The Vanguard Folk Rock Album

This CD is filled with unexpected joys and delights, even for those familiar with most of the artists involved -- never had a top act of the caliber of or , and , their one big San Francisco act, were too political and too inventive ever to fit into one genre (much less one as commercial as " "), but as this CD reveals, the label could rightfully claim a piece of the sound, and without a track in sight. 's starts the collection off coming out of the side of the equation well enough, but it's the second cut here, ' 1966 frustrated youth anthem that will get most listeners' ears to prick up in recognition. Forget ; one wonders how this track missed turning up on . A killer outtake of arranged by and extended and savage in its references to as a sellout, lights up this set like a match on tinder, and ' brings listeners back to the commercial side of , with its pleasant harmonies in a midtempo setting. But it's 's bluesy that is closer to what constituted at . The expected tracks are here, along with stuff by , , and the pair of tracks will likely gain them some valuable new exposure among those too young to have known of them at the time. The surprises are the improbably named , a distant offshoot of (the Bay Area group that tried to make it as but rebelled against the control of their producers) with a surprisingly lyrical and accessible sound, and , an abortive attempt to turn the latter-day incarnation of into something more relevant to 1965. But the treasure here is 's vicious parody/attack, -- though an attack on 's tendency to co-opt sounds without credit, it's close enough to 's actual sound (courtesy of ' contribution as backing band) that it's as though, in another context, one found a track that attacked (and come to think of it, does, sort of). The sound is excellent, the programming is generous and wide-ranging with lots of surprises, and the annotation by is worth half the cost of the disc. ~ Bruce Eder