It was only a matter of time before , the imprint of record producer (and former lieutenant governor of California) , turned its attention to . For those who weren't around or have short memories, was a large-scale singing group along lines similar to but with something of a political edge, akin to (remember their upbeat syndicated show , which aired just as Vietnam was coming to a head and America's campuses were exploding?). The latter was more a matter of nuance that anything else, mostly thanks to 's concurrent efforts as head of at the end of the 1960s to single-handedly "clean up" the music business by dropping all of the drug-oriented acts from the label -- his big signing as head of the label was . And it meant that got to make records, including appearances on several albums (most notably ) and covers of songs derived from several . So this 29-minute CD is a bit suspect, to say the least. But -- and this is the amazing part -- in a dorky sort of way, this disc has its merits. The group sings with more visceral passion than, say, , and has a freer approach to their work than 's group ever did. What's more, they weren't afraid to display a soulfulness, and do a song with an ironic twist -- hence, here in track number seven is their magnum opus, from , one of the most quietly subversive movies of its era, and a tune that gave the movie an astonishingly upbeat tone, and it is worth the price of the CD by itself. They also don't do badly by the theme from . That's the good stuff -- the rest, including and a brace of what might be considered political songs, including (with drums and acoustic guitar upfront, and a tempo close to 's treatment), (acoustic guitar out front), (with a serious bass), ( 's theme), and (with electric guitar), are more of an acquired taste, since all but the theme have a serious recording somewhere that has earned the label "definitive." And then there are the plain bizarre tracks, such as -- anyone not familiar with this song can be forgiven; it was the abortive attempt to generate a hit song (a la out of ) from 's main theme from , except that the tune is not remotely as appealing and the lyrics arrived at are downright appalling; leave it to , a creation of , which had more than a passing interest in the commercial fate of that (they distributed the original recording), to try and push that hopeless piece of dreck on the airwaves. There's no annotation, apart from some recording credits, but the sound is excellent, and in its own strange way this CD is hard to resist as an eminently listenable (in part, at least) artifact of several eras past, and some fun songs, plus an entertaining artistic disaster to be savored in the same way that one would appreciate "Golden Throats" and other ludicrous spectacle of popular music-making. ~ Bruce Eder