Genre: rock
Rating: 2 stars **
Title: Salinas
Company: Trapp
Catalog: AW
#14014
Year: 1978
Country/State: US
Grade (cover/record): VG+ / VG+
Comments: --
Available: 1
GEMM catalog ID: 5723
Price: $80.00
The Album Globe/Album World family is one of the stranger labels I've ever run into. Built on the same tax scam concept as better known labels like Guinness and Tiger Lily, their catalog isn't well documents and is ever harder to locate since the company had a weird policy of releasing each album credited to a different label name.
Musically "Salinas" was what you'd describe as an above par country-rock cover band. If you've ever hung out at a local bar you will have heard similarly sounding bands dozens of times. Technically these guys were quite adept, but creatively they didn't have a great deal happening, though they probably sounded better after a couple of cold beers. The two lead singers were both professional, if largely anonymous. In fact anonymous was a pretty good description for most of these performances. The group's arrangements of popular mid-1970s pop and rock hits seldom strayed very far from the originals and if they showed any semblance of originality it tended to lean in a country direction - witness their cover of CCR's 'Down On the Corner'. That said the lead and pedal steel guitarists were both quite good, occasionally generating a bit of energy between them ('Six Days On the Road'). There were also apparently a pair of uncredited band originals - 'Crawdad Song' and 'Henry'. The former was a decent country-rocker - think Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen. The latter could've been an early Nitty Gritty Dirt Band knockoff. Standout tune ... well this probably sounds weird, but my choice would be their laidback cover of Charlie Daniels' 'Long-Haired Country Boy'.
"Salinas" track listing:
(side 1)
1.) Mama Don't Dance (Kenny Loggins - Jim Messina) - 2:01
2.) Sister Sue (Tichy - Barlow - Farlow - Stein) - 2:13
3.) Casey Jones (Jerry Garcia - Robert Hunter) - 2:14
4.) Down On the Corner (John Fogerty) - 2:01
5.) Crawdad Song - 2:20
(side
2)
1.) Lyin' Eyes (Don Henley - Glen Frey) - 3:55
2.) Six Days On the Road (E. Greene - C. Montgomery) - 2:02
3.) Whiskey River (J. Shinn - P. Stroud) - 2:14
4.) Henry - 2:08
5.) Long-Haired Country Boy (Charlie Daniels) - 3:00