CoronaVinyl Day 50 (Non-Square Album Sleeve): Bandstand by Family

For an explanation of CoronaVinyl, click here.

I decided to go a little off the grid with today's CoronaVinyl category.  There were plenty of categories on the original list relating to different colors and patterns of vinyl, but nothing relating to the album cover, so I decided to make a "non-square album sleeve" category.  

Of course, most album covers are square, but particularly in the late '60s and '70s, some artists (or their record companies) got more creative and added some panache by making non-square album covers, like Traffic's Low Spark of High Heeled Boys that was kind of a quadrilateral that gave the album a 3-D effect, Rod Stewart's Sing It Again Rod that was shaped like a lowball tumbler, or Todd Rundgren's A Wizard, a True Star, which had some rounded corners and some other corners cut into shapes.

I only have a few albums with non-square covers, and I decided to go obscure -- or at least obscure for most Americans -- but one of the coolest non-square covers.  Family was a British rock band in the late '60s and early '70s.  While they were relatively successful in their native UK, their popularity didn't cross the pond for whatever reason.  They released seven studio albums between 1968 and 1973, and their worst-charting album still reached #35 on the UK album charts, while three of their albums rose to the Top 10.  They also had four Top 40 singles in the UK, including one Top 5 song (1971's "In My Own Time").  In the States, though, none of their singles charted, and their highest-charting album reached #177 on the Billboard album charts.

The band's membership turned over pretty frequently (particularly bassists, apparently), and members at one point or another included:  bassist Rick Grech, who would leave the band to participate in the supergroup Blind Faith with Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, and Ginger Baker, and who later was a member of Traffic with Winwood; bassist Jim Cregan, who would would go on to be Rod Stewart's longtime musical director, co-writer, and co-producer; former Eric Burdon & The Animals guitarist John Weider; and bassist John Wetton, who left the band to join King Crimson and was later in Uriah Heep, before forming early '80s supergroup Asia with former members of Yes and ELP.

At some point I acquired two of Family's albums, presumably as part of one of the various lots of records I bought, and I'd be lying if I told you I had ever heard of them before that.  1972's Bandstand was the band's penultimate album, and it reached #15 on the UK album charts and #183 on the Billboard album charts.  It also produced one hit single in the UK, "Burlesque," which went to #13 on the UK pop charts.  But for this exercise, the album cover was cut into the shape of an old television.  The music itself is pretty solid.  I would say that it's a mix of prog rock, hard rock, psychedelic rock, funk, and folk rock.  It reminds me of Traffic, Mountain, and The Doobie Brothers, with a little ELP and Average White Band mixed in.  If that doesn't entice you to listen to the album, I don't know what will.

The Spotify version of the album has four extra songs at the end, including three live songs.

Favorite song from Side 1:  "Broken Nose"
This is a soulful rocker that crescendos into an all-out jam.  Lead singer Roger Chapman wails, and the band follows suit.  This is just a great rock song, and I think it wouldn't have been out of place on a Sly & The Family Stone album.

Favorite song from Side 2:  "Ready To Go"
"Ready To Go" is a funky rock song that definitely sounds like it was released in 1972, and I don't mean that as a diss -- though the song itself is apparently a diss track, aimed at the members of the British press who perhaps wrote unfavorable (or unfavourable, as it were) things about the band.