It's All About (Dig) [Extra tracks, Import, Original recording remastered]

Spooky Tooth | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (July 11, 2005)
• Original Release Date: 2005
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Extra tracks, Import, Original recording remastered
• Label: Repertoire
• ASIN: B0009SQ6WY
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Vinyl
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #95,910 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Society's Child (Baby I've Been Thinking)

2. Love Really Changed Me

3. Here I Lived So Well

4. Too Much of Nothing

5. Sunshine Help Me

6. It's All About a Roundabout

7. Tobacco Road

8. It Hurts You So

9. Forget It I Got It

10. Bubbles

11. The Weight [Stereo Version][*]

12. Sunshine Help Me [*]

13. Weird [*]

14. Love Really Changed Me [Mono Version][*]

15. Luger's Groove [*]

16. The Weight [*]

17. Do Right People [*]

18. Bubbles [Mono Version][*]

Editorial Reviews

Japanese only SHM-CD (Super High Material CD - playable on all CD players) paper sleeve pressing. Universal. 2008. --This text refers to an alternate Audio CD edition.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars put this in your pipe and smoke it, September 6, 2005

By 

Peter Baklava (Charles City, Iowa) - See all my reviews

This review is from: It's All About (Dig) (Audio CD)

I bought this album when it was released in 1971 in the U.S. under the title of "Tobacco Road". The cover art depicted a pipe, and (heh,heh) I don't think the reference was to tobacco. At the time, it was just a record company's attempt to capitalize on the success of a band by releasing the back catalogue.

"It's All About" is kind of a grab-bag of late 60's psychedelia and it reveals a lot of charms in a band you don't usually associate with subtlety. This reissue, with bonus tracks, improves the sound tremendously over the LP version, and the music is revitalized by the improved mix. Greg Ridley's bass guitar really benefits--he sounds better here, and more inventive, than he ever did with Humble Pie.

Highlights include "Society's Child" (the weepy Janis Ian tune done in a Vanilla Fudge style arrangement), the dirge-like "Here I Lived So Well", and the song "(I Think I'm Going)Weird", which is the kind of 'nugget' that deserves inclusion in the cd collections of the real devotees of FREAKBEAT.

Spooky Tooth carried on and made the solid album "Spooky Two", but the over-the-top, Righteous Brothers meet Led Zeppelin formula began to wear thin. "It's All About" catches Spooky Tooth when the formula wasn't quite in place... it features a lot of experimentation, and is similar in feel to another album Jimmy Miller produced, Traffic's debut album "Mr. Fantasy". Dreamy confections from long ago, yours to taste again--if you wish.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nearly as good as Spooky Two, September 19, 2008

By 

Elliot Knapp (Seattle, Washington United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: It's All About (Dig) (Audio CD)

It may be sacrilege to say it, but I think I like this album almost as much as I like Spooky Two, this band's now legendary masterpiece. Although Spooky Two is probably more focused in style and vibe (this one's more of a fusion of 60's psychedelic and the heavier, trippy hard rock that would make them more famous), the band's debut is just as energetic, and it rocks just as hard. Not only that, it contains some of the dual lead singers' (Mike Harrison and the band's primary songwriter, American Gary Wright) most gnarly and over-the-top contributions. For me, it's really the combination between the filthy guitar, bass and keyboards and the ridiculous vocals of the two singers that makes Spooky Tooth such a great band, and it all starts here.

"Love Really Changed Me" is one of my favorites, with a groovy piano and organ riff that gives way to the British soul verse trading of each vocalist--Wright's thin but soulful singing contrasts well with Harrison's unparalleled pipes--thick, weathered, and tortured. The song explodes into a psychedelic guitar-driven freak-out. As the song fades out, Gary Wright commits to tape some of the most glorious falsetto ever heard in rock music, let alone Spooky Tooth's falsetto-heavy repertoire. Like many other Spooky Tooth albums, there are some excellently-chosen covers. The opener, "Society's Child" is a twisted psych-soul grinder that combines swelling organ with Harrison's wicked pipes, "Too Much Of Nothing" is a Dylan Basement Tapes classic, and "Tobacco Road" is a Spooky Tooth classic; pounding blues, with Luther Grosvenor's gnarly guitar licks adding a muscular edge. The drawn-out ending is classic, blending into the next track as if it'll never really be over.

Elsewhere, the band's songwriting is uniformly strong, with classics like "Sunshine Help Me," which builds to a dramatic finish, more trippy soul like "Here I Lived So Well," and some grooving, keyboard-driven British psych-pop like "It's All About Roundabout" and "Forget It I Got It." Overall, the album is a careening ride, with plenty of rock seated alongside enough psychedelia to remind us what era it all came from. With only a couple of exceptions (the sound effects in "Bubbles" being the major one), the album has aged really well and doesn't really cater to the more regrettable aspects of the late 60's. If you really liked Spooky Two, I think there's a good chance you'll enjoy a lot of what's offered here, and I can confidently say that this is the band's second best album, and one of only two that are really worth getting unless you're a big fan (the absence of Wright on The Last Puff and the absence of strong songs on Witness hold them back from being great albums, in my opinion). If you've never heard Spooky Tooth, go for the second album first, but if you're already hooked, this one will satisfy.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars British blue-eyed soul meets psychedelia with a punch!, February 11, 1999

By 

Christopher L. Dolmetsch (Hurricane, WV USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: It's All About (Audio CD)

In 1968 the American-born Gary Wright arrived in the UK from studies in Germany and was introduced to a struggling pop-soul band called ART (previously the VIP's). With the able assistance of American-born producer Jimmy Miller the group, re-christened SPOOKY TOOTH recorded a cover version of the Band's "The Weight" before tackling their even more ambitious first album. In the days when albums were becoming more important than singles, this debut was a masterpiece. From covers of Janis Ian's "Society's Child" (with more force and drive than Janis could have ever imagined) to Gary's own "Sunshine Help Me" (recorded the same year in a live version by the Move), this band was clearly "British blue-eyed soul meets psychedelia with a punch!" It was heavier than Steve Winwood's Traffic, coarser than Steve Marriott's Small Faces, and boasted musicians with talent yet no prior reputation. This album and its follow-up "Spooky Two" are still among the best of the second wave of great British groups.