Caravan - Looking Left, Looking Right (1975)

Caravan are one of my all-time favourite progressive rock bands, and I've been collecting their music for many, many years. In 1968 Caravan emerged from the Canterbury-based band The Wylde Flowers, whose lineup included David and Richard Sinclair, Pye Hastings and Richard Coughlan, albeit not all at the same time. They started to write and rehearse material in a rented house, and by October they had generated enough interest for music publisher Ian Ralfini to sign them to the American label Verve Records, and become the first British act to be signed to them. Verve subsequently released the band's eponymous debut album later the same year, but a few months after that Verve they moved out of the UK record business and dropped the band. Caravan soon signed to Decca Records and began recording their second album 'If I Could Do It All Over Again, I'd Do It All Over You', which featured a more progressive sound than their first, and included the 14-minute track 'For Richard', showing the band's contrast in styles and jazz-rock influence. For the next album 'In the Land of Grey and Pink', the balance of songwriting changed from the previous two albums, with Richard Sinclair taking a more prominent role. The group decided to follow up 'For Richard' with a suite of short sections of songs written by David Sinclair, that the rest of the band worked on and linked together to form the side-long track 'Nine Feet Underground'.
The album became one of their most critically acclaimed works, and although 'Nine Feet Underground' was recorded in five separate stages and spliced together, the band managed to perform the suite live as it was finally presented on the album, and it remained a popular piece in their live set for many years. Unfortunately the critical acclaim did not result in commercial success, with the band believing that Decca were not promoting them properly or investing enough money, and in August 1971 David Sinclair accepted a job with former Soft Machine drummer Robert Wyatt's new band, Matching Mole. The remaining members continued on together and Richard Sinclair invited keyboardist Steve Miller to join the band, although it was immediately apparent that the style of the band would change. Sinclair and Miller wanted to perform more jazz-rock, while Hastings was frustrated that the previous sound was being neglected, and that Miller could not replicate David Sinclair's style. 'Waterloo Lily' came out in 1972, and despite having some fine pieces on it, could only be a disappointment after '... Grey And Pink', and with musical differences coming to a head following its release, the band split. Hastings and Coughlan decided to continue as Caravan, and the duo recruited viola player Geoffrey Richardson, bassist Stu Evans and keyboardist Derek Austin, and they toured extensively. This line-up did not make any recordings before Evans was replaced by John G. Perry and Dave Sinclair rejoined the group in 1973. The resulting album 'For Girls Who Grow Plump In The Night' was a major critical achievement, and remains one of my favourites. Following the release of the live album 'Caravan and the New Symphonia' in 1974, Perry left the group, and was replaced by Mike Wedgwood for 1975's 'Cunning Stunts'. It was the last album released on Decca, and this and other problems in the band caused David Sinclair to leave, to be replaced by Jan Schelhaas, and resulting in the band's sound becoming more mainstream. They signed to Miles Copeland's BTM Records and released 'Blind Dog at St. Dunstans' in 1976, but that was the last album of their that I bought. 
They made one final album in 'Better by Far' in 1977, and then split up. I still have all the original albums from their classic period of 1969 to 1976, as well as a few CD's from their re-union in the 90's, and a couple of live bootlegs, so I thought that I'd heard everything that they'd ever recorded. It was therefore an extremely pleasant surprise to find that the recent re-issues of the 70's albums had been boosted by a number of studio recordings that I never knew existed. The tracks are evenly spread throughout their career, so they seemed to have recorded one or two extra tracks at the sessions for each album, thereby giving us a constantly evolving sound as we listen to them, from the early jazzy prog right through to the almost pop sound of 'Keeping Back My Love'. 'Green Bottles For Marjorie' is basically an early version of 'If I Could Do It All Over Again....', and 'Feelin', Reelin', Squealin'' is a great extended take on the Soft Machine classic, but the rest are all typical Caravan songs, and they would have enhanced any album that they'd appeared on.  

Track listing

01 Green Bottles For Marjorie  (1970) 
02 Feelin', Reelin', Squealin'  (1971)
03 A Day In The Life Of Maurice Haylett  (1970)
04 I Don't Know It's Name (Alias 'The Word')  (1971)
05 Pye's June Thing  (1972)
06 Ferdinand  (1972)
07 Looking Left, Looking Right  (1972)
08 Pye's Loop  (1972)
09 Any Advance On Carpet? (Incorporating 'Bossa Nochance')  (1972)
10 Derek's Long Thing  (1973)
11 Keeping Back My Love  (1975)