CHAPTER 2

Dragonwyck were a band who played some pretty decent music, but suffered from doing so a few years too late to make the jump from a regional favorite to something more. This album is a great example of the kind of late-sixties fuzz-guitar and keyboard psych that bands like Strawberry Alarm Clock and Jefferson Airplane made, only six years later. Unfortunately for Dragonwyck, by the time these tracks were recorded and fully mixed in 1973 tastes had changed and their album wouldn’t see an official release until more than thirty years later under the German label World in Sound.

The core lineup of the group formed in Cleveland, Ohio in 1969 under the name The Sunrise, as which they would record a local 45 single that immediately disappeared. Undeterred the band flirted with a name change to Speed before replacing their keyboard player and bassist and settling on the name Dragonwyck. This is their second album, having come a few years after their debut which was recorded mostly live at a club where the band frequently played. The group would record another single a year later (both sides of which are included on this CD issue) before disbanding altogether later that year. While guitarist Tom Brehm resurrected the name Dragonwyck in 2006 for a brief European club tour using studio musicians, this album really represents the end of the short-lived quintet.

The band has a handful of notable characteristics that set them apart from so many similar flash-in-the- pan stories of that era. First, lead singer Bill Pettijohn delivers an uncanny Jim Morrison imitation on many of these songs (“He Loves You” and “Freedom Son” in particular). Keyboardist John Hall is the other curio here, bouncing between John Pinder and Ray Manzarek on mellotron, Hammond and moog. And speaking of the Moody Blues, Pettijohn also does a pretty good Justin Hayward on “Lady” and “Forever only Last a Little While”. The band doesn’t attempt to hide their influences, with Pettijohn having appeared on the Jerry Springer Show to tout his Doors cover band and Dragonwyck having been known to play the entire Moody’s album “Days of Future Passed” at live shows in the early seventies.

But beyond the band’s early ‘tribute’ sensibilities there’s some decent music here as well, and at least these are all original compositions. Guitarist Tom Brehm plays some tasty psych guitar that, if nothing else, demonstrates the difference between British and American music of that day with a tendency toward copious layers of heavy and loud licks. Hall’s mellotron includes string tracks on songs like “Dead Man” which both reinforce the Moody’s vibe and give the music a richness to complement the guitars and drums.

The two bonus tracks are from the band’s last recording, a 45 single released in 1974 with pretty much no distribution or promotion. These are more pop-flavored tracks with piano replacing the mellotron, and a straight-ahead rock rhythm rather than the meandering psych arrangements of the band’s earlier work.

This is a decent album to listen to today, but it is certainly understandable why it (and the band) didn’t take off in 1973. Today we have a nostalgic and artistic appreciation for great sixties psych; but when Dragonwyck were donning capes and playing this stuff in the clubs of 1973-74 they were unfortunately already an anachronism. Three stars for the solid musicianship and for playing original material despite having a strong tribute-band vibe, but not quite essential.

peace