Progressions

Five Americans | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (February 21, 2006)
• Original Release Date: 2006
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Sundazed Music Inc.
• ASIN: B000CQO13Y
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #285,915 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Stop-Light

2. Con Man

3. Black Is White — Day Is Night

4. (But Not) Today

5. Come on Up

6. Zip Code

7. Rain Maker

8. Sweet Bird of Youth

9. Evol–Not Love (mono)

10. Somebody Help Me

Editorial Reviews

The hits kept on coming from heroic Dallas fivesome the Five Americans with their third longplayer, 1968’s Progressions. Both "Zip Code" and "Evol–Not Love" careened up the charts as the Five Americans squared off on live stages throughout the Deep South with the Doors and Jefferson Airplane— and more than held their own against the best American rock ’n’ roll had to offer. From the original Abnak Records stereo masters.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Third and best album from Dallas-based `60s pop-rock vocal group, December 30, 2009

By 

hyperbolium (Earth, USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Progressions (Audio CD)

For their third album, following up their chart breakthrough with "Western Union," the band thickened their arrangements, deepened their harmony singing, and scored an additional Top-40 hit with the pro-USPS, "Zip Code." The group continued to write most of their own material, including eight of the album's original ten tracks, and took over production from Dale Hawkins. The results are a great deal richer and more varied. The opening "Stop Light" lowers the organ from the high sound of earlier albums to bassier church notes. There is country, light psych, bubblegum and blue-eyed soul, and the Kinks-styled "Black is White" adds hot guitar leads to the melodic hook swiped from the Beatles' "A Day in the Life."

The band's baroque pop, such as on "Sweet Bird of Youth," fits nicely with songs from the Left Banke's first two albums, and the folk-rock "EVOL-Not Love" sounds like the Vejtables and Beau Brummels. A cover of the Rascals' "Come on Up" is played straight, but the Spencer Davis Group's "Somebody Help Me" is given a group vocal arrangement. Like so many one- hit wonders (though, technically, the Five Americans were three hit wonders), there was more than met the Top-5 eye, and this album shows off their high-quality songwriting, singing and playing. As with their previous album, Western Union, the stereo fidelity here is excellent; these albums were better recorded, and the master tapes better preserved than one would expect. Casual listeners might start off with the group's Best Of, but fans of `60s music will want to hear this full album reissue. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]