack, Barrymore Barlow and Ronnie James Dio make this CD a strong multidimensional recording and really Kerry's later solo albums never touched the high of these performances.

All in all Seeds of Change is a good solid album and the best of the three Kansas related albums that came out in 1980 and one of the few in Kerry's solo collections that I would rate higher than 3 stars. This one is 4.