70s Lost Fusion Classics

Phillip Catherine – “Guitars”

Focus – “Focus con Proby”. Yes, I know that’s the one Focus album above all others that fans love to hate. It’s best if you don’t think of it as a Focus album but just a get-together of talented musicians. Underrated, IMO, and the aforementioned Phillip Catherine plays on it and brought one of his songs from “Guitars” with him, “Sneezing Bull.” The version here is very high-energy and really benefits from the addition of Thijs’s flute, to say nothing of Steve Smith's drumming.

Don’t forget PC’s two duet albums with Larry Coryell, “Twin House” and “Splendid.”

Back Door!

There were three albums from this great English trio, “Back Door,” “8th Street Nites” and “Another Fine Mess.” The instrumentation was bass, sax/flute, and drums, much like Morphine, but was jazz/rock/blues fusion. The bassist, Colin Hodgkinson, has a very distinctive style using full chording. They expanded their sound a bit on the 3rd album, adding keyboards and guitar on some tracks. The drummer was Tony Hicks, not to be confused with the guy from the Hollies. ELP fans will know them from Bullfrog on Works 2, where Hodgkinson and Ron Aspery (the sax/flute player) share the writing credit with Carl Palmer, though they play uncredited on it.

Aussie-Byrd-Brother wrote: presdoug wrote: There is also the great debut, self titled album by Italy's Dedalus from 1973. And mention should also be made of the Italian band Il Baricentro, with their '76 album Sconcerto. Doug, that Dedalus one you mention, that's the one with the eyeballs on the front, right?! If so, I bought a vinyl reissue of it a year or so back, and I remember loving it, but I've really not given it many spins yet. Really unappreciated so far by me, but you've encouraged me to dig it out again!

It's the one with the cover where there are men in business suits, but their heads have been replaced by watch dials. Glad to hear you are investigating them again, friend!

that Orquestra Mirasol are very Hancock, I like it

Two albums by Scottish band Head are excellent, Red Dwarf and Blackpool Cool.





Full album of Blackpool Cool here along with track from Red Dwarf.


Edited by Takeshi Kovacs - July 03 2013 at 15:03

The thing I love about good fusion is that it was one of the only forms of music that

There are some 70's Fusion gems from my native Spain which are not even in PA, someday I should take the time to put their stuff on YouTube (hoping nobody will remove them by author's issues) and propose them for PA addition.

tszirmay wrote: Multi-National band Caldera had 2 amazing albums , Time and Change (1978)

Note that it is Chance, not Change.

tszirmay wrote: and dreamer (1979)

Those are Caldera's third and fourth/final albums. The first is Caldera (1976, reissued on CD in 2004) and the second is Sky Islands (1977).

Caldera's guitarist Jorge Strunz became one-half of Strunz & Farah. S&F's very first (and best) album Frontera, released in 1984, features Caldera alums (keyboardist) Eduardo del Barrio and (flautist) Steve Tavaglione. Really good album!

EDIT: Frontera is the first album as "Strunz & Farah" but the duo recorded an earlier album, Mosaico, under their full names "Jorge Strunz & Ardeshir Farah" (I've not heard that one).

Edited by verslibre - July 03 2013 at 02:36