Babe Ruth: The Harvest Years (1972-1975)

First three albums from high energy and much sampled blues/funk/prog combo.

Babe Ruth bumped between styles and genres, never making the breakthrough they promised. Yet there’s plenty of excellent material on this remastered reissue of their first three albums.

Formed in Hatfield in 1970, and originally called Shacklock after guitarist and band leader Alan Shacklock, they were persuaded to change their name by Harvest and ended up with an American baseball legend as a moniker - perhaps an early indication that their music was more oriented to the US FM radio market than the UK college circuit. And a few of their songs seem to be inspired by Sergio Leone movies, with Ennio Morricone’s themes both covered and flavouring their riffs.

Their debut album, First Base, came in a Roger Dean sleeve, and with just six extended tracks, it’s their proggiest offering by far. Not that it’s obvious from the strutting blues rock of opener Wells Fargo, a fine showcase for the vocal firepower of Janita Haan, with shades of Elkie Brooks/Vinegar Joe. But then there’s a serious change of pace with the pastoral orchestral ballad of The Runaways, which builds to a dramatic finish and seemingly anticipates Camel circa The Snow Goose. And King Kong - a Zappa cover - and The Mexican are both terrific, with some great jazzy interplay between Shacklock and keyboardist Dave Punshon.

Follow-up Amar Caballero is sonically more sophisticated, but leans in a spacier funk/soul direction. However, Broken Cloud is another winningly melancholy ballad, and the multipart title track moves from Latino Gothicism into a long stretch of home counties’ Santana with lots of congas and Spanish guitar, tastefully played by the versatile Shacklock. In fact, the main takeaway from this reissue is what a seriously unsung guitarist he is.

Their self-titled third album starts strongly, with Dancer’s slower, heavier groove and protracted Moog solo, and a passionate version of Curtis Mayfield’s We People Darker Than Blue, but it runs out of steam on the second side.