Salem Hill & Little Atlas

I've been listening to Salem Hill a lot recently (thanks to Snow Dog) and I can thoroughly recommend them to all fans of US prog in the Spocks Beard vein. They're also supposed to be like Kansas but I don't know them well enough to comment. Kansas' violin player David Ragsdale guests on a few of their tracks.

Excellent vocals, very melodic with some brilliant instrumental breaks.

"Not Everybody's Gold" is probably the best I've heard so far, "Robbery of Murder" is also a very powerful concept album which is worth checking out, as is the most recent one "Mimi's Magic Moment".

You should also try "Wanderlust" by Little Atlas, which is similiar and also excellent.

chopper wrote:   You should also try "Wanderlust" by Little Atlas, which is similiar and also excellent.

I bought it a few weeks ago and rated it on my website recently - very nice album indeed. Their previous one "Surface Serene" is also quite good ... I even prefer it to Wanderlust by a narrow margin.

I've just recently acquired "Mimi's magic moment" and "Be" by Salem Hill.

I like "Mimi..." a lot - beautiful work, thoughtfully played; but find "Be" less interesting - rather too simple, cheesy, sometimes popish album, however it's got its moments and some of its melodies are quite catchy- not bad easy listening all together. So bearing in mind that Mimi is their latest and Be is one before last, I can guess that their previous works will be of no interest for me ?

eugene wrote: I've just recently acquired "Mimi's magic moment" and "Be" by Salem Hill. I like "Mimi..." a lot - beautiful work, thoughtfully played; but find "Be" less interesting - rather too simple, cheesy, sometimes popish album, however it's got its moments and some of its melodies are quite catchy- not bad easy listening all together. So bearing in mind that Mimi is their latest and Be is one before last, I can guess that their previous works will be of no interest for me ?

No, I think you should try "Not everybody's gold", I think it's slightly better than Mimi. I would tend to agree with you about "Be" though, I haven't really got into that one yet.

You could try the live album "Puppet Show", that has a good selection of early stuff.