Customer Reviews

Golden Classics Edition

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Call it nostalgia if you'd like, but when I saw this CD it brought me back to that psychedelic era of bra burning, draft card burning, raw rock and roll and free love and, good or bad, I just had to purchase it.

Pacific Gas and Electric was initially known as Bluesberry Jam and, at that time, included drummer Fito De La Parra. In 1968, De La Parra left the Bluesberry and joined Canned Heat. Canned Heat's drummer, Frank Cook left Canned Heat and joined what would soon be known as Pacific Gas and Electric. (De La Para obviously fared better in the trade.) About the same time Cook and De La Para swapped places, guitar extraordinaire Glenn Schwartz left the James Gang and his home town in Ohio to come to California. Schwartz was so good that the rock and roll world predicted the end of the James Gang. Interestingly, Schwartz was soon replaced in the James Gang by none other than Joe Walsh and the band continued on.

With the addition of Schwartz, PG&E was complete. The full band now consisted of Charlie Allen--vocals, Frank Cook-drums, Brent Black-bass and Glenn Schwartz-guitar and it was off to the recording studio. The bands first release, Get It On, immediately spurred controversy when it's album cover featured sexual innuendos in the form of a train and a bullet aimed at a pretty girl, the cover was censored and the album was re-released and performed dismally.

Over the next two years, 1969 and 1970 respectively, the band changed labels moving from the little known Bright Orange label to Columbia Records and released the self-titled "Pacific Gas and Electric" and "Are You Ready", which have been put together on this CD. The self-titled debut on Columbia Records was essentially hitless but, nonetheless, sold enough records to convince Columbia that a third album was in order. "Are You Ready" soon followed and it's title track, with backup vocals by the gospel tinged "Blackberries" became a hit. But trouble continued to plague the band when Canadian officials banned the band from Canada due to an admission by one of the members that he took drugs (What a shock!). Glenn Schwartz, shortly there after, announced at a concert that he had found God and he soon departed the band moving back to Ohio to join other Christian musicians to form "The All Saved Freak Band". Schwartz was replaced in the band by guitarist Ken Utterback and, despite the release of a pretty good fourth CD "PG&E", the band began to fade away.

There is a lot of history here, and the truth of the matter is that the band was not half bad. Schwartz was an excellent guitarist whose riffs sound as good today as when they first rang from his guitar 30 years ago and Charlie Allen's soulful and powerful vocals were ahead of the times. One last bit of trivia, the band was so good that they played on the soundtrack to Otto Preminger's movie "Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon".

Having been friends with some of the surviving members of this band for many years now, I'd like to add and correct a couple of things posted here.

The Bassist for the 1st 3 albums was Brent Block, not Black...
Guitarist Tom Marshall was also on the 1st 3 albums, and is a founding member.

Bluesberry Jam and PG&E are two entirely different bands. One did not descend from the other. Only vocalist Al Walten was ever in Bluesberry Jam and PG&E. He left before Glenn Schwartz arrived. Fito De La Para didn't play with PG&E.

So, the lineup for the 1st 3 albums would be
Tom Marshall - Guitar
Glenn Schwartz - Guitar
Brent Block - Bass
Frank Cook - Drums
Charlie Allen - Vocals

The 1971 lineup for the PG&E album would be Allen, guitarist Ken Utterback, bassist Frank Petricca, Ron Woods on drums, Jerry Aiello on keyboards, trumpet player Stanly Abernathy, sax players Alfred Galagos and Virgil Gonsalves, and percussionist Joe LaLa.

The 1973 release, "... Starring Charlie Allen" was done with Allen and a host of studio musicians.

There is more film history besides "Junie Moon".

A documentary of this band playing at a drug rehab center in Lexington, Kentucky was made by noted author and filmmaker Lawrence Schiller. It's called "The Lexington Experience". It was shown publicly only a couple of times when a disagreement over music royalties shelved it. The only known copies are with the surviving members in the film (except for Frank Cook, who could not be located, and by this time had become the band's manager... replaced on drums by Ron Woods), Lawrence Schiller himself (who graciously supplied copies to the band members) and myself.

An accompaning album was recorded called "Live and Kicking at Lexington", but was never released by Columbia, although they did hold onto the tapes. It was released on CD by Wounded Bird Records early in 2007. Their 1st album, Get It On, will also be released on CD by Ace Records, early in 2008. I'm told it might also include some "Bonus Tracks", unreleased material from those sessions.

As far as reviewing their music, I'm biased. All I can say is listen and judge for yourselves.

my dad has this in his lp collection, it's a great blues rock album with soul&passion makes you want to dance , sing & cry maybe. but it a great recording no nonsense jammin that empowers your soul with a charge of excitement that comes off the recording. feel the electric vibe. highly recommended for people who like cream , joplin etc. dig it man!

This is a rerelease of PGE's early Columbia discs. hawg for you is a badassed blues take . The guitarist Glenn Schwarz is one of my favorites but I have never tracked down his later work. The second 8-12 cuts are from their 1st Columbia release, notable for Frank Cook, who drummed with Canned Heat at Monterrey and on the the early Liberty lps. Charlie Allen was the vocalist on these cuts and later did some solo lps into oblivion. These tracks rep the heavy blues trend of Johnny Winter with soul of Otis Redding. Buy it used.

There is nothing bad to say about PG&E but here we go again with this reissue thing. It seems as though some record companies will only put out the radio play music and not what the fans like most from these bands. Get It On was and still is the best Pacific Gas & Electric album, seems as though the small Orange label owners should try to pull thier heads out of thier a-- and put the master tape on disc. But this review is about these two albums right? Buy this Cd, it kicks and this band was one of the best at that time, Charlie was a great vocalist and God rest his soul..

The CD Are You Ready By Pacific Gas and Electric is a very good collection of blues rock albums from the late sixties era. It has distinctive sounds that transport you back to a time when times were good with high energy and a down home blusey feel. It is a very enjoyable CD.

I have to say we called this the bannanna album when I was a kid. We begged mom to play it over and over again. I still have all my original records. When we were getting rid of records the Pacific Gas and Electric records I refused to get rid of.
It is music that has always touched my soul. This is a must have if you like music.

I rank it right up there with early Fleetwood Mac. Great blues music, its sad that there isnt more. Buy all there albums, you wont regret it.

I had the LP ARE YOU READY? and the last track was "When A Man Loves A Woman" but it doesn't appear on the CD -- anyone know why?

Apart from the Allman Brothers, who are in a league of their own, I can think of only two American 'white' Blues acts that can match PG&E for the sheer quality of their output: Canned Heat and The Siegel-Schwall Band. 'Are you ready' is to my ears the best of the three albums released by the band, and this is one Cd that should be in everybody' s collection, I reckon!