Oxfords - Flying Up Through The Sky - Two (1966-72) (2007)

When Gear Fab Records re-released the Oxfords' sole LP from 1970 called Flying Up Through the Sky, fleshing it out with various band ephemera in 2001, it was assumed that it was the last word on the Louisville group, amounting to a complete recorded works. Turns out it wasn't. When the Allen-Martin Recording Studio where the Oxfords tracked their LP (it was called Sambo Recording Studio when the Oxfords worked there) was demolished in 2006, local session musicians Marvin Maxwell and Walker Ed Amick rescued the studio's master tape library from a cruel and forgotten fate at the bottom of the corner dumpster and began the long task of transferring the multi-track masters into the digital domain. One of their discoveries was that the Oxfords had recorded a fair amount of material that hadn't appeared on Flying Up Through the Sky, leading to this second volume of Oxfords tracks from Gear Fab. Although generally remembered as a sunshine pop band with some psychedelic overtones, the Oxfords emerge on this second helping as a much more versatile band than that, touching down at times close to jazz and what could almost be deemed a kind of proto-country-rock. At other times they sound like a southern version of early Jefferson Airplane, thanks in no small part to the strong and often sultry vocals of lead singer Jill DeMarco. That diversity is impressive, and one can't help but wonder what might have developed had the band stayed together and not called it quits in 1972. Among the clear highlights on this addenda volume are a speeded up and rocked out version of Richard & Mimi Fari?a's "Reno, Nevada," the wonderfully atmospheric "I Can't Remember Your Name," the hard driving "Year of Jubilo" (based on a Civil War-era song by Henry Clay Work), a Mamas & Papas-like cover of Del Shannon's "Runaway," and the very pretty and jazz-inflected backing track called "Underscore" that concludes this collection (and provides a possible clue to what direction the Oxfords may have taken if they had remained together). In all, it makes a nice coda to the first volume and helps paint a larger, clearer picture of what the band was all about.