Skip to main content

Strawbs - Hero and Heroine

The Strawbs were an English group that dabbled in tasty genres like folk, progressive and glam rock. They are a band that I want... No! I need to dig into more.

Rick Wakeman played with them before departing for Yes in 1970. Not nearly as technical as other prog bands, The Strawbs incorporated the softer sounds of fantasy and psychedelic pop. Melody was at the forefront of their songs, unlike groups like King Crimson or ELP who were more invested in musical gymnastics. At times, vocalist David Cousins can sound like early Peter Gabriel, which I like.

There is nothing quite like the punch of mellotron combined with bombastic drums and wizard-like vocals. And that's what The Strawbs' "Hero and Heroine" delivers! Are you game for adventure? Suspend your scabbard from your baldric and bring along a flagon of wine. Here is the map for your journey. Click play and take the first step of your quest.



Comments

Trending Tracks

Girlschool - C'mon Let's Go

Girlschool, where have you been my whole life? I love this band's sound. "C'mon Let's Go" is rock & roll perfection. The palm-muted guitar scraping matched with pounding tom-tom drums is punk rock perfection! Girlschool inhabited that creatively blurry zone between punk, hard rock and metal. They were closely associated with Motörhead and the new wave of British metal in the early 80s. They are the longest running all-female rock band, going on 35+ years. "C'mon Let's Go" appeared on their second album, Hit and Run (1981). The album reached #5 on the U.K. albums chart, but never got a proper release in the U.S. Goes well with early Ramones!

Sweet - Love Is Like Oxygen

I've always loved glam rock -- Bowie , The New York Dolls , Mott The Hoople ,  Queen , T. Rex . The flamboyant and gender-bending style. The attitude, sparkly and swagger. The first time I heard Sweet was Fox On The Run . It was my favorite song on the Dazed and Confused Soundtrack. I think it was the swirling, bubbling synthesizer that drew me in. At the time I had no idea that Sweet was a part of the 1970s glam world. Later, I found out that they sang Ballroom Blitz . That's the same band? Then, in college, I bought Action and fell in love with tunes like Lady Starlight and the title track . As I pieced together their discography (in a pre-Internet age), I noticed that the band's sound inexplicably wavered between hard rock, glam and bubble-gum pop. I could never put my finger on what Sweet was all about. I just loved a lot of their songs. This week, I picked up a copy of their 1977 album, Level Headed . The album is anything but steady (as the title would have yo...