Artist: Sweet Thursday
Title: Sweet Thursday
Year Of Release: 1969 (2018)
Country: US/UK
Label: Line Records LICD 600069 E
Genre: Psychedelic/Blues Rock
Quality: FLAC | lossless

One album band with a stellar line-up of musicians. The record was released in August 1969 in the USA on Tetragrammaton Records in a limited edition. Soon the record company went bankrupt and the group disappeared from the musical horizon. The best track on the album is the 10-minute composition "Gilbert Street", which hit the Billboard top 100. Happy listening everyone.

This group and their one and only album were once considered so hot, what with Nicky Hopkins, Alun Davies, and Jon Mark in the lineup, that a reissue in 1971 rated a full-page ad from the source label in Rolling Stone. In fact, it's a pleasant, well-played midtempo piece of late-'60s rock, with elements of British blues ("Side of the Road"), psychedelic harpsichords and flute ("Cobwebs"), and R&B, mid-'60s U.K. style. Alun Davies and Jon Mark are more than good enough guitar players and singers, but there's nothing terribly special here in the way of songwriting. "Cobwebs" is the kind of amorphous, spacy brand of psychedelia that Donovan used to fill out his albums with, but with a bit more drive; "Dealer" is vaguely blues-ish rock driven by pseudo-profound lyrics. Jon Mark's "Rescue Me" is one of the better numbers here, dominated by Hopkins' organ playing and driven by a great beat, and carried by his attempts at a white soul vocal performance; it's no surprise for the neophyte to learn that all of these guys played with outfits like Zoot Money's Big Roll Band and the Cyril Davies All-Stars. And then there's "Gilbert Street," which shows some finesse and a robust vocal performance, and sustains interest for five minutes plus; this number must have been something to hear in concert, and a whole album like it would have lived up to a reputation stretching across the decades. It's also easy to see why this record never caught on at the time -- there isn't a real single here, or any memorable tunes, except for "Gilbert Street" -- and why it became a kind of FM standard among deejays seeking to annoy the hell out of listeners who couldn't get the record.

Tracklist:
1. Dealer - 6:01
2. Jenny - 3:48
3. Laughed At Him - 5:15
4. Cobwebs - 3:26
5. Rescue Me - 3:42
6. Molly - 3:05
7. Sweet Francesca - 3:58
8. Side Of The Road - 4:52
9. Gilbert Street - 10:25

Personnel:
Jon Mark - guitars, vocals
Alun Davies - guitars, vocals
Nicky Hopkins - keyboards
Brian Odgers - bass, woodwinds
Harvey Burns - drums, percussion