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Joy Of Cooking were formed in Berkeley (San Francisco Bay Area) during the
hippie era (1967). Their fusion sound, incorporating folk, rock, jazz, gospel
and blues, had little in common with acid-rock: it heralded a new era of
"creativity" and of stylistic re-evalutation.
One of the first bands led by female musicians, and one of the earliest to
deal with feminist issues within popular music, the Joy Of Cooking were
led by pianist Toni Brown (who had graduated in creative writing)
and guitarist Terry Garthwaite
(a folk-singer and an aspiring sociologist).
The three-unit rhythm section, on the other hand, was entirely male.
Hampered by the fact of not being the
typical rock band, the Joy Of Cooking gathered a lot of critical attention
but never enjoyed any commercial success. In fact, they were formed in 1967 but
had to wait four years before recording an album (they were all over 30 by then).
Their albums
Joy Of Cooking (Capitol, jan 1971), that includes
Brownsville-Mockingbird,
Red Wine At Noon and Did You Go Downtown,
Closer to the Ground (aug 1971),
highlighted by the anthemic title-track,
New Colorado Blues,
Humpty-Dumpty,
Pilot and
The War You Left,
and Castles (may 1972), with another string of soulful gems
(Home Town Man,
Beginning Tomorrow,
Three Day Loser,
Bad Luck Blues,
Don't The Moon Look fat and Lonesome)
displayed a sophisticated sense of melody
and flexible song structures. The instrumental score crafted laid-back
atmospheres that Brown's fragile contralto and
Terry Garthwaite's gospel passion turned into cohesive statements of real life.
The album Same Old Song And Dance (1973) was never released
(Such Days Are Made For Walkin',
Ain't Nobody Got the Blues Like Me and
You Gotta Reap Just What You Sow would surface on
American Originals) and
the band quickly dissolved, but Toni Brown and Terry Garthwaite released
albums both as a duo and as individual artists. Despite Brown's increasing
interest in country music, the two albums on which they
collaborated are as good as the first Joy Of Cooking album:
Cross-Country (Capitol, 1973), with
As I Watch the Wind and
Midnight Blues.
Toni Brown released two solo albums:
Good For You Too (MCA, 1974) and
Angel Of Love (Fantasy, 1980).
Toni Brown and Terry Garthwaite also released a duo album,
Joy (Fantasy, 1977).
Terry Garthwaite's career was more consistent. Her first three albums, released
over a ten-year period, continued to offer Joy Of Cooking's folk-jazz-blues
fusion:
Terry (Arista, 1975),
Hand In Glove (Fantasy, 1979),
Moving Day (Catero, 1984).
She then converted to spiritual new-age music with
Affirhythms (Joy, 1992) and
Sacred Circles (Joy, 2000).
American Originals (Capitol, 1992) is an excellent career anthology.
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