Customer Reviews

Main St.

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

 

 

I first learned of the existence of this album from a Trouser Press article about Roy Wood by Ira Robbins ("Whatever Happened To Roy Wood?") in November 1979. According to Mr. Robbins, this release was entitled "Wizzo", and was shelved after the failure of the "Indiana Rainbow"/"Saxmaniacs" single to chart. Twenty five years later, the album is finally released, under its new title "Main Street", with both CD cover art and commentary by Roy Wood. "Main Street" features a great collection songs and arrangements that shows Roy Wood and his fellow bandmates willingness at that time to follow directions previously explored on the B-sides of the band's 45 r.p.m. singles. The musical styles run the gamut and show Mr.Wood's maturation as a songwriter, arranger and producer. Alongside the proto heavy jazz fusion metal of "The Fire In His Guitar", we also find wonderful gems such as the Beach Boys Sunflower-era influenced "Main Street" with Carl Wilson-like harmonies and dreamy sax and horn trade-offs powered along by a chugging piano rhythm, the sweet Django guitar jazz cum heavy pop of "French Perfume" (a lost single there!) and a track that would feel right at home on the group's debut album, "Wizzard's Brew", the down and dirty workout of "Don't You Feel Better". This release also features the single that announced to the public and Mr.Wood's management his new musical intentions, "Indiana Rainbow", a driving, rhythmic jazz fusion number, a million miles away from the pop bombast and fifties rock'n'roll cliches that previously defined Wizzard and proved to be way more mature than radio programmers, the record buying public and Mr. Wood's record and pop management could accept at the time. Had Jet Records not had a failure of nerve, at the time, and released and heavily promoted this album and the band, Mr.Wood and his co-horts may have continued following this muse, perhaps becoming the next Steely Dan... (and what's wrong with that?)! As a long time fan of Roy Wood's music, I highly recommend this album to other Fans of "The Woodmeister" as one of the high marks in his long musical carrer, something they can hold up to such other releases as "Boulders", "Shazam", and the eclectic collection,"Exotic Mixture". To casual listeners unfamiliar with this man's work, I would definitely push this release into their hands, before recommending they listen to anything else. "Main Street" is a great listening experience for the uninitiated and shows a muti-talented songwriter arranger and producer at the peak of his craft before corporate know nothings pulled the rug out from beneath his feet, making a talented man doubt what he knows best musically and have him second guess himself for years to come.

There are times when I get a bit irritated with Amazon for all the continual "suggestions" about other albums I might buy. But this is one of the times I couldn't be happier, for I almost certainly never would have run across MAIN STREET any other way.

Popular as they were in England, Wizzard were as little known by casual listeners here in the US as their predecessors, The Move. It was the nuclear decay of The Move that transmutated that band into the earliest incarnation of ELO, and then the fissioning of ELO's leadership that left us with Jeff Lynne's incarnation of ELO and Roy Wood's Wizzard. But who in the States knew what amazing things The Move and Wizzard had done? I was as clueless as most. All the more, who *anywhere* would ever have known that there was an entire album by Wizzard that had never been released? Only a handful of insiders, I expect.

So, thank you to the Edsel label for taking a chance on this "untouchable" but wonderful bit of history, and thank you Amazon for plugging it!

Other reviewers have described the individual songs quite well. I can only add my praise to theirs, and wonder how it might have been if Jet Records had issued the title track as a single to test the waters, rather than "Indiana Rainbow." Let's face it, that's not a very promising title. Nothing wrong with the song, mind you, but it's not all that representative. It belongs (and is best understood) as an internal component of the album. The "Main Street" track would have made a much stronger single.

Roy Wood himself acknowledges it would be better for the sound to remix from the original multitrack masters if they had been available. But don't let that discourage you. The stereo mixdown simply didn't receive the same elaborate treatment as, say, ELO's NEW WORLD RECORD, released that same year. Whatever this recording lacks in electronically enhanced ambience or trickery of stereo staging, it more than makes up for in musicianship! If you don't mind just a slight excess in the saxophone arrangements (I don't think Roy has ever been noted for under-utilizing any good discovery), then you'll likely find this album full of great ideas, authoritatively executed, still sounding new and full of surprises yet today.

