Search - Roy Wood & Wizard :: Main St.

Wizzard Grows Up And Is Thrown In The Closet For 25 Yrs!

Kevin Kunreuther | Dallas TX | 08/12/2001

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I first learned of the existence of this album from a Trouser Press article about Roy Wood by Ira Robbins ("Whatever Happened To Roy Wood?") in November 1979. According to Mr. Robbins, this release was entitled "Wizzo", and was shelved after the failure of the "Indiana Rainbow"/"Saxmaniacs" single to chart. Twenty five years later, the album is finally released, under its new title "Main Street", with both CD cover art and commentary by Roy Wood. "Main Street" features a great collection songs and arrangements that shows Roy Wood and his fellow bandmates willingness at that time to follow directions previously explored on the B-sides of the band's 45 r.p.m. singles. The musical styles run the gamut and show Mr.Wood's maturation as a songwriter, arranger and producer. Alongside the proto heavy jazz fusion metal of "The Fire In His Guitar", we also find wonderful gems such as the Beach Boys Sunflower-era influenced "Main Street" with Carl Wilson-like harmonies and dreamy sax and horn trade-offs powered along by a chugging piano rhythm, the sweet Django guitar jazz cum heavy pop of "French Perfume" (a lost single there!) and a track that would feel right at home on the group's debut album, "Wizzard's Brew", the down and dirty workout of "Don't You Feel Better". This release also features the single that announced to the public and Mr.Wood's management his new musical intentions, "Indiana Rainbow", a driving, rhythmic jazz fusion number, a million miles away from the pop bombast and fifties rock'n'roll cliches that previously defined Wizzard and proved to be way more mature than radio programmers, the record buying public and Mr. Wood's record and pop management could accept at the time. Had Jet Records not had a failure of nerve, at the time, and released and heavily promoted this album and the band, Mr.Wood and his co-horts may have continued following this muse, perhaps becoming the next Steely Dan... (and what's wrong with that?)! As a long time fan of Roy Wood's music, I highly recommend this album to other Fans of "The Woodmeister" as one of the high marks in his long musical carrer, something they can hold up to such other releases as "Boulders", "Shazam", and the eclectic collection,"Exotic Mixture". To casual listeners unfamiliar with this man's work, I would definitely push this release into their hands, before recommending they listen to anything else. "Main Street" is a great listening experience for the uninitiated and shows a muti-talented songwriter arranger and producer at the peak of his craft before corporate know nothings pulled the rug out from beneath his feet, making a talented man doubt what he knows best musically and have him second guess himself for years to come."

Who knew?!

Kevin Kunreuther | 01/03/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"There are times when I get a bit irritated with Amazon for all the continual "suggestions" about other albums I might buy. But this is one of the times I couldn't be happier, for I almost certainly never would have run across MAIN STREET any other way.Popular as they were in England, Wizzard were as little known by casual listeners here in the US as their predecessors, The Move. It was the nuclear decay of The Move that transmutated that band into the earliest incarnation of ELO, and then the fissioning of ELO's leadership that left us with Jeff Lynne's incarnation of ELO and Roy Wood's Wizzard. But who in the States knew what amazing things The Move and Wizzard had done? I was as clueless as most. All the more, who *anywhere* would ever have known that there was an entire album by Wizzard that had never been released? Only a handful of insiders, I expect.So, thank you to the Edsel label for taking a chance on this "untouchable" but wonderful bit of history, and thank you Amazon for plugging it!Other reviewers have described the individual songs quite well. I can only add my praise to theirs, and wonder how it might have been if Jet Records had issued the title track as a single to test the waters, rather than "Indiana Rainbow." Let's face it, that's not a very promising title. Nothing wrong with the song, mind you, but it's not all that representative. It belongs (and is best understood) as an internal component of the album. The "Main Street" track would have made a much stronger single.Roy Wood himself acknowledges it would be better for the sound to remix from the original multitrack masters if they had been available. But don't let that discourage you. The stereo mixdown simply didn't receive the same elaborate treatment as, say, ELO's NEW WORLD RECORD, released that same year. Whatever this recording lacks in electronically enhanced ambience or trickery of stereo staging, it more than makes up for in musicianship! If you don't mind just a slight excess in the saxophone arrangements (I don't think Roy has ever been noted for under-utilizing any good discovery), then you'll likely find this album full of great ideas, authoritatively executed, still sounding new and full of surprises yet today.If you want to hear a wildly creative genius achieving musical maturity--a rather rare thing to find--you owe it to yourself to get MAIN STREET and play it frequently."

Lost Treasure Found!

Stephen Simpson | Houston, TX USA | 07/29/2000

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Brian Wilson...Stevie Wonder...Lindsay Buckingham...Prince... Jeff Lynne...Paul McCartney...Roy Wood. Roy Wood? Like these other, better known stars, Roy Wood is a multi-instrumentalist/producer who can rightfully be called an artistic genius. MAIN STREET was originally recorded with his band Wizzard in 1976, but was way too advanced to be accepted by thick-headed record company excecutives. It has taken nearly one-quarter of a century for "the powers that be" to realize the great significance of this work, and thank goodness, now we can judge for ourselves. The title cut is a joyous celebration that sounds like one of the lost tracks from the Beach Boys' album SMILE. "The Fire in His Guitar" would have made Jimi Hendrix stand up and take note. "French Perfume" is a lovely retro pop tune. One of my favorites is "Take My Hand," which sounds a lot like the band Roy founded in 1971, the Electric Light Orchestra. The single from this album, "Indiana Rainbow," is a breezy, bossa nova-ish bit of brilliance. The grand finale', "I Should Have Known," should have been a contender. There's a bit of Steely Dan in that one. Beach Boys? Steely Dan? Hendrix? Antonio Carlos Jobim? ELO? Fred Astaire? Trying to label this album is impossible, which is probably why the record companies had a hard time with it back in '76. BUT...their loss is our gain today."