Stone Country - Stone Country (2007 Rev-Ola) 1968

Biography Stone Country was a Hollywood, CA-based psychedelic country-rock outfit led by gifted singer/songwriter and guitarist Steve Young. Young, who grew up in the south, moved to New York City in the early '60s, where he became affiliated with the burgeoning Greenwich Village folk music scene. He later moved to Los Angeles in 1964 and began working with Van Dyke Parks and Stephen Stills while still working his day job as a mailman. He formed Stone Country in 1967 and soon thereafter the band was signed to RCA Records. After releasing several singles, RCA issued the group's only album, Stone Country, in March 1968, produced by Rick Jarrard, who also produced Jefferson Airplane and Harry Nilsson's Pandemonium Shadow Show. (Incidentally, Stone Country appeared as themselves in Otto Preminger's 1968 film Skidoo, which features a score by Nilsson). The group disbanded when, in 1969, Young signed as a solo artist with A&M Records. His album Rock Salt & Nails featured cameo performances by James Burton, Gene Clark, Gram Parsons, and Chris Hillman. In 1971, Young signed to Reprise, and eventually recorded a series of critically acclaimed albums in the country-rock style, his most well-known song being "Seven Bridges Road," recorded by Rita Coolidge, Joan Baez, and the Eagles. Clark -- a member of the New Christy Minstrels and the Good Time Singers before joining this band -- went solo and recorded for Imperial and Republic Records. Don Beck went on to join Dillard & Clark, while Denny Conway became a session drummer. Stone Country has not been released on CD and LP copies are valuable and highly collectible.

Before Steve Young became one of the founding fathers of country-rock with his 1969 album Rock Salt and Nails, he was a member of Stone Country, a short-lived pop group that fused country and rock in a very different way. Stone Country's sole album, released in the spring of 1968, is a polished but intriguing mixture of sunshine pop, progressive country, blue-eyed soul, and folk-rock, all wrapped up in a slick package created with the best of L.A. studio craftsmanship (producer Rick Jarrard and arranger George Tipton, who both worked on the album, were also helping Harry Nilsson create his sublime early albums at the same time). Stone Country goes in too many directions at once for its own good, but it's clear that this was a band packed with talent and full of great musical ideas; the opener, "Love Psalm," is a delightful bit of psychedelic pop punctuated with some solid bluegrass picking; "Magnolias" is a gritty and unflinching portrait of life in the Deep South with a powerful vocal from Young; "The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde" is a musical synopsis of Arthur Penn's hit film of the day featuring some deft country guitar and banjo work; "Why Baby Why" is a solid George Jones cover with a heavy rock & roll stomp; and "Lizbeth Peach"'s baroque textures would do the Left Banke proud. The trouble with Stone Country is that while the bandmembers do everything here quite well (and they played nearly all of it themselves, without the help of session men), the eclecticism feels like a lack of clear focus and vision by the end of the album, and this sometimes sounds more like a bunch of talented individuals than a real group. But the best moments are a splendid example of prescient country-rock and West Coast studio polish, and Stone Country is a superb memorial for a group that had the talent and potential to do some pretty remarkable things.

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Tracklist
01.Love Pslam 2:31
02.'Lizbeth Peach 2:25
03.Magnolias 4:19
04.Mantra 2:21
05.Everywhere I Turn 2:15
06.Woman Don't You Weep 3:35
07.Time Isn't There Anymore 2:55
08.Life Stands Daring Me 2:25
09.The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde 3:04
10.The Love You Save (May Be Your Own) 3:19
11.Why Baby Why 1:54
12.Angelica 3:08
13.This Wheels on Fire  2:56
14.Million Dollar Bash 2:18

Line-up
Dann Barry - Bass, Vocals
Steve Young - Vocals, Lead Guitar
Don Beck - 12 String Guitar, Banjo
Dennis Conway - Drums, Percussions
Richard Lockmiller - Rhythm Guitar
Doug Brooks - Rhythm Guitar