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T-Rex: T-Rex

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: Fly Records
Released: 1970.12.18
Time:
 37:41
Category: Glam Rock, Psychedelic Folk
Producer(s): Tony Visconti
Rating:
Media type: CD
Web address: www.marc-bolan.com
Appears with:
Purchase date: 2012
Price in €: 1,00





 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


[1] The Children of Rarn (M.Bolan) - 0:53
[2] Jewel (M.Bolan) - 2:46
[3] The Visit (M.Bolan) - 1:55
[4] Childe (M.Bolan) - 1:41
[5] The Time of Love is Now (M.Bolan) - 2:42
[6] Diamond Meadows (M.Bolan) - 1:58
[7] Root of Star (M.Bolan) - 2:31
[8] Beltane Walk (M.Bolan) - 2:38
[9] Is It Love? (M.Bolan) - 2:34
[10] One Inch Rock (M.Bolan) - 2:28
[11] Summer Deep (M.Bolan) - 1:43
[12] Seagull Woman (M.Bolan) - 2:18
[13] Suneye (M.Bolan) - 2:06
[14] The Wizard (M.Bolan) - 8:50
[15] The Children of Rarn [Reprise] (M.Bolan) - 0:36

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


Marc Bolan - Vocals, Guitar, Bass, Organ
Mickey Finn - Bass, Drums, Pixiphone, Vocals
Tony Visconti - Piano, String Arrangements, Producer
Howard Kaylan - Background Vocals on [12]
Mark Volman - Background Vocals on [12]

Roy Thomas Baker - Engineer
Graphreaks - Design Concept
Peter Sanders - Photography

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


Tyrannosaurus Rex's transformation from oracles of U.K. hippie culture to boogie-friendly rock stars began with the album A Beard of Stars, released in early 1970 when the band picked up electric instruments, and by the time the year was out, Marc Bolan had pared their name down to the more user-friendly T. Rex and dropped their first album with the new moniker. Oddly enough, while the songs on T. Rex bear a much stronger melodic and lyrical resemblance to what would make the band famous on Electric Warrior in 1971, the tone of the album is a bit more pastoral than A Beard of Stars; on most of the tunes, the electric guitars are more successfully integrated into the arrangements so they lack the jarring immediacy of "Elemental Children" or "Pavilions of the Sun," and Mickey Finn still wasn't using a full drum kit, so the tunes don't quite have the kick of a full-on rock band. But Bolan himself sounds like he's ready for his close-up, as his vocals -- mannered yet quietly passionate and full of belief -- suggest the glam hero he would soon become, and numbers like "Beltrane Walk," "Is It Love," and "Diamond Meadows" (with its wink-and-nudge refrain "Hey, let's do it like we're friends") are just a few paces away from the swaggering sound that would make him the U.K.'s biggest star. If Bolan was reaching for the big time with T. Rex, he also sounds like he was letting out the rock star that had always lurked within him, and there isn't a moment here that doesn't sound like he's singing from his heart and soul. T. Rex is the quiet before the storm of Electric Warrior, and it retains a loopy energy and easy charm that makes it one of Bolan's watershed works.

Mark Deming - All Music Guide



Amazingly, it all comes out rock and roll; there's no questioning it. But rock and roll with lyrics dealing with such subjects as wizards, Druids, and a Liquid Poetess in a buckskin dress. Bolan is clearly infatuated with mysticism, as well as the pure sounds of the English language.

It's difficult to isolate any one or two songs as being special favorites; "One Inch Rock" is fun, beginning instrumentally like a big band swing piece (all on guitars, percussion and vocals) and then turning into an easy little rock number. "Seagull Woman," with backing vocals by Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan, sounds as though it were pulled from about a dozen different Beatles songs, but without being anything like any one. "The Wizard" is the longest piece on the album, at about eight minutes, but interest is sustained nicely through changes in mood.

One of the most fascinating aspects of T. Rex (other than Bolan's voice, which Ray Dorset of Mungo Jerry copies quite poorly) is their ability to intermix vocal and instrumental sounds — the voices often go into a feedback guitar imitation. It's not the kind of trick every group should try.

One sour note is sounded by Tony Visconti's string arrangements, applied here and there by what sounds like a rusty old Mellotron in an unnecessary effort to "fatten up the tracks." The sound would have been a lot cleaner without their addition.

Everything good about the album can be found on the single "Ride a White Swan" which would have been a hit except by the time Blue Thumb found out what a great record it was, they'd released the group to Warner's. So the single is out on Blue Thumb (and shrink-wrapped in special copies of A Beard of Stars) and the same cut is found on the Reprise album. But you should try to find the single, because the B side is a T. Rexy version of "Summertime Blues" that doesn't sound a whole lot like the Who's but which will give you an even better idea of what Bolan and Finn are up to.

And, as a last thought, the Dumb Packaging of the Year award should go to Graphreaks, who designed, and Warners/Reprise, who are selling, the current album. When you break the shrink wrap to get at the record, the cover separates into two pieces. One's a nice picture of Marc and Micky, if you're into such things, and has the words to about half the songs on the back. The other piece is the actual jacket, and features the other half of the lyrics. There is no way, short of staples, glue or rubber bands, of keeping the two halves together. Boo!

Todd Everett - July 22, 1971
RollingStone.com



T. Rex is the fifth studio album by English glam rock band T. Rex and the first released under that name since changing their name from Tyrannosaurus Rex. It was released on 18 December 1970 by record labels Fly and Reprise.

Although the album was credited to T. Rex, all the recordings (as well as the cover shot) were done when they still were Tyrannosaurus Rex, with the two-man lineup of singer/songwriter/guitarist Marc Bolan and percussionist Mickey Finn, although producer Tony Visconti played bass and recorder on a couple of tracks. "Ride a White Swan" was recorded during the same sessions but did not appear on the album. They officially changed the band name to T. Rex to release that single in October 1970.

The album continued in the vein of the duo's previous album A Beard of Stars, with an even further emphasis on an electric rock sound and the addition of strings on several tracks. Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman, aka "Flo and Eddie", sang backup vocals for the first time on a T. Rex song, "Seagull Woman". They would go on to sing on most of the group's subsequent string of hits.

The album contained electric reworkings of two old Tyrannosaurus Rex songs, one of which, "The Wizard", was originally recorded even earlier than Bolan's pre-T.Rex band John's Children. The second was an electric version of the second Tyrannosaurus Rex single, "One Inch Rock", with an intro of scat-singing by Bolan and Finn. The remaining short songs, however, were new material.

The album was bookended by a track called "The Children of Rarn", which was part of a longer piece known as "The Children of Rarn Suite". A Tolkienesque children's story in several movements, it was recorded only in demo form at the time, although instrumentation was added posthumously by Visconti for its release on the 1998 compilation The Words and Music of Marc Bolan.

T. Rex was released on 18 December 1970 by Fly and Reprise. The sleeve design was unusual, requiring a sideways look to unfold the cover, or to have the artwork sideways to remove the LP.

T. Rex was the album that broke T. Rex in the UK, following the surprise success of the then-recent single "Ride a White Swan" (which reached No. 2 in the charts) and its smash No. 1 follow-up "Hot Love". The album eventually reaching a chart peak of No. 7 and remained on the charts for 25 weeks.

The US version of the LP included "Ride a White Swan" as the last song on the album instead of "The Children of Rarn (Reprise)".

In his retrospective review, Mark Deming of AllMusic wrote, "T. Rex is the quiet before the storm of Electric Warrior, and it retains a loopy energy and easy charm that makes it one of Bolan's watershed works."

Wikipedia.org
 

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