Customer Reviews

Down Home

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Can't say enough about this album. Outstanding Lyrics and arrangements! The production quality is perfect and full. Jimmy's moving words soulfully sung carry songs like "Gabriel Go Home", "Tin Town", "Today" and the best of all, "Leave" with it's aching theme and wondrous vocals that come from someway deep inside these guys. Their voices never blended so well together.

Songs like "Hand Me Down Shoes", "Purple Hand", "Robin" are a super fine examples. These melodies with their totally unique and beautiful vocal blend ( never better than this album ) are Gorgeous. If you enjoy singing along with your music, once you've become familiar with this album, these songs are Great!

For me, the anchor of the album has always been "side 2" when there were sides. Starting with "Gabriel Go Home" with its beautiful piano intro and their stunning harmonizing vocals on the opening lyric have remained truly magical to my ears for decades now. ( Producer John Simon was at the piano and his exquisite ending of the song has remained one of my all time favorite pieces. ) "Tintown" is a bittersweet reminder not to judge covers and those within. "Today's" joyous chorus soars and echoes the heartfelt feelings of new found Love with all it's heightened senses it encourages. "Cotton Mouth" is a somewhat strange, trippy and tasteful production where the instruments really tickle your ears and mind.

Normally I would have found "Grannie Will Your Dog Bite?" too abrupt and harsh following such a mind soothing song. But it serves itself well in this instance. It seems a necessary evil to snap you out of the trance you were in so you could fully take in the heartache of the last song "Leave" with its exquisitely haunting flute farewell. Dash's soaring vocals bring wonderful crescendos to these songs. There is an ease to their delivery on this album. Very heartfelt.

Truly a lost Treasure! It's a shame it never got heard by the masses. It still should. If I were a DJ, I'd make sure it got heard. If you ever appreciated Seals and Crofts before, this is well worth your time and money. Thank God it's coming out on CD soon. I've been waiting a long time. I hope you give it a try.

I have been looking for this album on CD for years. As soon as I put it in my CD player and the first strains of "Ridin' Thumb" came on, it was as if I had just listened to it yesterday. If all you know about Seals & Crofts is "Summer Breeze," "Hummingbird," or any of their other radio hits, you could be forgiven for wondering what my excitement is all about. But you see, before they became purveyors of syrupy -- though better than average -- pop tunes, these guys rocked. Or perhaps I should say the rockin' songs rocked and the mellow tunes were hauntingly beautiful. While their first release was excellent, this one was their high point, in my opinion. It's vibrant, alive, and musically satisfying from start to finish. And, while the CD cover doesn't say it's been digitally remastered, it surely must be, because it sounds fantastic. I agree with the reviewer who said that "side two" rules, but "side one" comes awfully close. Still, I can't begin to count the hours I spent playing "side two" as a lad of 15, loving every minute of it, but anticipating the magnificent "Leave" that closes this masterpiece of an album. I went on to become a professional musician and got into jazz and generally more sophisticated music, but this pop-rock gem remains one of my favorite albums of all time (some of my other faves from this era include Donovan's "Open Road," Spirit's "Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus," Simon and Garfunkel's "Bookends," and Laura Nyro's "New York Tendaberry"). Too bad these guys didn't keep going in this direction, but hey, they found a pot of gold with the Top 40 stuff, so more power to them. But I just bet this is their favorite Seals & Crofts album; it sure is mine.

Produced by John Simon near Woodstock, with great rock and roll backup musicians. This is why Rolling Stone looked with favor on Seals & Crofts - temporarily. Indeed, this live recording has hard rock elements that never returned to their music. Ridin' Thumb should have been a huge hit. Purple Hand, Hollow Reed and Hand-Me-Down Shoe are straight ahead rockers with all the impassioned revelations of their Baha'i Faith. However, S&C did not tour as a rock band like this and quickly became an introspective duo instead. There was little room for introspective duos with the critics in 1971. The haunting, hypnotic song "Today" from this album predicts this. If you like S&C, or rock and roll, you cannot pass this album up.

I just fired up my CD. Thank Amazon! The production values are great. I was very surprised as this was a 1970 album and I was expecting it to sound hissy, fuzzy or scratchy. Not so, it could have been recorded today. Each instrument is clear and clean. I love the variety as few bands use flutes and mandolins the way Seals & Crofts do. And the harmonies and offseted voices are pure and distinct.

