[.ca] On the Road to Freedom

Yeah, I'm Gonna Keep On Rockin' Till the Sun Goes Down!:
It was a MAGIC night in November, 1973. I was on an extremely intense, extremely PHYSICAL date with..."a woman who I'd been warned about." About midnight, we went downstairs for a cold drink and turned on the TV, Wolfman Jack. And there was Jackson Browne whining, "....her waistline seems to be expandin,' although she never feels like eatin' a thing." And, needless to say, my libido plummeted WAY south. AH, but maybe my "date" knew me better than I thought, because she bade me, "Hey, dig what's comin' up NEXT!" I couldn't believe it: Alvin Lee, of eardrum crushing Ten Years After was doing a duet, now, with MY homeboy, the Suthen' Gospel singer, Mylon LeFevere, and they were performing a quiet, most BEAUTIFUL song, just them on acoustic guitars (!)called "Carry My Load." And the band they had put together for accompaniment! - wow, Steve Winwood and Jim Capaldi from Traffic and a guy I'd learn to recognize about half a year later, bassist Boz Burrell, who I'd see for the rest of the seventies with Bad Company. "This is just TOO COOL!," I raved to my disinterested..."date," who, TOO, was thinking about the ramifications of what Jackson Browne had whined about a song or two earlier. Not to worry, about a month later, we, together, purchased "On The Road To Freedom," and spent early 1974 listening to it, pleasantly wasted, and ferociously ignoring tripe like "Spiders and Snakes" and "Seasons In The Sun." This album is incredible! Alvin and Mylon PERFECTLY balancing and complementing one another, playing mostly all acoustic guitars. But there are the exceptions! The last track, "Rockin'" WILL peel the paint off the wall, and the track that one R Wood contributes sounds like what the Stones would sink to after he joined. But I DO have to admit, "Let 'Em Say What They Will" DOES manage to capture some of the chemistry he had with the late, lamented Faces. George Harrison contribues "So Sad," which features his beautiful "weeping" guitar, and Mick Fleetwood's playing drums on it, too! This is great "I wanna kick back an' play acoustic and not HAVE to play 'WEE-WEE-DIDDLY''lead' guitar," music, just some tunes that a couple of pals got together with some friends, and didn't feel they had to show off. Mylon's voice is, as always, sublime, and Alvin's even a bit "mellow," too. But, yeah, if you insist, the electric guitars ARE there NICELY, and even ol' Mylon does a bit of letting it ALL hang out on the rockers. Believe me, this is WELL worth the 24 bucks Amazon's asking for it, and you better go for it, because I've yet to see it in ANY of the local CD purveyors -and, believe me, I have looked.

• On the Road to Freedom
• World Is Changing (I Got a Woman Back in Georgia)
• So Sad (No Love of His Own)
• Fall Angel
• Funny
• We Will Shine
• Carry My Load
• Lay Me Back
• Let 'Em Say What They Will
• I Can't Take It
• Riffin
• Rockin' Til the Sun Goes Down
• So Sad (No Love of His Own) \oSingle Version\c\o*\c