Tag Archives: EMI

Pilot: From the Album of the Same Name

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One-U.S.-hit wonders back up the hit with a solid debut album

The Scottish light-rock group Pilot is known to US listeners by exactly one song: the million-selling 1975 hit single, “Magic.” Produced by Alan Parsons and featuring former Bay City Rollers David Paton and Billy Lyall, the single has a memorable vocal hook (which itself has been used in many commercials) and an arrangement that brings to mind Marmalade, Edison Lighthouse and Badfinger. The album is finely sung, with lead vocals that reach into the high-notes of Ray Davies and Jon Anderson, and finely crafted arrangements that combine sunshine- and soft-pop with moments of Steely Dan-like jazz-prog-rock. It’s no surprise that the musicianship is top-notch, as three members of the band would work with their producer as part of the Alan Parsons Project two years later. The album cuts are catchy, though not as catchy as the single, which may explain Pilot’s disappearance from the American charts. Their next album, Second Flight, yielded the UK hit “January,” but the single flopped in the US, barely inching its way onto the bottom of the Hot 100. Among the bonus tracks is the original, slower version of “Magic,” which provides a good example of just what a producer adds to a hit single. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

The Seekers: A World of Our Own

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The Seekers stretch the folk revival into 1965

Though the Seekers sound like many other American folk groups of the early ‘60s, they formed in their native Australia, relocated to London, and came to the US on the tide of the British Invasion. They outlasted both the folk revival and the first flush of UK hit-makers, crowning their U.S. chart success with 1967’s “Georgy Girl.” This 1965 album is a warm collection of folk standards, then-contemporary compositions by Bob Dylan, Ian Tyson and Bob Gibson, and original hits by the group’s manager (and former leader of the Springfields), Tom Springfield. At the time of its release, the album’s combination of double-bass, mandolin and twelve-string guitar was a throwback to the non-rock folk revivalism of a few years earlier. Springfield’s “A World of Our Own,” anchors the album with a sound akin to that of the Rooftop Singers, Kingston Trio, Limeliters and even the Weavers. Recorded and released in mono, with Judith Durham’s stirring lead vocals out front, this is a nice reminder of the optimism and sense of empowerment that preceded the darker events of the ‘60s. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]