McKendree Spring - Spring Suite (1973)

McKendree Spring was certainly not your ordinary American folk-rock group. They didn't take influences from the Byrds or CSNY. Dr. Michael Dreyfuss played violin, but you couldn't compare them to It's a Beautiful Day. The fact the group hailed from Upstate New York meant they didn't have to play by California rules. The band frequently had no drummer (although several of their albums did have drums, Spring Suite was not one of them). They had Fran McKendree on guitar and vocals, Christopher Bishop on bass and vocals, Martin Slutsky on guitar, and, as already mentioned, Dr. Michael Dreyfuss (apparently already middle aged when this band got started) on violin. They were basically a band with musicians who had a love for folk and country music, but also of the prog rock scene that was popular at the time, in fact, if I'm not mistakend they once opened up for Emerson, Lake & Palmer, what a strange billing! They weren't afraid to include some prog rock elements in their music, so meaning they were a sorta proggish country/folk-rock band. If that sounds like a strange combination, it is, but it actually works quite well, at least on Spring Suite (as I have yet to hear their other albums, although I've heard a bunch of their other songs).

They released their first album in 1969 on Decca, and were often called the Three Dog Night of folk rock, likely because they had a habit of covering other people's songs, usually from singer/songwriters, like Neil Young's "Down by the River" and James Taylor's "Fire and Rain" (which I thought was superior to the original, not to mention I have never been much of a James Taylor fan). But unlike Three Dog Night, who were obviously wanting big time commercial AM radio success (which they did), McKendree Spring didn't. They pretty much kept an East Coast cult following, mainly of the college crowd. Unsurprisingly this kind of music didn't exactly appeal to the rock critics, Dave Marsh, for example was one of the critics not so kind of this music.

1973's Spring Suite was their fourth album, released on the MCA label (as MCA pretty much took over from Decca by this point), and was that rare instance of an American band using a Roger Dean album cover. This cover looks very much like a Yes album cover (no surprise there, given how much involvement he had with Yes at that time), but don't buy this thinking the band is now suddenly like Yes, as they sound nothing like Yes. They even went to England to record this album, but totally kept that American folk and country feel, with the prog rock tendencies that often crept in their music. This time they didn't appear to cover other people's songs, or if they did, it was from someone I don't recognize (because there is one song not written by the band).

"Equinox" and "Winter" shows the prog tendencies the most, especially the presence of some Moog synths, and some minor symphonic tendencies. "I Was Born" shows more of that creative bent, going through several moods and changes throughout. "Today's the Day" shows their American influences for everyone to see, having a rather nice, laid-back folk/country feel.

So if you got sick and tired of way too many Byrds and CSNY clones that made up the American folk-rock scene, you'll be very happy with the much more unique sound of McKendree Spring, and Spring Suite is a great album to get!

By BENJAMIN MILER, amazon