Edgar Broughton Band - The Harvest Years 1969-1973 (4CD Box Set) (2011) 

Genre: Rock / Psychedelic Rock / Progressive Blues Rock / Classic Rock


Edgar Broughton Band The Harvest Years 196 -1973 (2011 UK 4CD album set - Aswell as comprising digitally remastered versions of their first five albums ('Wasa Wasa', 'Sing Brother Sing', 'Edgar Broughton Band', 'Inside Out' and 'Oora'), this collection also features the previously unreleased concert 'Live At Hyde Park, London, 18th July 1970'. It was the band's third appearance at the park, on a bill featuring fellow Harvest luminaries Roy Harper, Kevin Ayers, and headlined by Pink Floyd. Their 45 minute set is faithfully reproduced in all its raw and raucous glory!).

Most retrospectives of the late 1960s and early 1970s musical counterculture tend to focus on the gentler side, the pastoral underground that kept the spirit of folk Eden alive. What still remains unfashionably overlooked is the scungier reaction to the hippy idyll: those artists whose refusal to smoke the peace pipe was expressed in a rawer, more desperate form of heavy blues-aftermath rock. Cast as willing outsiders from the start, the likes of Groundhogs, Pink Fairies, and Global Village Trucking Company were slated to play outside the fence, slamming and jamming protests and gurning crudities from the back of a flatbed truck. Mudflecked descendants of Winstanley’s Diggers, arriving in clapped-out vans, to announce the wilting of flower power. Music from a paradise garden turned to mud. The most enduring of these were The Edgar Broughton Band, a righteous, Beefheart-loving brigade formed by Broughton brothers Robert (aka ‘Edgar’) and Steve, with bassist Arthur Grant, in mid-’60s Warwick. With in- again-out-again guitarist Victor Unitt, the outfit delivered a pounding to the Tolkien-tranquilised hordes of UFO and Middle Earth, taking up a strategic position in the Notting Hill scene in ’68, from where they were signed to Blackhill Enterprises and became an early addition to EMI’s ‘alternative’ label, Harvest. This generation of the underground - which effectively lasted until the economic crises of the Heath administration, only to dissipate into the nationwide commune scene and the rugged ordeal of outdoor free festivals – fell into a curious blind spot in UK politics, with general rage against the Man and the Machine, but few specific issues to grapple with. How much more angry energy would’ve been generated had Britain stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the US in Vietnam? As this four-CD set - comprising five LPs plus an unreleased Hyde Park concert from 1970 - reveals, EBB had rage (and humour) in spades. “Death Of An Electric Citizen”, from debut Wasa Wasa, is a Beefheartian romp, as is single “Apache Drop Out”, a curious mix of Safe As Milk boogie and pastiche Shadows. And in channelling their hate into “Out Demons Out!”, the ritual chant of the festival community, taped at a ‘live studio’ concert at Abbey Road in December 1969, they found their vocation. Riffing off The Fugs’ Pentagon-cleansing anthem, “Demons” is goof-off protest folk with a throbbing bluesy vein. Shortly after came the single “Up Yours!”, a V-sign to the political process that today’s student dissenters would be wise to adopt. Sing Brother Sing (1970), full of “songs about child molesters, nymphos and the imminent apocalypse”, according to one review, and The Edgar Broughton Band (1971) were the group’s zenith. Concerts reveal EBB in their element, but surprise subtleties such as the string arrangements and stereo guitar effects on “For Dr Spock” and David Bedfords’s orchestrations on “Evening Over Rooftops” show the group - now back with Unitt - to be more inventive in the studio than their scuzzy image might suggest. “... Rooftops” aspires to epic status, a skyline meditation, uncannily pre-echoing Neil Young’s “Like A Hurricane”, while “The Birth” is lanky and goosey-loose, gritted with hoarse harmonica. For Inside Out (1972), they decamped to a Devonshire mansion. Its remoteness from city life is audible in more laidback, country-ish textures, though “Homes Fit For Heroes” and “Double Agent” still dealt with contemporary issues. Oora (1973) keeps on trucking through triumphalist rock (“Things On My Mind”) and austerity folk-rock (“Eviction”); the end of the Harvest story but not the band, who continue the mission to this day. In this new age of cuts, riots and harsh winters, their music might just start making sense.

