This single CD includes
Heads Hands & Feet's second long-player,
Tracks (1972), which has been augmented with the additional pair of non-LP sides "Silver Mine" and "Warming Up the Band," yielding
Tracks...Plus (1996). The quintet of Pete Gavin (drums/vocals),
Albert Lee (guitar/keyboards/vocals), Ray Smith (bass/guitar/vocals), Charles "Chas" Hodges (bass/guitar/violin/vocals), and frontman Tony Colton (vocals) had played together throughout the mid- to late 1960s before solidifying their distinctly British approach to the burgeoning country-rock movement. Their initial confab, Poet & the One Man Band, was criminally short-lived, producing an eponymous collection that undoubtedly points the way to efforts such as this one.
Tracks was the second of three
Heads Hands & Feet long-players and arguably the strongest of the trio. The platter is chock-full of well-crafted material that dabbles in a variety of traditional styles, such as the freewheeling tour travelogue "Let's Get This Show on the Road" -- which is nothing short of a showcase for the multi-instrumentalist
Lee. His double-barrel keyboards (acoustic piano/Hammond organ) and countrified lead guitar are exemplary. Equally impressive is the ballad "Roadshow," with a quietly haunting undercurrent reminiscent of singer/songwriter
Shawn Phillips or
Jackson Browne, especially the latter's affective and stark piano. "Hot Property" segues an opening blast of bluegrass with a down-home funky jam that could have been the product of any number of concurrently up-and-coming Southern rock units, such as
Lynyrd Skynyrd or
the Dixie Dregs. The tipsy "Jack Daniels" takes a page out of
the Band's rural
Big Pink era with some sweet harmonies and rootsy accompaniment. Although musically
Heads Hands & Feet were at their peak on
Tracks, for all intents and purposes they were not too far from disbanding, and the appropriately titled Old Soldiers Never Die (1973) would become their swansong. In the mid-'90s, U.K.-based See for Miles reissued all three of the combo's albums on respective CD volumes as well as
Home from Home (1996), which is devoted to previously unavailable odds and sods. ~ Lindsay Planer