Electric Flag were very much in the vanguard of jazz-rock, the first attempt to bring brass arrangements into the mainstream as exemplified by Chicago and Blood, Sweat & Tears. The reason their name is infinitely less well known than those fellow travellers is a volatile line-up which lost superstar blues guitarist Mike Bloomfield and keyboardist Barry Goldberg after 1969’s promising debut album A Long Time Comin’, curiously placed second on this well-packaged single-disc set. Follow-up An American Music Band was dominated by Buddy Miles, a drummer with a frontman’s ego, under whose leadership the musical focus narrowed to funk. They didn’t play this any better than the competition, so fell from grace until a similarly undistinguished 1974 reunion. Miles went on to work with Hendrix and then Santana, so did all right for himself, while singer Nick Gravenites hung around the Chicago scene for some years.
Bloomfield/blues guitar aficionados should buy this for A Long Time Comin’ and regard its successor as a bonus.
