The Wizards From Kansas
Psych LP 1970

COVER: MINT~SEALED
Tight Shrinkwrap
Quite stunning
No seam splits, ringwear, soiling, edgewear, writing, labels, stains etc

The Wizards From Kansas' one n only album finds this Midwestern group sounding more like a West Coast hybrid combining country-rock elements with harder psych-rock sounds. Their biggest influences seem to have been Northern California-based groups like the Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and the Grateful Dead, and it shouldn't really come as a shock to discover that the Wizards From Kansas was recorded in San Francisco, between July and August of 1970. By the time the album was released, in October 1970, two of the band's five members had already quit the band, choosing instead to focus on playing jazz, and so the Wizards were essentially kaput, with a new album in the bins but no band available to promote it. The band's guitarist, Robert Manson Crain (who is credited here as C. Manson Roberts), wrote six of the nine originals, including the warbling, country-ish "Hey Mister," "Misty Mountainside," "Country Dawn," and "She Rides With Witches." They also cover Billy Edd Wheeler's "High Flying Bird," an awesome folk-psych track that was previously waxed by the Jefferson Airplane during one of their first recording sessions in late 1965 (it wasn't released until their 1965-1970 compendium of unreleased tracks, Early Flight). This classic was also covered by celebrated folk artists, including Judy Henske and Richie Havens, among others, but here it gets a visceral psych-rock workout, highlighted by Crain's guitar. Their lengthy cover of Buffy Sainte-Marie's "Codine" is excellent as well, and obviously inspired by Quicksilver's jam version, which approximated the one popularized by the Charlatans. In 1993, the Afterglow label reissued this long out-of-print album on CD for the first time. Incidentally, the back of the original album jacket credits the bandmembers as Robert Joseph Menadier (Monster Bass & Vocal Grace), Marc Evan Caplan (Snakey Snakes & Footler Breaks), John Paul Coffin (Guitar Lead & Strings That Bleed), Robert Manson Crain (Twelve String Roll & Songs of Soul), Harold Earl Pierce (Rhythm Machines & Vocalized Dreams).

The Wizards from Kansas were an obscure country-psych rock group from Kansas. In 1968, four of the five original members (from the Kansas City area) formed a band called New West, and began playing in the Lawrence, Kansas area, at clubs and parties, near Kansas University. Guitarist Robert Manson Crain, from California, joined the group soon thereafter, expanding to a quintet. At that time, the guys were calling themselves "Pig Newton", then Pig Newton and the Wizards from Kansas. The name Pig Newton was apparently one of their inside jokes, however, as there was no one named Pig in the group. The band would often make up stories about Pig Newton to confuse people, according to Crain (whose songs, incidentally, are credited to either "C. Manson Roberts" or Mance Roberts). The five-man group played shows in the local area, and in the summer of 1969, toured the east coast. They were invited to play the Fillmore East in the fall of that year, a gig that led to them being offered a number of record deals, which they initially turned down. Finally, towards the end of the year, Mercury Records persuaded the band to sign a contract. The label reps did not like the "Pig" part of their name, however, and made the group drop it. Six months later, in July and August of 1970, the Wizards From Kansas recorded their eponymous debut album, The Wizards From Kansas, in San Francisco.

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