Customer Reviews

Appaloosa

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Appaloosa has a sound that is hard to put in a box, maybe folk rock baroque. The lead singer, John Compton, has an easy intimacy, which Robin Bateau's faithful cello complements through many of the ballads. Each song is a sweet private journey.
This was a favorite of mine when it was first recorded 35 years ago. I looked for a copy for 25 years before I tracked down John Compton on the internet. So glad this album has finally be released on CD!

Of all the albums celebrated in the Lost in the Grooves anthology, this is the one that drove our central thesis-your favorite album is in this book, and you've never even heard of it!-home to me. MVP essayist Brian Doherty picked this exquisite 1969 LP, and wrote so eloquently on its sophisticated charms that I knew I had to hear it. Happily, Edwin Letcher had bought it new, and sure enough, I fell in love. It's neat to replace my poppy CDR with this official reissue (though the mix sounds a little sweeter and I suspect there were some uncredited shenanigans at the mixing board). John Parker Compton might just have been the most effortlessly upper crust songwriter of the sixties. His band sounds like the Left Banke filtered through the Social Register and smeared on a blini. These charming, arch, irresistible melodies, baroque, loping and very clever, will blow the mind of anyone who digs the Kinks and Zombies, and who longs for something that good that they've never heard. This is it, lost in the grooves and found anew. (review originally appeared in Scram Magazine #22)

Al Kooper produced Appaloosa when an A&R big wig at Columbia in the late 1960s. This is well written folk with a cello.

This is a good album, but if buying to get Kooper's usually big jazz sound, pause. There is one piece with a saprano sax, and another with the bold brass R&B that was Kopper's signature for the era.

But most songs here are quiet and subtle. Appaloosa takes time to grow on you. But it will if you enjoy what I described. This is not essential, but if you like Kooper and the experimentation that stamped rock during this era, this is an impressive pick.

Yeah, it was a record when it first came out. A mellow masterpiece from the sixties. This was John Compton's diamond. Unfortunately it was downhill from here. That said if you enjoy mellow, thoughtful, string laced ballads, you won't be disappointed. There is a reason this CD still is around. I still frequently listen to it on Sunday mornings or on a cold winter's day in Maine.

Charming and personable rather than great - or even very good - music, this album is more notable for its overall atmosphere than for its individual songs. Here we have the golden but diffident aspirations of a talented youth, full of poetic impulses but not quite sure what to do with them. Music may be the vehicle on this occasion but the general amorphousness suggests that it could just as easily have been poetry or painting. Only a couple of the songs gel into something with a distinct shape; the rest blend into a hazy formlessness that is pleasant to drift along to but lacks any sense of destination. Even so, the album typifies the Minor Album of the late-60s: even within its limitations it gropes towards something higher than itself. A few years later, music had settled into a complacent homogeneity which makes the intimations of transcendence presented here seem like the last gasps of a Golden Age.

Late 60's early 70's, I'd drive my VW Beetle accross the Panama Isthmus from Margarita to La Boca Tech in Balboa and listen to the Moody Blues, CS&N,and Appaloosa. Made the 45 minute drive sooo many times.... going up into the mountains, high into the clouds, and always feeling good. This album is still in my posession all these years later and I listen to it often and never tire. It's a reminder when music was real, and done professionally in one take. And it reminds me of my super mellow days driving from the East Coast to West Coast in less than an hour. Thank you Appaloosa for this one gigantic contribution.

Rolie

As a boy I studied cello with Gene Rosov, seen on the CD cover. Then mother painted the ceiling, splattering paint on one side of this out of print gem. Locating a used copy years later, I was floored when the clerk sold it to me for $.49! Upon learning of the recent CD release, I bought two copies, for mom and I, and made her day too. The violin/cello solos and arrangements interweave to give the folk music a unique and unforgettable sound. This music is pure and vibrant, produced by the legendary Al Kooper. The style was called folk-baroque in the late '60s. This, the Beatles, Moody Blues and other bands inspired me to learn other instruments and ultimately compose music. Today the songs are deep rooted gems. Enjoy!

I had this album when it was released and I loved it - since then I've lost it , had it on cassette, lost the cassette, and I am just thrilled to see it released again. I find the song lyrics to be a little too precious sometimes, but that is a small complaint.
Appaloosa was the first band that came to mind the first time I heard Antony and the Johnsons.