Red Dirt

At the time, foliated without defects.I am satisfied.

It pains me to give this item a less than stellar review.First off i need to point out that this is an EXCELLENT outsider blues rock gem from blighty.More on that coming up.However i need to say..this is certainly not the best pressing i've heard.There's some surface noise which appears regularly,plus a bit of distortion.Now maybe i have keen ears cos i can easily block it out and in a weird way it adds to the aesthetic grittyness of the experience but..i'd rather it be a flawless pressing tbh.Maybe i got a duff cut,and i'm too lazy to return it cos it's playable enough and the music is that good...i'd buy but i have warned you.Right,whining over with.This is a classic of homemade,idiosyncratic blues rock from the early 70's,produced by a Yorkshire combo named Red Dirt.Not much is known about this really.The bare facts are on the net if you're interested but it sold in exceptionally low copies on first release and the band slipped from view almost immediately.Now it appears cratediggers have cottoned on to this wild,half-amateur,half-professional rag-tag folk blues lp.If it has any relation to other groups of the period then it's nearest kinship is with such US stoner bluesrock oddities such as Fraction and Circuit Rider.It's less wild than either but more down-home odd than both.The first song "Memories" almost fools you into expecting an entirely different album to follow.There's mellotrons it appears,wistful mumbled vocals,slightly jagged guitars and a quiet sense of prog-folk wistfullness in less than two minutes.Then the blues kicks in..and a change of vocalist as "Death Letter" swaggers into view with half-hysterical half-crazed Beefheartian vocal growls and a sense of meat on the bones compared to some anaemic britblues stuff of a similar period.This is Blooze rock sure,but more unpredictable and outsider to my ears.Yet it still convinces.The album then alternates between wild,mannish blues rock stompers(Ten Seconds to go,Gimme a shot and the excellent "Summer Madness..",a close cousin of the Stones "Stray Cat Blues")folkish laments and other slightly off kilter blues rock jams.Another mention should be made to the cool,understated Barney Bubbles sleeve artwork.To sum up,this is a gem that should delight the ardent scuzzy early 70's blues rock fan as well as fans of outsider art as this whole album has a lovely ramshackle feel to it,let down by a slightly inferior pressing.Peace

nice

Red Dirt's ultra rare original 1970'Fontana LP remains one of the hardest to find UK rarities,worth around 900$ per copy!The band was Steve Howden-guitar,piano,bass and vocals,Dave Richardson-steel guitar,harmonica,vocals,Ken Giles-bass and Steve Jackson-drums.Their producer was Geoff Gill(Smoke,Fickle Pickle) who co-wrote some of the material.Their music incorporated into a more styles like raw blues,western country or dynamic progressive folk.Well,worth investigate!

These were not some tough rednecks, but excellent hard-rockers, whose debut album appeared on Fontana in 1970, and vanished together with the band unnoticed by people and mass media. Musically (and vocally) close and equal to "Steppenwolf" in its peak form ( Steppenwolf 7 : "I've Been Down So Long" is inspired by "Snowblind Friend", while "Death Letter" is in the same mood as "Hey, Lawdy Mama". Two songs remind Jethro Tull (although without flute) - "Memories" and "Death Of A Dream" (the last one is tasteful rendition of medieval English ballad, or at least sounds like one). Slow and sad "Song For Pauline" is acoustic bottleneck blues. The voices are menacing, powerful and masculine - not popular high-pitched falsetto screaming. There are four bonus tracks: two excellent competent prog pieces and two fiddle-driven country tunes (not my cup of tea, but...)The debut album has an outstanding minimalistic artwork by legendary Barney Bubbles of Teenburger Studios on Portobello Road (although spoiled by wrong lettering and splash of red), based on famous photo of Apache chief Geronimo.The band was: Dave Richardson - lead vocals, steel guitar, piano, organ; Steve Howden - lead vocals, lead guitar, bass; Ken Giles - bass, and Steve Jackson - drums.Pity, but I don't know anything else about the band. The LP was first time re-issued on CD in 1994, and since then was heavily pirated both on vinyl and CDs. The re-issue currently available in the market is most probably a bootleg by "Dogtoire" (!) with a leaflet boasting about other releases and saying almost nothing about "Red Dirt".Buy this album when it's still around - worth every penny

