Bronco (1970) Civil Of You Stranger

From their debut 1970 album, Bronco along with Home were the only two UK country rock bands of note from the early 70s, made from members from Robert Plant's Band of Joy and Mott the Hoople's previous incarnation, 60s blues group The Shakedown Sound. This is a great mix of clean cutting glistening harmonies with a strong RnB core mixing sparse rugged southern sounding rock with matter of fact Beatles pop melody. The lead singer, Jess Roden was earlier part of a soul group and that can be heard clearly in his delivery on some other tracks such as Well Anyhow. The band mix that deep soul with light and heavy folk blues and rock steady rhythms.

Hall and Oates (1978) Pleasure Beach

One of the closing tracks on Hall and Oates' 1978 Along the Red Ledge, produced during their harder rock phase of the late 70s when they were also working out their New Wave deliveries ahead of their 80's smash hits. Starting off slow and delicate with some gospel sounding wall of sound before John Oates, the writer, explodes into an echo chamber vocal, belting out rhymes cheerfully along with a groovy saxophone jam and audio clips of girls screaming all in a 50s' styled Spring Break vibe.

Dan Fogelberg (1977) Scarecrows Dream

The singer songwriter who once opened for the Eagles reached a new confidence and brazenly arranged the Netherlands (1977) album with a vast string laden sound. Though by far it's best track is this highly understated tune with just two fingerpicked guitars and the subtle souciance of a harpsichord. But Fogelberg's reliable vocals are here positively ghostly, nicely conveying the 'haunted' nature of the backing track with his breathy falsetto.

 Soaked in reverb to bring a grandiose feel to proceedings he sings mysteriously about being trapped 'between the world's of men and make believe'. Full of latent mysticism about the nature of dreams as this twilight ballad manages to capture, apparently inspired by Walt Disney; a man who knew a lot about the fallibility and selling of hopes and dreams. Meanwhile Fogelberg was just about to see his own dreams be realised before his very eyes.
 Though on further analysis the song seems to be more in common lyrically with Gordon Lightfoots' If I Could Read Your Mind using regal imagery to represent a lover dreaming of a way out similar to a scarecrow, who may dream of replacement.

Jay Ferguson (1976) To The Island

From Jay Ferguson's first solo album after the twin successes of Spirit and JoJo Gunne, while his ultimate solo success would be with the title track of his second solo album, 1978's Thunder Island, this similarly titled track is a virtual precursor to that hit. Lacking Thunder Island's propulsive hook or swell of emotion in the bridge this features an identical mix of a loud acoustic strum front and centre with some Carribean flavoured organ and percussion and even some tacky ocean sounds, but the laidback vocal may not draw you in as his powerful vocal turn on the 1978 smash hit single it is a short melodic tune with unabashed commercial appeal recorded in the same year after Loggins and Messina broke up, leaving a gap in the market for well orchestrated, Caribbean toned soft rock. It would of course be the first of a trilogy of Island-based, tropical tunes for Jay Ferguson, as after Thunder Island he would try a follow up with the synth heavy Shakedown Cruise, lyrically reminiscent of Loggins' and Messina's Vahevala. He certainly cornered the market in this style, though admittedly the superior Thunder Island has more rock in the sort rock equation with Joe Walsh's slide guitar and prominent doo wop vocals.

Gene Parsons (1979) No Fire Here Tonight

Gene Parsons is famous for being the drummer for the latter day Byrd's legendary country rock lineup as well as being fundamental in the genre through song writing and his creation of the B String Bender; a mechanism of pulleys allowing a regular electric guitar to sound like a pedal steel by modulating the B string adding twangy sounds to the guitar's repertoire. His 1979 solo album Melodies is indeed that a collection of mildly fresh sounding country rock at a time when the genre was perhaps starting not as dominant a form. The folk pop rock of My Kingdom for a Car and the ballad Way Out There is irresistible but the winner is No Fire Here Tonight with it's mix of electric bluegrass sound complete with pop synthesizer interjections. It's manufactured synthetic sound contributes to a love long gone. This Byrd worked better in a group context frankly though some of these tracks are melodic, that's not the problem the problem is aside form this track it lacks the colour and personality of his former collaborators to liven this set up.

Ace (1975) I Think It's Gonna Last

Ace, a pub rock band that made it with a lush soft rock hit had a nice mix of Rn B, country and blues all wrapped in a laidback beat, lush electric piano and funky rhythm guitars, bluesy guitar leads and soaring harmonies. This smooth plateau soundscape was grand for a pub band, breaking out of the pub rock scene, made of rootsy country blues and old fashioned rock n roll bands whose stripped sound would be a forerunner to the more youthful, club oriented punk movement. With the heartbroken soul, clean sound and great Paul Carrack vocals yearning with some Bachman Turner Overdrive funky guitars, I Think It's Gonna Last from their second album is probably one of their best from their follow up studio album, Time For Another.

David Coverdale (1977) Peace Loving Man

A extremely nuanced vocal performance form Coverdale on his first solo album, Whitesnake, which would soon be the moniker for his 80's hair band. Here Micky Moody's guitar playing is smooth and sensual and the power ballad feel along with the horns and choral backing vocals are utterly at odds with the thick metal drive of the namesake band, of course that would be later down the line with different members. Though here his vocals play a central role as opposed to later hits where his presence and appearance would take centre stage. But there are still some soul and blues leftover vibes from his Deep Purple days, particularly on this Joe Cocker sounding track.

 Also check out the other subtle vocals of Hole in the Sky, the busy Kool and the Gang funk of Celebration and the hard rock thud of the title track that actually mirrors the slamming guitars style the band would latterly adopt a decade away.