Brian Auger & The Trinity - Far Horizons [4CD]

Soul Bank Music

£30.22

Format: 4 x CD
Catalogue No.: SBM28CD
Barcode: 4062548054026
Release Date: 11 Nov 2022
Genre: Funk

2 piece box set containing 4CDs in printed digipaks. Includes 24pp booklet.

The ground- breaking, unique jazz/R&B/pop group Brian Auger & The Trinity were formed from the ashes of Long John Baldry’s and Brian Auger’s previous group band The Steampacket, an R&B Revue collective, which also featured a then barely known Rod Stewart and Julie Driscoll . Adding the UKs then greatest soul/pop singer Julie Driscoll to this new collective meant that not only did the band have a unique, beautiful voice and face to front the group – Driscoll also embodied everything about the 1960s fashionable It Girl; her sound, her clothes, hair styles and make up assured that nearly as many column inches were dedicated to her stylish demeanour as much as the band’s genre bending music.
The group were the one of the first too to intentionally set out to break down musical barriers – Brian himself specifically stated in the sleeve notes for 1968s ‘Definitely What!’ album that his concept “lies along a straight line drawn between pop and jazz and aims at the ‘fusion’ of both elements”. ‘Fusion’ at that time was not even a recognised musical term, reinforcing Auger’s credentials as an originator and innovator.

“Back then the jazz audiences were purists. They really looked down on rock and pop,” he explains. “I had people cross the road when they saw me coming, I was persona non grata at Ronnie Scotts because of the music we were doing and the clothes we were wearing”.

Happily – audiences of the time didn’t take the same dismissive approach, Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger & The Trinity toured the US and had exploded onto American TV screens as guests of The Monkees, and also scored hits across Europe's pop charts via the singles ‘This Wheels On Fire’ & ‘Save Me’ – but simultaneously appeared on the UK’s ‘Top Of The Pops’ in the same month as headlining major European Jazz Festivals – a feat no other act has equalled since.

Between 1967 and ’70, Brian Auger experienced a four year run of unprecedented creativity – 1967’s Open with Julie Driscoll, 1968’s Definitely What!, 1969’s Streetnoise again with Driscoll and 1970’s Befour – taking the Hammond Organ in new directions with their thrilling fusion of club R&B, jazz and psychedelic cool, engaging both the underground and the mainstream, and bringing the group chart success in the UK and Europe. “I look back on my years with The Trinity as a period of discovery,” Auger concludes. “I didn’t know what would happen or where it would take me but we were breaking down barriers and going someplace new.”

TRACKLISTING
Open (1967)
1. In and Out
2. Isola Natale
3. Black Cat
4. Lament For Miss Baker
5. Goodbye Jungle Telegraph
6.Tramp
7. Why (Am I Treated So Bad)
8. A Kind Of Love In
9. Break it Up
10. Season Of The Witch

Definitely What! (1968)
1.ADayInTheLife
2. George Bruno Money
3. Far Horizon
4. John Brown’s Body
5. Red Beans And Rice
6. Bumpin’ On Sunset
7. If You Live
8. Definitely What

Streetnoise (1969)
1. Tropic of Capricorn
2. Czechoslovakia
3. Take Me To The Water
4. A Word About Colour
5. Light My Fire
6. Indian Rope Man
7. When I Was A Young Girl
8. Flesh Failures (Let the Sunshine in)
9. Ellis Island
10. In Search Of The Sun
11. Finally Found You Out
12. Looking In The Eye Of The World
13. Vauxhall To Lambeth Bridge
14. All Blues
15. I’ve Got Life
16. Save The Country

Befour (1970)
1. I Wanna Take you Higher
2. Pavane
3. No Time To Live
4. Maiden Voyage
5. Listen Here
6. Just You Just Me