Happy trails
| Happy trails | ||||
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| Studio album from Quicksilver Messenger Service | ||||
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Publication |
1969 |
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| Label (s) | Capitol Records | |||
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Format (s) |
LP, CD |
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Title (number) |
10 |
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running time |
48:41 |
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Happy Trails is the second music album by the US rock band Quicksilver Messenger Service . It was released on Capitol Records in 1969 .
background
Following the debut album from 1968 there was a tour of the USA, which took the band to New York, Philadelphia and Kansas, among other places. Since Quicksilver Messenger Service were always eager to improvise and regularly expanded their songs into longer jam sessions , there was dissatisfaction with the restrictions on further recording in a recording studio. The band therefore decided to record some appearances at the Fillmore East and Fillmore West for the upcoming release. But already after the second tour on the east coast and before the album could be finished, Gary Duncan left the group to found his own formation with Dino Valenti, who was released from prison. According to Freiberg, Duncan's methadone use also played a role in the fact that he was no longer able to attend further concerts with Quicksilver Messenger Service. However, he was persuaded by the band to take part in the recording of Calvary on November 19, 1968 in the Golden State Recorders Studios in San Francisco. Happy Trails was finally released in March 1969. The band, shrunk and divided by Duncan's exit to a trio, played almost no concerts in 1969, but was looking for a replacement, whom they found in Nicky Hopkins .
The first six songs on the album, which took up the entire first record side, are not separate individual songs, but rather represent a jam lasting over 20 minutes, which begins and ends with Bo Diddley's Who Do You Love . For titles No. 2, No. 4 and No. 5, the musicians who are in the foreground as soloists in the respective section are named as authors. With song number 3, the entire band creates a joint sound collage without a single group member standing out. The Fillmore Audience is named as co-author on this track, as the audience joins the improvisation with rhythmic clapping and interjecting in the quieter passages.
George Hunter suggested his painting The Cowboy as a cover during the Calvary shoot . The painting shows a galloping Pony Express rider, who waves to a young woman who is staying behind with his Stetson . The band felt attached to the values of the early settlers in the United States, from which the group believed that American society at the time had become too distant.
Track list
page 1
- Who Do You Love? ( Ellas McDaniel ) - 3:32
- When You Love (Gary Duncan) - 5:15
- Where You Love (Quicksilver Messenger Service, Fillmore Audience) - 6:07
- How You Love (Cipollina) - 2:45
- Which Do You Love (Freiberg) - 1:49
- Who Do You Love - Part 2 (McDaniel) - 5:51
Page 2
- Mona (McDaniel) - 7:01
- Maiden of the Cancer Moon (Duncan) - 2:54
- Calvary (Duncan) 13:31
- Happy Trails ( Dale Evans ) - 1:29
occupation
- John Cipollina - guitar , vocals
- Gary Duncan - guitar, vocals
- Greg Elmore - drums , percussion , vocals
- David Freiberg - bass , piano , vocals
Chart successes
Happy Trails reached number 27 on the Billboard 200 and the single Who Do You Love reached number 91 on the Billboard Hot 100 . The album was awarded gold by the RIAA in May 1992 .
reception
- In May 1969, Greil Marcus wrote in Rolling Stone the way the album cover was designed, reminiscent of the Wild West depictions by Frederic Remington . The recording of the Bo Diddley song Who Do You Love , which took up the entire first page, would have been wonderfully recorded in the two Fillmore theaters. He described Cipollina's guitar as alternating rough and sweet, Elmore's drums as simple and solid, and the vocals as wild and screeching.
- At Allmusic , Lindsay Planer wrote that Happy Trails was without question the best recording on vinyl that the group showed most precisely in the light of their celebrated live performances. The band's efforts demonstrated their ability to play in a psychedelic ease without boredom or appearing arrogant. Planer particularly highlighted Cipollina's guitar playing on the second side of the recording, describing him as unique among his contemporaries in the San Francisco Bay Area . The album received four and a half stars out of five.
- At Rocktimes.de, Ulli Heiser wrote that the first page of the album no longer had much to do with Diddley's version of the song Who Do You Love , but showed a number of guitar and vocal outbursts. Here cracking blues rock alternates with psychedelic parts. In particular, Calvary from the second side, as a long instrumental piece, would show all facets of the well-rehearsed band and was even more crazy than the rest of the recordings. In the evaluation, Happy Trails was classified as a classic.
Individual evidence
- ↑ List of the various issues of Happy Trails at discogs.com
- ↑ David Freiberg Interview with John Barthel from September 1997 at penncen.com
- ↑ Quicksilver Messenger Service Article by Brian Hogg at bay-area-bands.com
- ↑ Band biography at allmusic.com
- ↑ Essay by Chris Welch in the CD booklet of the German CD edition from 2000
- ↑ Chart placements at allmusic.com
- ↑ Gold Record at riaa.com
- ↑ album at allmusic.com
- ↑ Album review at rocktimes.de