アラバマうまれの Mel Canady がドイツで結成したド級のファンクバンド。 というのを It’s Psychedelic Baby Magazine がメンバーの Sal Sax という人に敢行したインタビュー記事で知る。 Amon Duul つながりでっていうのがなんともおかしいけれども、Ruby & The Mudflaps の結成がドイツだということで納得もし。
当時リリースされたシングルはメガレアになっているので、70 年代にレコーディングされた未発表音源の発掘物は内容が良ければ良いほどにありがたいもの。 でも、欲を言えば個人的には一番好きな Do The Boogie も収録してほしかった・・・でも肝心の Breezy がデモバージョンだということかしても権利関係で引っかかったのかもしれないですなぁ。
This album features 3 studio takes by Ruby & the Mudflaps alongside a number of live recordings from the 1970s. These songs are exclusive to Cordial Recordings and have previously never been available on vinyl apart from ‘Is That Enough?’ which we released in 2018 on 7″ single.
The live recordings capture the magical Haight-Ashbury west coast vibes with a crossover of soul and hippy chic. The original full length studio demo version of ‘Breezy’ starts the proceedings off on Side A and is followed by the uptempo swing of ‘Without You.’ The steppers of dream of ‘Is That Enough?’ slows the pace down before the tempo is raised again with the prophetic ‘Only Love Spoken Here.’ The album closes off with the first live version of ‘Mountain Man.’
The B side kicks off with ‘Love Song’ that conjures up visions of lying on China Beach in the late 1960s without a care in the world. We are then treated to a fine rendition of Tower of Power’s ‘Don’t Change Horses (In The Middle Of The Stream).’ The final studio recording in ‘You Want Me’ comes next before seguing into the jazzy work out of ‘Time.’ This album version of ‘Country Girl’ is a different take of the song that we had previously released as a B Side. We close the album off with the second live recording of ‘Mountain Man.’
We believe that these songs deserved a wider audience or they risked the danger of being lost forever in time. We take changes here at Cordial Recordings from time to time and hope that you like this collection of golden nuggets.