The only recordings released during
the Great Society's 1965-1966 lifetime were the two sides of its Northbeach Records single, "Free Advice"/"Someone [Somebody] to Love." This album reissues those two sides along with the rest of the group's previously unreleased recording sessions of the fall of 1965. There are two more takes of the Indian-influenced "Free Advice," the group-written "Father Bruce," about comedian
Lenny Bruce, and a set of pop-oriented songs written by singer David Miner. The tracks are rough, little more than demos rather than finished recordings. (No wonder it took 30 years for someone to release them.) But they provide tremendous insight into one of the '60s San Francisco scene's forgotten bands. ~ William Ruhlmann