The Lyman Family With Lisa Kindred - American Avatar album flac

This is an odd record to be sure, not so much for the music, but for the backstabbing backstory. Mel Lyman, who both plays harmonica and produced the album reduced Lisa's vocals to the background during the 1969 mix of an album intended to be called Love Comes Rolling Down, also known as American Avatar, though Lisa was supposed to be featured as the central voice. The record was released in January of 1970, and attributed to the Lyman Family with Lisa Kindred. Actually Lisa recorded the album with Lyman and his friends back in 1964 with the title being Kindred Spirits. Lisa hated the mix and abandoned the project, only to discover some ten years later that it had bee released on Warner Brothers Records as American Avatar. Lisa's reaction was civilized, simply accepting the outcome, yet saying, "I knew that Mel was an Aries with a god complex, but this was all too much! I mean, I ended up being a sideman on my own album."It was claimed that this was contemporary music in the new age of the middle 60's, whose keynote was the destruction of old forms and the birth of a new spirit, as their ears were constantly being insulted with the musical establishment's attempts to hold onto the old traditions at whatever the cost. They [as a collective from the Total Loss Farm, a very hippie adventure] said that the current music scene is too neat and clean and void of real life. As a collective from The Total Loss Farm, they constructed a philosophy that said, "Fuck those people, we just want to blow. Folk music is dead, it got too fond of itself. Jazz is dead, it got too lost in itself. Rock is screaming its brains out trying to make up for the loss. But there is a new sound known only to a few, a sound of death and conflict and reconciliation and fresh air. It fits no categories, it just is. And that is what we are presenting you with, a whole sound. Not clever parts, not individual achievement, this is the sound of a group soul being born." [Laughing] In all honesty, there was not a single thing new or original to be found here, all of the songs had been written by others firmly entrenched in the musical establishment, along with two traditional unknown and uncredited tracks that were simply arranged by the Lyman Family.And that was certainly the attitude of many who dropped out creating their own communities devoid of social contact. Though it seems that the only thing groups like this couldn't muster, was not being totally honest and not taking advantage of each other, or having a person like Lyman wrangle control, and make decisions for the collective, which is why Lisa struck out on her own.Of course knowing this, disregarding whether the album may be good or not, one is now presented with the metaphysical question of whether it is appropriate to listen to an album that has been created by underhanded lies, and was subversively placed into production.*** You might enjoy some history here from a Rolling Stone article: http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/the-lyman-familys-holy-siege-of-america-19711223Review by Jenell Kesler