The Goldebriars - Straight Ahead (Expanded Edition) (1964/2007)

The Goldebriars' second album is not folk-rock, but there's an expansiveness to the production that is definitely leading the music in the pop and even rock direction. You can hear a little drums (albeit of the sort where it sounds like someone's placed a towel over the kit), keyboards, and pop/rock rhythm. Unfortunately, the ambition of the arrangements is not matched by the material, which can digress into kind of corny folk-ethnic numbers along the lines of "Zum Gale Gale" (a song-chant familiar to anyone who attended Jewish summer camps) and "Joy, Joy, Joy." The non-traditional material, too, can be stultifyingly awkward. The tale of beatnik love on "MacDougal Street" probably would have generated raspberries from actual beatniks; it's hard to ascertain whether "No More Bomb" is a protest song or satire of protest songs; and "Queen of Sheba" is an off-puttingly campy comedy harem-pop number. And, frankly, the vocals particularly those of the Holmberg sisters are sometimes downright prissy. The potential of the group's (and particularly Boettcher's) talents is not fully exploited, and the Goldebriars split before they had a chance to get washed aboard a folk-rock bandwagon that might have served them better.