Roger Bunn – “Piece of Mind” {UK} [1970] @192 (Cleaned Vinyl Rip) ( Superb Jazz Psych Crooning)

I must be honest… The name Roger Bunn didn’t ring any bell 48 hours ago. Now I know many things about him and about this album. Actually the more I read, the more I wanted to know. Bunn was a master guitar player and specially a virtuoso on the double bass. Actually he was the first guitar player of Roxy Music. The story goes like this. Brian Ferry asked him to shave his beard and moustache and to dress properly for Roxy’s first tour (We all know Ferry's horrendous sense of fashion and clothing aesthetics). Well, Bunn was an incorrigible rebel and his answer was leaving the band for good.

That's how Bunn faded out of the mainstream music scene and that’s how a legend was born.

When I first listened to this album sent by Princess Guadalupe I couldn’t believe what my ears were telling to my brain. Questions started to explode out of my head at a dizzying rate:

> What’s this pop-psych artifact?
> Are these the best arrangements I’ve ever heard in a rock album for a long time?
> Can such an unknown album be this good?
> Jesus! Should I make room in my all time top 100 list for Roger Bunn’s Piece of Mind?

Well, I haven’t answered these questions yet but I truly hope you help me with them, by listening to this secret jewel that we just got.

These are the words that come to my mind while I listen to it: Jazzy, Orchestral Crooning, Extraordinary Horn Touches, Soul?, Singer-Author, Folk, Bing Crosby on Acid, Smart, Honesty , Beauty, Uplifting , Deep, Blue, Great Voice! What? Who?

The BBC DJ Pete Drummond said about Piece of Mind "It is a wonderful album. It’s far too musical and intelligent to succeed."

In 1969 Bunn entered the studio to record this album with the aid of the Dutch National Orchestra due to the fact that he got a contract from Phillips which is based in Holland. As far as our research has gone that was the last professional thing he did on a recording studio under his own name although he played double and electric bass with dance orchestras, Blues bands and Jazz ensembles as a session man. (Spontaneous Music Ensemble is probably the best known of all these combos)

But his story doesn’t end here. There’s another side of Bunn we need to mention. He spent his life fighting for different Human Rights organizations. Living of sporadic guitar and bass lessons, it seems that he decided to forget stardom and instead he became a rabid defender of the dispossessed and a paladin for the common man. (I haven’t mentioned that Bunn’s father was a highly decorated war hero, so there was a sense of duty and a deep wish of fighting for peace in him)

In the early 90’s he managed to get a cheap old computer that he used to fight Apartheid and Corporate Corruption with all his strength. In 1994 he founded MIHRA – Music Industry Human Rights Association.

The rest of the facts are the matter of legend. Very little has been published of his personal life and his last years.

He died on July 28th , 2005.

After having read his biography I believe he was a giant. Musically and Morally.

These are the things that are worth to get serious about.

Keep Fighting and…

Keep Listening..!!!

Roger Bunn - Crystal Tunnel...

The links are in the usual place, baby.