Terry Knight & the Pack/Reflections

I first encountered Terry Knight in 1964 when he became the nighttime DJ on CKLW. I was a kid in Boston who had just discovered this clear channel Detroit station which played music that was so much more interesting than my local stations. As a DJ, Knight championed British blues-rock groups like Them, The Pretty Things, and especially The Rolling Stones - none of whom were successful in the US at that point. When the Stones came over for their first US tour, playing to small audiences, Knight hung around with them, hyping the band and his friendship with them on the airwaves constantly. Soon he left CKLW, announcing that he was going to make records produced by Brian Jones.

When Knight resurfaced two years later, it was without Jones but with music that had a definite Rolling Stones influence. The band's first album is pretty straightforwardly the blues-rock of those bands he had championed, watered down with a Middle America rock feel (and a relatively bland and less threatening vocalist). As such, it's a natural evolutionary step towards the arena rock Knight later helped Grand Funk Railroad create. Knight knew he was not much of a singer, but between his radio-ready speaking voice and his own commercial instincts, he crafted an album of songs that worked well within his limited range. The one hit, "I Who Have Nothing" was as much recitation as singing (and also included the kind of orchestral string section that The Stones had used on some recent ballads).

By the time the second album was recorded, psychedelia and experimentation were in vogue and Reflections was much less focused. There is more variety, but much of it is too ambitious for this band. (The same could be said for many bands of the period - all of whom wanted to be The Beatles but most of whom were way short in the talent department.) With so many different sounds to choose from, anybody is likely to find some tracks on Reflections that they enjoy, but it's much less likely that anyone will like everything on the album. I would give the first album 4 1/2 stars, and Reflections 3 stars.

Cameo Records, and its subsidiary Parkway label, were Philadelphia powerhouses from the mid-50s through the mid-60s. They scored with rockabilly, doo-wop and a string of vocal hits by Bobby Rydell. They had chart-topping success with Chubby Checker, alongside hits by other Philly acts that included the Dovells, Orlons and Dee Dee Sharp. By the mid-60s the labels were reaching further outside their neighborhood, releasing early singles by Michigan-based artists Bob Seger (including 1967's "Heavy Music"), ? and the Mysterians (including the hit "96 Tears"), and a pair of albums on the Lucky 13 label by Terry Knight and the Pack. The latter group would subsequently seed Grand Funk Railroad (with Knight moved from the lead singer slot to management and production), turning the Pack's albums into collector items.

Cameo-Parkway was shuttered in 1967 and the catalog sold to Allen Klein, who reissued very little of the vault material. The Cameo Parkway 1957-1967 box set and a series of artist Best Ofs broke the digial embargo in 2005, and six more releases this year (including original album two-fers by Chubby Checker, Bobby Rydell and the Orlons) further detail the labels' riches. Terry Knight and the Pack's self-titled debut was released in 1966 (reproduced here in mono) and highlighted by fuzz-guitar and organ that favored the garage-rock and neo-psych sounds of the time. They faithfully covered the Yardbirds' "You're a Better Man Than I," turned Sonny Bono's "Where Do You Go" into a dramatic P.F. Sloan-styled folk-rocker, and had a minor chart hit with Ben E. King's "I (Who Have Nothing)."

Knight's background as a DJ gave him an encyclopedic feel for sounds of the times, writing originals that borrow from Dylan ("Numbers"), electric jugbands ("What's On Your Mind"), folk-rock ("Lovin' Kind"), chamber pop ("That Shut-In"), blues rock ("Got Love") and psych ("Sleep Talkin'" and the terrific, Love-styled "I've Been Told"). His vocals fair better on the bluesier garage numbers than the ballads (a cover of "Lady Jane" barely echoes the mood of the original), but his band, featuring Don Brewer on drums and Bobby Caldwell on organ (and later Mark Farner on guitar) is stellar throughout. 1967's sophomore outing, Reflections (mastered here in stereo), sports a bit more muscle and a bit less garage whine. As on the debut, Knight fares better with the bluesier tunes, such as the original "Love, Love, Love, Love, Love," a song recorded by the Music Explosion with the same backing track!

A cover of "One Monkey Don't Stop the Show" shows Knight had neither the style of Joe Tex nor the speed rapping grooves of Peter Wolf, borrowing instead Eric Burdon's approach from the Animals' version without really adding anything new. His cover of Sloan and Barri's "This Precious Time" similarly reuses the folk-rock template the Los Angeles songwriters had laid out for the Grass Roots. The album's ballads are generally forgettable and the lite-psych breaks taken amid the country twang "Got to Find My Baby" no longer seem like such a good idea. Side two opens with the Brill Building styled yearning of "The Train," but devolves into Dylan parody, faux psych and sing-song novelty.

The closing cover of "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" suggests the heaviness that Grand Funk would bring, but it can't salvage the Pack's second album. Both albums are distinguished more as rarities, this CD being their first ever reissue in the digital age, than as mid-60s essentials. The band is powerful and tight, making the most of Knight's originals and giving him some solid riffs to work with on the up-tempo numbers, but in the end, Knight is not a particularly memorable stylist. Collectors' Choice reproduces the original 24 tracks (72 minutes!), both front and back album covers, and new liner notes by Jeff Tamarkin. 3-1/2 stars, if allowed fractional ratings. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

When I was living in Grand Blanc MI, these guys were regulars at Mt Holly teen center and Mothers in AA along with the SRC, Rationals, ? Mark and a skinny loudmouth with an electric suit and a band called the Last Heard - Bob Seger. I love most of these songs and will always remember the time when I was in living in Maryland in '66 and driving along the coast near Ocean City when I heard "Change on the Way" crackling in from some station in Hartford, Connecticut. That ethereal echo and reverb just made the song sound like it was coming from another planet as it faded in and out. I felt so proud to be from Michigan! Missing from this collection is the single "Lizbeth Peach" and Carole King's "Bad Boy" from the 1972 LP "Mark, Don and Terry". Terry is no longer with us, but it feels great to hear these songs remastered and to hear "Reflections" in original stereo.