The Electric Flag - A Long Time Comin'
# Audio CD (October 25, 1990)
# Original Release Date: March 1968
# Number of Discs: 1
# Label: Colombia
# ASIN: B0000024TY
classicbands.com
The short-lived but successful, Electric Flag was formed in 1967 by guitarist, Mike Bloomfield after he'd left The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, ostensibly to give original guitarist Elvin Bishop, in Mike's words, "a little space." Undoubtedly he had also become uncomfortable with Paul Butterfield's position as bandleader and was anxious to lead his own band. When Bloomfield left, he brought vocalist Nick Gravenites with him.
The rest of the original group was a collection of seasoned professionals from some of America's most successful bands. Drummer Buddy Miles had done session work with Otis Redding and Wilson Pickett, bassist Harvey Brooks had been with Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs and Judy Collins. Keyboard player Barry Goldberg had previously played with Steve Miller and Mitch Ryder, Peter Strazza on tenor saxophone had also played for Miller. Trumpeter, Marcus Doubleday had backed The Drifters, Jan and Dean as well as Bobby Vinton. Herbie Rich, a well seasoned session man completed the ensemble on baritone sax .
Oddly, before even playing any live concerts, the group recorded the soundtrack for the 1967 psychedelic exploitation movie, "The Trip", which afforded them the opportunity to experiment with some of their ideas without much pressure. Their live debut was at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, although they didn't make it into the documentary film of the event.
Their first album, "A Long Time Comin'" was released in the spring of 1968 with additional members Stemziel (Stemsy) Hunter and Mike Fonfara. It was an erratic collection, predating Blood, Sweat & Tears and Chicago as an attempt to fuse the big band sound with hard rock. The album's success is difficult to judge, in light of the facts that Gravenites really wasn't a top-notch vocalist, and that the band's instrumental skills outshone their songwriting. It did manage to reach # 31 in the U.S. album charts.
Review by Joe Viglione
Writer Jeff Tamarkin says "ex Butterfield Band guitarist Mike Bloomfield, drummer Buddy Miles, and others put this soul-rock band together in 1967. This debut is a testament to their ability to catch fire and keep on burnin'." That The Electric Flag do so well -- they appeared at the Monterey International Pop Festival with the Blues Project, Paul Butterfield, and Janis Joplin, and all these groups had some musical connection to each other beyond that pivotal festival. A Long Time Comin' is the "new soul" described appropriately enough by the late critic Lillian Roxon, and tunes like "She Should Have Just" and "Over-Lovin' You" lean more towards the soul side than the pop so many radio listeners were attuned to back then. Nick Gravenites was too much of a purist to ride his blues on the Top 40 the way Felix Cavaliere gave us "Groovin'," so Janis Joplin's eventual replacement in Big Brother & the Holding Company, Gravenites, and this crew pour out "Groovin' Is Easy" on this disc. It's a classy production, intellectual ideas with lots of musical changes, a subdued version of what Joplin herself would give us on I Got Dem Ole Kozmic Blues Again, Mama two years later, with some of that album written by vocalist Gravenites. Though launched after Al Kooper's the Blues Project, A Long Time Comin' itself influenced bands who would go on to sell more records. In the traditional "Wine," it is proclaimed "you know Janis Joplin, she'll tell you all about that wine, baby." As good as the album is, though, the material is pretty much composed by Mike Bloomfield and Barry Goldberg, when they're not covering Howlin' Wolf's "Killing Floor" and adding spoken-word news broadcasts to the mix. More contributions by Buddy Miles and Gravenites in the songwriting department would have been welcome here. The extended CD version has four additional tracks, Bobby Hebb's "Sunny" and "Mystery," both which appear on the self-titled Electric Flag outing which followed this LP, as well as other material which shows up on Old Glory: The Best of Electric Flag, released in 2000. "Sittin' in Circles" opens like the Doors' "Riders on the Storm," the keyboards as well as the sound effects, and a hook of "hey little girl" which would resurface as the title of a Nick Gravenites tune on the aforementioned follow-up disc, where Gravenites and Miles did pick up the songwriting slack, Bloomfield having wandered off to Super Session with the Blues Project's Al Kooper. Amazing stuff all in all, which could eventually comprise a boxed set of experimental blues rock from the mid- to late sixties. Either version of this recording, original vinyl or extended CD, is fun listening and a revelation.
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