I been lookin’ all over for you creeps, where ya been?

I must congratulate you on your 1971 Nuggets feature in MOJO 339. Thanks to this article, I have now discovered the joys of Emitt Rhodes and Heads Hands & Feet, and look forward to checking out the other selected nuggets your writers have highlighted. I’m particularly taken by the superb Song For Suzie (and its incredible guitar solo), which investigation has shown did not actually originate in the UK on Heads Hands & Feet’s eponymous 1971 album. Instead, it was initially released as a track on Island Records’ El Pea Various Artists sampler (which itself is worthy of further exploration). In the USA, Heads Hands & Feet was issued as a double album and included Song For Suzie among its extra tracks. The expanded USA tracklisting was later adopted for CD versions of the album.

Indeed, I would be delighted if you made Nuggets a regular feature, whereby you focus on a specific year in a given issue and identify lesser-known longplayer gems from that year. Gary, via e-mail …Great to read the feature on albums released in golden 1971 including some great forgotten gems, especially Heads Hands & Feet’s debut set of homegrown country-rock; Jack Bruce’s progressive rock’n’jazz album, Harmony Row; and Eugene McDaniels’ Headless Heroes Of The Apocalypse.

I first heard the latter on Mike Raven’s Radio 1 R&B Show, with Raven explaining that this off-thewall platter of hardcore soul/funk/jazz was by none other than early-1960s R&B/pop chart-topper Gene McDaniels. It blew me away!

MOJO could have included such crate-digger treasures as Help Yourself ’s debut set of psychedelic country-rock on Liberty – another album first heard on the radio played by John Peel; Gene Clark’s magnificent White Light album, which made a detour around the Hot 100 but earned Gene immortality; and Rory Gallagher’s eponymous debut solo album for Polydor, which only just made it into the Top 100 official charts despite containing Rory’s show-stoppers Sinner Boy, Laundromat and I Fall Apart. Tony Burke, Bedford

…Fab choices, but where is Judee Sill’s debut album? Some folk classify it as baroque folk. I just file it under brilliant. Edward R, via e-mail