From Cleveland, the singer and songwriter Buzzy Linhart was a veteran of the East Coast coffee house scene and formed the Seventh Sons in 1967. Between 1968 and 1974, he also released several interesting solo albums.
His first album Buzzy was recorded in England in October 1968. On the first side he is backed by the Welsh group Eyes of Blue and performs his own songs (Willie Jean, Step Into My Wildest Dreams) and a fast cover of Tim Hardin's Yellow Cab. The second side features Sing Joy, a long (18'45\") raga with only Big Jim Sullivan on sitar and Keshav Sathe on tabla. A really interesting album, it deserves to be heard.
The only album ever cut by Buzzy Linhart -- and a really compelling mix of styles that should have hit bigger at the time! Buzzy had his roots in the New York folk scene of the 60s, but he's recording here in London with a very unusual sound -- fuzzy and rocking at some moments, droning and folksy at others -- and often with some heavily jamming instrumentation that's nearly as appealing as Buzzy's confidently-sung vocals. Backing is by the Welsh group Eyes Of Blue, with Raymond Williams on guitar and Phil Ryan on organ and mellotron -- but one especially great track on the album is an extended Indian-styled number, with Big Jim Sullivan on sitar and Keshav Sathe on tabla -- working in a stretched-out groove that runs for nearly 20 minutes in length! Titles include \"Sing Joy\", \"End Song\", \"Step Into My Wildest Dreams\", \"Yellow Cab\", and \"Willie Jean\".
Linhart 's debut album is a strange, unfocused affair, the kind of thing that would have only been issued by a major label in the late '60s. The singer varies between relatively short songs and way-extended workouts that mix folk with rock , Indian music ( Big Jim Sullivan plays sitar), and even some mellotron. Linhart uses drawn-out blues-folk phrasing that owes quite a bit to Village folk-rockers like Tim Hardin and Fred Neil , and in fact a five-and-a-half-minute workout on Hardin 's blues , 'Yellow Cab,' opens the LP. The ten-minute 'Willie Jean' is next, and actually Phil Ryan 's mellotron here gives the song an unusual lift that helps to differentiate what would otherwise be an OK but unremarkable anguished folk ballad . The 18-minute 'Sing Joy' takes up most of side two, and its Indian-oriented improvisation gets tedious after a promising opening burst of ominous orchestral drone. When he milks that drone for an entire, albeit three-minute, song (the closing 'End Song,' overlaid with mellotron), the result is more interesting, recalling Fred Neil at his most despondent, but with freakier production. It's no mystery as to why Linhart favored these elastic, spontaneous-sounding folk / jazz / blues / Indian / rock fusions; he had no doubt played that kind of music when one of his bands, the Seventh Sons , backed Fred Neil live in the mid-'60s. Still, his singing, songwriting, and editing capabilities were not quite up to the point where he could shine on an album all his own. ~ Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide
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