VA - Legend of a Mind: The Underground Anthology (1968-1975/2003) Lossless

You sort of have to pity Decca Records after listening to this three-CD set -- the company, once the biggest label in England, started the 1950s with a technical leg up on all of its competition, jumped into skiffle and rock fast and early (and accidentally in the former case) with Lonnie Donegan, and was still going strong at the dawn of the '60s with the likes of Billy Fury on its roster. And then something went wrong, and even with the Rolling Stones, the Small Faces, and the Moody Blues recording for them, Decca began coming up a day late and a dollar short on a regular basis, beginning a slow fade in the mid-'60s that led to its eclipse in the 1970s. After hearing Legend of a Mind, you'll probably wonder why -- the three-CD set is devoted to Decca's "underground" side, which offered some

prime psychedelic and progressive rock, along with some arena-style blues-rock. Unfortunately for the label, apart from the Moody Blues, Ten Years After, Savoy Brown, and maybe Caravan, however, most of the acts

here were never heard much, or even heard much about, in England, much less in America. Among the most genial and accessible of the lesser-known bands is the End, produced by Bill Wyman, who owed a lot to the Rolling Stones' "2000 Light Years From Home" on "Introspection" (which was, not surprisingly, cut during the sessions that yielded the Stones' song); at the other end of the spectrum is Leaf Hound, who were as bold and good a heavy metal act as has been heard, based on "Freelance Fiend," from 1969. Granny's Intentions may not have sounded like much more than a failed Irish rival to Jethro Tull, but Leaf Hound deserved a hearing and some serious sales, as potential serious competitors to Led Zeppelin et al. The Rattles are usually thought of as more of a mid-'60s outfit, but in 1970 on "The Witch," the German-based beat band made the leap successfully into psychedelia/progressive rock, mixing a Bo Diddley beat with amplified strings and a spaced-out lyric that could invade the listener's dreams. And on the progressive jazz front you get Johnny Almond Music Machine and East of Eden, the latter trading in a kind of psychedelic third-stream jazz; disc one also includes one of the great might-have-beens in the annals of progressive rock, Aardvark, who could've easily given Emerson, Lake & Palmer a serious run for their money, based on the epic "Once Upon a Hill/Put That in Your Pipe and Smoke It." Disc two takes you up into the turn of the decade and a little past, and is generally focused on harder rocking outfits such as Clark-Hutchinson, Black Cat Bones (whence Paul Kossoff and Simon Kirke of Free hailed, though they're not heard here), Room, and the Keef Hartley Band, along with the ubiquitous Moody Blues, Caravan, and Ten Years After -- sandwiched between these generally highly amplified tracks is the delectable, harpsichord-driven "Tomorrow Morning Brings," by Pacific Drift. Disc three takes you into the mid-'70s, coinciding with the end of Decca's role as a major label -- Savoy Brown and Camel are the best known acts here, along with Thin Lizzy, circa 1972, in the years before they became international stars, and the short-lived Khan, featuring Steve Hillage and Dave Stewart. The real rarity here, a true find in the company's vaults, is Pete Brown's "Nights in Armour," a pounding, bluesy workout featuring Jeff Beck and Jack Bruce as one of the uncredited "Friends." Curved Air is represented by a live version of "Propositions," and Darryl Way's Wolf closes out the set with "The Envoy." There's not a lot of cohesion to the selection or order of the music on Legend of a Mind, just lots of surprisingly bold psychedelia and progressive jazz and blues, supported by some very serious annotation by Mark Powell, David Hitchcock, and Neil Slaven and some excellent sound engineering for the reissue.