And More...

I suspect Screamin' Jay Hawkins' I Put a Spell On You was the regular encore, and Brown delivers a great version of a classic song. There's a menace to his vocal that matches Hawkins' growl and is missing from, say, the Creedence cover. Easy to imagine a whirling dervish with a flaming headdress invoking various sorcerous incantations and furling them in his intended's direction. Would have worked brilliantly on stage....

Spontaneous Apple Creation is standard psychedelic-babble in the lyric department but the main item of interest is some swirling keyboard from Crane bubbling under the vocal line.

Rest Cure, the flip side of the Fire single, is a change of tempo, almost tender after some of the hysterical spell-mongering elsewhere on the album. Pleasant enough, but rather inconsequential in the bigger scheme of things.

I've Got Money, originally by James Brown, is presumably another relic from Arthur Brown's R&B days, an interesting opportunity for Brown to show off his vocal chops and more than likely the alternative encore.  Driving keyboards work nicely too, but it's a track I could probably take or leave.

Child of My Kingdom is a surprisingly catchy play-out to the album, underlining the difference between Side Two's assortment of tracks and Side One's thematic suite. It’s not an album I dig out to listen all that often, but it brings back memories when I do...

B© Ian Hughes 2012