Touch has sometimes been called the first American progressive rock band, and considering the album was recorded in '68 there's something to that.
Definitely more progressive than the psychedelic bands of the time, and Touch is a very varied release at that.
Highpoint being the album closer, the 11:45 "Seventy Five", which is unusually arranged as opposed to the improvised epics by other groups around that time (Grateful Dead, Iron Butterfly).
These are written songs with no dead moments, and the musicians are good, especially the keyboard player impresses.
Album opener "We Feel Fine" has great energy and is a great song, and songs like "Friendly Birds" and "Alesha and Others" put Jefferson Airplane to shame in the psychedelic ballad department.
The beginning and end of "The Spiritual Death of Howard Greer" has a somber church feel to it (if Iron Butterfly ever wrote a good song it might sound like this).
Another funny detail is the lead vocalist's high pitch crazy vibrato, but that's something I've learnt to love.
This deserves to be a classic album, because at the time of its release there was nothing like it. (by Daniel from New Gibraltar Encyclopedia)
Unless you're a completist, not every album of a given genre is necessarily worth having.
This is true of progressive rock.
I mean, if you're not going to listen to it more than once every few years is it really a must have?Some of these records may be considered (and often are) "important", "influential" or my favorite, "seminal", but they just don't interest you.
Unfortunately for most proggers, that's the category this band's self-titled album from 1969 would likely fall into.
And yet, after a good third listening, I must say these boys cut quite an impressive slab of true 'proto-prog' in all its confused, shuddering, awkward infancy.
Just off the high produced by The Nice, Moody Blues, and Blood, Sweat & Tears, these guys fully explored what a group of musicians with a classical background but an itch for rock and R&B could do in the studio.
As ambitious as those bands but not as cerebral as Yes or King Crimson, Touch appear to have been America's first and only organ-based, truly progressive rock act at the time and for years afterward.
Not until Todd Rundgren or Happy the Man did the U.S. begin to contribute seriously to the form (unless you include The Beach Boys, and then all bets are off).
In particular the bonus track "The Second Coming of Suzanne", a film score, is a real lost gem.
If you're interested in the history of orchestral rock, Eclectic Discs' 2003 reissue of Touch is a rewarding peek into the development of non-European prog. (by Dave Marshall from New Gibraltar Encyclopedia)
Track List :
01.We Feel Fine
02.Friendly Birds
03.Miss Teach
04.The Spiritual Death Of Howard Greer
05.Down At Circe's Place
06.Alesha And Others
07.Seventy Five
Bonus Tracks :
08.We Finnaly Met Today (Unreleased Single 1968)
09.Alesha And Others (Live Studio Demo 1968)
10.Blue Feeling
11.The Spiritual Death Of Howard Greer (Live Studio Demo 1968)
12.The Second coming Of Suzanne (Film Music 1973)
The Band :
*Don Gallucci - keyboards, vocals
*Joey Newman - guitar, vocals
*Roger Johnson - guitar
*Bruce Hauser & Trey Thompson - bass
*Jim Varley - drums
*John Bardonaro - percussion, vocals
*Jeff Hawks - vocals
