Touch - Mike Harrison & The Hamburg Blues Band

Advantages: Gentle and full of thoughtful lyrics and the odd catchy melody
Disadvantages: There are one ot two tracks that don't make the grade

...On a cold, windy day, the twenty fifth of February 1943. Mrs Louise Harrison gave birth to the youngest of the clan and named him George. Born at 12 Arnold Grove, Waretree, Liverpool. Harold and Louise had been married thirteen years by now, and it would be almost another fourteen years to the date that George nervously picked up his guitar and went shakely with his close friend Paul McCartney, to see a group at the lesser know Wilson Hall in Garston known as the even lesser know QuarryMen. It was of course here, that he met John Lennon, and after occasionaly 'filling' in for them when they were a guitar short, John finally gave in to both George and Paul's persistance, and George was officially allowed to join the band. After years of endless badly paid gigs at schools and village fetes and shortly before a trip to play... Read review

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Advantages: Superb music by the first great female.rock.band to go mainstream.
Disadvantages: No lyrics. Band members don't get a penny from this anthology.

.... The next song, penned by everyone, would express in no uncertain terms the frustration and difficulties experienced by the band. Alice is given the mike, and her slightly off-tune, untrained vocal actually suits the song. Richard Perry adds nice touches of brass in just the right places. (Chorus) 'Sittin' dreaming on a street corner Wond'ring how to keep warm I'm so darn broke, I'm down to my last toke' I'm a child of the windy storm./ I took my story to a man who knew Who told me 'I can make a star of you' Took me for everything that I called mine And now I'm stranded on the dotted line./ . . . I keep on rolling like the stone of old Through rain and fire and the freezing cold I've been bitten by the rock 'n' roll disease So won't you help me make a record, please?' * And here the band pauses briefly as Jean, I think, whispers... Read review

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Advantages: The epitome of an era and a generation.
Disadvantages: Probably won't be as greatly regarded by future generations....

...that consisted of competitiveness and head bashing against irritated walls. The White Album lacked the enthusiasm of and excitement of a band playing and working together. That is why, this album, Sgt.Pepper, was to me, their last album as a 'group.'. 1967 was a year not just when the most diverse album was released but also the 'Summer of Love.' I doubt there are many readers out there reading this who remember it first hand, but as a general guide, it was a year that suddenly bloomed with colour. Because of the years after the War were under a blanket of monochrome, so much that even rock and roll had failed to lift it entirely, The Beatles, had come along and thrown a universal rainbow across the world. It was the year of experiment, surrealism and everything that people had not dared to think about. Suddenly dreams could come true, people found... Read review

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