The Growing Concern – The Growing Concern (1968) [2004]

This self-titled album by The Growing Concern curiously first saw the light of day in 1969 on Bob Shad's Mainstream label (Mainstream S/6108), an imprint more familiar to jazz and blues fans than devotees of psych/pop. Perhaps Shad thought he was going to repeat his commercial triumph with The Growing Concern.

However, the band was a different proposition altogether with its emphasis on beautiful vocal harmonies and fantastic guitar and organ work rather than the Joplin-dominated R'n'B of Big Brother, and consequently Shad only allowed the group into the studio on a single occasion, dropping them from the label after this, their eponymous debut. The album, which is brilliantly recorded, is of a consistently high musical quality and the band surely deserved a better fate than the obscurity that Shad's indifference consigned them to."