RUBY IS THE ONE

To me, Earth and Fire is (was) an obscure group, and "Ruby is the One" is an equally obscure song. I purchased this digital single from emusic.com, which, by the way, has a lot of Dutch pop and rock music. Anyway, it's tough to argue that "Ruby is the One" is progressive rock, but it's a good enough classic-rock style song. The song, which features solid playing from a standard rock combo, opens with a rhythmic, stuttering guitar riff which gives way to a verse-chorus structure. The main riff returns around 1:35, when there's a guitar solo, and around 2:18, at which time there's a bit of drum improv. Especially during these sections, I'm reminded of Earth and Fire's compatriots Focus.

"Mechanical Lover" is even less progressive. It doesn't sound like The Association, The Doors, or Jefferson Airplane, but if you were to amalgamate those bands, maybe this is what you'd get. Nice vocal harmonies, but otherwise a pedestrian song, well suited to a b-side.

So, a nice hard-rock single from 1970, but hardly progressive.