Christie is best known for the 1970 hit "Yellow River." It was only a moderate hit in the U.S., reaching Number 23 in the singles chart. However, it was a Number One hit in Britain and 25 other countries, making one of the biggest hits worldwide that year. And despite the fact it wasn't a big U.S. hit, it still gets played on oldies radio stations there. Their second single, "San Bernadino," was also a Top Ten hit in Britain and many other countries, but barely charted in the U.S. But subsequent singles failed to sell. The band petered out around 1974, though there were later reunions.
The band was a trio, but the main force was Jeff Christie, who was the lead vocalist, bassist, and songwriter. Virtually all the songs here were written by Christine, though there's a nice cover of "Rock and Roll Woman" by Buffalo Springfield.
These BBC sessions albums often serve as good de facto "best of" collections, and this album is a good example of that. They were a pretty decent rock and roll band that could have had more success if the breaks had fallen their way.
All of the songs here come from the "Top of the Pops" BBC radio show, hosted by Brian Matthew. He had a terrible habit of talking over the beginnings and ends of songs, but he really outdid himself here. I believe this is the first album like this I've posted where every single song has "[Edit]" in the title, because Matthew talked over all of them! But I did the usual fix of using the UVR5 audio editing program to erase his voice while keeping the underlying music.
Here's the Wikipedia page for the band:
This album is 42 minutes long.
01 Yellow River [Edit] (Christie)
02 Inside Looking Out [Edit] (Christie)
03 Down the Mississippi Line [Edit] (Christie)
04 San Bernadino [Edit] (Christie)
05 New York City [Edit] (Christie)
06 Man of Many Faces [Edit] (Christie)
07 Peace Loving Man [Edit] (Christie)
08 Picture Painter [Edit] (Christie)
09 Country Sound [Edit] (Christie)
10 Everything's Gonna Be Alright [Edit] (Christie)
11 Freewheelin' Man [Edit] (Christie)
12 Rock and Roll Woman [Edit] (Christie)
13 Iron Horse [Edit] (Christie)
14 Funny Things [Edit] (Christie)
15 One Way Ticket [Edit] (Christie)
https://pixeldrain.com/u/H7mj4jhJ
alternate:
https://bestfile.io/en/fS6BI5JtxgeyckC/file
The cover photo shows the three band members around 1970. I believe the man in the middle is Jeff Christie. I darkened the background some.
Ah yes! "Let your fingers do the walking." I wonder how many people, like me, think of the advert when they hear Yellow River?
ReplyDeleteNope, never heard of them but I'll dive in and see. Thanks for your hard work to clean it up!
ReplyDeleteThanks! I'm A big fan of obscure 60' & 70's bands, especially British and European progressive ones. Keep up the good work. J C
ReplyDeleteChristie had a few hits in Holland of which "Yellow River" was the biggest. But "San Bernadino" and "Iron horse" also did quite well. I once heard that "Yellow River" was recorded by Christie after The Tremeloes did not release it soon enough...
ReplyDeleteJeff Christie is the one in the black shirt. The single 'Yellow River' is basically The Tremeloes instrumentally , with their vocals removed and replaced by Jeff Christie's vocals.
DeleteYou can read about the Tremeloes version in the Wikipedia article of the song:
Deletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_River_(song)
Bunternet, if you know which one is Christie, who are the other two?