THE MASTERS APPRENTICES

While "Choice Cuts" was a slice of hard boogie rock with psychedelic folk extras and offered a glimpse into the world of progressive rock, THE MASTERS APPRENTICES' fourth release A TOAST TO PANAMA RED ramped up the prog attributes a tad while tamping down the harder boogie rock. The result was an album that many consider one of Australia's best prog albums of the 70s except at this point the band was more British and Aussie! Well actually the band was a bit of both. It would be the band's final album at least in this first formation until a reunion album surfaced in 1988.

The time between "Choice Cuts" and A TOAST TO PANAMA RED, which refers to a Central American variety of marijuana, was a stressful time as the band was approached by the new UK label Bronze but still in contract with EMI Australia. Trying to negotiate and pit the two labels on a bidding war, the whole thing blew up in the band's face and ultimately ended up staying with EMI. The album was recorded under band member tensions and didn't go as smoothly as "Choice Cuts" therefore this period was the beginning of the unraveling of the team spirit which sustained the band for a few years. Ultimately it meant back to Abbey Studios to release what would be the band's final album of its first run anyways.

A TOAST TO PANAMA RED hit the music market in 1972 and featured everything that made "Choice Cuts" so delectable for those who heard it. Once again the band mixed prog, hard rock, psychedelic folk and a bit of boogie rock. While still rooted in catchy pop hooks, the compositions this time around were a bit more dreamy and more sophisticated which made them a bit more difficult to follow. With bluesy guitar riffing and medieval folk moments, this fourth album stood apart proudly from its predecessor that sucked you in and wouldn't let you lose interest for the entire album's run. A TOAST TO PANAMA RED seems less easy to grasp upon a single spin. The subtle complexities added a whole new dimension and while not full blown prog as went many bands around 1972, the influences are undeniable.

While the harder rock is still present such as on the opening "Answer Lies Beyond," the distortion is turned down and tones are warmer and more varied. Likewise Keays' vocals are less agitating and overall the band just sounds more relaxed. While on the opener Keays sounds a little funny like he just huffed on a helium balloon, subsequent tracks reveal a more nuanced approach that allows the proggier constructs to unfold. The tracks also feature some jamming segments such as "Beneath The Sun" which unleashes a cool bluesy guitar riff over a funky bass groove. In fact it the bass reminds me of that Ted Nugent song "Stranglehold" which didn't come out until 1975 although granted the tempo is sped up a bit.

A TOAST TO PANAMA RED is certainly the favorite album for those looking for the most progressive attributes. This is definitely a lot mellower overall than "Choice Cuts" as the folk aspects are extended and the rock parts often are dreamy and verging on space rock. The heavier rock is almost completely absent and when it does turn up the tempo a bit, it's more of a controlled burn rather than a ferocious attack which "Choice Cuts" allowed. Unfortunately this album didn't sell very well despite once again being praised by the critics. It seems the hideous album cover art scared a lot of potential customers away and admittedly it's not the most pleasing album cover to look at! In fact it seems totally unfitting for the music that's inside. Overall another great album from THE MASTERS APPRENTICES who once again steered their band sound into a different arena. Unfortunately this was the end of the road for a while.

Australia's THE MASTERS APPRENTICES won a free boat trip in late 1969 to England and spent a few months free from touring duties and any pressures of releasing the second album as all the material was recorded and ready for release. This gave the band the opportunity to refresh their creative mojo and given that London was ground central for the burgeoning prog and hard rock scenes back around 1970, these Aussies became smitten with the wealth of musical expressions that London offered and spent their time in the UK advancing their art form beyond the cheesy playing catch up garage rock / pop of their first two albums. The results amounted to a massive leap in creativity which finally found the band latching onto its own style and place in the greater music scene.

Totally impressed with the superior recording studios and music scene in general, the band ended up staying in London and soaked in the sounds of everyone from King Crimson, Jimi Hendrix and Small Faces to the psychedelic folk sounds of Donovan and Free. With an arsenal of fresh tracks to work with, the band landed in Abbey Road studios and recorded, mixed and mastered the newest album in only a month and then CHOICE CUTS (released simply as "Masters Apprentices" in the UK) came out in 1971, just a year after the anachronistic predecessor "Masterpiece." Sounding primarily like a 70s boogie rock style of hard rock, the band still retained a whiff of their earlier psychedelic leanings as well as a mix of folk based songs such as the single "Because I Love You," which made use of the acoustic guitar in the style of Led Zeppelin. While the band was aiming to strike it big in the UK, the single only charted in its native Australia.

