Cricklewood Green [Original recording reissued]

Ten Years After | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 12, 1999)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Original recording reissued
• Label: EMI Records
• ASIN: B000007W8F
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #290,734 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Sugar The Road

2. Working On The Road

3. 50,000 Miles Beneath My Brain

4. Year 3,000 Blues

5. Me And My Baby

6. Love Like A Man

7. Circles

8. As The Sun Still Burns Away

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Ten Years After guitarist Alvin Lee's hyperactive guitar solos (fretboard attacks a speed-metal guitarist would be proud to unleash) caught the ear of British rock fans and built a bridge to the blues. The well-produced Cricklewood Green, consisting of all-original material by Lee, is the group's best studio effort. For a band that made its reputation with live performances, most conspicuously at the Woodstock festival, that's probably minor praise, but it's praise nevertheless. The extended workout of the hit single "Love Like a Man" is the centerpiece of the album, one that opens with the frantic buzz of the back-to-back road songs "Sugar the Road" and "Working on the Road." But Lee, ably assisted by keyboardist Chick Churchill, fleshes out the trademark Ten Years After blues frenzy with an assortment of atypical approaches and styles. "Me and My Baby" delivers Lee and the band in a relaxed, almost swinging, mode, while "Circles" is a rare ballad offering. The sci-fi blues of "Year 3000 Blues" and semi-psychedelia of "50,000 Miles Beneath My Brain" and "As the Sun Still Burns Away" further extend the album's reach without sacrificing any of Lee's guitar excursions. --Michael Point

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ten Years After's very best effort, June 22, 2000

By 

R. Lindeboom "theboomer" (Paso Robles, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Cricklewood Green (Audio CD)

When Ten Years After released Cricklewood Green, most British albums and nearly all American albums suffered from thin production values that made the albums sound as if they were playing back from far away or through a five cent speaker. But not this one! Ten Years After finally found a room (Olympic Studios) and a producer (Glyn Johns, as I recall) who together worked to make the fattest, punchiest and most intense album ever to issue from Alvin Lee & Company. Alvin is at his best here -- even better than the more commercially successful 'Space In Time' that came a few years later. But this one's the band at their peak. Chick Churchill's organ work is the perfect bed to hold together the rythym section section of Leo Lyons (bass) and Ric Lee (drums and no relation to Alvin). This album is the way that Ten Years After sounded live. Some of the songs from their subsequent album 'Ssshh!' sounded as they did live -- as did a few from 'A Space in Time' and 'Rock n Roll Music to the World.' But for pure TYA fans who loved the way they came out on stage and tore down the house, this is the one to get! Not only is it the best reflection of a great band at its performance peak, they were also at their best in their choice of material also. These are songs that are just as vicious and brutal today as they were when they first ripped the radiowaves back in early 1970. 'Sugar the Road' and 'Working on the Road' are still some of the quintessential TYA tracks -- as are the more mystic '50,000 Miles Beneath My Brain' and 'As the Sun Still Burns Away.' Even the mellower 'Circles' is a beautiful counterpoint to the rest of the album -- as is the swinging blues of 'Me and My Baby.' This album is a testament to the power of the Marshall Amplifer! Given enough of these things stacked floor to ceiling, and a great studio like Olympic; add a great engineer and producer; make sure you have a great band in front of those Marshalls and include their best material -- and what you end up with is 'Cricklewood Green.' A true rock masterpiece and a legendary album that blistered the airwaves and concert halls from a great band that cranked alongside groups like Led Zeppelin, Spirit, Deep Purple and Jeff Beck Group. But ah! When Ten Years After took the stage, they played like they were out to strip the paint from the walls -- and it's here, recorded just the way it happened on 'Cricklewood Green.'

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Their Last Great Workout, November 25, 2000

By 

BluesDuke "A sacred cow is worth but one thin... (Las Vegas, Nevada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cricklewood Green (Audio CD)

You have to give Alvin and the boys credit for this much - they didn't exactly succumb to post-Woodstock stasis without one piece of fight in them. And what a piece of fight it was...clean playing, smart (on their terms; we're not exactly talking the Band here) writing, and sympathetic production equaled the band's no-questions-asked best studio album. What their previous set, "Ssssh," merely promised, "Cricklewood" delivered in spades, including both the most spryly swinging blues Alvin Lee ever composed ("Me And My Baby") to his loveliest ballad ("Circles"). The two extended numbers both work without strain, but my nickel goes to "Love Like A Man," for both its bluesy theme riff and the surprising restraint in the jam section, Lee aiming more for expression than impression and keyboardsman Chick Churchill feeding him with precise flair. The overall effect is that of a band trying to stop their frenetic world so they could get off and regroup.

It wasn't destined to last, since the next album, "Watt," was a sad enough union of running out of ideas and recycling past inspirations (and no few past hot licks, either) as if they'd been playing them all their lives - and couldn't admit they'd about had it with them. If you must have one Ten Years After studio album (for a live album the choice is "Undead"), "Cricklewood Green" is the one to have; it's evidence that there certainly could be a little more to this band than their reputation allows.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the Books of Rock's Bible., February 21, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Cricklewood Green (Audio CD)

Hendrix,Santana,Page,Clapton,Allman,Zappa is where Alvin Lee was when this record was released.One of the defining moments of Guitar Rock.