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Sunday, June 22, 2014

The Grass Roots - Move Along / Alotta Mileage (1972-73 us, sightly soulful brass rock)



The final three Top 40 hits for the Grass Roots materialize on Move Along, a consistent album under the aegis of original co-producer Steve Barri with the band's future producers Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter writing two of the new hits. Slick arrangements and big production eliminate the charm of the earlier recordings, where P.F. Sloan and Steve Barri gave the group a nice mixture of the frosting poured atop once folky Simon & Garfunkel tracks by Clive Davis and the Top 40 shine Mickey Most gave to Herman's Hermits. That Sloan and Barri worked on Peter Noone's Hold On movie soundtrack, including their composition "A Must to Avoid" and an earlier version of "Where Were You When I Needed You," is a little proof of how they steered the original Grassroots. Peter Noone hit in January of 1966 with his Sloan/Barri material, the Grassroots in July of that year. 
by Joe Viglione

Given that they were perceived as being long past their prime, the appropriately titled Alotta Mileage (the group's seventh album) is a truly astonishing album to have come from the Grass Roots in 1973,  the first side of Alotta Mileage is a fine, smooth, delightfully hook-laden and beautifully produced body of soulful pop music. The vocalizing by Rob Grill and the playing by -- well, who knows, as the group was always relying on session musicians -- are first-rate, and the songs are catchy and executed spot-on, with a wide variety of sounds from solo acoustic guitar to horn-accompanied choruses in all the right spots. 

In one respect, it's no surprise that the group could still deliver like this on record, what with veteran members Grill and Warren Entner sharing the production chores alongside co-founder/original co-producer Steve Barri. Between them, they wrote the book on the group's post-1967 sound. Sad to say, side two is a bit less successful, as the material isn't as strong; most of what's there is predictable, by-the-numbers pop-soul, and the one minor chart single off the album, "Love Is What You Make It," sounds too much like a warmed-over Partridge Family leftover. But the fact that two-thirds of this record is as good as it is will be a pleasant treat to anyone who tracks it down. 

The other amazing element of this release is the wretched cover art -- Dunhill either had the worst art department in the business or someone there felt it was appropriate to go through the motions of doing his or her job: in place of anything indicating that this is a soul-based rock album by a band with more than a dozen hit singles to its credit, there is an image of footwear on the cover. 
by Bruce Eder


Tracks
1. The Runway (B. Potter, G. Lambert) - 2:51
2. Monday Love (D. Provisor) - 3:23
3. Anyway The Wind Blows (B. Potter, G. Lambert) - 2:53
4. Runnin' Just To Get Her Home Again (D. Provisor, W. Entner) - 3:25
5. Two Divided By Love (B. Potter, M. Kupps) - 2:35
6. Someone To Close (D. Provisor) - 3:17
7. Face The Music (D. Walsh, H. Price) - 3:08
8. Move Along (D. Provisor) - 3:19
9. One Word (A. Roberts, C. Welch) - 2:32
10.Only One (D. Provisor) - 4:57
11.Glory Bound (D. Walsh, H. Price, D. Provisor, S. Barri) - 2:33
12.Where There's Smoke There's Fire (D. Walsh, H. Price) - 2:57
13.Pick Up Your Feet (E. Villareal, W. Watkins) - 2:56
14.You've Got To Bend With The Breeze (D. Walsh, H. Price, R. Grill, W. Entner) - 2:45
15.Just A Little Tear (D. Walsh, H. Price, R. Grill, W. Entner) - 3:15
16.Ain't No Way To Go Home (B. Mann, C. Weil) - 2:55
17.Claudia (V. Weber, W. Entner) - 3:27
18.Love Is What You Make It (D. Walsh, H. Price) - 2:52
19.Look But Don't Touch (W. Entner) - 3:08
20.Ballad Of Billy Joe (C. Rich) - 5:03
21.We Almost Made It together (D. Provisor, W. Entner) - 3:40
22.Little Bit Of Love (A. Fraser, P. Kossoff, P. Rodgers, S. Kirk) - 2:45
23.Medley-I'd Wait a Million Years/Midnight Confessions/Let's Live For Today/Temptation Eyes (M. Bottler, G. Zekley / L. Josie / M. Julien, I. Mogol, D. Shapiro / D. Walsh, H. Price) - 4:16

The Grass Roots
*Rob Grill - Vocals, Bass
*Warren Entner - Guitar, Vocals
*Virgil Weber - Keyboards
*Reed Kailing - Guitar
*Joel Larson - Drums

1969  The Grass Roots - Leaving It All Behind  (2010 edition)

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13 comments:

  1. Every time I click on the download link my computer freezes up. Never had it happen here before. Four times it's happened now. Screwed up all my other downloads since the only way to kill it is to go to taskmaster and stop the procedure.

    ReplyDelete
  2. It's strange. Check out your system by any antivirus application.
    All download links are working fine.
    Many thanks Marios and Larry for this rare gem!

    ReplyDelete
  3. LOL...!! If you want to talk about viruses, then I gotta tell you.... the only viruses I've ever picked up in trhese music blogs have been from here. You need to do something about your security. I have downloaded over 15,000 files in the past and the only risk has been here. Trojan city, man. And I think you know it, too.... For some time now.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I always try to make this site safe and clean,
    for over 4 million visits in this blog
    you're the only one complaining about viruses,
    it's up to you to decide to visit or not the blog.
    Thank you for your kind words.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Do you have Part 3 to this ? The archive is incomplete and none of the tracks will save with it. Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Zardom M,
    just checked, d/loaded again and everything is OK,
    the cue file shows me 23 tracks.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Can you please re-upload the Grass Roots 2 on 1 CD's? The Link is no longer active. Do you happen to have all 4 volumes in this series?

    Thanks

    Len

    ReplyDelete
  8. Len, The Grass Roots - Move Along / Alotta Mileage reup...

    ReplyDelete
  9. Does anyone have The Grass Roots ‎– Volume 3: The Grass Roots(1975) And Things I Should Have Said?

    ReplyDelete
  10. The grass roots allot if mileage

    ReplyDelete