![]() Most of the album's songs were written by Roderick and her husband William Ashford. What a pity that the ravages of living through the 1960s deprived Roderick of her elfin beauty that was readily apparent on the cover of her Woman Blue LP. The album photography shows her looking somewhat like a less appealing Bonnie Bramlett along with a man who is probably either bassist Brent Williamson or guitarist Don DeBacker. Her signature voice was still there, although years of woodshedding in her adopted home state of Colorado throughout the latter half of the 1960s clearly had an effect on her delivery, which showed the influence of Janis Joplin and other female vocalists of similar ilk. In the case of Judy Roderick, who had put out two highly regarded mostly acoustic albums for Columbia and Vanguard in the mid-1960s, Nevada Jukebox was the product of a 1971 recording session with her new group, 60,000,000 Buffalo. That is, if they hadn't already picked up electric instruments and started rockin' after the release of Bob Dylan's Bringing It All Back Home in 1965. Upon the demise of the 1960s, it was not uncommon for the folkies of that decade to embrace the rural rock movement of the early 1970s. (The album was originally released with a gatefold sleeve.) A pleasant surprise and a bargain at the asking price. Listening to the album a couple more times, the set sounds like something The Shondells might have done had the ever elected to go for a tighter, AOR audience - that's meant as a compliment. Personal favorites were the band's cover of James''Dark Is the Night' (always liked that 1960s sitar sound), the rocker 'Can't Stop Myself (From Loving You)' and the mildly psychedelic 'Magic Man'. With Crabtree penning the majority of the material, the set offered up a nice blend of guitar rock ('Mountain Baby' - ignore the ponderous drum solo) and more commercial moves (check out the Tommy James and the Shondells-styled harmonies on 'Hold Back My Tears'). In spite of the dumbs*it cover, "Neon" is actually a surprisingly good heavy rock album. Their prime claim to fame seems to rest with the fact their 1970 debut album was produced by Tommy James and Bob King (the pair also handled musical arrangements and contributed one song to the set). Don't know much about this early-1970s quartet (guitarist Peter Brannigan, keyboard player Francis Crabtree, drummer Russell Leslie and bassist Fung Porter). ![]()
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