SAFE IN MY GARDEN - AMERICAN POP IN THE SHADOWS 1967-1972 (2LP)

Peace and love in late 60s America did not come without parallel feelings of fear and confusion about the social situation - specifically about Vietnam. Safe In My Garden is the latest Ace compilation in an acclaimed series compiled by Bob Stanley. The music on Safe In My Garden is harmony-laden, beautifully produced soft rock. Sunshine pop, even - a melodic, innovative style of American music that grew in the mid-60s out of the folk and surf scenes, exemplified by the Beach Boys and the Mamas and Papas. You will hear orchestral arrangements, and soft boy-girl vocals. But it wasnt made in isolation from what was going on in the outside world. There are clouds and minor chords, plenty of melancholy in those harmonies. Safe In My Garden includes songs of escape (Mark Erics Move With The Dawn, the Groops A Famous Myth), loss (the Eighth Days How Can I Stop Loving You, the New Colony Sixs Prairie Grey), dreamscapes (Tommy James and the Shondells She, Nancy Priddys Christinas World), rebirth (Smokey and his Sisters Creators Of Rain), a simpler world (the Free Designs My Brother Woody) and a philosophically sounder future (Chad & Jeremys The Ark, Best of Friends Summer Sound). It contains some surprisingly dark messages paired with beautiful melodies, as well as songs of hope. Thousands of young musicians in cities, suburbs and small towns across the States from the mid to late 60s spent their mornings hiding from the mailman, dreading the draft. This is the Sound of Young America in the late 60s, keeping its fingers crossed.