Earth Opera - Earth Opera (1968) (2001)

Earth Opera emerged from the Boston folk scene (as did Appaloosa and James Taylor) and recorded two folk rock albums in the late-60's. The main figures of Peter Rowen and Dave Grisman played in various eastern US folk music groups as far back as the early 60's, and their early works can be found on the String Band Project released in 69 by folk-specialist label Elektra. Earth opera's signing to the label occurred at a moment when they were having success with rock acts, such as The Doors, Love and even Tim Buckley, so Earth Opera got their shot as well. Often portrayed as acid folk rock, they were also pinned by the reductive Bosstown (Boston) Sound syndrome, even if Earth opera didn't have much in common, certainly not in sound.

They recorded their two albums over 18 months, both produced by in-house producer Peter Siegel, with a rather stable line-up, although their second album had many guest musicians, including Velvet Underground's John Cale. Their music is a gentle folk rock with some unusual instrumentation (vibraphone), but also had a dark side, which provided some quite interesting songs, usually their longer tracks. Their second album The Great American Eagle Tragedy is maybe a bit weaker, but holds a real class title track, that should appeal to most progheads.

Not commercially successful, the group folded, and the two leaders headed for California and joined Bluegrass group Muleskinner (offshoot of The Byrds) and Old and In The Way (with Jerry Garcia, this will lead in Grisman playing on the Dead's American Beauty album). Later Rowan will form Sea Train (later Seatrain), which is of some interest for progheads. Then he joined his brothers in The Rowen Brothers, also a bluegrass group, but past 72, the Earth Opera connections are of no interest to progheads.