Nuggets From The
Golden State - We Five - There Stands the Door; The Best of We Five
There Stands the
Door: The Best of We Five Review by Richie Unterberger.
Though "You
Were on My Mind" was one of the first and best big folk-rock hits, We
Five's reputation as early folk-rock pioneers has suffered from the abundance
of weak and ill-suited pop material on the spotty two LPs recorded by the
original lineup. It's no exaggeration to hail the 22-track There Stands the
Door as a major rehabilitation of the group's legacy. That's due both to the
wise selection of their best and most folk-rock-oriented material, and to the
inclusion of eight previously unissued cuts (and one non-LP A-side) that do
much to fill out a fairer portrait of the group's strengths. Instead of
sounding like a wildly erratic outfit prone to interpreting too many pop
standards and show tunes, this cherry-picked anthology shows them more as a
highly worthwhile, if a little lightweight, early folk-rock group who helped
innovate the male-female harmonies characteristic of early San Francisco
folk-rock in particular. The CD focuses both on the group's best original
material (often penned by John Stewart's brother Mike Stewart) and their most
appropriate choices of folky songs to cover, including several compositions by
John Stewart and an obscure tune (the previously unissued "What'cha Gonna
Do") co-written by Bob Gibson, Shel Silverstein, and Fred Neil. All but a
couple of the tracks were recorded prior to the first lineup's dissolution in
spring 1967, and Beverly Bivens' vocals in particular anticipate aspects of the
San Francisco folk-rock singing heard in early Jefferson Airplane recordings,
particularly on the 1966 single "You Let a Love Burn Out." From the
same year, the non-LP single "There Stands the Door" hints at some
more musically and lyrically adventurous directions that went unexplored, even
if its adventurousness is fairly mild compared to that of the Airplane. True,
"You Were on My Mind" remains the best track they ever did by some
distance. But much more than their original LPs, There Stands the Door stands
as their true best-of, and if its concentration on folk-rock gives a somewhat
incomplete document of their eclectic repertoire, it does indisputably focus on
the best of that repertoire. Note that a couple of the unissued tracks
(judiciously placed at the end of the CD) are actually taken from recordings
they made for Coke commercials; while they're hardly emblematic of the group at
their best, they certainly are rare and thus to be welcomed by hardcore
collectors. A more significant bonus is Alec Palao's extensive annotation, in
which first-hand interviews with surviving bandmembers do much to flesh out the
history of this ill-documented group.
Tracklist:
1.1 You Were on
My Mind
1.2 There Stands
the Door
1.3 Love Me Not
Tomorrow
1.4 If I Were
Alone
1.5 Let's Get
Together
1.6 High Flying
Bird
1.7 Five Will Get
You Ten
1.8 What Do I Do
Now
1.9 The First
Time
1.10 What's Goin'
on
1.11 You Let a
Love Burn Out
1.12 I Can Never
Go Home Again
1.13 Walk on By
1.14 It Really
Doesn't Matter
1.15 The Thing I
Like
1.16 Past Asking
1.17 After All
1.18 Poet
1.19 Have You
Heard
1.20 Whatcha
Gonna Do
1.21 How to Make
a Soft Drink Commercial
1.22 Sittin'
Here/Summer Things
Thank you!
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