Tracklist
CD1
1969 Wasa Wasa
Wasa Wasa is the debut album by progressive rock band, Edgar Broughton Band. The album was originally released as "Harvest SHVL 757" in July 1969 and was produced by Peter Jenner. The 2004 CD reissue contained 5 previousy unreleased bonus tracks, 4 of them being demos recorded by the band when they were a blues outfit called "The Edgar Broughton Blues Band". These tracks feature guitarist Victor Unitt, who left the band when they started to go into progressive rock, stating the members of the band to be "sell-outs". The last bonus track being a jamming session which was recorded on 21 January 1969, which was discovered when remastering the album.
Personnel
* Edgar Broughton - Vocals, guitar
* Arthur Grant - Bass guitar, vocals
* Steve Broughton - Drums
* Victor Unitt - Guitar (bonus tracks 1-4)

1969 Wasa Wasa
01 Death Of An Electric Citizen
02 American Boy Soldier
03 Why Can't Somebody Love Me?
04 Neptune
05 Evil
06 Crying
07 Love In The Rain
08 Dawn Crept Away
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09 Out Demons Out (Single A Side)
10 Up Yours! (Single A Side)
11 Freedom (Single B Side)
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1970 Sing Brother Sing
side one
12 There's No Vibrations, But Wait!
13 The Moth A. The Moth B. People C. Peter
14 Momma's Reward (Keep Them Freak's A Rollin')
15 Refugee
16 Officer Dan

CD2
1970 Sing Brother Sing
Sing Brother Sing is the second album by progressive rock band, Edgar Broughton Band. It was originally released as "Harvest SHVL 772" in June 1970. The 2004 CD reissue contains 8 bonus tracks.
Personnel
* Edgar Broughton - Vocals, guitar
* Arthur Grant - Bass guitar, vocals
* Steve Broughton - Drums
1971 Edgar Broughton Band
Edgar Broughton Band was the self-titled third album of the band Edgar Broughton Band. The album is known amongst fans as "The Meat Album", as the album cover features lots of meat on hangers in a warehouse; a human can also be seen hanging amongst the meat. The 2004 CD reissue features 3 bonus tracks.
Personnel
* Edgar Broughton - Vocals, guitar
* Arthur Grant - Bass guitar, vocals
* Steve Broughton - Drums, vocals
* Victor Unitt - Guitar, harmonica, piano, organ, vocals

1970 Sing Brother Sing
side two
01 Old Gopher
02 Aphrodite
03 Granma
04 Psychopath: A. The Psychopath B. Is For Butterflies
05 It's Falling Away
06 Apache Drop Out
1971 Edgar Broughton Band
07 Evening Over Rooftops
08 The Birth
09 Piece Of My Own
10 Poppy
11 Don't Even Know Which Day It Is
12 House Of Turnabout
13 Madhatter
14 Getting Hard / What Is A Woman For?
15 Thinking Of You
16 For Dr Spock (Parts 1 & 2)
17 Hotel Room
18 Call Me A Liar

