Near the Beginning [Original recording reissued]

Vanilla Fudge | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (December 1, 1998)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Original recording reissued
• Label: Sundazed Music Inc.
• ASIN: B00000GX0E
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Vinyl
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #143,658 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Shotgun

2. Some Velvet Morning

3. Where Is Happiness

4. Break Song

5. Good Good Livin' (Unedited Version)

6. Shotgun

7. People

Editorial Reviews

Reissue of their 3rd album with the original cover art intact, plus updated liners notes and three bonus tracks added, 'Good Good Livin' (Previously Unissued Long Version), 'Shotgun' (Single Version) and 'People' (Single). The band featured drummer Carmine Appice and bassist Tim Bogert. 1998 Sundazed release.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Fudge at their musical peak!, January 13, 2007

By 

Shelby Lambert (Bethany, Oklahoma USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Near the Beginning (Audio CD)

Whilst this might not be the band's "best overall album" (that honour usually goes to the previous album, "Renaissance"), I would certainly have to argue that this album represents the band's best playing. Obviously, there's not many songs on this disc, because the "Break Song" takes up about 23 minutes of it, but there's a lot revealing about the Fudge's music from what little you do get to hear.
This album's release coincided with the release of the first Led Zeppelin album (early '69, and there were plenty of technological advancements taking place in the music world in the months between the release of "Renaissance" in mid-'68, and "Near The Beginning" in early '69. And at the point where better technology met the improved musical proficiency of EVERY member of this band, was no apparent than on this album.
The most noticeable improvement throughout this album was definitely the guitar playing and guitar "sound" of Vinnie Martell. The two previous albums, you hear Martell's guitar sound getting progressively louder, to where it is no longer overpowered by Mark Stein's organ. But on this album, not only is Martell's guitar getting louder--his playing is getting better! Whereas on previous albums, you hear mostly power chords and a few single-note 'freak-outs' from Martell, this album finds Martell playing genuine, bluesy, guitar solos! Not only that, but to aid in his soloing efforts, he finds not only better, clearer-sounding amplification, but he also discovers a new 'toy'--the "wah-wah pedal'. And, oh, what fun he had with that toy--particularly on "Shotgun" and the "Break Song"!
The best example I can find on this album of every member playing at their very best together is the "Break Song". That track, in particular, is full of surprises and technical abilities one would never have expected from VF. For those who have never heard, the "Break Song" is a rare glimpse of the Vanilla Fudge "live", and one step beyond the concept of the usual "let-me-introduce-the-guys-in-the-band" sort-of song. Every single member played at their very best--and perhaps even beyond--their own abilities! Imagine a jam with John Bonham on drums, Jon Lord (from Deep Purple) on organ, Jimmy Page on guitar, and John Mayall on vocals--that's exactly what the "Break Song" sounds like!! I don't know if this number was performed on one of the early tours that Led Zeppelin opened fot the Vanilla Fudge, but if Led Zeppelin had witnessed this performance from the sidelines, they had to be impressed! I know for a fact that John Bonham was a fan of drumnmer, Carmine Appice--and Carmine's drum solo on the "Break Song" has to have influenced Bonham's "Moby Dick" to some extent. Carmine's drum solo here has a little bit of what would become Bonham's "Moby Dick", but also a little bit of Ginger Baker's "Toad" from the first Cream album. It sounds like Carmine would carry some elements of his drum solo here, into his next band, Cactus, and their drum solo song, "Feels So Good" for the first Cactus album a year later.
But the "Break Song" has other surprises! This was the first introduction to the heavily-fuzzed out, "atomic bomb pyrotechnics" of Tim Bogert's bass solos--another element that Tim would bring with him to Cactus with Carmine Appice. And it also marked one of the band's first forays into "pure blues". The first time you ever hear Vinnie Martell play a very beautiful, slow blues guitar solo, reminiscent of the kind that Jimmy Page would later play in Led Zeppelin. It is also the first time Mark Stein sings "actual" blues lyrics, coming off sounding just like British blues singer John Mayall when he sings!
"The Break Song" is a treat--listening to a band going outside their formula, and moving into rare form, and new territory. When British hard rock bands of the '70s say that they were infleunced by the Vanilla Fudge, songs like the "Break Song" have to be near the top of the list of songs that infleunced them most!
As for the remainder of the tracks on "Near The Beginning", they're all good--even if they pale in comparison to the "Break Song'. Once again, Carmine Appice tries his hand at songwriting--"Where Is Happiness". It is rare to find a drummer in a band with that kind of songwriting ability. Like "Faceless People" on the previous album, "Renaissance", Carmine's songs convey a sense of loneliness and depression--but more in a dark, gothic, and mysterious sort-of-way, rather than a "bluesy" way. But you can tell that he wrote himself prominently into this song, as it is driven by a shuffle back-and-forth on the drums, swinging side-to-side, while Mark Stein's organ chirps along like crickets on a dark, gloomy night.
"Near The Beginning" is definitely worth your purchase--even for just the full-versions of both "Shotgun" and "The Break Song", which total 30 minutes. You wont even find some albums that long, and you certainly won't find the "Break Song" on any "best-of" compilations of the Vanilla Fudge. And yet, to me, "The Break Song" is "quintessential" Vanilla Fudge--not only showing where the Fudge were musically, but also where they were going after the Fudge was over! And after the Fudge was over a year later, it is a shame that Vinnie Martell didn't get pulled into Cactus with Bogert and Appice, as his talents were vastly improving, as evidenced by this album. Instead of Martell, Cactus would feature the talents of guitarist, Jim McCarty, whose skills on the guitar were at a level that Vinnie was approaching. Except that McCarty later proved to be more difficult to work with, and eventually led to the demise of Cactus. Sadly, Martell left the music business permanently after the break up of the Vanilla Fudge--Martell, once perhaps the band's least talented member, becomming one of the band's most prominent musical sounds on their final two albums, now having to waste his musical talent because Bogert and Appice chose a guy for their next band with more talent, yet harder to get along with.
Trust me, though. No collection of the Vanilla Fudge is complete without this vital piece of their musical history. "Near The Beginning" shows a band that is improving--and evolving!

