Farm: Farm [GUERSSEN]

Why you'll love it

Guerssen's 50th anniversary reissue is remastered by Thomas Hartlage and comes with an obi, a 4-page booklet of liner notes by Kevin Rathert and photos, and a download card. Original copies have sold for up to $1,000.

This edition

• Remastered
• Obi strip
• 4-page booklet
• Download card included

About the album

Some of the best records ever made in America came from small towns nobody outside the county had heard of. Farm were six musicians barely out of high school from three Southern Illinois towns, and in early May 1971 they walked into Golden Voice Recording Studios in Pekin, Illinois, with engineer Jerry Milam, who had worked with Chet Atkins.

It was their first session without their former lead singer, so bottleneck guitarist Gary Gordon took every vocal. Del Herbert plays lead and 12-string, Roger Greenwalt adds organ and piano, Steve Evanchik works congas, timbales and harp, and Jim Elwyn and Mike Young hold down the bottom. Five songs fill about 28 minutes: "Jungle Song" and "Let That Boy Boogie" each stretch past seven minutes of jamming, "Sunshine in My Window" and "Cottonfield Woman" dig into the blues, and Blind Willie McTell's "Statesboro Blues" closes with Gordon's slide out front. Reviewers reach for the Allman Brothers, Quicksilver Messenger Service and Canned Heat.

A German reissue from 2013 now fetches serious money too. We'd tell you to hang on to the receipt, but frankly you'll want to hang on to the record.

Also at Kops: more Farm on vinyl · browse Rock

Tracklist

Listen

On Guerssen (cat# GUESS180), a reissue of the 1971 album.