The Chambers Brothers - The Time Has Come

Timely brothers

Prompted by a visit to another blog - the superb 'weird brother' - I was reminded of one of my favourite albums, The Chambers Brothers' The Time Has Come.

Being prompted to recall a 'favourite' sounds contrary, but that's the nature of having so many. This album's special place in its special musical place is primarily for the psychedelic track 'Time Has Come Today' - a stunning and hypnotic new music for 1967 and this then 13 year old who mock-sang with his other incipient hippie friend in either's bedroom, both in our garish flowerpower shirts and Byrds rectangle sunglasses.

It's the echo effect on the drumming and the repeated shout 'Time' that leads into a fuzz solo and wilder reverberations swirling around in the magical background. Then the screaming. Then the manic laughter. Electronic screeching and the machine-gun drumming, fading in and out, rising to a crescendo and looped back to the wail of 'Now the time has come' before leading into the apocalyptic line 'And my soul has been psycedelicised' - the use and power of that word at that time! - then it slows painfully to its groaned end, and we put down our mock-mics, exhausted by our vicarious vinyl trip.

And I have just journeyed again after all these years.

The brothers' gospel roots are evident in spine-tingling harmonies on Mayfield's 'People Get Ready', Bacharach's 'What The World Needs Now Is Love', and the self-penned, absolutely glorious 'So Tired'.