Brian Auger

Brian Auger - Language of The Heart - 2012 - Ghostown Records

A jazz pianist, bandleader, session musician and Hammond B3 player, Auger has played or toured with artists such as Rod Stewart, Tony Williams, Jimi Hendrix, Sonny Boy Williamson, Led Zeppelin, Eric Burdon and others. He has incorporated jazz, early British pop, R&B, soul music and rock, and he has been nominated for a Grammy. In 1965 Auger formed the group The Steampacket, along with Long John Baldry, Julie Driscoll, Vic Briggs and Rod Stewart. With Driscoll and the band, Trinity, he went on to record several hit singles, notably a cover version of David Ackles' "Road to Cairo" and Bob Dylan's "This Wheel's on Fire", which was featured on Dylan Covered. In 1969 Auger, Driscoll and Trinity appeared performing in the United States on the nationally telecast 33⅓ Revolutions Per Monkee. In 1970 he formed Brian Auger's Oblivion Express, shortly after abandoning the abortive "Wassenaar Arrangement" jazz-fusion commune in a small suburb of The Hague. The Oblivion Express served to cultivate several musicians, including future The Average White Band drummers Robbie McIntosh and Steve Ferrone, as well as guitarist Jim Mullen. Likewise, in 1971 he produced and appeared on Mogul Thrash's only album. Two members of that band, Roger Ball and Malcolm Duncan, would also go on to form the Average White Band. Auger toured with blues rocker Eric Burdon in the early 1990s, and recorded the live album Access All Areas with him in 1993. After several projects, including albums with family members, he reformed the Oblivion Express in the late 1990s, with a line-up that eventually featured both his son and daughter. © Heather Caine 2013 © http://sanpedronewspilot.com/events/brian-auger

A great jazz rock album from the the legendary British keyboardist Brian Auger. The album is as good as anything Brian has recorded over his extensive career and is HR by A.O.O.F.C. The album has a mid to late '70's jazz rock/fusion flavour and Brian is aided by musicians that include guitarists Julian Coryell, and no less a guitar giant than a certain Mr. Jeff "Skunk" Baxter! Listen to Brian Auger's Oblivion Express' "Reinforcements" album and read a great interview with Brian Auger @ http://www.glidemagazine.com/articles/58720/brian-auger-hammond-rhodes-express.html where he discusses "Language of The Heart" in detail [All tracks @ 320 Kbps: File size = 97.8 Mb]

TRACKS

1. Autoroute (6:22)
2. Seasons (5:08)
3. Venice Street Fair (5:37)
4. Flying Free (6:19)
5. Hymn to Morning (7:23)
6. Language of the Heart (5:20)
7. Ella (6:46)

All Tracks composed by Brian Auger, Franck Balloffet, & Phil Bunch

MUSICIANS

Brian Auger - Hammond B3 Organ, Synth., Fender Rhodes, KorgM3 Piano, Vocals
Jeff "Skunk" Baxter - Guitar, Guitar solo on "Venice Street Fair"
Julian Coryell - Guitar, Guitar solo on "Flying Free"
Franck Balloffet - Guitar
Andre Manga - Bass
Phil Bunch - Keyboards, Percussion
Remi Kabaka - Talking Drum, Congas
Karma Auger - Congas
Savannah Auger - Vocals

BIO

Brian Auger was raised in London, where he took up the keyboards as a child and began to hear jazz by way of the American Armed Forces Network and an older brother's record collection. By his teens, he was playing piano in clubs, and by 1962 he had formed the Brian Auger Trio with bass player Rick Laird and drummer Phil Knorra. In 1964, he won first place in the categories of "New Star" and "Jazz Piano" in a reader's poll in the Melody Maker music paper, but the same year he abandoned jazz for a more R&B-oriented approach and expanded his group to include John McLaughlin (guitar) and Glen Hughes (baritone saxophone) as the Brian Auger Trinity. This group split up at the end of 1964, and Auger moved over to Hammond B-3 organ, teaming with bass player Rick Brown and drummer Mickey Waller. After a few singles, he recorded his first LP on a session organized to spotlight blues singer Sonny Boy Williamson that featured his group, saxophonists Joe Harriott and Alan Skidmore, and guitarist Jimmy Page; it was Don't Send Me No Flowers, released in 1968. By mid-1965, Auger's band had grown to include guitarist Vic Briggs and vocalists Long John Baldry, Rod Stewart, and Julie Driscoll, and was renamed Steampacket. More a loosely organized musical revue than a group, Steampacket lasted a year before Stewart and Baldry left and the band split. Auger retained Driscoll and brought in bass player Dave Ambrose and drummer Clive Thacker to form a unit that was billed as Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger and the Trinity. Their first album, Open, was released in 1967 on Marmalade Records (owned by Auger's manager, Giorgio Gomelsky), but they didn't attract attention on record until the release of their single, "This Wheel's on Fire," (music and lyrics by Bob Dylan and Rick Danko) in the spring of 1968, which preceded the appearance of the song on the Band's Music from Big Pink album. The disc hit the top five in the U.K., after which Open belatedly reached the British charts. Auger and the Trinity recorded the instrumental album Definitely What! (1968) without Driscoll, then brought her back for the double-LP, Streetnoise (1968), which reached the U.S. charts on Atco Records shortly after a singles compilation, Jools & Brian, gave them their American debut on Capitol in 1969. Driscoll quit during a U.S. tour, but the Trinity stayed together long enough to record Befour (1970), which charted in the U.S. on RCA Records, before disbanding in July 1970. Auger put together a new band to play less commercial jazz-rock and facetiously called it the Oblivion Express, since he didn't think it would last; instead, it became his perennial band name. The initial unit was a quartet filled out by guitarist Jim Mullen, bass player Barry Dean, and drummer Robbie McIntosh. Their initial LP, Brian Auger's Oblivion Express, was released in 1971, followed later the same year by A Better Land, but their first U.S. chart LP was Second Wind in June 1972, the album that marked the debut of singer Alex Ligertwood with the band. Personnel changes occurred frequently, but the Oblivion Express continued to figure in the U.S. charts consistently over the next several years with Closer to It! (August 1973), Straight Ahead (March 1974), Live Oblivion, Vol. 1 (December 1974), Reinforcements (October 1975), and Live Oblivion, Vol. 2 (March 1976). Meanwhile, Auger had moved to the U.S. in 1975, eventually settling in the San Francisco Bay area. In the face of declining sales, he switched to Warner Bros. Records for Happiness Heartaches, which charted in February 1977. Encore, released in April 1978, was a live reunion with Julie Tippetts (née Driscoll) that marked the end of Auger's association with major record labels, after which he dissolved the Oblivion Express and recorded less often. In 1990, he teamed up with former Animals singer Eric Burdon, and the two toured together during the next four years, releasing Access All Areas together in 1993. In 1995, Auger put together a new Oblivion Express. As of 2000, the lineup consisted of his daughter, Savannah, on vocals, Chris Clermont on guitar, Dan Lutz on bass, and his son Karma on drums. This group issued the album Voices of Other Times on Miramar Records one week before Auger's 61st birthday. © William Ruhlmann © 2013 Rovi Corp | All Rights Reserved http://www.allmusic.com/artist/brian-auger-mn0000625014