Groove Holmes – American Pie (1974)

One more album I have gotten from my relatives that don't listen to vinyl albums anymore. I think this one came from my grandmother, or possibly one of my uncles that had left this album at my grandmother's place. This album is named by Don McLean's excellent song American Pie. The album starts with a version of that song. There are some excellent bass lines in that song, but the organs, which Groove Holmes plays himself, are quite cheesy and sometimes the rock organ sounds on this album sound a bit like cruise ship background music. The musicians on this album are all quite professional and it's a pleasure to listen to their playing, but the sounds are just a bit tacky most of the time. I really like funk, but I haven't bought that many albums of it, so it's fun that some funk albums have found their way into my record collection through alternative routes.



I don't really know that much about this album. So, I don't know if all of these songs are covers or if there are original songs as well, but I do at least recognise other songs in addition to the title track from this album. In addition to more straightforward funk, there is some bossa nova and soul on this album. The focus is naturally on organs, since the main artist plays them, but I, myself, enjoy the bass players bass lines the most. The bass sounds excellent and the bass player Jerry Jemmott really plays some complicated stuff as well.

As I already mentioned, the album kicks off with a cover version of American Pie. This version is quite funky and the bass lines are especially great. It's followed by two songs that go more into a bossa nova rhythm, but they still sounds quite funky. After these songs there's a super fast tempo song Fingers. Appropriately named song if you think about the guitar players fingers that must move super quickly in this song. The style of this song is more conventional jazz song. After that we're back to the latin rhythms with the song It's Impossible. This song, for some reason sounds especially like the music they play on the cruise ships between Finland and Sweden and Finland and Estonia. Here's That Rainy Day keeps the kind of bossa nova style rhythm, but it's again a bit more funky by sounds. The album ends with a great blues song Who Can I Turn to (When Nobody Needs Me). There's some great guitar playing in this one.

I don't really have that much to say about this album. It has some amazingly talented musicians on it, but the music itself doesn't really interest me that much. At best it works as an inspiration to play complicated jazz songs on bass. Anyway, I'm quite glad to own a bit more albums like this. Having albums like this in this project makes me get out of my conventional comfort zone and listen to some interesting music that I haven't paid much attention to.

Listen to the album on Spotify.