Customer Reviews

Choice Cuts

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

 

 

This is perhaps one of the funkiest Live Albums to come out of the 70's.Harvey Mandell is in top form on guitar, and those of us who know "Sugarcane" well, this is hard to top...This album did not recieve wide public fame when it was released, but if you want to hear a great live album, this is it. Finally it's available on CD, I waited for years for this, the CD is excellent, do yourself a favor and buy this to get "Soul Food" and other classic cuts...PF&DA...Yeah

This is not a review per se. I played on this album and I was just informed of the death of Paul Lagos on October 19th, 2009. Sugarcane Harris passed away, then Dewey Terry, now the drummer Paul Lagos. Our day will come to all of us. In the meantime, listen to the music and rejoice! None of us are making a dime on it :)

Sugarcane Harris, featured with the Mothers of Invention, was the Little Richard of the violin, Paul Lagos was the drummer for Kaleidoscope & Johnny Otis's late 60s-early 70s bands. Randy Resnick was the 1st guitarist to use extensive tapping, (by '72 at the latest), Victor Conte went on to play bass w/Tower of Power, & Harvey Mandel played w/Canned Heat, John Mayall, The Ventures, & the Rolling Stones, (lead guitar on"Hot Stuff"). This is a great band.

This is a smokin' recording. I actually sent a cassette copy of my LP to Sugarcane in Pasadena after I saw him in about 1997 at Village Music in Mill Valley, CA with Dewey Terry. It was an in-store performance and I jumped at the chance to finally see one of my jazz violin heroes from the 1970's. Sugarcane signed all my albums and asked me to send him a copy of PFDA, which I did. He didn't even have a copy of his own. Incidentally, the one and only Ry Cooder played guitar off to the side with Don and Dewey that day. A remarkable little get together for an audience of probably not much more than 50 people.

A fabulous forgotten album(except with those who really care) finally available on CD. A top album in both Harvey and Sugarcane`s solo carreers. None of the songs here are hit-material and the fact that Sugarcane`s vocals, which I personally like very much, is perhaps not for the avarage listener; maybe contributed to the general overlooking of this album.
But any fan of blues, raw rock-funk, Harvey, Sugarcane, Canned Heat and Kaleidoscope(US) should own this. The grooves and the solos are both incredible. Just listen to their very unique version of "Eleanor Rigby". This is also one of the sadly few albums to represent drummer Paul Lagos at his very very best and maybe only equalled by "Incredible Kaleidoscope". There are many really good and great drummers of all styles who haven`t received their deserved fame, but the situation with Lagos is utterly terrible.
I would rate Paul Lagos as my favourite american rock drummer of all times in a division where Danny Seraphine, Fito De Parra, Michael Shrieve, Spencer Dryden, Buddy Miles, Bill Kreutzman and Mickey Hart set the standards.
Buy or die!!!!!!!

This really is a great cd, Sugarcane and Harvey work well together and everyone in the band is a master musician. The songs are excellant, the band were overlooked at the time and this really needs to heard by a wider audiance, the crowd are enthusiastic and add to the atmosphere, in my opinion a lost gem.