Listen: Devil’s Grip / The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown
Devil's Grip / The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown
If you’ve been reading these posts during the last few days, it’s obvious the July 4th weekend leaned prog rock. Our excursion into the depths of upstate New York had me driving randomly through small towns in search of the ultimate garage sale. Look and you shall find, or something like that. We stumbled on two with massive amounts of prog vinyl, about one hundred miles apart. Very unexpected and a bit baffling. At $1 each, it was hard to pass up stacks of valuables that included various Vertigo swirls and Harvest titles.
Forget all the lengthy album tracks that littered prog long players, even more bizarre are the 45′s from the genre, all attempting to make playable versions of non-songs into songs. Fun stuff.
The mid 60′s mod organ style, hugely influenced by both Jimmy Smith and Jimmy McGriff, was still evident on ‘Devil’s Grip’, the ’67 debut single from The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown. The record tipped toward it’s followup, ‘Fire’, which despite it’s shrill sonic onslaught, became a massive worldwide hit in summer ’68.
Turns out Vincent Crane’s Hammond shaped the band as much as Arthur Brown’s voice and theatrics. Their sole album is a struggle to listen to often, if ever, these days. The sleeve was great, and live, the band were a blast, but being perfectly honest meant everyone I knew regretted having laid out the cash to buy it.
‘Devil’s Grip’ may not be the greatest song, but at times, the non-LP track swings more than any other on the album.
Listen: Give Him A Flower / The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown
Give Him A Flower / The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown
Way more importantly, B side ‘Give Him A Flower’ is a gem. Borrowing from vaudeville and I’m guessing, coincidentally from The Bonzo Dog Band, the track may be their one and only example of getting a little loose in the pub before heading to the studio, sense of humor in tact.
Tags: Harvest, Jimmy McGriff, Jimmy Smith, The Bonzo Dog Band, The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown, Track Records, Vertigo, Vincent Crane