Sky Farmer "Amazing Grace" 1971

They formed in 1971 from the ashes of Mountain Bus, who had just gone down in flames from a lawsuit filed against them by the promoters of Mountain who had claimed they illegally used their name (Mountain Bus formed in 1967, 3 years before Mountain even picked up their guitars). Original founding members-Bill Kees, Craig Takehara, and Woody Sims- teamed up with fellow Chicago blues rockers Elliott Delman, Lee Buch, Ernest Mansfield, and Ann Linquist and formed Sky Farmer. Their musical styles vary from free form jams with extensive use of piano, sax, long guitar breaks, and the beautiful and haunting vocals of Ann Linquist. 'Country blues with tinges of psychedelia' is what the band themselves described this music as?. 'A cross between J Geils and It's A Beautiful Day' is the way we here at Gear Fab think of it. (Forced Exposure)

You were either on the Mountain Bus, or you were not. Those who did like Gear Fab's 1998 reissue of the Chicago band's sole album -- and perhaps even some of those who did not -- should find the even more satisfying Amazing Grace, which collects the various recordings made by the post-Mountain Bus communal band Sky Farmer, to be a welcome treat. From the time the original band was litigated out of existence until its reshuffling and re-emergence with the music found on this archival release, the members of Sky Farmer discovered an even more liberating range of stylistic eclecticism (Mountain Bus certainly started them on the road in that regard) and a more pronounced sense of self-deprecation (for all the moments of aw-shucks insouciance on Sundance, there were corresponding stretches of solemn jamming during which the band took itself quite seriously indeed). Amazing Grace has some of the same attributes and characteristics as Sundance, but in other ways it is a whole new gumbo of coalescing musical impulses. The early rock & roll piano that opens up "Okooch Farewell," for instance, abruptly gives way during the chorus to a variety of swinging, laid-back hippie funk only endemic to the weird and uncategorizable post-Woodstock '70s. Much of the rest of the album is saturated by this brand of loose rock & soul groove ("Torch Poem"), with Annie Hat's voice at times recalling Maria Muldaur or the blue-eyed wail of Bonnie Bramlett. But there are also traces of blues ("Out of Hand"), R&B, and particularly jazz, especially during the extended cosmic jams, as well as festive Latin rhythms and nods to zydeco ("Señorita") and even some country licks ("Playboy After Dark"). And it is not a little bit -- say, psychedelic? -- hearing a bunch of longhairs covering a Merle Haggard song. Good songs (mostly), often excellent playing, it's worth the rediscovery. ~ Stanton Swihart, All Music Guide