Found a CD of Miles of Aisles amongst various stuff in the box room a few weeks ago and it finally made its way to the car (where so many CDs go to die, I guess) alongside its longterm companions an Albert Ayler CD and the Raoul Graf CD largely written by and produced by Ed Kuepper.
Anyway, unlike you and your various pals, I have not much time for JM's first - say - five years as a recording artist, although that said, I adore Live at Canterbury House 1967, so perhaps it's not the songs so much as the approach and the production that bother me, that and, fuck Blue. I mean the reason I say fuck Blue is less about Blue anyway and more about the emotional environment I was in when exposed to liberal helpings of Blue, and by that I do not mean I was depressed, more like, oppressed. I don't want to go into it. Same reason I think I can't ever listen to Karen Dalton (different scenario though).
So, having written all that down I realise the stupidity of it. But you know, those early JM records are twee, and I've just heard them too often in idiotic commercial radio environments or in some cases, I've heard the songs done better (The Supremes' amazing version of 'All I Want' for instance).
But that's all redundant, because, this is a sensational record. It came out between Court and Spark and The Hissing of the Summer Lawns and it sounds like those records much more than the earlier albums. That's primarily I suppose because of the L.A. Express - this LP is kind of the middle instalment of a triumvirate of albums made with that band and utilising its particular flavour - although that said half the record is JM on her own, so yeah nah maybe.
Anyway, I could not imagine any other way that I could be induced to listen to, and in fact enjoy, stuff like 'Woodstock' and 'Big Yellow Taxi' but than with the radical rearrangement that allowed L. A. Express to do their bit. Of course back in 1974 these songs weren't super-old classic rock, so it might not have seemed so imperative to vibe them up or for that matter there might be have been fewer people offended by a radical redo. You can hear people in the audience calling out for things though. There's only one song from C&S on this record - which is fair and reasonable, given that it wasn't even a year old - but the concentration is on older material.
Court and Spark came out in January 1974 (and was a big success) and these songs were mainly recorded in August that year (a couple in March). So the crowd knew what JM's new material sounded like, and were presumably into it, and were in some way or another primed for the new sound.
I couldn't find any reviews of the August shows recorded for the album, but I found this, which is refreshingly stupid in many ways, and reminds one of the good old days when it was OK to be stupid.
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