***Pearls Before Swine -One Nation Underground (1967)Folk-Psych***

"...the Red's for the blood we lose; the White's for the gauze they use to cover burned-out blackened men; the rest is for the bodies numb and Blue."

Contemporary Neo-Folksters such as Espers and Charalambides owe much to Pearls Before Swine, whose leader, Tom Rapp, played a major role in inventing the template for psychedelia married to a folk aesthetic. As such, Rapp's definition of the term "folk music" was far more wide-ranging and far less in love with tradition than that of the typical protest singers of the early sixties. On One Nation Underground, he weaves together an eclectic array of elements including farfisa, acid-rock, and singer-songwriter melancholia to create something that still sounds original 44 years later. "Another Time," reportedly his very first song, is an achingly beautiful acoustic ballad about the aftermath of an escape from death, and one wonders if The Doors might have been familiar with "Morning Songs," with its electric organ, martial percussion, and sitar-miming banjo picking. Sadly under-appreciated, this debut, like all the Pearls Before Swine albums that followed it, certainly deserves the stature of a lost classic.

Tracks:

1. Another Time (3:03)
2. Playmate (2:19)
3. Ballad to an Amber Lady (5:14)
4. (Oh Dear) Miss Morse (1:54)
5. Drop Out! (4:04)
6. Morning Song (4:06)
7. Regions of May (3:27)
8. Uncle John (2:54)
9. I Shall Not Care (5:20)
10. The Surrealist Waltz (3:29)

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