Stamp Album

Climax Blues Band hit its creative peak with the 1975 release of Stamp Album. Granted, you won't find much Chicago blues on this one, as you did on Plays On, A Lot of Bottle and Tightly Knit.But Stamp Album shows a band that has tastefully matured. With seven albums behind them before this LP, Climax Blues Band finally enjoyed a brush with commercial success with minor hits "Using the Power" and "I am Constant." Both are decent tracks, but really the album features much better material, namely "Mr Goodtime," "Running Out of Time," and the instrumental "Cobra."What you'll hear on this relatively short but solid album are songs with deep grooves; judicious use of sax, clarinet and flute; Peter Haycock's brilliant guitar playing (he's one of the most criminally overlooked guitar players in rock history); and a band that truly seemed to enjoy itself cutting this one in the studio.If you have the back catalog of CBB albums, you'll hear parts on Stamp Album that could fit on Sense of Direction and Rich Man (my favorite CBB LP).If you're looking to build a Climax Blues Band collection, get Tightly Knit, Rich Man, FM Live and of course, Stamp Album.

In an era where the radiowaves are permeated in crap, one has to go back to find new music. I had been listening to other Climax Blues Band songs and turned to them in hopes of finding more music for work and on the road. Stamp was a great find.

as we got closer to the mid 70s the climax blues band started to get a bit better with a bit more of a heavy rockin edge, this record was regarded as one of there best next to platted in 1976, still my favorite is whole lot of bottle from 1970. great album here though, as well as a great japan mini lp sleeve replica....

It was excellent!

great

My favorite Climax Blues Band Album from back in the day. Great for jogging or when I work from home.

I'll forgive the reviewer below who didn't like this album. As with many such bands of the early 1970s, CBB was in transition from a blues format to a more pop-rock style, and he obviously didn't care for that format. He's welcome to his opinion.As for the rest of us, the CBB touchstone is their #1 U.S. hit "Couldn't Get it Right," which came out a year or two after this collection was released. If you're familiar with that and like that tune and/or if the samples you can listen to on this page, then I promise you'll enjoy this set as well as the later "Flying the Flag."At the time of the release of the "Stamp Album" in 1975, they had enough of a fan base in the States to lift this LP to #69 on the bestseller chart, which is pretty good for a band that hadn't had a hit single at the time. Most of the radio people were caught up with the disco craze at the time, and CBB's tasty pop-rock style, with its excellent bass end and tasty guitar, work didn't fit with what they were shoving down the throats of the mass audience of that day. Their style during this part of their career still carried some of the blues feel of their earlier work, but they had subjugated the overt trappings of that form and tightened up their sound to commercialize it. The result was a very pleasant style that often brought out some excellent tunes, but more often was just, well, pleasant.The appropriately soaring "Sky High" and optimistic "I Am Constant" are perhaps the best known tunes in this set, and they have the most substance of the tracks here. The rest, other than the throwaway instrumental "Cobra," are pleasant, alternately bouncy and slithery, all enjoyable but not terribly memorable. Still, if this style of music is something you enjoy, you will not at all be disappointed with this set.

This fine album from 1975 captures the talented English outfit at a fascinating stage in their career. Encouraged by the huge success in the US of the FM Live double album (the cover of which, incidentally, was seen in most episodes of the Robin Williams comedy Mork and Mindy, pinned to the wall in the record store where Mindy worked, but I digress) this finds CBB in confident mood. Having stuck pretty rigidly to a blues formula for their early albums, this record sees them incorporate jazz, funk, even Latin and Cuban rhythms, to create a marvellous sound, albeit one which is sometimes obscured by the over-elaborate production. This experimentation and departure from straightforward blues resulted, one year later, in the deliciously funky worldwide smash hit Couldn't Get It Right. Peter Haycock's inspired guitar playing is well to the fore, while Colin Cooper delivers a suitably mercurial vocal on Rusty Nail/The Devil Knows. The album's stand-out track is Running Out Of Time, on which Haycock and Cooper's synchronised guitar/sax work is at its fintst. The lyrics speak of financial worries, tax worries, life on the road and the fear that the band were "running out of time". You should definitely find time for Stamp Album.

'Stamp Album' was in my collection in vinyl back in the 70's before I went over to music cassettes. Bought it in the new format - now as a CD CBB's 'Stamp Album' takes pride of place again, side by side with Clapton, Eagles, Foreigner and Free etc. In short, a musical masterpiece.

It was better than I thought it would be I really enjoyed it

Blues vom Feinsten. Kann man immer wieder hören und hat gute Laune. Musik die in dieser super ausführung leider heute nicht mehr produziert wird.