Terry Currier:

Highly recommend the "Closer To It" album. Came out in 1973 and worked well as an album. Everything fit together. Lot’s of great song’s including the stand out cover "Compared to What, originally done by Les McCann and Eddie Harris. Brian was in an early band with Rod Stewart also which also had Long John Baldry called Steampacket.

Kim Cooke:

The album contains covers of Les McCann’s "Compared to What" and "Inner City Blues."  Now you’re thinking cheese but somehow it just isn’t.  A great lengthy joyous original called "Happiness Is Just Round The Bend." Alex Ligertwood on vocals, strong ensemble playing, don’t give up!…k

Greg Park:

I saw Weather Report open up for Brian Auger in 1974. Great fuckin’ show.  Check out the Brian Auger and the Oblivion Express album "Closer To It".  That record was on fire when it came out! Includes cool cover of Marvin Gaye’s "Inner City Blues" and the Les McCann and Eddie Harris track "Compared To What", along with some other stellar tracks.  The music will definitely take you on a little trip inside your head.  It’s timeless.

Have you HEARD this fucking record?

No, I don’t mean the Brian Auger remake, which is definitely good, but the Les McCann and Eddie Harris original.  It’s STUPENDOUS!

For those of you working at major labels, where to download P2P is to get fired, let me tell you how you do it.  You search on the act’s name.  And the song title.  And the act’s name AND song title.  Lord only knows why each of these render different results, but they do.

I was just casually trying to complete Brian Auger’s "Closer To It".  Well, maybe not casually.  I get OBSESSIVE about completion.  I want the WHOLE ALBUM!  Kind of like owning every record in a band’s catalog.  Remember THOSE days?

And in the results that came up, I found the Les McCann/Eddie Harris original.  And took it.

And another thing about using P2P.  The metadata is oftentimes incorrect.  So, after importing all the tracks you oftentimes have to adjust song titles and band names.  And I’m doing this, with about twenty tracks I’ve just downloaded, and I’m sampling them for duplicates.  It would not be uncommon for a track to be LABELED Les McCann/Eddie Harris and actually be the remake.

So I click on play and…

Fuck, it’s like being transported to the hippest club in the universe.  Not one based on stardom, on image, but on pure PLAYING!

Remember when it was about PLAYING?  When there were no machines and you had to have the rhythm IN YOU??  These cats are laying it down with such emotion, such fervor, that you’re not only mesmerized, you’re in DISBELIEF!  You feel they’ve GOT to run out of gas, the track HAS to disappoint.  But, it keeps getting better and BETTER!

Oh, they’re off on a tear.  With piano and horn.  And then, in the middle, there’s even a VOCAL!

Ten years from now people won’t want MOST of what’s in the Top Forty today.  But this forty year old music.  It KILLS!  I feel like an archaeologist, who’s found BURIED TREASURE!

The album is entitled "Swiss Movement".  It was recorded live at the 1969 Montreux Jazz Festival.  Listening to this one knows why live albums used to sell.  There’s an immediacy, a power, that could NEVER be captured in a studio.