Album
CCS
Tap Turns on The Water – The CCS Story
Esoteric (label)
16 August 2013 (released)
16 August 2013
CCS (Collective Consciousness Society) were completely unique in the early ‘70’s and the music on this collection sounds remarkably powerful and coherent even today.
With Alexis Korner and Peter Thorup on vocals plus John Cameron playing keys and conducting the horns along with the likes of Allan Parker on guitar and Herbie Flowers on bass and a horn and woodwind section of the best session players in the game they had all the tools to make great music. Much of their material was cherry-picked from the biggest names around and given the ‘CCS treatment’ but their own material was no weak spot either as hit singles like ‘Tap Turns on The Water’ go to show. Their version of ‘Whole Lotta Love’ was the theme tune for Top Of The Pops for years
The music merged Blues and R&B with swing and jazz – a form that Blood Sweat and Tears had been working with in the US – but with a massive horn sound and a core of musicians that could turn their hands to anything.
This collection includes just about everything from the ‘CCS’ album and the ‘CCS II’ plus singles and ‘B’ sides on disc 1 while disc 2 completes ‘CCS II’ and adds ‘Best Band In The Land’ for good measure.
It is quite amazing how good some of these numbers sound today. They take Jethro Tull’s ‘Living In The Past’ and turn it into a huge swing number while retaining the flute that marked out Tull originally and follow that up with Korner’s ‘Sunrise’, a mood piece that couples Korner’s cigarette tinged vocals with subtle playing with an almost African timbre. Cameron’s arrangement of the classic ‘Wade In The Water’ is jazz tinged and swings like crazy.
The later material upped the funk quotient but kept the qualities that had made the first album so good while they also were writing more of the bands own material but they still had time for a great cover of Donovan’s ‘Wild Witch Lady’ sounding NOTHING like the original. They could do soft and subtle as well as on a number like ‘Misunderstood’ but their best material is the big, brassy stuff or a track like Korner’s ‘Cannibal Sheep’.
CCS were a great band, British to the core and utterly original. The remastering is superb and makes this one of the best reissues I’ve heard this year.
The band deserves to be remembered and this helps with the process.
With Alexis Korner and Peter Thorup on vocals plus John Cameron playing keys and conducting the horns along with the likes of Allan Parker on guitar and Herbie Flowers on bass and a horn and woodwind section of the best session players in the game they had all the tools to make great music. Much of their material was cherry-picked from the biggest names around and given the ‘CCS treatment’ but their own material was no weak spot either as hit singles like ‘Tap Turns on The Water’ go to show. Their version of ‘Whole Lotta Love’ was the theme tune for Top Of The Pops for years
The music merged Blues and R&B with swing and jazz – a form that Blood Sweat and Tears had been working with in the US – but with a massive horn sound and a core of musicians that could turn their hands to anything.
This collection includes just about everything from the ‘CCS’ album and the ‘CCS II’ plus singles and ‘B’ sides on disc 1 while disc 2 completes ‘CCS II’ and adds ‘Best Band In The Land’ for good measure.
It is quite amazing how good some of these numbers sound today. They take Jethro Tull’s ‘Living In The Past’ and turn it into a huge swing number while retaining the flute that marked out Tull originally and follow that up with Korner’s ‘Sunrise’, a mood piece that couples Korner’s cigarette tinged vocals with subtle playing with an almost African timbre. Cameron’s arrangement of the classic ‘Wade In The Water’ is jazz tinged and swings like crazy.
The later material upped the funk quotient but kept the qualities that had made the first album so good while they also were writing more of the bands own material but they still had time for a great cover of Donovan’s ‘Wild Witch Lady’ sounding NOTHING like the original. They could do soft and subtle as well as on a number like ‘Misunderstood’ but their best material is the big, brassy stuff or a track like Korner’s ‘Cannibal Sheep’.
CCS were a great band, British to the core and utterly original. The remastering is superb and makes this one of the best reissues I’ve heard this year.
The band deserves to be remembered and this helps with the process.