If you want to hear a wildly creative genius achieving musical maturity--a rather rare thing to find--you owe it to yourself to get MAIN STREET and play it frequently.

Brian Wilson...Stevie Wonder...Lindsay Buckingham...Prince... Jeff Lynne...Paul McCartney...Roy Wood. Roy Wood? Like these other, better known stars, Roy Wood is a multi-instrumentalist/producer who can rightfully be called an artistic genius. MAIN STREET was originally recorded with his band Wizzard in 1976, but was way too advanced to be accepted by thick-headed record company excecutives. It has taken nearly one-quarter of a century for "the powers that be" to realize the great significance of this work, and thank goodness, now we can judge for ourselves. The title cut is a joyous celebration that sounds like one of the lost tracks from the Beach Boys' album SMILE. "The Fire in His Guitar" would have made Jimi Hendrix stand up and take note. "French Perfume" is a lovely retro pop tune. One of my favorites is "Take My Hand," which sounds a lot like the band Roy founded in 1971, the Electric Light Orchestra. The single from this album, "Indiana Rainbow," is a breezy, bossa nova-ish bit of brilliance. The grand finale', "I Should Have Known," should have been a contender. There's a bit of Steely Dan in that one. Beach Boys? Steely Dan? Hendrix? Antonio Carlos Jobim? ELO? Fred Astaire? Trying to label this album is impossible, which is probably why the record companies had a hard time with it back in '76. BUT...their loss is our gain today.

After I listened to "Main Street" for the first time, I couldn't help wondering why it wasn't released in the mid-70's (when it was recorded), and how these tracks could have possibly been "lost" in the vaults without somebody wanting to use them for various compilations, etc. The songs are that good. "French Perfume", "Indiana Rainbow", and the title track are as strong as any Wizzard or Roy Wood solo single. Overall, the arrangements are a bit experimental, but the songs really don't suffer because of it. Saxophones dominate throughout, but surprisingly some heavier rock guitar shows up as well (check out "The Fire In His Guitar" for Roy's Hendrix impression ... very cool). The only sub-par tune is "Don't You Feel Better", the only track Roy doesn't sing. If you're a fan of Roy Wood, you cannot afford to not own this "discovered treasure".

O album MAIN STREET, gravado em 1976, somente agora foi lancado, gra'cas a costumeira incompet'ncia das gravadoras, somada ' uma boa dose de m'-f' de ex-empres'rios do artista. ' simplesmente (mais uma)obra-prima de Roy Wood, ex-membro do The Move, co-fundador da Electric Light Orchestra (juntamente com Jeff Lynne), criador da banda WIZZARD e atualmente ativo com a Roy Wood's ARMY. Multi-intrumentista - guitarras, bateria, variados tipos de sopros, teclados, etc.etc. ' ainda produtor competent'ssimo e compositor inspirado. Sua m'sica cont'm influ'ncias do rock dos anos 50, Beatles, obras cl'ssicas e dos momentos mais inspirados e progressivos dos Beach Boys. Em MAIN STREET agrega-se a influ'ncia do Jazz, levando a m'sica de Roy a paragens in'ditas e interessant'ssimas. Seus discos solo e com as bandas das quais fez parte podem ser encontrados nas lojas brasileiras especializadas em discos importados. MAIN STREET ' fortemente recomendado!

My opinion is that the album is axcellent becasue I have some of the songs from some time ago and now editing this album we can apreciate the great capacity to Roy writing and playing mucic. Roy is part of the history of the tock.

I've been such a huge fan for Roy Wood in all his incarnations for so long... yet getting my hands on this was SUCH a disappointment. I admit, I'm more into "top-40 pop" structured songs, and tend to get into the "experimental weird stuff" if such artists will meet me halfway first. Roy has done some extremely "strange" records over the years, including LOOKING ON, ELECTRIC LIGHT ORCHESTRA and WIZZARD'S BREW. All of them grew on me over time. For whatever reason, this one just isn't.

