Various Artists - Safe in My Garden: American Pop in the Shadows 1967-1972 (LP)

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 - it's a companion piece to the much-praised State of the Union: The American Dream in Crisis 1967-1973.

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 wasn't 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 Eric's Move With the Dawn, the Groop's A Famous Myth), loss (the Eighth Day's How Can I Stop Loving You, the New Colony Six's Prairie Grey), dreamscapes (Tommy James and the Shondells' She, Nancy Priddy's Christina's World), rebirth (Smokey and his Sister's Creators of Rain), a simpler world (the Free Design's My Brother Woody) and a philosophically sounder future (Chad & Jeremy's 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.

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Tracklist:

LP 1:
1. Always You - The Sundowners
2. Move With the Dawn - Mark Eric
3. She - Tommy James & the Shondells
4. A Famous Myth - The Groop
5. Dreamin' in the Shade (Down in L.A.) - Brewer & Shipley
6. I Don't Think I Know Her - Tee & Cara
7. Knock on Wood - Harpers Bizarre
8. The Visit (She Was Here) - The Cyrkle
9. I See It Now - Fargo
10. Summer Sound - Best of Friends
11. A Moment of Being With You - The Critters
12. Blight - The Millennium

LP 2:
1. Jill - Gary Lewis & the Playboys
2. I Can See Only You - Roger Nichols & the Small Circle of Friends
3. Little Dreams - The New Wave
4. My Brother Woody - The Free Design
5. Christina's World - Nancy Priddy
6. The Ark - Chad & Jeremy
7. Creators of Rain - Smokey & His Sister
8. How Can I Stop Loving You - The Eighth Day
9. Love Is a Rainy Sunday - Love Generation
10. Springtime Meadows - The Sunshine Company
11. The Word Is Love - Thomas & Richard Frost