Aug 19, 2009

JAMES GANG - THIRDS (ABC 1971) Jap mastering cardboard sleeve




The James Gang Rides Again set the stage for the group's third album to propel them to Top Ten, headliner status, but that didn't happen. The band was on its last legs, rent by dissension as Walsh became the focus of attention, and the appropriately titled Thirds reflected the conflict. Among the nine original songs, four were contributed by Walsh, two each by bass player Dale Peters and drummer Jim Fox, and one was a group composition. But it was Walsh's songs that stood out. His "Walk Away," was the first single, and it climbed into the Top 40 in at least one national chart, the group's only 45 to do that well. "Midnight Man," the follow-up single, was another Walsh tune, and it also made the charts. The Fox and Peters compositions were a step down in quality, particularly Peters'. But the problem wasn't just material, it was also musical approach. James Gang Rides Again had emphasized the band's hard rock sound, which was its strong suit. But they had never given up the idea of themselves as an eclectic unit, and Thirds was their most diverse effort yet, with pedal steel guitar, horn and string charts, and backup vocals by the Sweet Inspirations turning up on one track or another. At a time when Walsh was being hailed as a guitar hero to rank with the best rock had to offer, he was not only submerging himself in a group with inferiors, but also not playing much of the kind of lead guitar his supporters were raving about. As a result, though Thirds quickly earned a respectable chart position and eventually went gold, it was not the commercial breakthrough that might have been expected...(allmusic)
Here

12 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi, Georgie, I'm PrettyThing (exHippidetrippi). Wonderful site. I've just discovered it. Great to get these japanese remasters. Keep on goin'. Wonderful

Anonymous said...

This Really Brings Me Back To My Youth, Thanks Much.
Zim

Anonymous said...

thanks - steve

Anonymous said...

nice site -- one thing, i can't turn off, pause or silence your G cast music player. using Firefox, Mac OSX.

Gerard said...

Thanks for the James gang

vincent the soul chef said...

Just getting around to grabbing this one. My uncle has had a copy of this record ever since 1971, and believe me, it has seen better days (I should know, since that original vinyl now resides in my crates)...

The track "Ya Dig" is just amazing, albeit a bit too short. It would have been nice to hear what they could have done with that track, if given the chance to stretch out and jam a bit more. In any event, it's great to hear this record again without all the pops and stuff. Thanks as always.

Peace and blessings.

P.S. @ anonymous, if you're using Firefox, all you have to do is wait for the page to load completely, and then click the pause or mute button in the lower right corner of the player. I am using Windows, so it may be just a bit different than with a mac, but I would suspect that they both work about the same.

B Katz said...

Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but I went to check this out to find it's an mp3, low bit-rate at that. Why in the world would anyone take a Japanese SHM-CD and share it ANY way but lossless? Unbelievable. I can't believe no one has the patience to D/L from RS a little bit longer or has the hard drive capacity to maintain quality music. This is NOT an opinion, mp3's are old news and useless. We all have high capacity storage which is CHEAP now and only...2% of the population uses dial-up anymore. If you can't share in FLAC, you really should find some other benevolent pasttime.

Georgie Hirezola said...

A. Staying in your own words: "Not to look a gift horse in the mouth"...right???
............................
B. I beleive I'm just doing some kind of promotion here & nothing more...if you like an album BUY IT!!
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C:The last two years I've spend more than 6.000 euros on Jap cds & as you may noticed I don't have even a donation button because I just love what I'm doing here...
D: I'm a working man...& I'm working hard..don't have the time for flacs & other shits!!!!
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D:As for the sound quality of the Jap SHM-CD's you can hear the difference only in your cd player using the original cd's & not in mp3s, flacs or any other sharing format...

the saucer people said...

Thank you so much for sharing the James Gang album. I have only recently come across them via their amazing Funk#49 track and I was intrigued to hear more and I am so glad I did. I like my "rawk" in a funky vein and this is just perfect....also its great to hear it in such good quality, thank god for the Japanese obsession with audio!

This is especially true when the records are nearly 40 years old! If you hear an original vinyl rip of that age there is a good chance there are going to be snap crackle and pops throughout the record and that annoys me more than anything so I really appreciate the time and effort plus the expense you have put into this blog and sharing such wonderful music.

As for the comments about "not looking a gift horse in the mouth" and moaning about the fact this is not in FLAC! Some people are just unbelievable in their total lack of appreciation, this isn't Itunes for christ sake! I remember the dial up days when a single crappy 128 MP3 would take hours so waiting five/ten minutes for a 320 decent rip of a whole album is more than acceptable!
If you do not like it, spend your own money on an original expensive Japanese import, it really is that simple. Honestly, its people like this who in part cause bloggers to give up with their ill-mannered nasty comments disguised as "I'm not complaining BUT....."

Sorry to rant on but people like that really get on my nerves! Thanks again for the great music!

Anonymous said...

Big deal

Now you download the album, try to unzip it, and there's no file to open.

Great.

Steve G said...

PLEASE repost!

Steve G said...

Oops, sorry meant to ask, PLEASE repost in lossless :)