Tutto più che perfetto, grazie Amedeo.

this is a great album and was in great condition!

gerade auf ser schönen roten vinyl, kommt der fette sound prima rüber...ein geiles, echtes und höhrenswertes album...! darf eigentlich in keiner sammlung fehlen!

Excellent album!

Gruppo inglese,dedito ad un heavy-psych-prog-rock,con influenze country e addirittura folk.Hanno inciso questo solo disco ufficiale,Red Dirt del 1970 e poi sono spariti.Le scarse vendite e la scarsa distribuzione,ne hanno fatto un cimelio che viene venduto,nelle sue copie originali a cifre vertiginose.I Red Dirt esprimevano un suono duro,crudo,la voce piuttosto burbera,nel complesso il suono delle parti più hard può risultare abbastanza monocorde,mentre si rivelano più interessanti i passaggi più tranquilli,con largo uso di armonica,steel guitar,piano e il tono della voce più "lavorato",più lirico.Molto buona la reissue di questo mitico reperto del 1970 ad opera della Morgan Blue Town,fatta nel rispetto del suono originale e con l'aggiunta di ben 5 tracce inedite e la riproduzione di ambedue i lati della copertina originale,il bellissimo artwork ad opera della Teenburger Designs,che riproduce l'immagine più famosa del capo Geronimo.L'apertura con Memories,si distacca in modo netto dal suono usuale,un brano di acid-rock progressive,con innesti di country acustico e di tastiere,un alcune sue parti piuttosto intriso di misticismo e romanticismo,unito ad interventi di chitarre taglienti,Death letter,il secondo brano,ci cala immediatamente nel mondo picchiato duro e chitarre fuzz,voce abrasiva,qualche strofa e via di chitarre.Tra i brani di Red Dirt,si distinguono in modo particolare Song for Pauline,un brano per sola voce e chitarra acustica e steel,un vero brano nello stile del Delta,il rock blues Ten seconds to go,con la sua ritmica insistente,accompagnata dall'armonica,chitarra in distorsione,Death of a dream,melodica e ispirata,con largo uso di acustiche,gong,le arie eteree e ricche di pathos dell'altro taglio acustico I've been down so long,arricchito da una bella chitarra elettrica sui versanti del blues.Curiose e atipiche le cinque bonus tracks,la prima,pur mantenendo l'impronta heavy-rock blues,è più composita,con un curioso violino che ne accompagna i passaggi di cambi di ritmo,una buona chitarra solista con le note che partono al centro e terminano sulla destra,Yesterday and today è un brano prog-pscichedelico con influenze folk dettate dal violino,anche qua cambi di ritmo ed entrate di chitarre,The circle song,inizialmente ha influenze medio-orientali,per poi esprimersi in varie fasi composite,sui lidi del folk anglosassone,ritorno alla melodia orientale,incursioni nel jazz-rock,tipico inizio sulle note di balli irlandesi per I'd rather go back 15 years,passaggio al rock-blues,senza mai scordare completamente la ballata irlandese,chiude Tolly Cobbold,preso direttamente come ispirazione dalle ballate paesane folkloristiche,cantato a due voci e grande uso di fiddle.La band era formata da Ken Giles al basso,Steve Howden alla lead guitar,piano,voce solista e basso,Steve Jackson alla batteria e percussioni e Dave Richardson alla steel guitar,piano,organo,armonica e voce.Un disco per certi versi interessante,non comunque strettamente necessario se non si è affezionati al genere,3 stelle e mezzo.