A SPOONFUL OF TIME

What do Tori Amos and Nektar have in common? Well before you spew your brew up and out your nose, both have done covers albums (Tori's being Strange Little Girls) and both did versions of Not In Love. I have to say I like Tori's album a little better because her covers were sometimes radical reworking of the originals. Having said that there is one thing that I find interesting about this set, and also Tori's set - interesting guest musicians. In Tori's case it was just Adrian Belew and their version of Heart of Gold was the most radical reinvention of a song I have ever heard. In Roye's case he had at least one key guest for each track. Ron Howden is on drums for all tracks, as is Roye Albrighton on guitar and vocals, Alas this would be his next to last before passing on to the great beyond, but I'm sure that all the guests were fans of Nektar and honored to work with him. On as side note so was Sherman Helmsley, aka George Jefferson of The Jefferson's fame. In fact you can find a clip of youtube of his character grooving to Show Me The Way.

What do Santana and Nektar have in common? Again both did covers albums. Santana's was Guitar Heaven: The Greatest Guitar Classics Of All Time with guest vocalists on each track. I guess Santana just can't sing like Roye, but then again I have never heard him sing that I know of. Granted he makes his guitar sing. But these two have a cover in common ' Riders of the Storm.

This is a nice track selection and set of guest artists. Some might say that he shouldn't have wasted his time doing this album of covers as his second to last one but then again his last one hasn't received favorable reviews here on this site.

The most notable guests for me are Marillion's keyboardist - Mark Kelly, Geoff Downes, Edgar Froese, Mel Collins, Steve Howe, Rod Argent, Ginger Baker, David Cross, Jerry Goodman, Rick Wakeman, and Patrick Moraz. Wow. And Santana only had non prog vocalists as his guests.

My favorite tracks on here are Spirit of the? Radio (oops on their part). If you like Rush but find Geddy Lee's vocals a bit grating (I don't too much, woo yeah!) his take is nice. He is certainly a match for Alex Lifeson in the guitar area. Sorry Ron, but hard to out beat Neil Peart when it comes to Rush drumming. One of the things that I really like about this album is the covers of prog tracks of our various subgenres. Crossover ' Alan Parson's Project ' Sirius and Roxy Music - Out Of TheBlue, Heavy Prog (Rush), Psychedelic/Space Rock ' Wish You Were Here, Proto Prog - 2000 Light Years From Home (sorry Stones not enough proto in toto in your work to get you guys to get you guys in the PA) and The Doors ' Riders On The Storm. Speaking of Toto we do get the aforementioned Patrick Moraz in Africa but Toto isn't really prog with the exception being their soundtrack for the 1984 Dune movie.

So, as a long time fan of Nektar I don't take any offense at it even though some people here are opposed to prog artists doing albums of covers. I find the songs are well done but I'll give it three stars because isn't original Nektar music.