But not listed is a hidden track that made its way into this album in it's 1974 re-release as "Seals & Crofts 1&2". The "See My Life - Reprise" from the first album "Seals & Crofts" plays shortly after the last track "Leave" as it did on "Seals & Crofts 1&2". And contrary to my above review this track sounds like the original tapes on this were lost here as the hidden track crackles and pops like an old LP record. But just on this 40 second hidden track. And it adds to the mystic mood of that solo flute.

I think this and the first album "Seals & Crofts" are the best, as Seals and Crofts seem so comfortable to just sing happy and uplifting music without worrying what the general AM radio listeners of the day would think of it.

When the Seals & Crofts catalog was reissued on Amazon's mp3 downloads I sampled tracks across a number of their albums but eventually just shotgunned downloads of the entire first two albums. The whole catalog sounded consistently good so why not start at the beginning?

Both "Down Home" and the debut "Seals & Crofts" are commendable but the edge goes to this second album, "Down Home". One listen to it and you get the feeling these guys did a lot of road between the two releases. You can almost hear them performing at places like the Troubador, getting a feel for what triggers audience response. For some reason this album reminds me of Elton John's "Tumbleweed Connection" though I'm not sure why. Same year, 1970, and both sporting the sepia-toned album covers that were in vogue that year. Both albums feel as though they are coming from the same point in time.

Compared to the first album there are more upbeat songs here, whereas the debut has a dreamier, more reflective feel. The songs have a little more stylistic variety as well, expanding to include a blues-flavored "Leave" and a savory little country fiddle raveup, "Granny, Will Your Dog Bite?". The only regret is that the 41 second song wasn't longer.

The album isn't perfect but any shortcomings are foibles rather than failures. "Cottonmouth" encounters strange intermittent injections of late 60s organ and electric guitar so foreign to the song they leave you saying, "Where did that come from?". Perhaps the producer was trying too hard to dress up the instrumentation so that at least one song would be making a "heaviosity" appeal. "Hollow Reed" might have called for greater enunciation; unless one is aware of the name of the song it sounds like they're singing "Halloween".

If you're downloading highlights for the mp3 player or for compiling a "best of", "Purple Hands" would be a tasty choice, as would "Today" (not the Jefferson Airplane song of the same name). "Gabriel Go On Home" is enjoyable, flavored with piano. "Robin" has instrumentation that's downright pretty. If you're looking for the upbeat numbers give a listen to the first two songs on the album. As a whole the album is very consistent, no obvious filler tracks; downloading the entire thing wouldn't be a bad idea.

Lots of nice mandolin playing and the softer tracks work really well. 'Robin' is a particularly pretty track. 'Today' is as good as anything Seals and Crofts have written. But then there is the tuneless uptempo stuff; I particularly dislike the horrible 'cotton mouth', it's as tuneless as its title would suggest. I also was never impressed with 'ridin thumb' and 'hand me down shoe' which are more rock in style. Some of the other stuff here is just ok. Sorry, I prefer some of their latter day albums.

By the time I discovered this album, Seals & Crofts' albums "Summer Breeze" and "Diamond Girl" were already beloved hits. While this album had a slightly scaled-down, somewhat darker sound (or am I being influenced by the dark photography on the cover?), I grew to love it as much as any album they ever recorded. There's some great writing here and great production as well. I am SO glad to find that it has made its way to CD! Thanks so much to Wounded Bird Records for investing in the reissue! I've ordered the other Seals & Crofts CD reissues and can't wait to receive them!

I wholeheartedly agree with the other reviewers. You have no idea how long I have been waiting for this to be re-released. I'd look here for S&C albums, and all that would be listed was their later, good, but not on the level of this, albums. I haven't even listened to the CD version of this yet (just ordered it), but this is, far and away, S&Cs best album ever (before they got "slick" and commercialized). I don't have a turntable any more, but this vinyl album had the grooves worn down! If memory serves, these guys used to back up Glen Campbell, because I seem to remember one of his shows where he was congratulating them on their success since they "went out on their own". But don't get the wrong idea, this album is hard to categorize. As others have said, it alternates between rockin' and heart breakingly beautiful. If this album isn't in your permanent collection, then truly, your collection isn't complete. It just doesn't get any better!

This is Seals & Croft 2nd disc and is not as commercial as their later disc. This is not to say it's not any good, it's GREAT!
Their vocal harmonies are like no other. Check out the use of the Hammond organ and Dash Croft's mandolin, it's a unique combination and worth a listen
Jimmy Seals may be the most under-rated musician in music of that time period.
If Seals & Crofts strikes your fancy, check this one out.................T.A. Stephenson

While I do like this album very much - in general - I must say that Track 8: "Today" is one of the all time loveliest tracks I have ever heard in my life.