Mike Cooper — Five Albums On Three Discs 2019 (UK, Blues/Folk Rock)

28 Ноя 2023 - vovchik59

Исполнитель: Mike Cooper
Откуда: England
Альбом: Five Albums On Three Discs
Год выхода: 2019 (recorded in 1969-1972)
Жанр: Blues/Folk Rock
Формат: MP3 CBR 320
Размер архива: 495.9 МB

Mike Cooper is a British guitar player, singer and songwriter. Born in 1942 in Reading, Berkshire, UK, Cooper started playing guitar shortly after leaving school in 1958. In 1962, as a singer and harmonica player, he co-founded an R&B band The Blues Committee, with guitarist Paul Manning, guitarist Dicky Reeves and drummer Eddie Page. They played alongside many visiting American blues players in their home town: John Lee Hooker, Jimmy Reed, Howling Wolf and others as well as British r&b and blues bands such as Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated. At the same time Cooper was playing and singing folk and country blues as a solo artist in local folk clubs. In 1966, together with singer/guitarist Derek Hall, they recorded their first record, a 7inch four track independent release, titled «Out Of The Shades». The title referred to the coffee house where Cooper and Hall played regularly during that period. From the mid until the late sixties Cooper was one of the handful of players who pioneered the acoustic British blues Boom, playing with and alongside other British players such as Jo Ann Kelly, Dave Kelly, Tony McPhee and Ian A. Anderson and others, as well as with visiting blues legends such as Son House, Mississippi Fred McDowell and Bukka White. His 1969 l.p. «Oh Really!?» on Pye Records is widely acclaimed as one of the best acoustic blues albums of the period. In the early 1970s, working with producer Peter Eden for Pye/Dawn Records, he recorded four solo albums which chronicle, through his own songwriting, a fascinating shift from pure blues through to free jazz. Collaborating with jazz, improvising and avant-garde musicians, in particular South Africans Dudu Pukwana, Harry Miller, Louis Moholo and Mongezi Feza, Zimbabwean composer and arranger Mike Gibbs and British saxophonist Mike Osborne he produced perhaps some of the first and finest rogue folk. For the last of these albums he formed the band Machine Gun Company with Geoff Hawkins on sax, Alan Cook on keyboards, Les Calvert on bass and Tim Richardson on drums. A group that mixed rock, folk and free jazz. Cooper moved to live in Spain briefly before returning to the UK to record a fifth l.p. «Life and Death In Paradise» with Harry Miller, Mike Osbourne and Louise Moholo for Tony Hall’s short lived Fresh Air label. He moved to live in Germany, Spain and France shortly after its release. Returning to the UK in the late 1970s he began to develop a parallel career and establish himself on the avant-garde and free-improvised music scene, working initially with members of the London Musicians Collective, such as Eddie Prévost, Keith Rowe, David Toop, Steve Beresford, Max Eastley, Paul Burwell, dancer Jo-Anna Pyne, and vocalist Viv Corringham. With saxophonist Lol Coxhill and drummer Roger Turner, they formed The Recedents, a free improvising trio now in its third decade.

Tracks:
CD 1
«Oh Really!?» (1969)
01. Death Letter — 3:13
02. Bad Luck Blues — 3:08
03. Maggie Campbell — 3:09
04. Leadhearted Blues — 2:32
05. Four Ways — 1:30
06. Poor Little Annie — 3:40
07. Tadpole Blues — 2:38
08. Divinity Blues — 2:19
09. You’re Gonna Be Sorry — 2:08
10. Electric Chair — 2:50
11. Crow Jane — 3:04
12. Pepper Rag — 0:43
13. Saturday Blues — 3:27
«Do I Know You?» (1970)
14. The Link — 2:57
15. Journey To The East — 3:35
16. First Song — 4:26
17. Theme In C — 2:42
18. Thinking Back — 2:36
19. Think She Knows Me Now — 4:23
20. Too Late Now — 3:06
21. Wish She Was With Me — 2:17
22. Do I Know You? — 4:04
23. Start Of A Journey — 3:24
24. Looking Back — 4:23
CD 2
«Trout Steel» (1970)
01. That’s How — 4:16
02. Sitting Here Watching — 3:07
03. Goodtimes — 3:26
04. I’ve Got Mine — 11:17
05. A Half Sunday Homage To A Whole (Leonardo Da Vinci Without Words By Richard Brautigan) — 1:33
06. Don’t Talk Too Fast — 3:16
07. Trout Steel — 2:19
08. In The Mourning — 5:13
09. Hope You See — 4:16
10. Pharaoh’s March — 7:10
11. Weeping Rose — 3:19
«Places I Know» (1971)
12. Country Water — 3:04
13. Three-Fourty Eight — 3:50
14. Night Journey — 5:09
15. Time To Time — 8:28
CD 3
«Places I Know» (1971)
01. Paper And Smoke — 3:57
02. Broken Bridges — 4:40
03. Now I Know — 5:00
04. Goodbye Blues, Goodbye — 4:56
05. Places I Know — 2:25
«The Machine Gun Co. With Mike Cooper» (1972)
06. Song For Abigail — 9:03
07. The Singing Tree — 5:36
08. Midnight Words — 3:30
09. So Glad (That I Found You) — 15:21
10. Lady Anne — 5:18
Bonuses:
11. Your Lovely Ways (Part 1&2) (EP, 1970) — 7:11
12. Time In Hand (Single A-Side, 1972) — 3:32
13. Schaabisch Hall (Single B-Side, 1972) — 4:39

Personnel:
«Oh Really!?» (1969)
Mike Cooper — vocals, guitar
Derek Hall — 2nd guitar (04, 10)

«Do I Know You?» (1970)
Mike Cooper — vocals, guitar, slide guitar
Poor Little Anne — vocals
Harry Miller — double bass

«Trout Steel» (1970)
Mike Cooper — vocals, guitar, slide guitar
Bill Boazman, Stefan Grossman — guitar
Harry Miller — string bass
Roy Babbington — string bass, electric bass
John Taylor — piano
Mike Osborne — alto saxophone, clarinet
Geoff Hawkins — tenor saxophone, flute
Alan Skidmore — tenor & soprano saxophone
Jerry Field, Nick Pickett — violin
Alan Jackson — drums, percussion
The Heron — vocals

«Places I Know» (1971)
Mike Cooper — vocals, guitars
Bill Boazman — guitar
Alan Cook — electric piano
Jeff Clyne — bass
Johnny Van Derrick — violin
Les Calvert — electric bass
Tony Pook — vocals
Geoff Hawkins — saxophone, flute
Laurie Allan, Tim Richardson — drums
Gerald T. Moore, Jean Oddie, Norma Winstone — chorus

«The Machine Gun Co. With Mike Cooper» (1972)
Mike Cooper — vocals, guitars
Les Calvert — electric bass
Geoff Hawkins — saxophone. melodica, reed pipe
Alan Cook — electric piano
Tim Richardson — percussion

Enjoy