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Near the end - or digging into Vanilla Fudge's history, June 13, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Near the Beginning (Audio CD)

Vanilla Fudge, one of the first 'american garage bands', if you permit me this short description...

This band includes two musicians who also played with JEFF BECK (Tim Bogert and Carmine Appice) in 'Beck, Bogert & Appice', and in an hard-rock boogie-blues outfit named 'Cactus'.

V.F. was most popular for their remake of the Supremes You Keep Me Hangin' On, taken off their excellent debut LP (1967).

Their albums were not all equally satisfying. Instead, this LP from V.F., entitled "Near the beginning", shows the group near the end. At least, the end of their union under the Fudge banner (forget their 1984 reunion, "Mystery", it's not as good as the original).

However, the merit of "Near the beginning" was that it captured the feeling of a live and heavy performance with fireworks in the organ and, above all, the guitar, bass and drums solo. At this point, you'll understand why Carmine Appice was considered one the most spectacular and powerful drummers in the world!

Also worth noting, the beautiful 'Some Velvet Morning' and 'Where is happiness' - a gorgeous psychedelic song, one of the best from V.F. in my opinion.

I subjectively prefer NTB to their 'Beat goes on' album - you know, the record on which you can hear excerpts from The President's words, bits of songs, a quite uneven collage of different tracks.

It won't be fair to forget to mention the other two albums worth buying, "Renaissance" (including Donovan's Season of the Witch), and "Rock & Roll" (the latter released in 1969-70, their last disc at the time).

All things considered, NTB is a good album. Still, four stars because the sound is only average.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Over the Top, January 15, 2003

By 

W. Hetfield "Walt Hetfield" (Lewes, DE United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Near the Beginning (Audio CD)

I bought this one and really liked it. These guys were local legends in the NYC area and unfortunately I was too young to check them out. I think if the Fudge had followed up the first LP with this instead of The Beat Goes On (ridiculous) or Renaissance (mediocre) they might've had a longer career. What made these guys interesting were their bizarre cover versions and this has two of the bizarrest: an over the top version of Junior Walker's Shotgun and their superb take on the Nancy Sinatra - Lee Hazlewood melodrama Some Velvet Morning. Good singing, good playing and a killer rhythm section. Folks that don't "get" the Fudge take rock music a bit too seiously. Testosterone laden fun stuff from the 60's.