A Euphonious Wail - A Euphonious Wail

A Euphonious Wail - A Euphonious Wail (1973)Psychedelic Rock, Classic Rock, Hard Rock

Heavily influenced by San Francisco bands (Big Brother and the Trucking Company and The Jefferson Airplane quickly come to mind), the Santa Rosa, California-based A Euphonious Wail was roughly five years behind creative and popular tastes. Not that it seemed to matter given a financially struggling Kapp Records went ahead and signed the quintet to a recording contract. Built around the talents of drummer Doug Hoffman, keyboardist Bart Libby, singer Suzanne Rey, singer/guitarist Steve Tracy and bassist Gary Violetti, the band's self-titled 1973 debut teamed them with producer Brian Ingoldsby (Lowell Levinger of Youngbloods fame reportedly also helped out). While "A Euphonious Wail" had a couple of nice moments, for the most part the LP was surprisingly lame and uninspired. As lead vocalists Rey and Tracy had decent, if unexceptional voices (though Rey tended to screech in the higher registers). The same type of limitations were true of the band as songwriters (all but Hoffman contributing material). Taken individually guitar and keyboard propelled rockers such as 'Pony', 'We've Got the Chance', 'When I Start To Live' and 'F#' weren't bad, but stretched over an entire album, there simply wasn't much that really stood out. The band were even less successful when they tried slowing things down - check out the lame ballads 'Did You Ever' and 'I Want To Be a Star'. (The Michael Hawes cover drawing was interesting. Depending on how you looked at it you saw something completely abstract, or possibly obscene.) Needless to say, the album vanished without a trace, followed in short order by the band

Tracklist

A1 Pony
Written-By – John F. Brandeburg*
0:00

A2 We've Got The Chance
Written-By – Bart Libby, Suzanne Rey
4:43

A3 Did You Ever
Written-By – Steve Tracy
8:56

A4 When I Start To Live
Written-By – Steve Tracy
12:42


B1 F #
Written-By – Steve Tracy
18:10

B2 Chicken
Written-By – Bart Libby, Gary Violetti
21:49

B3 Night Out
Written-By – Gary Violetti, Suzanne Rey
26:25

B4 Love Me Brother
Written-By – Gary Violetti, Suzanne Rey
29:17

B5 I Want To Be A Star
Written-By – Bart Libby
34:00

Credits

Bass, Vocals – Gary Violetti
Drums, Vocals – Doug Huffman
Engineer – Gary Stauffer
Graphics – Michael Hawes
Guitar, Vocals – Steve Tracy
Mastered By – Darrell Johnson
Organ, Piano – Bart Libby
Percussion, Vocals – Suzanne Rey
Photography By – Nan Snodgrass
Producer, Arranged By – A Euphonious Wail
Producer, Arranged By, Engineer, Mixed By – Brian Ingoldsby