Roy Wood & Wizzard - MainStreet (2000)

Main Street, credited to Roy Wood & Wizzard (whereas the group's first two albums had been credited simply to Wizzard), was initially planned to showcase the more jazz-rock, deliberately uncommercial, side of the group as part of a double album, along with the material that became the album Introducing Eddy & The Falcons in 1974. When they eventually recorded Main Street (or Wizzo as it was originally to be called) in 1975-6, the group had rather slipped out of the public eye and was on the point of disbanding. The single, also credited to Roy Wood’s Wizzard, "Indiana Rainbow" (backed by a non-album track "The Thing Is This (This Is The Thing)"), released in March 1976, stiffed completely, and did not even make the BBC Radio 1 playlist. As a result Jet Records, to whom Wood was signed at the time, cancelled the album's release. The tapes only came to light in 1999 and, with Wood's blessing, released by Edsel, a re-issue label which specialised largely in licensing long-deleted albums from major companies and had recently made Introducing Eddy & the Falcons, available on CD for the first time.[1]
In the booklet which accompanied its belated appearance, Wood wrote that "this was probably a last attempt to retain some sort of sanity, trying to grow up, and not carry on indefinitely being just another pop group." Had it been successful, he went on, his writing would have taken a different route and the group would have gone on to perform the kind of music bands like Jamiroquai were recording by that time. The music is certainly more jazz-rock based, and represents a conscious effort to leave the more commercial pop-rock element behind.
In 2006, the compilation album "Looking Thru' The Eyes of Roy Wood and Wizzard" was released, and it included two songs from "Main Street" as well as "The Thing Is This (This Is The Thing)" and a previously unreleased album outtake, "Human Cannonball".
"French Perfume" was performed live by the Wizzo Band, which Wood formed the following year, on their BBC 'Sight and Sound In Concert' spot (a simulcast on BBC TV and Radio 1 in stereo) in April 1977, and "Saxmaniacs", an instrumental, was released in 1979 as the B-side to a Wood solo single, "(We’re) On The Road Again".