Rabbit - Broken Arrows

A Lesson On Rabbit

I’m learning about John ‘Rabbit’ Bundrick today as I listen to his 1973 album Broken Arrows. An American keyboardist and other related instruments, he has an impressive CV with the bands he has assisted and/or played with, especially in various recordings, for example John Martyn Solid Air; Kossoff, Kirke, Tetsu and Rabbit; Sandy Denny Sandy; Free Heartbreaker [occasionally filling in for Kossoff on the album, apparently, and touring with the band during their 1972 reincarnation]; Paul Kossoff Backstreet Crawler; The Rocky Horror Picture Show; Jim Capaldi Short Cut Draw Blood; Joan Armatrading Show Some Emotion; Eric Burdon Survivor; and The Who Face Dances [thanks to Wikipedia, and check there for even more].

This debut solo album is excellent, and deserves more recognition than it would seem to have. It is very upbeat and quite eclectic – more funky than one expects considering his musical assists up to this point in his career. Released by Island, it does not appear to have attained the same status achieved by many other stable-mates from that time. Opener I Loved Life and Peace is a bright pop offering with tinges of R’n’B in the chorus, and the orchestration [Rabbit on synths presumably] is developed beautifully around the complex harmonies, though it is also pop-brief at 2 minutes. This is followed by the funky title track that has the beat and pulse of latter day Hot Chocolate, and again is pleasingly pop-brisk.

Third I Don’t Mind presents more of the keyboard background one would expect: synthesisers and piano supporting a very strong vocal on this plaintive ballad. This is one of the most beautiful songs on an album written entirely by Bundrick. Fifth Blues My Guitar is the guitar-driven rocker one was always expecting, with fine solo electric lead. This is followed by the lavish Music Is The Answer, beginning a little like the Stones’ Sympathy For The Devil before merging into another upbeat, funky sprawl of horns and percussion a la Traffic [Winwood really] at their similar best, and the fact that Brundrick played for them and Jim Capaldi plays on this album may account for that. Seventh Salt Annie Ginger Tree has a gospel feel, or more aptly a Christmas sound as I write this now in December. Eighth London Town is obtusely the standard Country track on albums like this from the 70s. It all ends on an instrumental Boll Weevil Blues, with synths, Hammond organ, horns, wah-wah guitar, sax solo, and more percussive funk rounding off, albeit again very briskly [when you could imagine this having been the really long jam], an entirely entertaining album.