Seals & Crofts | Greatest Hits (1975) [FULL ALBUM]

Music Review: Seals and Croft: Greatest Hits (1975)

This album is a compendium, so the music is not new to the album.  However it includes hits from their nine previous albums.  This album peaked at number 11 on the billboard charts.  It included their first big hit was "Summer Breeze."  The story telling in the song is excellent.  Some of their songs include references to the Baha'i faith.  This includes "Diamond Girl."  I personally love "King of Nothing" and "Ruby Jean" (a tribute to their spouses.)  "Diamond Girl" is also one of their most popular and sounds great.  This set also includes "I'll Play for You" and "We May Never Pass this Way Again."  The only song that was originally done is "When I Meet them" which had been previously recorded, but a different version.

UNBORN CHILD by SEALS & CROFTS

I am sharing this song from the album, because the You Tube version cuts off some of the beginning, and the words are very important.  This song came out in 1974, a year after Roe Vs. Wade.  Seals and Croft were very brave to produce such a song in a volatile climate.  The climate is still volatile.  I must share my belief that children are from God.  I also believe life begins at conception.  I want to stand with the precious babies.  I don't want to offend anyone, but I want to share my belief.

Sheri and I had two babies who did not breathe.  They were both born before Natalia.  Billy Boy passed away at eight months of pregnancy.  We have always considered him part of our family and look forward to meeting him some day.
Early on in our marriage Sheri had a miscarriage, at about two months.  Again this was a male child.  I don't know why, but Sheri and I have never thought of that first baby as part of our family.  With Billy Boy we felt him kick and squirm in Sheri's womb.  When he was born I wanted the doctor to pound on his chest and make him breath; even though he had been dead a couple days.

Seals & Crofts - Full Concert - 11/02/72 - Hofstra University (OFFICIAL)

Even though this says full concert, it is only three songs, "Summer Breeze," "Humming Bird" and an instrumental country stomping song with Jim Seals on violin.  Even though short, these songs are plenty of fun.

"The Longest Road" by: SEALS & CROFTS

This is the last album of the run of successes Seals and Croft put together.  It came out in 1980.  This music did not do well in the charts, but it does represent the Seals and Croft style of music, with a bit more jazzy feel to some of the songs.  Dash Crofts plays his mandolin and James Seals wrote most of the music and plays guitar.  This is a play list which includes six of the ten songs from the album.  The song One Planet, One People Please really brings out the nostalgic Seals and Croft.

Music Review: Seals and Croft: Down Home (1970)

This is the second album produced by Seals and Croft and all the songs were written by Jim Seals or Dash Croft.  This album continues to present the unique flavor of this musical duet group.  The mandolin gives and the voices of the singers give Seals and Croft their own unique flavor.  I have always enjoyed listening to them. 
This album had no stand out hits.  "Hand-me-down Shoe" has a very catchy tune and beat.  "Robin" is a song about a bird which precedes their later hit "Humming Bird."  There is a very nice piano part in "Gabriel Go on Home."  Today is probably my favorite of the songs on this album.  This album has a duet part that is so well mixed listening to it is very enjoyable.  The lyrics for this song are very poetic:

Today went so softly
Just faded away
Like the rain in the springtime
On that day, I met you, I met you, when I met you

Today went so quietly
I turned and it was gone
Like you, like me, it was lonely
It went on, it went on, it went on, it went on

Then a beautiful thing happened
And we were one
And all the world was
A beautiful face to be lost in

Today went so quickly, just a moment in time
Like the hours in springtime
When you were mine, you were mine
You were mine, you were mine

Then a beautiful thing happened
And we were one
And all the world was
A beautiful face to be lost in
Today, today

This album has a bit for everyone.  They sing country.  They even sing to a poisonous snake in "Cotton Mouth".

Music Review: Seals and Croft: Summer Breeze

  This is Seals and Crofts.  This is another of my old records which I replaced with a used c.d. at Street light C.D.  The title song makes this disc more than worth it.  This is a song I can listen to over and over.  I keep trying to sing with it, and get mad at myself for not doing better; then I realized theirs is a duet, with two parts, and I can’t copy that by myself.  However I really like the way this is performed and the picture it paints of domestic tranquility.  Hummingbird is also a favorite, and has a religious connotation to the artist.  Say has an upbeat catchiness, and Boy Down the Road tells a nice story, and does the Funny Little Man.
When I was college age I had a flair for Seals and Croft, and studied a bit about the BaHa'i faith as a result.  That was when I was intellectual and not very humble.  Life has mellowed me now, and that intellectual stuff doesn't appeal to me much any more.  Some of the songs have a special flair.  I particularly don't like "Yellow Dirt Down in his Soul"  but in this case, "Summer Breeze" makes this album a keeper.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEF470mXqU4

Movie/Music Review: *^ Sgt Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band

This is the Bee Gees singing Beatles music.  The music comes from two Beatles albums--Abbey Road and Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.  It seems like just about anybody in music at the time had some kind of a cameo in this movie.  The best part of the film is Strawberry Fields (Sandy Farina).  Her songs are crisp and well done.  She is the girl friend of Billy Shears, played by Peter Frampton. 
As for a plot, it is bad.  So bad they have George Burns as the narrator trying to explain what is going on.  When things fall apart in the end, the weather vane fixes everything, and everybody has a big sing along.  The sing along has all kinds of musical groups, including Seals and Croft.  Good music, but would have been better as a concert, forgetting any idea of a plot.