John McLaughlin With The One Truth Band - Electric Dreams

My copy of this is a US pressing, which has been ‘manually rebranded’ for CBS in international markets. I’ve read about this but never seen it in the wild before. The back cover has been redacted with a texta and the labels have black rings stuck over them, obscuring the Columbia logo. This would’ve been someone’s job, man.

Talking of shit jobs, L. Shankar, the violinist on this album, went on to play on Phil Collins’s Face Value album the following year.

This album came out the year after my favourite J.Mc album, and it’s a clear move further into the rock sphere, which for my ears, makes it a tad dull.

I’d never properly looked at the sleeve before today. The front photo is a sepia toned photo of old mate John sitting at a white Formica fold out kitchen table in his jim-jams and satin dressing gown. Before him is a coffee cup full of pitch black fluid, with a spoon standing up in it. Now this could be seen as uncouth, although please remember Johnny-boy comes from Donny, where this is probably OK. Also, the black fluid could be Yorkshire tea.

Behind him, his appliances seem to have gone boonta, have adopted ghostly manifestations, and are levitating. This is particularly worrying because what can only be described as a kettle/clock combo are plugged in quite high up the wall on a short cord. If it stopped levitating it would be just dangling there.

To make matters worse, ALL FOUR rings on his electric stove top are blaring. Turn them off, man!

As if all this isn’t bad enough, there’s a ghostly girl stood outside the window holding a suitcase. No-one wants that.

Nightmare.

Here’s an interesting snippet for you: the son of Fernando Saunders, who played bass on this album, represented Hungary in the Eurovision Song Contest in 2014.

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John Spithead

2025-03-05 02:52:58

We got one there. We got one there.

John McLaughlin - Electric Guitarist

I believe that this was the first proper jazz-fusion LP I bought. I remember picking it up in JiFS Records, Chadwell Heath in about 1984. (Man, I'd fucking love to go back and have a dig in that shop again!) I was an avid reader of guitarist magazines at the time and kept reading about McLaughlin and his Gatling gun playing-style, and just had to hear it. There was no way of hearing it before buying in those days, so it was a bit of a gamble, although to be fair, I knew I was going to love it.

All the big guns are wheeled out in support of McLaughlin on this album and they all get a fair shake of the sauce bottle.

The second track, Friendship, is a frequent spinner on my earworm jukebox, and has been for some 40 years now.

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