Edgar Broughton Band – Sing Brother Sing

I found this 1970 album by the Edgar Broughton Band over at the musicology blog. I have been looking for the “Wasa, Wasa” LP for 20 years, but so far have not come across it. I always loved that “American Boy Soldier” song, and it graced many a mixed tape that I passed on to others – who often mused: “Who the hell is that?” If I were to answer from the perspective of the band itself, I’d probably say “Captain Beefheart in a bad mood.”

Biography by Jason Ankeny:

Formed in Warwick, England, the Edgar Broughton Band arrived on the London underground music scene in 1968. Led by the Broughton brothers, vocalist/guitarist Edgar and drummer Steve, and fleshed out by bassist Arthur Grant and guitarist Victor Unitt (who also briefly served with the Pretty Things), they soon signed with the Harvest label, and issued their debut Wasa Wasa — a collection of underground electric blues jams anchored by Edgar’s Captain Beefheart-like vocals — in late 1969. The Edgar Broughton Band returned in 1970 with Sing Brother Sing, which reached the U.K. Top 20 and spawned a pair of minor hit singles, “Out Demons Out” and “Apache Drop-Out” (a fusion of Beefheart’s “Dropout Boogie” and the Shadows’ “Apache”). The group seemed poised for a major commercial breakthrough, but even as their brand of heavy rock was flourishing thanks to groups like Black Sabbath and Deep Purple, the Broughton Band made an about-face, and their music became considerably more quiet and politically-charged. Their chart momentum stalled, and a 1971 self-titled effort failed to catch on.

After both 1972’s Inside Out and 1973’s Oora met a similar fate, the group left Harvest for NEMS. Legal wrangles locked them out of the studio for a number of months, but they finally resurfaced in 1975 — minus Unitt, who’d been replaced by guitarist John Thomas — with Bandages. A brief break-up followed, but in 1978 they returned with Live Hits Harder. By the release of 1979’s Parlez Vous English?, the group had expanded to a six-piece, and was now going under the name the Broughtons. The record was their last, but they continued on, eventually returning to the Edgar Broughton Band moniker and touring throughout the 1980s and 1990s.

Review by Mike DeGagne:

Sing Brother Sing almost equals the psychedelic cohesiveness and insouciant air of the Edgar Broughton Band’s debut album, but, even without doing so, it still stands as their second strongest release. All the songs on Sing Brother Sing wallow in a hippie-ish, kick-backed experimental blues-rock style, extenuated to perfection by Broughton’s resonant grumble and vocal staunchness, and surrounded by chem lab mixtures of guitar and bass. The group’s peculiar instrumental outputs give odd tracks such as “There’s No Vibrations but Wait,” “Momma’s Reward,” and the two parts of “Psychopath” progressive rock-type tendencies with a homemade wit, which would be the band’s most daunting characteristic outside of Edgar Broughton’s singing. Although the Captain Beefheart and Frank Zappa comparisons are unavoidable, the rest of Sing Brother Sing’s facets and odd instrumental avenues emit a distinctness that remains the whole album through. The quaint but humorous English air that encircles “Officer Dan” and “Old Gopher” reflects Broughton’s adept satirical approach, maybe without him even knowing it. Held together with elements of jazz, rock, and blues, the music on Sing Brother Sing is captivating because of its raw integrity, and in its refusal to adhere to structure, formula, or to travel a beaten path.

Track List:

1) There’s No Vibrations But Wait
2) The Moth: The Moth/People/Peter
3) Momma’s Reward (Keep Them Freaks A-Rollin’)
4) Refugee
5) Officer Dan
6) Old Gopher
7) Aphrodite
Granma
9) Psychopath: The Psychopath/Is for Butterflies
10) It’s Falling Away