Almost four decades after his untimely passing, Robert Calvert is still more remembered as a lead singer of HAWKWIND than the master storyteller he was. However, aficionados cherish the South African’s first two albums, the conceptual "Captain Lockheed And The Starfighters" and "Lucky Leif And The Longships" from, respectively, 1974 and 1975, while paying much less attention to his next endeavor, “Hype” from 1981, possibly because its subject matter seemed rather prosaic.
“I’ve got a good reputation from my fellow artists and so forth as a singer,” said Steve Ellis to this scribe quite a few years ago in an interview we didn’t get to finish – and never will now that the voice behind “Everlasting Love” is silenced forever. One of the greatest blue-eyed soul performers to have ever come out of England passed away on October 30th at the age of 76 – a mere month after his latest album was issued. Still, Steve’s talents spanned much more than soul, which was why his standing among the colleagues and listeners seemed so important to Ellis.
Carla Olson loves working with fellow musicians, and they sure love working with the lady. The list of her collaborations includes not only a famous set of duets with Gene Clark, “So Rebellious A Lover” from 1987, the record that started the songstress’s solo career, but also pieces performed with Bob Dylan, Mick Taylor and Don Henley to mention just a few. Moreover, the chanteuse’s last offering, "Have Harmony, Will Travel 3" from 2023, celebrated her creative dalliances with other musicians – and one should not forget Carla’s talents as a writer, which saw Olson compose for, among others, the legendary lyricist Pete Brown, whose words have now become a bedrock for her forthcoming platter.
When Mike Vernon was recording what would become “Blues Jam In Chicago” with FLEETWOOD MAC, he had no way of knowing a young guitarist called Joe Jammer lived in the city or that the two of them would soon meet on English soil. When the latter, brought over by Jimmy Page as his technician, became a session player and then joined the former’s OLYMPIC RUNNERS, they struck up a friendship, which in 1978 resulted in a series of acoustic tracks the pair laid down in North Devon. Not a lot – only four staples of their chosen genre and one original piece, which subsequently languished on the shelf. Until recently.
Given how fantastic they were on-stage, always eager to go off on a tangent, it’s rather surprising that there aren’t many concert documents by CACTUS – although a fair share of those have been issued over the last decades. One such album was “Ultra Sonic Boogie 1971” that preserved for posterity the American foursome’s live performance at the titular studio on November 16th of the titular year – and now another similar tape has found its way to the listener.