The album opens with the Latin flavored shuffle groove of "Rio de Camero" and then followed by the acoustic ballad "Michael" which showcases THE MASTERS APPRENTICES' continuation of a variety of styles that range from heavy to soft however this time around the tracks flow together smoothly and the album as a whole feels cohesive. "Easy To Lie" and "Catty" showcase the band's boogie shuffle abilities with heavy rockin' guitar riffs and nice leads. Jim Keays vocal style had improved remarkably since the last album and on this album sounded something like a mix of Led Zeppelin's Robert Plant and Free's Paul Rodgers. Likewise some of the grooves were right out of the Free playbook as well. In fact the band had crafted an interesting sum of influences that went into a style of their own making. Overall the tracks came out extremely melodic with the instrumental interplay lights years beyond the album of a mere year prior.

"Death Of A King" is a tribute to the great Martin Luther King Jr. and the track sounds like an usual mix of the Groundhogs and Zeppelin's acoustic side with perhaps a touch of Van Morrison. "Song For A Lost Gypsy" goes for a heavy blues rock and funk style with a contrasting falsetto vocal performance. "I'm Your Satisfier" is a fun little boogie number that rock the jew's harp and all! "Song For Joey - Part II," wait! Where was part one?!! It's nothing more than an acoustic outro that ends the album. Despite all the rave reviews from the critics the band really didn't make much of a splash with CHOICE CUTS most likely due to the glut of fresh prog and harder rock clogging the record stores in 1971 London. Whatever the case the album remained an obscurity until collectors rediscovered it in the 1980s and it became an underground favorite.

It's really hard to believe that this is the same band that released the outdated "Masterpiece" just one years prior. CHOICE CUTS may not have been the most original sounding album on the scene during 1971 but it did stand out in a few ways. First of all the percussion was more dynamic and varied than most hard rock album as it utilized Latin rhythm styles and likewise the diversity of guitar licks and leads made this a more varied album than the typical blues based hard rock band of the early 70s. While not exactly prog, the influences did creep in with tones and textures and the desire to make the chord progressions a bit more spiced up than usual. Basically a folk-tinged heavy psych album, CHOICE CUTS delivered the goods where previous endeavors had failed. Against all odds, THE MASTERS APPRENTICES had come of age but unfortunately that wasn't good enough for any kind of breakthrough success. The band would push on for one more album and then call it quits. This is probably their crowning achievement.

Sounding like a completely different band on their second album the lineup of THE MASTERS APPRENTICES completely melted down leaving only vocalist Jim Keays left standing and carrying the band to the next level. While it took three long years to follow up their garage rock / freakbeat debut the times had obviously changed and while the 1967 debut was pretty much playing catch up with the styles that were popular in the UK around the 1964 and 1965 timeline, on the band's sophomore album MASTERPIECE once again it sounded more like 1968 than 1970. Scaled back to a quartet, THE MASTERS APPRENTICES adopted a completely new style that rocked the upbeat sunshine pop hooks with psychedelic touches and a touch of freakbeat leftover from the early days.

The band spent the majority of the time between albums was spent reorganizing the band and transforming it into a completely different creation. During the three year gap newbie Doug Ford and Keays stockpiled numerous songs and released a few singles and endured a heavy touring schedule but all this hard work and exposure paid off as this classic lineup is the same that would deliver the band's following pair of albums which would finally seeing them find their own unique sound based in progressive rock. At this stage though no prog to be found and all the tracks featured are steeped in bubblegum pop hooks with bluesy guitar licks and boogie shuffles. The band signed to EMI and had a larger budget for production but at this stage despite an entire album of all original material, THE MASTERS APPRENTICES sounded like this second album was supposed to come out when the first one did back in 1967.

