Steelyard Blues [Original Soundtrack]

A tremendous soundtrack album to director Alan Myerson's film Steelyard Blues, which starred Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland, and Peter Boyle, this collection feels like a side project collaboration between the Electric Flag and Paul Butterfield Blues Band with added performances by Maria Muldaur and Merl Saunders. The majority of the material is written and performed by the great Nick Gravenites and Mike Bloomfield, the 14 songs really standing up on their own as a work not dependent on the film and not feeling like they are mere chess pieces to supplement a Hollywood flick. Gravenites does a masterful job of producing, with "Common Ground" resembling a great lost Electric Flag song -- Annie Sampson trading off on the vocals with Gravenites as Janis Joplin did with him on In Concert. Muldaur co-wrote "Georgia Blues" with Bloomfield and Gravenites, while they gave Muldaur and Saunders the opportunity to contribute a tune by including their "Do I Care." "My Bag (The Oysters)" adds some pop/doo wop to the affair, a nice twist, and it borders on parody. Gravenites is always able to juggle his serious side with a tongue-in-cheek wink, and this interesting and enjoyable effort deserved much wider play.