The Youngbloods

Elephant Mountain

Sundazed Music

Perfect albums are a funny bunch. While they’re usually in the heart of the beholder, there seems to be a consensus on some releases that they really do reach a precious plateau. One of those is Elephant Mountain. It initially appeared in 1969, when the Sixties were starting to go south, but the music still captured such huge amounts of optimistic creativity and old-fashioned originality those that did hear it immediately understood its achievement. The problem was not enough people listened. Flowing from “Darkness, Darkness,” as ominous an opening song as exists, through quirky masterpieces like “Smug” and “Sunlight,” along with the jazzy detour of “On Sir Francis Drake” and “Trillium” to the gorgeous album closer “Ride the Wind,” the Youngbloods surely realized they’d just recorded their masterpiece. And they had, but a lot of good it did them. FM radio embraced a few of the songs, but the public never really came around. Not enough people felt singer Jesse Colin Young’s wide-open voice or Banana’s idiosyncratic take on the electric guitar, not to mention Joe Bauer’s drums, rooted in improvisation and performed with excellence. What made the Youngbloods so unique was the simplicity of their sophistication, which is a lot harder to capture than it sounds. Even when extra musicians were called in by producer Charlie Daniels (yes, that Charlie Daniels) to open up the arrangements, there was never a note of clutter. Young always hit the emotional jugular with an uncanny beauty; he never missed, nor did his band mates. Unfortunately, the group didn’t get there again. This recent reissue adds two tracks which are totally unnecessary, proving that perfection can’t be improved upon. But for a single, shining moment, the Youngbloods went to the mountaintop--and took us with them.