Alternating between bluesy rockers and poppy folk, MASTERPIECE featured a rather cheesy orchestral backing that made it sound like it was trying to emulate The Moody Blues' classic "Days Of Future Passed" but far from the crowning achievement or cutting edge brilliance of that famous album. On this album the band wasn't very focused and as a result the tracks are all over the place as far as uniformity is concerned. The pop folk "A Dog, A Siren and Memories" emulates the great Simon and Garfunkel while the following track "Linda Linda" featured an old-timer music hall style possibly inspire by The New Vaudville Band's hit "Winchester Cathedral" form 1966. The piece even featured a kazoo! It was clear the band was trying to cop a bit of Paul McCartney's showtune style from The Beatles. "Isabella" adopts a Spanish guitar theme and features a chorus that just repeats the name "Isabella" several times!

Some tracks like "Piece Of Me" are pure generic bubblegum pop and not even good at that. The band at this stage was clearly aiming for the teenie bopper crowds and wanted to be the next Ohio Express or The Monkees or something! The music is really awkward at some points with the track "Titanic" standing out as pretty hilarious. Not only does they sing the title in a funny way but The Chiffons provide a very mediocre backing not to mention the track features real ship noise samples. It's about as cheesy as it gets really! It was also a sign that this band was a sinking ship and that if they didn't get their act together then they would be history.

Luckily the band got the memo and found a much needed break from touring and let their prog-tinged hard rock fantasies run wild for their next album "Choice Cuts" which found the band evolve leaps and bounds beyond this collection of head-scratching 60s leftovers. It's an ok album but extremely awkward and really not good enough to recommend unless you really love cheesy bubblegum pop from the late 60s but not good enough to find the ear worms haunting you for days after. It's an interesting glimpse into the band's missing years and how they would come back with a hodgepodge of material but as an album it's actually pretty weak and ill-conceived. It's hard to believe Columbia let this slip the quality control and it's often considered the band's worst offering. Despite the album's title being MASTERPIECE, this one is far from it.

Originally starting out as a surf rock band called The Mustangs in 1960s Adelaide, Australia, the quartet of Mick Bower on rhythm guitar, Rick Morrison on lead guitar, Brian Vaughton on drums and Gavin Webb on bass was forever changed after The Beatles toured Australia in 1964 and found their largest audience to date in Adelaide with an estimated 300,000 attendees amongst a population of 668,000. The band changed direction and ventured into the world of British beat music which resulted in the name change to THE MASTERS APPRENTICES and the addition of Scottish immigrant Jim Keays as lead vocalist / secondary guitarist.

The band's name refers to its allegiance to the masters of the blues such as Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Jimmy Reed, Elmore James and Robert Johnson and after engaging in a healthy live scene around Adelaide, the band become one of the city's most popular beat bands and slowly but surely captured a larger national audience which resulted in the band relocating to Melbourne where they recorded their debut self-titled release that emerged in late 1967. There were actually two self-titled releases. A four track EP emerged in 1967 with the songs "Undecided," "Hot Gully Wind," "Buried And Dead" and "She's My Girl" before the full-length album came out in October with 12 tracks.

THE MASTERS APPRENTICE became one of Australia's most innovative early progressive rock bands in the 1970s with popular albums like "Choice Cuts" but at this early stage the band was a fairly typical 60s sounding garage rock / freakbeat / mod act in the British tradition only a few years behind the curve as the actual British acts had evolved into the world of art rock by 1967. This debut adopted the usual approach of many 60s acts by only releasing a handful of original tracks and padding the rest with cover tunes which in this case included everything from Bo Diddley's "Dancing Girl" and The Beatles' "I Feel Fine" to Otis Redding's "My Girl," "Don't Fight It" by Wilson Pickett and Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode."

At this point it's virtually impossible to predict that MASTERS APPRENTICE would amount to anything as this is one of the most generic debuts possible which shows no signs of individuality or creativity whatsoever. Sounding something like The Rolling Stones as far as the loose rhythm and blues guitar licks and vocal style are concerned, the band found minor success with its singles "Undecided" and "Buried And Dead" on the self-titled EP which hit the Australian top 40 singles chart and the primary reason a full album's worth of material was rushed to cash in on the momentum. While cited as psychedelic rock, this album was behind the times and was pretty much in the same style of the British Invasion acts from 1964 and 1965.

