Help Yourself-Beware The Shadow (1972)

Help Yourself (known as The Helps) was a British band with a sound close to psychedelic country. They recorded four albums in the early 1970s: "Help Yourself" (1971), "Strange Affair" (1972), "Beware the Shadow" (1972), and "The Return of Ken Whaley" (1973). For many, their third album, "Beware the Shadow", was the high point of the group's career, and it is widely admired by progressive and psychedelic music fans around the world. Help Yourself consisted of Malcolm Morley (guitar, keyboards, and vocals), Dave Charles (drums and vocals), Ken Whaley (bass), and Richard Treece (guitar, harmonica, and vocals). Listening to "Beware The Shadow", you might think these Brits are actually an American Southern rock band, and indeed, from the opening track "Alabama Lady", they sound like one, with clear influences from The Allman Brothers Band and other contemporary bands from the Southern states. In contrast, there's the sublime and psychedelic "Reaffirmation", a twelve-minute jam session in the purest Grateful Dead style. The blues-rock track "American Mother" continues to reaffirm that typical American sound, as does the folk-rock "Passing Through". However, the brief and carefree "Calapso", the Beatlesque "She's My Girl", and the frivolous country-rock "Molly Bake Bean" lack the creativity and vigor of the previous tracks. In short, these Brits have left us with "Beware The Shadow", an interesting collection of brilliant folk, blues-rock, and psychedelic tracks, with a decidedly American sound.