Sandy Salisbury - Sandy! '2011

Tracks list

Sandy Salisbury was the shy romantic of the loose group of musician friends who
formed the legendary studio combos Sagittarius and the Millennium. He was also
the one to eschew drugs entirely, a distinction that could not necessarily be
made based on the evidence of this previously unreleased solo album, originally
recorded for Together Records in 1968 and newly unearthed by British label
Poptones. Like the music his bandmates made both solo and collectively, Sandy
Salisbury is a heady, trippy, captivating concoction. In fact, of the first
series of sensational albums that Poptones cobbled together or excavated from
the Sagittarius/Millennium vaults, it is the finest, most complete work of the
lot, nearly on a par with even the classic albums officially released by the
collective. The album is a showcase for a talent who could sometimes get
submerged in the shuffle of the group. Salisbury wrote or co-composed most of
the songs in collaboration with various of his Millennium cohorts, and drenches
them in one of pop musics most angelic tenors, a voice that is nearly identical
in creamy, heavenly grace and elegance to that of Curt Boettcher, who
co-produced the album along with future Fleetwood Mac engineer Keith Olsen.

Musically, the album is luminous, hallucinatory, and full of typically cherubic
sweetness. The collectives signature romantic fervor surfaces throughout, most
characteristically on the lovely ballad Cecily and the marimba-and-vibes
peppered island groove of Once I Knew a Little Dog. But while the album has all
of the familiar Boettcher hallmarks, the production diverges in some minor but
intriguing ways. Cosmetically, songs such as Cecily and The Hills of Vermont
take on an almost country cast (as driven by Red Rhodes pedal steel), and make
the subtle stylistic shift convincingly. More substantially, Sandy Salisbury is
unexpectedly muscular, even soulful at times, on songs such as the breathtaking
harmonica-led I Just Dont Know How to Say Goodbye and the jubilantly
kaleidoscopic Goody Goodbye. The meaty Spell on Me is punctuated by waves of
brass, a surprising progression that occurs several times on the album, while
garage-punk guitar riffs bring the falsetto vocal hook of Do Unto Others back
down to earth. The album is simply joyous and celebratory, nowhere more than on
the bouyant cover of the Beach Boys With Me Tonight (renamed On and on She
Goes), reputedly aimed at administering a helping of therapy to Brian Wilson to
bolster the sense of diminishing artistic self-worth he was experiencing at the
time. Salisburys performance is just as bouyant and accomplished throughout, and
if it threatens to burst the album at its seams, it is also what makes this such
a satisfyingly unforeseen delight.

Tracklist: 
01. Sandy Salisbury - I Just Dont Know How to Say Goodbye (3:02)
02. Sandy Salisbury - Spell on Me (2:56)
03. Sandy Salisbury - The Hills of Vermont (3:34)
04. Sandy Salisbury - The Good Ol Goodtimes (2:04)
05. Sandy Salisbury - Come Softly (3:24)
06. Sandy Salisbury - On and On She Goes (2:56)
07. Sandy Salisbury - Cecliy (2:55)
08. Sandy Salisbury - Do Unto Others (3:01)
09. Sandy Salisbury - Once I Knew a Little Dog (1:51)
10. Sandy Salisbury - Baby Listen (2:46)
11. Sandy Salisbury - Goody Goodbye (2:25)

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