This is a listenable album but not very compelling as its primarily a platform for the singles and a couple of extra originals with several mediocre covers. It's a fairly typical copycat album of the era with nothing really to offer other than experiencing the debut album of one of Australia's more famous bands that went on to better things in the 1970s. Personally i find this to be a decent dance hall type of band but not one that i would rush out and buy the album as the covers are far too faithful to the original and the band's very own songs are much not better in terms of quality or creativity. Pretty much relegated to the hardcore fans and even then it wouldn't be that much of a loss if you skipped this one altogether. It would take another full three years for the band's second release "Masterpiece" to hit the market which finally did add some psychedelic elements but once again was woefully behind the times.

A remarkable album from this band from Australia. This album brings me lots of memories. I was introduced to this band by a friend of mine when I was at college. At the time I had no idea who they were. As soon as I listened to this album I knew it would be a favourite of mine. I like heavy prog sound and this album takes the best of that subgenre in play. Most of the songs have the power of good guitar riffs and solos and high pitched voices. They maintain the essence of psychedelia but bring forward the darker sounds, blues rock, folk and country elements that define heavy prog. Among my favorite songs are: Our Friend Owsley Stanley III, which has folk elements similar to Jethro Tull but with a heavier sound; Because I Love You is a fantastic acoustically driven song in the vein of Uriah Heep's "Lady in Black"; Death of a King is another wonderful song with excellent changes, mainly in the voices. The rest of the songs are totally the pure essence of heavy prog. An album that is enjoyable from the very first second. Definitely a must for lovers of bands such as Uriah Heep, Atomic Rooster, Deep Purple and many more who appeared in that period (from late sixties towards mid seventies).

— First review of this album —

This album gathers four non-album b-sides, and six tricks that had not been released up to that point, along with some minor tracks from the debut album and Masterpiece. It was aimed specifically at collectors, those who already had all the original albums, as well as those existing compilations which collected their single a-sides.

The previously unreleased material consists of three tracks recorded for TV in 1965 (covers of "Bye Bye Johnny" and "Black Girl (In The Pines)", as well as the Mick Bowers original "Poor Boy"), two unreleased (indeed unmixed) tracks which I assume date from around the time of Masterpiece ("Tears of Sorrow" and a cover of "Willie & The Hand Jive"), and the final track "Freedom Seekers", the only known recording of the final 1973 lineup of the band (with Denny Burgess replacing both Keays and Wheatley). Two of the b-sides date from the 1960s ("Four years of Five", "Tired Of Just Wandering"); "Jam It Up" was the b-side of "Turn Up Your Radio", and "New Day' was the b-side of "Future of Our Nation' (and also appears on some pressings of Choice Cuts).

Like any full-career retrospective of the Masters Apprentices, it covers their many stylistic wanderings, from garage R&B, to gimmicky psychedelic pop, to prog-tinged hard rock. The first side of the album is almost entirely in garage R&B vein, while the majority of side two represents their gimmicky pop phase. Their late phase - the phase generally of most interest to people on this site - is represented by the last three tracks. Of those:

- "New Day" is an acoustic ballad, with vocals somewhat imitative of Van Morrison.

- "Jam It Up" is the real find here. It's more well-known flipside was a somewhat awkward transitional piece, one foot in their gimmicky pop past, one foot in their hard rock future. "Jam It Up", by contrast, is one of the heaviest things they ever recorded, a 6-minute heavy blues very much in the vein of Led Zeppelin (a little too much actually - it sounds very similar to "Whole Lotta Love" in several places), with some great guitar from Ford, and Keays doing his best Plant Impersonation (and apparently just as famously intoxicated as he was while recording the a-side).

- "Freedom Seekers" is an acoustic-based track similar in style to "Because I Love You". I think I would have liked this a lot, if my overpriced secondhand copy of this album wasn't so badly scratched that it jumped literally every two seconds...suffice to say that it doesn't continue the prog experiments of the previous year's Panama Red album.

