River

Terry Reid - River

River
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Music CD Cover

Artist: Terry Reid
Edition: Music CD
Format: Original recording remastered
CD Release Date: 2006-03-16
Music Label: Water
Soundtracks:
  1. Dean
  2. Avenue
  3. Things to Try
  4. Live Life
  5. River
  6. Dream
  7. Milestones

Free Music Notes for River

Free Music Review: One of my top ten favorite albums
Hit: 5 Stars

I first heard this album when I was in high school. My parents had very diverse tastes in music, and I heard a lot of everything new in the 60's and 70's. Nothing was censored for sure. They even took my sister and I to see the live stage performance of "Hair" when I was 14 or so, at the Gaillard Auditorium. I remember the character named "Burger" leaping off the stage in a skimpy loincloth and practically into the lap of a little old blue-haired Charleston lady. Who says we can't appreciate the bohemian side of the arts here in the most polite city in the world? I guess we answered that question when we began hosting the Spoleto Festival.

I have fond memories of my Mom making six-hour long "mix tapes" on a TEAC reel-to-reel tape deck - Moody Blues, Pink Floyd, Yes, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Steve Miller, Jackson Browne, Allman Bros., CSNY, Jethro Tull, The Who - definitely not what your typical Mom was doing in her spare time. I also heard everything played over my parent's set of 4 pedestal Bose speakers - as you can imagine, NOTHING will ever sound quite that good again.

Even in the midst of this cornucopia of great music, this album just shook me. Terry Reid's voice was so unique - gritty, hoarse, smoky and smooth, acrobatic, even. I didn't know who this guy was, but it was one of the albums that I listened to over and over, and one of the few albums in their collection that I took the trouble to transfer to cassette tape during my college years in the late 70's. I held on to that tape forever, until it finally bit the dust in the late 80's. By that time my Mom's fabulous record collection had become scattered and lost by divorce/moves/life etc. "River" continued to haunt me, because it was so one-of-a-kind, and so special, and regardless of what new music I was hearing, I never forgot it or stopped trying to find it. I was more obsessed by this one record than I have ever been about anything.

I had never seen or heard of Terry Reid anywhere else, and had no clue who he was or where he came from. I never saw his name mentioned in Rolling Stone or liner notes - to me he was like a ghost, a cipher. Finally, the World Wide Web became accessible in the mid-90's, and I found "The Driver" on Amazon and ordered it. It was a nice album, but not the jazzy scatty performance stuck in my memory. Apparently today is my lucky day, and hell hasn't frozen over! I have finally found "River" today after 20 years of looking. In fact, I have now been able to find many of the albums that previously existed only in my memory. Well, most of them. Will Tommy Keene's album "Strange Alliance" ever become available? And when will I be able to download Bob Welch's "Paris" instead of buying it as an expensive import? There are still a few obsessions left to hunt down!

I could never categorize Reid's sound. It was sort of bluesy, jazzy, country-tinged rock, and I liked virtuosity of his vocals, the slide guitar, and the jazz-like improvisation. He could be singing in a foreign language - the words don't matter at all. Well, unless you want to know what he's saying. Good luck with that! It's just a sensational sound that blows into your brain like a fresh wind. He's a pretty good guitar player, too, and has a talent for writing and composing his own stuff. If you expect neat pop songs with a hook and a chorus (on "River," anyway), you are definitely barking up the wrong tree. But his other album, "The Driver," could be right up your alley. He has other albums that have been favorably received, but I haven't heard them all.

So, who the heck is Terry Reid, and why was he so obscure - to me, anyway? Well, the answer was surprising, and about as far away from total oblivion as possible. Jimmy Page was looking for a vocalist for his new band; you know, the one nobody's ever heard of - Led Zeppelin? Terry Reid was on that short list along with Robert Plant, and the rest is history. Reid's British, although you definitely wouldn't guess that. How does a Brit learn to sing like that? Maybe he was from the same faux Louisiana backwoods as John Fogerty! I'd believe that! He's the male version of Rickie Lee Jones.

I would rank this in my top-ten favorite albums, along with artists like Coltrane and Miles Davis and Wayne Shorter. Reid's doing the same thing - using his voice instead of a sax or a horn. It is a one-of-a-kind performance - and this coming from someone who likes punk/alt/indie/new-wave/jazz/blues - I like a lot of different stuff, but not necessarily the stuff that is gonna be playing on the classic rock station. Maybe the same album, but never the same cut. I'm contrary like that. And I'm not a musician or audio geek, so these opinions are entirely my own, my own rules, my own taste, etc. I'm not some kind of expert here. You'll just have to take my word for it.

My tastes have broadened over the many years, but this album has never faded for me. Also found today another favorite I highly recommend, "Brilliant Trees" by David Sylvian - another one-of-a-kind vocalist and musician. Brilliant Trees Now that is a completely different animal!
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River Poster

Now available on 180 gram vinyl is this 1973 Atlantic Records rock classic featuring David Lindley on lead and slide guitar. River blends the heavy rock sounds of the early Jeff Beck Group (Truth and Beck-Ola) with the folky vibe of 'acoustic' Led Zeppelin (Led Zep III) and Tim Buckley. Terry Reid's highly melodic songwriting and scintillating vocals distinguish him from his peers.

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