All Pearls No Swine Vol. 5: Long time no see, old pal! How're you doin'?!

Been a while that I posted one of those. We're back to the Seventies once more. By now you know the drill. Some semi-famous folks, on this volume one famous person, and a bunch of rather unknown folks from the self-publishing side of things. The famous person is David Bowie, obviously, whose "Shadow Man", a Ziggy Stardust outtake, is one of the man's finest moments, a splendid doppelgänger ballad unfairly relegated to the dustbin. You might also know Native American guitar player Jesse Ed Davis (also a part-time producer, for One Buck Favorite Gene Clark), soft rock/country-rock combo the Pousette-Dart Band, or guitar hero Harvey Mandel, a Canned Heat alumni. And maybe Bonnie Koloc, a folkie from Iowa who had a modest but enduring career. As for the one-off and self-published artists, there's a colorful mix of folks, again mostly from the country rock, folk and singer-songwriter ranks. 

Jack Veronesi was a songwriter from Boston, whose beautiful "Northeastern Wind" is a standout track here. It's also a real one-off. Most private pressing folks here made at least (and in most cases only) one album, Veronesi seemingly just published a single, where this song was the b-side. Bearded country folk weirdo Ken Saul had at least two LPs on his own Seashell label, complete with self-drawn covers and LP back cover text written on a typewriter. His "Lord Of The Skies" is, for me, one of the highlights of the set, directly followed by other bearded country folk weirdo Huckle, from  - you guessed it - Ontario, established in previous volumes as Canada's inofficial home of country folk weirdos. Diggory Venn was a British group built around the talents of brothers Martin and Robin Peirson. Two Friends were what the title says, friends Bucky Wiener and Chip Carpenter with some mellow Californian soft rock that recalls America, especially during it's "lala-lala" chorus. Young Jim Keltner on the drums! Wheatstone Bridge were a heavy rock band from, of all places, Nashville. Ward 6 was a Canadian trio from - you guessed it - Ontario, who mainly covered material by others, but did it pretty well.  

So, here we are again. Almost seventy minutes of mellow-ish, beautiful music from the best decade in music, here at One Buck Records where the sweet sounds of the seventies just keep on truckin'...