CD3
1972 In Side Out
Inside Out was the fourth album by progressive rock group, Edgar Broughton Band. The album was originally released as "Harvest SHTC 252" in July 1972. The 2004 CD reissue features 3 bonus tracks.
Personnel
* Edgar Broughton - Vocals, guitar
* Arthur Grant - Bass guitar, vocals
* Steve Broughton - Drums, vocals
* Victor Unitt - Guitars, vocals
1973 Oora
Oora is the fifth album by progressive rock group, The Edgar Broughton Band. It was originally released as "Harvest SHVL 810" in May 1973, it was also the last album to be released on Harvest Records. The 2004 CD reissue features 1 bonus track.
Personnel
* Edgar Broughton - Lead vocals, guitar, bass guitar on "Hi-Jack Boogie"
* Arthur Grant - Bass guitar, guitar on "Hurricane Man" and "Hi-Jack Boogie"
* Steve Broughton - Vocals, drums, percussion, guitars, tubular bells, tambourine
* Victor Unitt - Backing vocals, guitars, Spanish guitar on "Exhibits From A New Museum", piano, lead vocals on "Oh You Crazy Boy!"
Guest personnel
* Madeline Bell - backing vocals, "Rock 'n' Roller", "Things On My Mind"' & "Face From A Window"
* Doris Troy - backing vocals, '"Rock 'n' Roller", "Things On My Mind" & "Face From A Window"
* Lisa Strike - backing vocals, "Rock 'n' Roller", "Things On My Mind" & "Face From A Window"
* Maggie Thomas - backing vocals on "Oh You Crazy Boy!"
* David Bedford - piano on "Green Lights"

1972 In Side Out
01 Get Out Of Bed / Theres Nobody There / Side By Side
02 Sister Angela
03 I Got Mad
04 They Took It Away
05 Homes Fit For Heroes
06 Gone Blue
07 Chilly Morning Mama
08 The Rake
09 Totin' This Guitar
10 Double Agent
11 It's Not You
12 Rock 'N Roll
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13 Someone (Single B Side)
14 Mr Crosby (Single B Side)
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1973 Oora
side one
15 Hurricane Man / Rock N' Roller
16 Roccococooler
17 Eviction
18 Oh You Crazy Boy!
19 Things On My Mind

CD4
biography / www.allmusic.com
Formed in Warwick, England, the Edgar Broughton Band arrived on the London underground music scene in 1968. Led by the Broughton brothers, vocalist / guitarist Edgar and drummer Steve, and fleshed out by bassist Arthur Grant and guitarist Victor Unitt (who also briefly served with the Pretty Things), they soon signed with the Harvest label and issued their debut, Wasa Wasa, a collection of underground electric blues jams anchored by Edgar's Captain Beefheart-like vocals, in late 1969. The Edgar Broughton Band returned in 1970 with Sing Brother Sing, which reached the U.K. Top 20 and spawned a pair of minor hit singles, "Out Demons Out" and "Apache Drop-Out" (a fusion of Beefheart's "Dropout Boogie" and the Shadows' "Apache"). The group seemed poised for a major commercial breakthrough, but even as their brand of heavy rock was flourishing thanks to groups like Black Sabbath and Deep Purple, the Broughton Band made an about-face, and their music became considerably more quiet and politically charged. Their chart momentum stalled, and a 1971 self-titled effort failed to catch on. After both 1972's Inside Out and 1973's Oora met a similar fate, the group left Harvest for NEMS. Legal wrangles locked them out of the studio for a number of months, but they finally resurfaced in 1975 - minus Unitt, who'd been replaced by guitarist John Thomas - with Bandages. A brief breakup followed, but in 1978 they returned with Live Hits Harder. By the release of 1979's Parlez Vous English?, the group had expanded to a six-piece, using the name the Broughtons. Returning to the Edgar Broughton Band moniker, the band became a three-piece for 1982's Super Chip: The Final Silicon Solution, a concept album filled with synthesizers and new wave tempos. Touring continued throughout '80s, '90s, and 2000s. In 2004 the band's six albums for the Harvest label were reissued, each featuring numerous bonus tracks.

1973 Oora
side two
01 Exhibits From A New Museum / Green Lights
02 Face From A Window / Pretty / Hi-Jack Boogie / Slow Down
03 Capers
Live At Hyde Park, London 18th July 1970
(previously unrleased)
04 Love In The Rain
05 Silver Needle
06 Drop Out Boogie
07 Refugee
08 American Boy Soldier
09 Out Demons Out