News & Updates — Bruce Palmer

Bruce Palmer / Sept 9, 1946 - Oct 1, 2004

Bruce Palmer / Sept 9, 1946 - Oct 1, 2004

One of the great left-field albums came from former Buffalo Springfield bassist Bruce Palmer, with his seemingly unmarketable (at the time) Eastern-tinged folk-jazz oddity The Cycle Is Complete, released in 1970 on Verve to little fanfare and nearly no promotion. Palmer's only album as a leader, he was given complete artistic control only for him to come up with an unexpected psychedelic improvisational (almost in the realm of "spiritual-jazz" a la Pharoah Sanders) spacey folk record with members of Kaleidoscope, Caribbean percussionist Big Black and young Rick James (billed as "Rick Matthews"). Verve had no idea what to do with...

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Rick James / Feb 1, 1948 - Aug 6, 2004

Rick James / Feb 1, 1948 - Aug 6, 2004

One of the funkiest was Rick James, the wild funk-rock genius of "Super Freak". Buffalo-born, he escaped to Canada as a draft-dodger and played in the Mynah Birds with Neil Young and Bruce Palmer until he was busted and thrown in the clink. He played on the amazing psych record by Bruce Palmer (The Cycle Is Complete) as Rick Matthews, before transforming into the larger-than-life funk god. And the rest is dirty history. From 1981's Street Songs:

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