This is the classic collectors'fans-only record. The casual fan will buy Fully Qualified, or a similar compilation focusing on their hits. The prog-leaning casual fan will seek out Choice Cuts and A Toast To Panama Red (and maybe Nickelodeon), and probably best avoid any other record. But the committed fan, one who already owns all the original albums, will need this album to complete their collection

The Masters Apprentices play a style of prog-tinged hard rock which borrows from a range of sources - a bit of Jethro Tull there, a dash of Deep Purple there - but to my ears never quite convincingly work these together into a cohesive sound of their own. Production values are decent thanks to the group having access to Abbey Road Studios for the recording this time, and it has a more or less cohesive sound thanks to being recorded consciously as an album rather than being a compilation of tracks from singles like the group'd previous releases, so it's a competent enough affair, but not interestingly so.

I actually don't think this is the definitive compilation, though I'm not sure that there is one. For a completist, it is missing a couple of a-sides ("Linda Linda" and "Future of our Nation", although these are at least both available on other albums), and most of the b-sides, many of which do not appear on other albums. It does have all their major hits, and a pretty good selection of album tracks from Choice Cuts (and a couple from Panama Red - none from the earlier albums that weren't also released as singles). It also has the single version of "How I Love You", as opposed to the album version that has appeared on other compilations - the single was an instrumental with the melody played by guitar, the album version still had the melody played by guitar while Jim Keays recited the lyrics instead of singing them, which had the effect of magnifying their cheesiness. So it's a convenient compilation to own if you want all their major songs on CD, but if you're a completist, you're going to be looking for other compilations (the Milesago website lists one titled "Jam it Up: A Collection of Rarities" which seems to have all the missing single sides plus a few other tracks). And if you're particularly interested in the prog side of Masters Apprentices, you're better off tracking down copies of Choice Cuts and A Toast To Panama Red, rather than settling for any compilation.

A Toast To Panama Red largely follows in the same riff-based heavy rock direction as it's predecessor, but with more psychedelic elements, and more proggy grandiosity. The 2-part "Games We Play" is the major track, the opening section contrasting contemplative acoustic verses with heavy guitar passages, before we ramp up the grandiosity with a choir and narration. The sturm und drang approach is also used to good effect in "Love Is", with it's fanfare-like opening giving way to a 6/8 acoustic ballad, eventually lifted by a horn arrangement; and again in "Beneath The Sun" where a mellow ballad suddenly meets an unexpected key change and a somewhat heavier second section (this section also featuring an instrument I can't identify - sounds like a xylophone making bird calls or something...). Even the songs with no obvious change of mood seem somewhat unsettled. "Answer Lies Beyond" gets most of the way through it's running time before the main riff is finally introduced, up to that point basically jamming away on the same chord underneath a two-note melody (but if that makes it sound boring, it's not at all). I'm still trying to figure out what metre "The Lesson So Listen" is in - it sounds like the drummer is ignoring the rest of the band and keeping a straight 2/4 while the others go off on other tangents. "Thyme To Rhyme" is a pretty acoustic ballad with some very strange psychedelic noises going on in the background. "Melodies of St Kilda" is another heavy track which dramatically changes tempo halfway through". "Southern Cross" is the track that bears the most resemblance to the previous album, being a comparatively simple two chord rocker with Doug Ford given plenty of room to solo. It's overall a less accessible album than Choice Cuts - you understand why it didn't sell anywhere near as well, generate any hits, or why fewer of it's tracks are included on compilations - and in some ways a less successful album overall; but this is the band at their most ambitious and experimental, and therefore at their most interesting.

Recorded during their return tour of Australia in 1971, Nickelodeon presents five tracks not featured on any other albums, and just one familiar song - their contemporary hit "Because I Love You". For the most part they are firmly in Zeppelin-style heavy blues rock mode, but with considerably less inventiveness than they displayed on Choice Cuts. "Future of our Nation" and "Evil Woman" are your typical early 70s heavy rockers consisting of basically a single simple riff played at plodding tempo - in the latter case, dragged out for a 20 minute jam, although the band at least come up with a few new ideas late in the improvisation. "When I've Got Your Soul" and "Fresh Air By The Ton" are basically extended blues jams, especially the latter. "Light A Fire Within Your Soul" breaks the mould of the album, being a much lighter mellower piece, but it's still basically three chords and one line of lyrics. "Because I Love You" suffers in comparison to the studio version basically due to the limitations of their equipment. Disappointing in comparison to the studio albums of the time, but still a mark of how far the band had progressed from their early days.