Customer Reviews

-est. 1970

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

 

 

The album that started it all, and you couldn't ask for more from a debut. This is true "cosmic American music" to use the label Gram Parsons coined. A perfect blend of countrified folk rock with psychedelic elements. Brilliant writing and playing, and heart felt singing. This album never ceases to move me.

Goose Creek Symphony started as a side project of singer and primary song writer Charles Gearheart who was at the time playing in a rock band in Arizona. Whether it was homesickness for the place he grew up "in Goose Creek Holler" in Floyd county, Kentucky, or perhaps recent albums by groups like The Band, Flying Burrito Brothers, Brewer & Shipley etc., Gearheart got the urge to play down home music.

This is basically a concept album, starting and ending with the old camp meeting hymn I'll Fly Away. In between you are transported to a hillbilly hippie haven known as Goose Creek. I fell in love with the place. Many of the songs are humorous and keep you smiling, but there's deeper material here in songs like Confusion. There's rural psychedelia at it's best in tunes like Talk About Goose Creek And Other Places, or on the end of No News Is Good News where you faintly hear something like "I don't think it's happenin' quite right doin' acid". Stoner country at it's best.

Pretty close to a perfect album, and good enough to get Gearheart to put together a stable line up and tour. Guitarist Paul Spradlin became a permanent fixture and would contribute several good songs, and fiddle player Fred Wise would pull their sound even closer to bluegrass. A string of excellent albums followed till the band disolved in '76. Reuniting in '90, G.C.S.'s still going strong, still touring and occassionally recording. Any disc from this extremely talented band is well worth your time and money.

Any Goose Creek Symphony music deserves no less than three stars. This roots music is one of those types that is difficult to categorize.Country,Bluegrass, Rock and even somewhat alternative. Almost anyone would enjoy it. It can relax you, make you think or just plain get your foot to tappin and your hand to slappin.

I had this title on vinyl way back when it was new, and the sound is just as fresh as it was back then. If you like your rock done up hillbilly style this is the album for you!

If you could combine The Ozark Mountain Daredevils, The Allman Brothers Band & even The Jimi Hendrix Experince somewhat (Check Out Talk About Goose Creek), you'd have a pretty good idea what this CD sounds like!

Fun album to get a good buzz-on too & help melt away your worries....

Their others are a little more less electric & more like the Daredevils stuff (which the devils were obviously influenced by a few years later), but still great.

Dig!!!

I Love Goose Creek! This album is just like I remember them. I've looked everywhere, for a long time. I couldn't believe how lucky I was to find them again after all these years. Thanks so much!

Goose Creek Symphony used to play locally in Virginia when I was in college back in the early 70s. We loved their style and even my children have gotten in to their timeless music.