Kensington Market - Avenue Road (1968 canada, psychedelic fusing folk with classical and jazz elements - MP3 320K and FLAC)

A late night jam with the Lovin' Spoonful's Zal Yanofsky in 1967 would prove to be the big break for Toronto's Kensington Market. As Nicholas Jennings tells it in Before the Gold Rush, his excellent chronicle of that city's Yorkville scene, "Knocked out by the band's sophisticated sound, Yanofsky went down to New York where he raved about them to Felix Pappalardi (Cream, the Youngbloods). Pappalardi flew out to Toronto in October to check them out. Before he left the band's rehearsal space that night, Pappalardi had signed the band to a two-record deal", leading to the recording of this eclectic album for Warner Brothers.

With a couple of seven-inchers on the Stone label already under their belts, the band had just recruited soul shouter Luke Gibson after his own Luke and the Apostles called it quits in the late summer of 1967. Had it not been for that fortuitous hook-up, the band might have ended up a mere footnote in the already crowded Yorkville annals. As it happened, though, with Warner's money and Pappalardi's acumen, the band's debut LP Avenue Road was released early the following year to cheers on the home front and what could be politely described as bewildered indifference south of the border. It seems that everything from the bizarre title (which was really just a street running through Toronto's hipster neighbourhood at the time) to the wintry Canadian imagery on the cover left their American label execs flummoxed.

The winds of opportunity continued to waft the band's way throughout 1968 with a week-long residence at New York's renowned Bitter End early on and a coveted support slot for the Jefferson Airplane out at Hamilton (Ontario)'s McMaster University later that summer. Kensington Market led off with a rerecorded and reworked 'I Would Be the One', which would scale its way up to #18 on Toronto's influential CHUM-AM chart in July.

This slower, buffed-up 'I Would Be the One' opens Avenue Road and it has Pappalardi's paws all over it, the rough garage charm of the original Stone single giving way to some crisp horns and blithe piano rhythms. Actually, much of Keith McKie's tepid songwriting is augmented - and sometimes rescued - by Pappalardi's spacious production, like the ballad 'Aunt Violet's Knee', a potential snoozer fleshed out somewhat with some medieval brass and sugary strings, or the obliquely psychedelic horn that tints the lovely 'Looking Glass'.

And though much of Avenue Road is fairly standard stuff, it is a revealing artifact of what were no doubt heady days in Canadian music history.
by Michael Panontin

Tracks
1. I Would Be The One (Keith McKie) - 2:37
2. Speaking Of Dreams (Luke Gibson) - 2:26
3. Colour Her Sunshine (Keith McKie) - 3:00
4. Phoebe (Gene Martynec) - 3:38
5. Aunt Violet's Knee (Keith McKie) - 4:21
6. Coming Home Soon (Keith McKie) - 2:45
7. Presenting Myself Lightly (Gene Martynec) - 2:15
8. Looking Glass (Keith McKie) - 3:21
9. Beatrice (Gene Martynec) - 2:20
10.Girl Is Young (Keith McKie) - 3:08

Kensington Market
*Alex Darou - Bass
*Keith McKie - Guitar, Vocals
*Jimmy Watson - Drums, Sitar
*Gene Martynec - Guitar, Piano, Vocals,
*Luke Gibson - Vocals, Guitar

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Previous posted at PHROCK on Sunday, December 06, 2009