Telegraph Avenue - Telegraph Avenue Vol. 2 (1975)

One of the few Peruvian groups from the early 1970s to have had their material reissued in the U.S., Telegraph Avenue were formed in 1970 after lead guitarist Bo Ichikawa had been exposed to hippie music and culture following a six-month stay in San Francisco. Singing in English, Telegraph Avenue were an average if competent amalgam of various strands of rock circa 1970 -- The Beatles, Californian psychedelia and soul-rock. They had a lighter and poppier feel than the heavy rock predominating in Northern Hemisphere bands in the early '70s, possibly because bands from South America tended to sound a little behind the trends due to their relative isolation from most of the rock world. Occasionally they incorporated Latin percussion, but the Peruvian and South American feel was never so audible to make average listeners automatically suspect that the music was South American in origin. They put out an album in 1971 and their second, final LP in 1975, and their material was reissued on CD in the States by Lazarus Audio Products in the late 1990s. ~ Richie Unterberger