Elephant Mountain

2008 reissue of the 1969 album, Elephant Mountain which was the magnetic third album by the Youngbloods, is commonly looked upon as the pinnacle of the legendary Bay Area combo’s abundant eight-year career. From its spine-chilling opening track, the strains of a somber Appalachian fiddle permeating ‘Darkness, Darkness’ the listener is inexorably sucked into psychedelic quicksand by the haunting vocals of Jesse Colin Young, whose plaintive cry to ‘hide the constant yearning for things that cannot be’ proves mournfully irresistible. In addition to Young’s songwriting masterpiece, it spotlights a sharp, country-rocking vocal duet ‘Smug’ by Young and recently-departed singer Jerry Corbitt, as well as the jazzy interplay between electric keyboard whiz Banana and the locked-in groove of drummer Joe Bauer during magical instrumental ‘On Sir Francis Drake.’