The remainder of James Vincent's discography: Culmination (1974), Space Traveller (1976), and Enter In (1980)

The shockingly absolutely stunning track Freedom Divinity Struggle from Culmination:





The Christian element is very much in evidence here in all albums but particularly by the last.  It also goes without saying the LPs become more commercialized as we get closer to the migrainous year of 1980.  Culmination is chock-full of great sounds, clearly influenced by the infamous Return to Forever, but in some ways a bit more advanced in composition than what Corea attempted, or perhaps I'm just too danged sick of hearing the same old RtF tracks.

By the next album, Space Traveller, we are getting a bit more into the funkospheric environment, and as I've mentioned before with regards to many others, the influence of George Benson starts to be heard especially in the wonderful title track that really takes me back home to the space fantasies of the seventies, when, again as I've repeated before, we were promised that by the millenium (16 years ago!) we'd be colonizing not just our solar system but the closest stars as well (alpha, proxima centauri) in our ion warp drives, etc., etc.  How interesting then to hear that the Chinese expect to return a man to the moon (this time a communist one) by the year 2035-- for what, a grade school reunion party?

The short little track Stepping Up from the second album reminds me a great deal of Lenny White with his masterpiece the Venusian Suite:




But it's a real beauty isn't it?  So by the year of Enter In, 1980, we just know we aren't going to expect much, and we will thereby not be disappointed, just like in internet dating.  Actually it turns out the songwriting is quite a bit above par as you can tell from the song to Israel:





So there you go, another lost artist...

James Vincent's wonderful Waiting for the Rain in 1978

It always amazes me when albums that are so cheap and plentiful turn out to be so good.  Why a certain subset of vinyl collectors pays thousands for rarities that inevitably turn out terrible mystifies me.  James Vincent is an American guitarist, and the vocalist on this record.  His song Resistance:





Most of the tracks were written by him as you can see on the database page.

The 20th Etude reminds me of an old favourite, Don Mock:





BIO from progarchives:

James VINCENT is just one of many excellent musicians from Chicago area. As a guitarist he changed through a lot of styles, and through his career was not just a solo artist but a studio musician, writer and composer. 

One of his first more known bands in blues ridden Chicago were THE EXCEPTIONS in which he worked with Pete CETERA who would become lead singer of CHICAGO. After working as a studio musician for many Chess Records recording artists, VINCENT became a guitarist for the proto-prog band H.P.LOVECRAFT. Then he met Howard WALES & Jerry GARCIA with whom he toured for a brief time. While touring and playing the blues/funk influenced fusion at the time, VINCENT became inspired with their opening band and their guitarist, which was John MCLAUGHLIN and MAHAVISHNU ORCHESTRA. 

Afterwards he began recording and released four albums up to 1980 before taking a longer break with his solo career. His earlier records can be reminiscent of for example SANTANA with whom he used to work with and his RnB roots show in a lot of his work but amongst those there is fine energetic instrumental jazz fusion.

More to come later.