ALBUMS:
1(A) COMMIT YOURSELF (Ampex 10106) 1970
2(A) BETHLEHEM ASYLUM (Ampex 10124) 1971
45s:
1 Child Of The Mountain/Talkin' 'Bout Love (Ampex 11009) 1970
2 Child Of The Mountain/Talkin' 'Bout Love (Ampex 11020) 1970
3 Ring My Bell/? (Ampex 11041) 1971
This band's two albums are worth a listen
with the first album being the better of the two. It contains
lots of jazzy instrumentation and the better tracks are Sea Rider
(which has lots of good piano work), Sailboat Ride (which features
some nice sax and flute) and Earth (which also has some good
flute pieces and jazzy piano). The final cut It's About starts
with some rather discordant guitar work. The first 45 was taken
from this album but consisted of the two most commercial but
least interesting tracks. There's more of a country influence
on the second album, particularly to the vocals - a good example
of this would be Ring My Bell, which was also issued as a single.
Also of note are Blind Man's Buff, which is quite bluesy and
has some good flute pieces and Tales From The Citadel for its
spacey intro. which soon gives way to the sort of jazzy instrumentation
that characterises both albums.
They originated from the Clearwater/Tampa
area in Florida although they toured extensively all around the
South and had a good live reputation and were often double-billed
with The Allman Brothers.
Buddy Helm (ex-Those Five) went on to play
briefly with Frank Zappa and then Tim Buckley. Charles Dechant
later played with the Hall and Oates band, with whom he has spent
the last 15 or more years. The guitarist/vocalist Danny Finley
went on to the Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys band and
co-wrote many songs over several albums. Christian Ghandi has
been missing many years, any info would be appreciated and Jim
Neiman is now deceased.
www.buddyhelm.com/bethlehemasylum.html is
their web page... |