Wednesday 10 February 2021

Robert John Gallo's Painted Poetry / A Place to Live, 1972

 







From discogs:

American producer, musician, arranger and composer who produced multiple hit records for Atlantic Records. Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York he moved to Canada and became the house producer for Columbia Records of Canada, Ltd. in June 1974, then its Director of A&R by the end of that year. He remained with them through the 1976 restructuring to CBS Records Canada Ltd. until the early 80s.

In the early 70s he made two really interesting records, mostly in the ssw style, but mixing a great deal of inventive ideas.  The database by default refers to it as 'psych' but in reality we are dealing here with a mixture of styles, the usual kind of sixties-influenced creative songwriting with all kinds of themes and imitations, guitar-based with kinds of supporting instruments, and also some more original work though nothing that out and out can be described as progressive rock.  On the other hand it's much better than the average ssw unknown release and has some really lovely arrangements, so that 's why I put it here, as in the track called Lend me a dollar which sounds kind of indebted to master songwriter Jimmy Webb:



Part of the interest here of course is that the original record came out in 1972 but a new version with a new title was released by famed tax scam label Guiness in 1977.  Wikipedia has a nice article about the label.  You can see in discogs the two releases here.  I'm puzzled as to whether he was part of this scam or not, given that he was a producer himself 'in the biz'.  Presumably he was?


9 comments:

  1. https://www62.zippyshare.com/v/weJ5nsKM/file.html

    https://www.sendspace.com/file/ffjv4o

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  2. Hi!

    Thanx for these. Seem to remember researching this artist before but can't find any D/L'ed files so... will call this a "new" artist & "new" hears here. Presently listening to his YT tracks @ his Discogs page. Interesting.

    Cheers!
    Ciao! For now.
    rntcj

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  3. Hi!

    Still listening to his YT tracks. Great stuff! Has tracks from "Painted Poetry" but the more amazing tracks are the ones called "Compositions". LUV "Butterfly Song".

    Cheers!
    Ciao! For now.
    rntcj

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    Replies
    1. yes, that album is really good too, I like it a lot
      btw he went on to do a lot of new age stuff later on which I found disappointing

      Delete
  4. Can you post The Perotic Theatre Dryve ?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. no problem, here it is;
      https://www.sendspace.com/file/0vugxo

      Delete
  5. An old-lister of mine long forgotten! Most excellent post!!
    So good to finally give this sweet Lp a listen after all these years!
    One-one-wonderful! I love it :) ...just listen to that little piano solo in track 6 'Its The World' ahhhh tones of home-heart family wavelengths :)
    'Here In My Room', 'Time To feel The Pain', 'Lend Me A Dollar' are wrapped in smoke-rings, feelin alright! here in the wee hours...ha! as I typed these words, the lyrics of 'Simple Song' sang to me as if in perfect answer....synchro-link in real-time is so good! Synchronicity nearly stepping in the Future-self's foot-prints____Grooooovy
    And very interesting, I thought Painted Poetry & A Place To Live were two different Lps, good to figure that one out....I'd bet he was in on the re-release, because to further confuse the trail, Robert John Gallo also was basically the mastermind of the 1972 Lp (also on Mandala) 'A New Place To Live' by 'A New Place To Live' (consisting of our featured man credited as Bob John Gallo, with ace session-men Joey Carbone on vocals and Richard Zito on guitar, and a one John "The Cool Ghoul" Zacherly!!! handling the narration/poem pieces) This is a strange & interesting Lp, a proto-prog psych hybrid....
    An end-of-the-world theme dominates this unique concept album tied together by John Zacherly's narrations (!) ....spoiler alert! If first spin, beware first track, at about 2:38 in the middle of some solemn narration, comes a wildly loud dinosaur roar ...hahaha I just may save your ears if listening with headphones ;)
    Recommended.
    I have a rip of 'A New Place To Live' on a cdr and planned on uploading it to share here, but it will not cooperate and load into any media players it seems....dam ghosts in the machine - open pod bay doors HAL! .......
    I'll try again tomorrow but if anyone has a rip of 1972's 'A New Place To Live', I'm sure everyone would enjoy it and, if so, really warrants a re-post updated so all can sample the strange & sweet 'A New Place To Live' :)
    What a wild meandering ramble!
    hahaha.... love these voyages of discovery though
    Thank You so much bro for this great Painted Poetry double agent!!
    And solving and old mystery while yet another is opened, ...thus the fate of all good musical rabbit-holes ;)
    ...oh yeah, almost forgot, if any kind soul out there could help.....really love to hear his other 1972 Lp 'Compositions'...the above commenter reminded me :)
    either way, Thanks Again for the musical wealth overflowing!!!

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  6. Robert Gallo's name crops up quite a bit in the Tax Scam Lp world, it's known that he supplied the album Sum Pear which he produced to the people behind Guiness Records who released it as 'Sum Pair'. There's also the case of an unreleased album by Joey Carbone and Richard Zito which came out on Guiness as 'Snowball' without either mans knowledge. That's one I'd love to hear.

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