Friday 16 April 2021

Earl Klugh's amazing Heart String, 1979






In those dumb Sanbornian days of eighties fusion that I was subjected to when young, and that, for good reason, gave the whole genre a bad name for a long time to come by erasing all the productive dynamo-powered electric energy and creativity of the fusionary period from Bitches Brew through, I remember people talking about Klugh as an amazing guitarist, but I never bothered to listen to anything--much like the situation with the Brecker Bros. who turned out to have written quite a bit of interesting music, I recently discovered.  When I opened up the abominable spotify site, Klugh was a recommendation--the only reason I started to listen to him.  I was surprised by this album.  It's not quite as good as the aforementioned siblings, not by a long shot actually.  But the 1979 album Heart String is actually quite good, though I'll post a few others for completion sake.  There is obviously a George Benson influence, which is a good thing, especially the earlier Benson in his glory days of "Other Side of Abbey Road" for example.

First part of Heart String:





The Heart String Reprise really takes it away:




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