Latest Review: Magic Lantern – High Beams

Long Beach’s Magic Lantern have finally gone and released a new sonic document after what seemed like an eternity of waiting. Eagerly anticipated by those who have been biding their time waiting for the band to get on with their uber limited cassette only and CD-R releases (their Self-Titled CD-R was limited to 30), “High Beams”, the band’s latest opus [...]

The Legend of Sir Robert Charles Griggs

[Foraging through bin after bin of vinyl looking for the best album you have never heard of is arguably a practice that can lead to deteriorating appearance and social skills, particularly in the areas of unkempt facial hair and being able to talk about anything but records. However, we here would like to honor this noblest of endeavors by ushering in a new segment dedicated to the science of vinyl spelunking.]

The first in the series is The Legend of Sir Robert Charles Griggs, by none other than Robert Charles Griggs. Released in 1973 on Capitol Records, this was the first and only solo effort by Griggs. He spent much of his early career as a musician on the 1950′s radio (and later television) show Town Hall Party, which had weekly appearances by some of the biggest names in Country and Rockabilly music. Griggs also worked as a sideman musician in Nashville for a number of years before recording what was to be his only album.

The cover of The Legend of Sir Robert Charles Griggs certainly does not convey the image of a stereotypical country music artist, Griggs with long hair and beard wearing a full tuxedo complete with top hat, and the songs within confirm such suspicions. Mixing progressive elements such as moog synthesizer and sound effects with more traditional country music instrumentation and signature waltzing arrangements, the result is definitely a unique sound. Though the album found little audience upon its release, it can be argued that in many ways it is an important pre-cursor to what later become a style known as alt-country or roots-rock – bands in the early to mid 90′s such as Uncle Tupelo fall into this category.

So what happened to Sir Robert Charles Griggs? Exact information is hard to come by, but speculation includes a bout with alcoholism, a Christian re-birth and his becoming generally disenchanted with the music business, the latter of which could surely be linked with the other two. He is said to now reside in Hemet, California, which happens to be a town just about 45 minutes outside of where I spent most of my childhood. A small world indeed.

The Legend of Sir Robert Charles Griggs went out-of-print way back when vinyl still ruled, and has yet to be commercially reissued in any other format. Copies are definitely floating around out there, and depending on condition you can probably pick one up for not much more than twenty bucks.

Enjoy a rip of “West Coast Billy” (mp3)

[audio:http://www.inflightatnight.com/audio/WCBilly.mp3]