CD Review: Seals and Crofts Live at WBAI’s Free Music Store 11/14/71
TRACK LISTING: 1. Freaks Fret / Irish Linen; 2. Earth; 3. Hog Calling Music;
4. Throat singing / Tin Town; 5. Birthday of My Thoughts; 6. Cottonmouth;
7. Ridin' Thumb; 8. Wisdom; 9. Springfield Mill; 10. High On A Mountain;
11. Year of Sunday; 12. Fiddle Music; 13. Fiddle Music
Seals and Crofts aren’t your typical pop stars. For one thing, though they are
pegged as folk-rock or soft-rock, they often played a wide variety of musicalstyles; for another they are members of the Bahai faith, an inclusive, peacefulreligion, whose message often entered into their songs. My older brother took meto see them in 1971 at Philharmonic Hall in New York City and I thought they
were fabulous. Even before their first hit album, Summer Breeze, Seals & Crofts
had a busy touring schedule which only got busier as their careers took off.
Looking back in an interview decades later, they remarked that they were sobusy touring and recording that they never had time to sit down and listen to
their concert tapes to properly put together a live album. Two days after
attending the Philharmonic Hall concert, I listened to a live radio broadcast ofSeals & Crofts performing for an intimate crowd at WBAI, a Pacifica radio
station in New York. This concert featured a smaller group than the one I saw at
Philharmonic Hall , just Jimmy Seals on guitar, fiddle and alto sax, Dash Crofts
on acoustic & electric mandolin and electric piano, and Bobby Leitig on bass andflute. I filed the WBAI broadcast somewhere in the back of my consciousness.
Fast forward to 2008, when I wondered what became of that live concert
broadcast and went online to look for it in the Pacifica Radio Archives. I didn’t
think I would find it since there’s no mention of it on various Seals & Crofts
websites nor did a Google search turn up anything. But there it was, listed in thePacifica Archives. I contacted the Pacifica Archives and was told that although
they needed to make a submaster from the seven inch reel-to-reel tape, that yes it
was available. No one had ever ordered it before. This live Seals & Crofts
recording had been sitting on the shelf, unheard for 37 years.
Seals and Crofts Live at WBAI’s Free Music Store 11/14/71 is a 76 minute cd of
the duo just as their third album, Year of Sunday, was hitting the stores. The discis a fine reminder of both their consummate musicianship, and just how
impossible it is to label Seals and Crofts. During the hour and a quarter
performance, they cross musical genres between folk melodies, down-homecountry fiddle tunes, bluesy jazz, and funky rock. Jim Seals switches from guitar
to fiddle, to alto sax, to Tuva throat singing and back again. Dash Crofts plays
bluegrass mandolin passages, middle eastern melodic runs, floating or funkyelectric piano, then plugs in and wails on electric mandolin. What musicalplanet did these guys come from anyway? Displaying perfect pitch, their vocal
harmonies are just as fine live as in the studio. The song list is largely takenfrom their first three albums -- Seals & Crofts, Down Home, and Year of Sunday.

The sound on the recording is quite good, with only one momentary dropout
occurring during an audience applause between two songs. Although notavailable for commercial distribution, individuals can order a cd of the concert
by contacting the Pacifica Radio Archives, 3129 Cahuenga Boulevard, North
Hollywood, California 91604. Phone: 1-800-735-0230 extension 261 . Request
Archive Number BC0709.05 (Free Music Store - No. 5 - Seals & Crofts).
- Steve Donoso