Consisting of 8 tracks, Bluesy Mind is, as the title suggests, a blues-rock album with a heavy psychedelic flavour, following in the footsteps of John Mayall, Cream, Ten Years After, Canned Heat....
It opens with the boogie ‘I've Got To Find Somebody’, presented with devilish harmonica, an upbeat rhythm section and vocals in French-English that sometimes struggle to be convincing. But that is perhaps one of the charms of this record. The same rhythm is maintained on the harder-hitting ‘Shame On You.’ The more tribal ‘What You're Gonna Say’ is imbued with psychedelic effects. The song ‘Baby Don't You Come Back Home’ is more delicate, leaning towards gospel ragtime. This is followed by the dark, acid-fuelled ‘The Way To The Hells’ where Claude Olmos begins to unleash his talent with a hallucinatory chorus and predatory riffs. This seemingly difficult track is followed by the 6-minute ‘What's Wrong’ where the band starts to deliver a cool blues filled mid-tempo split. Here again, the electric six-string guitar is the inspiration. Returning to boogie in ‘Some People’, the band closes the album with the 9-minute ‘Middle Earth’, a gorgeous stratospheric blues ballad where the acid rock guitar takes over again.
Unfortunately, success was not in store for this band that demonstrated undeniable talent. The band broke up despite an attempt to sing in French on the Jethro Tull-inspired prog single ‘N'y Change Rien / J'ai Besoin De La Terre’, released shortly after Bluesy Mind.
Jean Falissard tried his hand at a solo career in the late 70s. Richard Fontaine assisted various performers. Claude Olmos continued his career with Cœur Magique, and then distinguished himself by picking up harmonies on Magma's album Mekanïk Destruktïẁ Kommandöh. He died in December 2023. Alan Jack, after several unproductive projects, reappeared in 1993 with the disc Post Civilisation. He died two years later at the age of 51.
- jeanjacquesperez - classicrock80.wordpress.com
