I’ll just add this Small Faces number - seems Jimmy Page and crew had some appreciation of their music.
Now Prine I’m a little more famiar with, but that’s via Steve Goodman and they were both from this general area. I’m not that well-versed in folk otherwise.
I loved Buffy! I watched her on Sesame Street and then my parents bought some of her albums.
I listen to the Clancys still but I really like The Dubliners better.
And while it’s kind of silly to say Van Morrison is underappreciated, I think it’s kind of nuts that everyone knows Brown Eyed Girl but not Madame George.
Ditto!
I would definitely second Pentangle.
Some of their early work consisted of updated versions of old English songs.
I would recommend Lyke Wake Dirge – still one of the most haunting and yet beautiful tunes I have ever heard.
But for something less sombre, try Hunting Song which they described as a “13th Century folk-rock song.”
If we are going there, then Fairport Convention must be mentioned. A grossly under-appreciated band on this side of the pond.
Chefguy, thanks for mentioning Buffy Sainte Marie. I actually produced a benefit concert she headlined back in the 70s. Nice person.
Love was going to be my contribution, but already mentioned. Another artist that I don’t see on this list, however, is Scott Walker. I’m not entirely sure how under-appreciated he is, as he does seem to be show up in discussion a lot on music geek websites, but most people I know are unfamiliar with his work. Here’s Jackie for a taste of his music.
While they’re not obscure, I think the Zombies ought to be more well-known in pop culture, especially their album Odessey and Oracle. It’s considered a classic by music critics, but it really should be as well known in pop culture as Pet Sounds and Sergeant Pepper’s. I would even argue that much of the Kinks work is under-appreciated. Their catalog should be played with the breadth and depth that Beatles and the Rolling Stones are. This is not to say the Kinks don’t get radio play–they do–but they have many, many more songs that deserve regular airplay.
And one curveball, I’ve always been fond of the baroque pop of The Left Banke. They’re best known for “Walk Away Renee” and “Pretty Ballerina,” but their two albums are pure golden pop goodness. I especially love the orchestration on “Pretty Ballerina” with its haunting piano and oboe, and gorgeous vocal melodies. Impressive that the songwriter (Michael Brown/Lookofsky wrote it, and “Walk Away Renee,” when he was 16.) I don’t know what it is about that song, but it always gives me chills at the end of each verse, where the vocals rise against the string countermelody. It’s not just the songwriting, but also the vocals have this sincere vulnerability to them that just gets me.
“She’s Not There” and “Tell Her No” are two of the greatest tunes in rock history. Whenever they come on I want to hear them over and over and over again. “Time of the Season” from Odyssey and Oracle is superb, but… Every once in a while I hear somebody praising the album in rapturous terms and I take it out an play it again. And… nothing. It’s a collection of thin songs. In that way it’s very much like Van Dyke Parks’ Song Cycle, which gets similar adulation and is similarly nothing.
If we’re going to singles, then the field opens up to zillions of half-forgotten classics. Moby Grape’s “Omaha” is the great lost rock classic, from the days when a chord sweeping from speaker to speaker was the epitome of cool. (Hendrix did it in “All Along the Watchtower,” and listening to it through headphones achieved transcendence without drugs.) More stereo play in “Hot Smoke and Sassafras” by Bubble Puppy. Who? Bubble Puppy. Who? I don’t know. Who cares. Just listen. Everybody goofs on Iron Butterfly, but their “Soul Experience” is a pretty piece of psychedelia. Tommy James and the Shondells were a teen band until “Crimson and Clover” but “Crystal Blue Persuasion” was their peak. Today people can easily hear Jim Pepper’s “Witchi Tai To” but once you had to run to the radio when some adventuresome FM DJ played it. There are fifty versions, but the right one is the long one from Pepper’s Pow Wow. That’s a 1971 rerecording of a 1969 single, which was released by his then band Everything Is Everything. The difference? The long version has the spine-tingling, maniacal sax solo that turned a pretty song into a piece of art.
What a fabulous track. Here is the good version (with the ‘song’ starting at about the 35 second mark).
I forgot to add and ask: is that Larry Coryell playing guitar on Witchi-Tai-To?
Never heard of Song Cycle, but sounds like I should get to it. 
Don’t know why Odyssey doesn’t work for you, but it’s a glorious album. “This Will Be Our Year” was even our first dance wedding song, so, yeah, it’s up there for me as Top 10 albums of all time. (Last time we did a “best albums of all time” list, it made #10 for me, dropping from its previous spot at #6.)
Yes, that’s the same version. I didn’t realize that it had an intro chant that the radio never played.
Sure is. They were in an earlier band, The Free Spirits, which has claims on being the first jazz-rock fusion band, but I’ve never heard it. The Pepper LP used all-star studio musicians.
I’m about five minutes through this album, and it’s wild. This is pretty crazy stuff. Love it. I wonder why I’ve never heard of it before.
I’d like to say a word for three albums by The Steve Miller Band: “Children of the Future” (1968), “Sailor” (1968), and “Brave New World” (1969). For those who think Miller only put out nonsense like “Fly Like an Eagle” or “Take the Money and Run,” these three albums are quite a revelation. If you only want to check out one, make it “Sailor,” but all three are extraordinary, and IMO far superior to the jillion-sellers from later in his career.
Whoa! I just finished listening to the first two listed above (first time in decades) and then see this thread! I wore these out in 69-70. This was the Steve Miller Blues Band, no the later (post Joker?) iterations. I commend them to all.
Well, this is supposed to be a proselytizing thread. Proof that any publicity is good publicity.
I’ll fifth Love…
And add Lee Michaels and Leo Kottke, from the very late 60’s.
I honestly cannot fathom why these guys aren’t better known.
You guys are really hittin’ the note on this topic. I’d swear that LabDad, Exapno Mapcase and Chefguy are my long-lost foster-brothers.
QMS: Anyone who digs Quicksilver is okay in my book. Even the later albums, uneven as they might be, had some great tunes (‘Fire Brothers’, ‘The Truth’, ‘Cowboy on the Run’, ‘Gypsy Lights’).
Steve Miller Band: Boz Skaggs and Ben Sidran (Dr. Jazz) were in the group in those days and the influence shows.
Buffy St. Marie: ‘God is Alive, Magic is Afoot’. 'Nuff said.
Let us not forget Electric Flag - Bloomfield, Buddy Miles, Barry Goldberg, Nick Gravanites and Harvey Brooks + killer horns. ‘Killing Floor’, indeed!
One obvious group from the 60s is The Dave Brubeck Quartet. Brubeck had been playing jazz since the 40s with various bands and group members, but he struck gold when he took on Joe Morello, Paul Desmond and Gene Wright. The quartet had a couple of big crossover hits in the 60s with Take Five and Blue Rondo, but their work on albums like Live at Carnegie Hall and Jazz Impressions of Japan really showed them at their best with both arranging and improvising, and brought them to the forefront of the west coast jazz scene. Unfortunately, none of it got much air play other than on jazz format stations, of which there were few.