Safe In My Garden - American Pop In The Shadows 1967-1972

By the end of the 1960s, pop had undergone several all-consuming metamorphoses. Rock music and youth culture at large were changing by the minute, and there were more landmark albums that represented universal shifts in the way music was composed, produced, conceptualized, and consumed. For every Pet Sounds, Revolver, Forever Changes, or Axis: Bold as Love, there were less visible ripples throughout all of music, as psychedelic thinking and a softly adventurous spirit overtook bands and artists who were stuck in their by-the-numbers garage rock ways before this enlightenment. Safe in My Garden: American Pop in the Shadows 1967-1972 takes a look at some of the best, strangest, and most interesting examples of lesser-known purveyors of this specific kind of sunshine pop. While Safe in My Garden isnt concerned with the household names of pop innovation, there are some inclusions of outsider tracks from artists who did pretty well for themselves. Tommy James & the Shondells contribute the glittery daydreaming of "She," a tune that flirts simultaneously with Motown-esque soul and orchestral arrangement. British duo Chad & Jeremy, who started out the 60s making clean-cut folk-pop, made a few psychedelic albums by the end of the decade, and their fuzzy, lightly cosmic song "The Ark" comes from their 1968 psych-pop album of the same name. There are also songs from Brewer & Shipley, the Free Design, Harpers Bizarre, and Gary Lewis & the Playboys, acts who sometimes had minor radio hits but show up here with more experimental angles on melody and instrumentation. The more obscure songs included here go a long way to illuminate how this form of mellow psychedelia quickly evolved into soft rock. Roger Nichols & the Small Circle of Friends offer up "I Can See Only You," a sweet and breezy song from the projects little-known 1968 album. A few years later, Nichols would bring this gentle touch to the masses by co-writing one of the Carpenters biggest hits, "Weve Only Just Begun." Theres baroque surfer blues from Mark Erics song "Move with the Dawn," and post-Zombies melancholia from the Cyrkle on "The Visit (She Was Here)." Safe in My Garden establishes a lush and mysterious mood with its carefully curated selection of lesser-known chamber pop and proto-soft rock sounds, one that perfectly soundtracks solitary grey days and drifting summer mornings alike. ~ Fred Thomas