Artist Biography
A raga-rock band from the mid-1960s, the Seventh Sons claimed (in the liner notes of their sole album) to have been the first musicians to ever perform a raga with electric instruments (in 1964). Whether that's true or not, if they're remembered at all, it's for two things. Buzz Linhart, later a solo artist and songwriter of cult repute, was guitarist, vibraphonist, and lead singer in the group, and they served as cult folk-rocker Fred Neil's backing outfit for a time in the mid-1960s, although they never recorded with the singer. Linhart was, again according to those liner notes, "the sparkplug behind most of the Sons' original material, " and the trio was filled out by drummer Serge Katzen and bassist James Rock. Flute player Frank Evatoff made the Seventh Sons a quartet on their only album, recorded on an Ampax 601 recorder in Evatoff's loft. A half-hour raga (suitably titled "Raga, " which is also the title of the album itself), it's an interesting footnote in the context of the times, but probably does not show the group to their best advantage in terms of either material, performance, or fidelity. ~ Richie Unterberger
Hometown
Genre
Rock