Customer Reviews

The River Is Wide

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

 

 

I never thought I would ever find this on CD, but I did! Not only is the title song great (which is MUCH better than the Grass Roots version), but the rest of the CD is just as good. If you like psychedelic summer-of-love songs, this CD is for you! They sound like a cross between the Mama's and Papa's and the Fifth Dimension. It also tells of the history of the band, as well as what happened to them, and what they are all up to now. Don't miss out on this one, all you Forum fans!!

Four Versions Of "The River Is Wide" Why Wasn't The Original 45 Version Included.
Ted Knop.

This lone album by The Forum is definitely as perfect as most reviewers here claim it is. The thing that puzzles me is that no one has pointed out that the opening track version of The River Is Wide is NOT REMOTELY the version on the original LP! Nor does this version appear as one of the bonus tracks... The odd thing is that like the version that opens this CD in mono, the real album version is ALSO in mono! I guess there was never a stereo take of this track (a bizarre idea that I find very hard to believe)...

Other than this one thing (and the odd track listing mix up with the bonuses (something Revola - God bless 'em - has had troubles with before. Those who possess Mark Eric's "Midsummer's Day Dream" on RevOla will know what I mean about the bonus tracks being mislabeled (incidentally, you should really pick up the newer version of Mark's album on Now Sounds. 28 tracks total)!

All-in-all, I have yet to find either a RevOla or Now Sounds CD that I don't like!

...but the Forum are in the top three for certain. The other reviews of this don't lie. Any 60's pop fan should have this. Seriously beautiful stuff!

To be honest, I am not sure what the hell to think of The River Runs Wide.

The Forum was Les Baxter's band. Baxter was one of the main---well, depending how you feel, innovators or peddlers-- of lounge music in the 1950s. This was big enough, but by the time this album arrived in around 1969, that already big sound could be taken to Specterian if not Wagnerian proportions.

And River Runs Wide takes full advantage. Big drums, big arrangements, big backing vocals. Listen to the title track, which booms in with its drums. Baxter takes the mic with what sounds like an army of backup singers, mostly adoring females. He declares, he rolls his Rs. It as if God has taken over a 1969 AM station.

Things don't get any smaller, just keep flowing over the top. Sometimes it works: "The Runaway" is as cinematic as any track of a 1960s spy soundtrack. Sometimes it bombs. "Girl Without A Boy" is complete smaltz. How much helium did the female vocalist suck in?

Is this good? Is this bad? Ironic genius? Completely ridiculous? I don't know. But the fact I have owned this for four years and it still has me guessing tells me, this Baxter guy was onto SOMETHING.

The title track was a hit for The Grass Roots, also in 1969.

This was a group that deserved better than they received. But for those of us that grew up during their popularity, we are blessed.

This is Les Baxter's idea of late sixties Rock and Roll. He produced this record and I think he assembled the group as a way of keeping in the music business after his success with exotica in the fifties. The result is kind of like Spinal Tap - really good musicians in the service of dubious material. It also kind of feels like Serbians trying to fool you into thinking they're a rock band from the Midwest - you can't put your finger on it, but something just isn't right.

As a result of all this alienation from real rock-n-roll, they overcompensate like crazy, and that's where the beauty of this record lies. Listen to the sample of THE TIME IS NOW to see what I mean. What the hell were they thinking with that vocal? It's brilliant and awful at the same time. Every cut on this song is an inch away from being a huge inexplicable hit. But oh, that inch.