The Helpful Soul - "A Thousand And One Night" {Japan} [1969]

The career of the Helpful Soul was a real case of wrong place, wrong time - for they hit their blues stride just as heavy blues was becoming hard rock, and graduated to heavy rock too late to capitalise on even that brief fad. However, they recorded one outstanding track, the ten-minutes-plus of "Peace For Fools", which appeared on their otherwise bog-standard blues dirge debut LP. This track in itself separates them from all Japanese blues bands for it is a Kim Fowleyan masterpiece of Jim Morrison mystical doggerel/truly possessed nihilist genius. Unfortunately, leader Junio Nakahara was so inspired by witnessing a performance by Blues Creation, when his band supported them at the Too Much Festival, that he was soon after driven to change his own name to Tstomu Ogawa while his band became known as ... Too Much. http://www.japrocksampler.com/artists/japrock/helpful_soul/




I think this album is a soundtrack of a movie and I'm sorry but I'm not sure it is complete. Maybe I just have the tracks of the band Helpful Soul. Any information or help is welcome. (New link with complete album in comments)

- Junio Nakahara – lead vocalist and slide guitar
- Gene Shoji – lead guitar
- Charles Che - bass
- Eiichi Tsukasa – drums

Discography:
- A Thousand And One Night (Victor, 1969)
- Aladin's Theme 7" EP (Victor, 1969)
- The Helpful Soul First Album (Victor, 1970)

The Dance Of The Bandits...
The Torture...

Link in comments...
Posted at 12:47 PM by nahavanda

9 comments:

  1. ssimonsimonDecember 5, 2009 at 2:13 PM

    thank you! i've been looking for this album for years!

    ReplyDelete
  2. MIKE MUSIC LOVERDecember 7, 2009 at 12:12 AM

    Thanx in advance for this post!+!+
    As always , Excellent work here

    ReplyDelete
  3. ROCKLANDDecember 7, 2009 at 3:26 PM

    Excelent stuff in this blog!

    Great work! Thanks for all.

    Cheers

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousDecember 8, 2009 at 3:15 AM

    Hmm... not sure if this is the help you're after, but judging by this picture of the back cover of a "private" cd reissue, it looks like there should be a bit more:

    http://bullet.shop-pro.jp/?pid=16731777

    The film itself was produced - I think, not sure how much of a hand he had in it - by the great Japanese animator Osamu Tezuka and directed by Eiichi Yamamoto as part of the so-called Animerama series (all of which I think you probably already know!) along with "Cleopatra" and "Belladonna aka Sadness of Belladonna". All quite astounding films in a psych sort of way!

    http://columbia.jp/dvd/mushipro/animerama/box.html

    The soundtrack composer for Belladonna is Masahiko Sato, but as far as I can work out for "Thousand and One Nights" and "Cleopatra" it was Isao Tomita. Yes, that Tomita!

    Anyway, I stand to be corrected on some of this! It;s just internet cross-referencing and some Japanese ability...

    ReplyDelete
  5. isabelbcDecember 10, 2009 at 2:48 AM

    Hi Anonymous,

    when I made this post, I found no information on the album, only on the band that is one of my favorites. The Helpful Soul First Album (Victor, 1970) is amazing!

    Then, everything you said is news to me!

    Now I'm sure this album is the soundtrack of a movie, I learned about the credits and that is part of the so-called Animerama series

    I also discovered that the album is incomplete, the back cover shows 15 tracks, mine is 9 tracks.

    Your information was very useful. I hope someday I can hear the complete album.

    Thanks a lot for your help!

    Isabel :o)

    ReplyDelete
  6. AnonymousDecember 15, 2009 at 9:27 AM

    cool!

    By the way, do you have this:

    CENTURY EXPANDED-Concerto for Wah Wah-Perception

    thanks

    ReplyDelete
  7. isabelbcDecember 18, 2009 at 4:31 AM

    New link: http://lix.in/-6a825a

    Complete album @320 + covers

    ReplyDelete
  8. AnonymousDecember 20, 2009 at 11:32 AM

    Me alegra ver que una gran aficionada como tu se ha decidido a postear, bueno por lo menos yo es lo primero que descubro en este blog, y me han gustado mucho, fuerte abrazo y saludazos

    ReplyDelete
  9. HeavypsychmanblogDecember 23, 2009 at 12:46 PM

    Thanks for sharing Prog

    Hear Jun Kamikubo 1972 Lp

    ReplyDelete

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