HELP YOURSELF

Help Yourself were probably one of the more American-sounding, country-tinged and guitar-driven bands to come out of the early seventies. The problem with this of course is that they weren’t American at all, but a rather working-class British act that existed for but a few short years before the members scattered to a host of other projects including Ducks Deluxe, Bees Makes Honey, Man, and the Flying Aces. This 1971 debut is the most laid-back of their five releases, and gives little hint of the more driving and psychedelic sounds they would graduate to on subsequent releases.

The comparisons are obvious and inevitable almost immediately into this album: Buffalo Springfield, the Eagles, Wishbone Ash, Man, Quicksilver Messenger Service. So you get the idea. The band for this first release consisted of Malcolm Morley who wrote pretty much all the tracks; Richard Treece who apparently owned the only decent guitar among the group; Ken Whaley, and drummer Dave Charles who had recorded a sole album with Morley in a late sixties group called Sam Apple Pie.

The music here ranges from almost country ala Neil Young or the Eagles (“Old Man”) to blues-rock (“Look at the View”) to an odd sort of vaguely folk sound with nebulous lyrics hinting at a bard-like tale from ‘days of yore’ (“To Katherine They Fell”). “Deborah” sounds remarkably like an early seventies Eagles tune, and “Street Songs” would not have been out of place on an Allman Brothers album.

The one real oddity is the opening “I Must See Jesus for Myself”, a sort of honky-tonk gospel-leaning romp that really throws off expectations for the rest of the album. The tongue-in-cheek faux serious mood of this one reminds me quite a bit of the old Violent Femmes tune “Jesus Walking on the Water”, although admittedly the guitar and piano work here is quite a bit more accomplished than the Femmes ever managed. But hey – the Femmes were an awesome live act, so there’s that at least…

It’s hard to know what to think of this album, and in some ways it’s hard to know how to assess this band. They can’t really be considered overly progressive, and other than “To Katherine They Fell” and “Old Man” I’m not sure I’d place them in the folk category either. But overall this is a quite agreeable sound, and it’s always nice to discover obscure bands from days gone by who still have the chops to keep one’s attention for forty minutes or so. “To Katherine They Fell” is the most impressive track here with its dreamy and relaxed guitars wandering behind Morley’s sad vocals. “Paper Leaves” is the other stand out track, even if I can’t get Michael Stipe out of my head when I hear it. I guess this is better than just for collectors, mostly because I think prog folk fans and those who find something to like in bands like Buffalo Springfield and Wishbone Ash will probably find something here as well. So three stars it is, and recommended to all those people I just mentioned.

peace

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