Customer Reviews

Up & Away

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This was the last Kingsmen album until the unreleased 1967 Since you Have Been Gone came out. The group had no major hits for over a year. Their last album, 15 Great Hits had nine new songs, and six best of songs . Most likely the company released a new studio album as a best of to help sales. [ The fact it had 15 songs also may have been used as a bonus to improve sales as well] Sadly the groups biggest hit in 1966 was was reissue of Louie Louie. In late 1966, Up and Away came out. [ featuring 14 songs, unheard of on US albums of the era] It features superb harmonies that no one knew this group was able to do. [ Grass is Green, Children's Caretaker, If I needed Someone [ a Beatles Cover and single], Hushabye, and I have found another girl.] Trouble [the albums opener] was one of the great lost garage songs of the era, but didn't chart. It's flipside [track 7 on the CD ] Daytime shadows also was excellent. Their are some great rockin' mid 60's frathouse covers here with cool guitar work by Mike Mitchell. Shake a Tail Feather, Land of 1000 dances, and Little Sally Tease [with Killer fuzztone]. There is also a nice rendition as well of Mustang Sally. The covers of Under my Thumb and Wild thing are good, worth a listen , but are in no way great. Why Lynn Easton, the groups lead singer [ who had a bluesy voice], didn't sing Under my Thumb is very odd. Tossing and Turning seems very out of place here and should have been on the groups first or second Album. There is also one of the groups best singles as a bonus CD track, Killer Joe. It's sad this album wasn't a hit. The group was getting better as song writers, and musicians. [They were 10 times better musically than any group on one of the pebbles comp albums] I think it is one of the great lost albums of the sixties. Sadly all the new mid sixties hip groups coming out were getting all the airplay. Frat house fun was old hat. Had they been on a big label like the Raiders, things may have been different.

Kller joe" and 'little sally tease' got some radio play but the release had no real big hits as earlier releases did. In fact the band was breaking up and their type of wild organ pumping garage rock was being replaced on the airwaves but more brit invasion type of music. However it's sad that programmers couldn't see that there was still room for this type of rock on the airwaves. Why not? it was fun and pure party rock mainly. If you like great early sixties party rock or frat rock then this is a good addition to your collection. If you just want a greatest hits type of sample then don't buy this one though. However 'killer joe' and other songs are as good as anything they did before and frat rock was good fun. SO get rockin.

This was the fifth, and last, album that the Kingsmen released during their heyday. There were no hits on this album, but it does feature a few great songs ("Trouble", "Little Sally Tease" and "Killer Joe"). There are a few other pretty good songs ("Grass is Green", "(I Have Found)Another Girl", "Daytime Shadows" and "Children's Caretaker"). The rest of the album features mostly mediocre cover versions of songs by the likes of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and Wilson Pickett. An average 1960s garage band album.

Though the Kingsmen will be forever cherished as the garage combo behind the definitive version of rock 'n' roll's national anthem, "Louie Louie," the original band broke up shortly after waxing that definitive side. Drummer Lynn Easton and lead guitarist Mike Mitchell formed the nucleus of the band that recorded the latter day albums, including this fifth and final entry in the group's catalog. With original lead vocalist Jack Ely gone, and the song list heavily peppered with covers of well-known hits, the band was clearly running out of gas by the time of these 1965 sessions; ironic, given that much of the USA's best garage rock was created that same.

There are still a few highlights here, including the Levine-Resnick penned "Trouble," drawn from the same inkwell as material the pair wrote for The Standells, Shadows of Knight and others. Ditto for the original harmony pop-rocker "(I Have Found) Another Girl," which sounds like a lesser page from the Sloan & Barri songbook. The album's remaining originals, "Grass is Green," "Daytime Shadows," and "Children's Caretaker" find the Kingsmen stretching into pre-hippie folk-rock and neo-psych territory; a future direction the band never fully explored.

The bulk of the album is taken up with passable-but-not-stellar cover versions. The Beatles' "If I Needed Someone" features a suitable folk-rock groove and strong harmonies (heard again on a cover of "Hush a Bye"). Bobby Lewis' "Tossin' and Turnin'" never achieves frat-rock lift-off; same for The Troggs' "Wild Thing" and James & Bobby Purify's "Shake a Tail Feather." The Rolling Stones' "Under My Thumb" is the worst of the lot, with an anemic vocal that sounds like an amateur in a carnival karaoke booth. Better is a slow take of "Land of 1000 Dances" that takes its groove from Cannibal and the Headhunters, rather than Wilson Pickett. Finally, a horn-driven arrangement of Don & The Goodtimes' "Little Sally Tease" is too busy for its own good.

Other than "Under My Thumb," everything here is listenable, if not exactly memorable. Listening to the Kingsmen harmonize on "Hush a Bye" one can't help picture Fonzie and the shark. There are enough nuggets here to show that the band hadn't been completely emasculated, but enough songs struck in neutral to signal the end. Sundazed's CD reissue adds a bonus track of the punchy, mono single "Killer Joe." This is primarily for completeists, or those willing to buy a CD for a few killer tracks. [©2007 hyperbolium dot com]