Grand Funk Railroad-Grand Funk (1969)

“Grand Funk” is the second album from the visceral and powerful Grand Funk Railroad, released six months after their debut, “On Time”. This second release contains an anthology of energetic hard rock tracks featuring an exuberant and confident Mark Farner on guitar, as well as his excellent songwriting skills. It also showcases the solid and vigorous rhythm section of the powerful drummer Don Brewer and the crushing bass sound of Mel Schacher, which perfectly complement Farner's powerful guitar and vocals. Tracks like the furious “Got This Thing On The Movie”, a hard rock song with psychedelic undertones, the psychedelic heavy metal “Paranoid”, the powerful instrumental “In Need”, the acid blues “Winter And My Soul”, the addictive “Looking Out” or the rhythmic and heavy “High Falootin’ Woman”, make up an essential album, which would soon be hailed as a classic of hard rock, and which, with this or their subsequent works, would place them on par with their contemporaries Led Zeppelin, Cream, Jimi Hendrix Experience or Black Sabbath.

Glencoe-Glencoe (1972)

Glencoe was a band that rose from the ashes of Forever More, a Scottish progressive rock band that had released two albums in 1971. Those musicians were drummer Stuart Francis and guitarist Mick Strode. In 1972, they were joined by Graham Maitland (keyboards) and Norman Watt-Roy (bass). With the lineup complete, they toured the UK and caught the attention of Grand Western Gramaphone, a subsidiary of Epic Records. That same year, they entered the studio and recorded their first album, which no longer featured Mick Strode, who was replaced by guitarist John Turnbull. This debut album consisted of a series of tracks with a very varied style, ranging from progressive sounds with elements of country rock and pop, highlighting gentle melodies such as "Airport", "Look Me In The Eye", and "Lifeline", all of which featured extensive arrangements and progressive organ and guitar elements. In "Sinking (Down A Well)", the band showcases its bluesy side, while "It's" is the most commercial track, closer to the pop melodies of that era. "Hay Fever" demonstrates the group's vocal and instrumental prowess with an addictive rock sound tinged with progressive elements. Incredibly, despite the album's immense quality, it went largely unnoticed. As we've mentioned before, with so many talented bands dominating the market at the time, they were perhaps too conventional and polished for hard rock fans, too complex for country music fans, and too commercial for progressive rock enthusiasts. To promote this release, the band toured the UK with Deep Purple and the US with Steve Miller and Roxy Music. A year later they released their second album "The Spirit Of Glencoe", where they followed a very similar line to the previous one but with more predominance of orchestral sounds and a more commercial musical style as demonstrated in "Strange Circumstance" or in the irresistible "Two On An Island", but also showing their most forceful side with the powerful rock "Roll On Bliss".

John Mayall-Blues From Laurel Canyon (1968)

After leaving the Bluesbreakers project, John Mayall traveled to the United States, specifically to Laurel Canyon in California. Initially, Mayall went there as a guest of Bob Hite, singer of Canned Heat, but soon after, captivated by the place, he decided to settle permanently in those remote and inhospitable lands. After living alone for a while in that environment, Mayall found inspiration and composed a series of songs that would become his first album without the Bluesbreakers, the seventh in his extensive discography, titled "Blues From Laurel Canyon". To record it, he went to Decca Studios in London, where, along with producer Mike Vernon and a small group of musicians including a very young Mick Taylor on guitar, drummer Colin Allen, guitarist Peter Green, and bassist Steve Thompson, they recorded a collection of great songs that would go down in history as one of the fundamental works of blues rock. Vibrant blues rock tracks like “Vacation”, “Ready To Ride” or “2401”, the lilting ballad “Laurel Canyon Home”, the experimental “Medicine Man” or the superb “The Bear” in memory of his friend Bob Hite, make up an extraordinary and passionate album of the best blues, from the one considered the most important and fundamental musician of the British rhythm & blues scene.