CLOSER TO HOME
Closer to Home is Grand Funk Railroad’s third studio album and was released on June 15, 1970 by Capitol Records. This album reached RIAA gold record status in 1970, making it the group’s third gold record in one year. (More from Wikipedia)
My own theory is that Crystal Mansion suffers from the same “problem” as last month’s UARB, the Human Zoo: The band has real variety in its material and doesn’t sound the same all through the record. The Allmusic article on the band, by Lars Lovén, starts off: “The Crystal Mansion’s relatively short story is that of a white R&B band moving towards groovy psychedelic rock in the ’70s.” Joe Viglione writing for Allmusic grudgingly acknowledges this about the final track: “‘Earth People’ is reminiscent of ‘Calling Occupants’, the hit for the Carpenters and Klaatu. It is the highlight of the album. Let’s call it Crystal Mansion’s ‘I’m Your Captain / Closer to Home’.” The reference of course is to the closing song on the Grand Funk Railroad breakthrough album, Closer to Home (1970), “I’m Your Captain”, although Crystal Mansion was able to craft their memorable song in barely one third the playing time of the Grand Funk track.
(August 2015)