I DO love "Indiana Rainbow", and even included it in a personal custom Roy Wood comp. But the rest? (sigh)

This "new" sound that mixed jazz with rock didn't end here, however. 1977's SUPER ACTIVE WIZZO ("new improved formula!") turns out to have been a SERIOUS step up from this. I initially ranked it along with the other "strange" albums I mentioned above, with only 6 songs, 2 of them over 11 minutes long, but while it's STILL one of his most "out there" albums, it did work its way into my psyche (even if it took quite a while). Sadly, this was never released in the US, and has yet to be reissued on CD. (I just transferred it to CD for my own listening TODAY... what are the actual record labels waiting for?)

Equally overdue for CD reissue is the follow-up to SUPER ACTIVE, Roy's ON THE ROAD AGAIN. On that, he took the same sound heard on the previous 2 albums and put them to use on top-40 rock & pop tunes. THAT's been one of my top fave Wood albums since it came out in August '79!!!

If these 2 albums were available, I'd give SUPER ACTIVE 3 stars, and ON THE ROAD AGAIN-- 5! (Yeah!)

This album was delivered to Jet Records at an unfortune time in Roy Wood's career. His professional relationship with the ever controling Don Arden, the owner and president of Jet and his then manager for several years, was beginning to be strained.

The hits were starting to slow down, Roy had several years of being run ragged from touring and chasing hits and was ready for a change. This was the last of the Wizzard albums, sometime shortly after the recording Don cut the band's pay and they quit. Roy's reaction, "I would have too". Roy spent the next couple years getting out of his contract with Don Arden.

Don was looking for hits and this was a real departure from formula which to him this too high of a risk item to release. Jet by the way was still a fairly new label that was probably exercising great caution in what it released.

Roy's previous work to this album was Rock and the 18 months before was highly influenced by 1957 to 1961 era in particular, a mix that included Sun Rockabilly and Phil Spector Wall of Sound Pop, which saw the release of "Introducing Eddie and the Falcon" and the singles "Are You Ready To Rock", "Rock and Roll Winter" & "The Rattlesnake Roll".

"The Rattlesnake Roll" to some degree is a link between "Are You Ready To Rock" and this recording.

This album, then entitled "Wizzo", was largely an experimental Jazz Rock Fusion collection wasn't a welcomed arrival at Jet with it's Pop - Rock mentality.

If Roy had been with a major label with a Jazz marketing team, this album probably would have come out then. Columbia Records US had successfully broke acts like the Jazz fusion band Weather Report.

Jazz albums are not famous for making record companies a lot of money. Dave Brubeck's "Take Five" and Chuck Mangione's "Feels Good To Me" are rare examples of Jazz singles that were unqualilfied hits.

"Indiana Rainbow" is the only song on that is the most conventional structured, that almost doesn't belong on this album, was the safest track to risk releasing as a single. (It curiously was the only Roy Wood or Wizzard single I ever saw to identify what album it came from.) Without the marketing pull of hit, Jet like many smaller record companies, wasn't willing to risk the expense of releasing album they didn't know how to sell.

I authenticly love "Indiana Rainbow". It is a light late nineteen fortish European Jazz performance that is propelled by an acoustic guitar part, elsewhere favorably compared to Django Rheinhardt, which I bought on it's release in 1976. In many ways it stands alone in comparsion to rest of the album. Some tracks like "Fire In His Guitar" are a little difficult at first, their virtues unfold with each listening.

The album opens with "Main Street", lyrically kind of a parallel to the song "On Broadway", and it sounds like a show openner. It has certain quality to the vocal phrasing in places that, for me, makes me speculate how someone like Marilyn Monroe sing it. About this time he was producing Annie Haslam's "Annie in Wonderland" and I wonder if this was originally meant for that project.

As much as I have a growing appreciate of the music on this album, I wouldn't use it to introduce someone to the music of Roy Wood.