One of the great albums of the rock and roll era was rereleased yesterday after 34 years. Boulders, by Roy Wood, is now available again, on CD.

EMI has put together a remastered edition which is on sale in the UK now and will be ready for purchase in the United States on September 3, according to amazon.com. It is currently available for preorder at amazon.com.

Birmingham, England-born Roy Wood was the founder and driving force behind the classic late-1960s rock band The Move and the 1970s group the Electric Light Orchestra, which he founded with Move alumnus Jeff Lynne. Wood was the Move’s main songwriter and arranger, and was the major creative force behind ELO’s first and most creatively innovative album.

The Move (1967-1971), while extremely melodic and known for creating highly catchy tunes, was the first band to develop the heavy metal sound, with emphasis on rumbling bass and the lower tones on electric guitar accompanying impassioned vocals. The band was also a leader in the psychedelic sound and an early developer of progressive rock. It had numerous big hits in England and some in the United States; a few of their best-loved songs are "Flowers in the Rain," "I Can Hear the Grass Grow," "Blackberry Way," "Do Ya," "California Man," "Fire Brigade," and "Brontosaurus."

After leaving ELO, Wood formed the rock-oriented Roy Wood’s Wizzard, which had numerous hit singles and albums in Britain but did not make much of a dent in the United States. Wood kept working but was not able to get much music out to the public after the demise of Wizzard in the mid-1970s.

Much useful information on Roy Wood and his musical career is available on Roy Wood’s website. 

While recording albums (and numerous hit singles) with the Move, Wood recorded Boulders in 1969, performing all the voices and every instrument except the use of harmonium on one track. The record was not released until 1973, however, because the band’s manager did not want it to compete with the group’s main releases. (This was a horrible mistake, as noted in this excellent article on Wood in the Daily Telegraph.)

The instrumentation is impressively varied, including the usual guitar, drums, and bass, plus a myriad of keyboards, woodwinds, banjo, sitar, string bass, horns, harp, cello, and much more. Wood uses numerous vocal approaches, including multiple overdubs of his voice to create orchestral choirs and "doo wop" choruses. Wood even provides a charming percussion background for "Wake Up" by slapping two bowls of water with his hands, recorded in stereo.

The song styles on Boulders range widely—gospel on "Songs of Praise," folk-pop on "Wake Up," country (the delightful "When Gran’ma Plays the Banjo" and the "Rockin’ Shoes" section of "Rock Medley"), medieval serenade ("Dear Elaine"), Celtic (The "Irish Loafer" section of "Rock Medley"), doo wop ("All the Way Over the Hill"), madrigal ("Miss Clarke and the Computer"), straighforward rock and roll ("Rock Down Low" and the "Locomotive" section of "Rock Medley"), rockabilly (the "She’s Too Good for Me’ section of "Rock Medley"), and the Beach Boys style ("All the Way Over the Hill"). (The California-based band were among Wood’s favorites, and he wrote and performed several songs that one could almost swear were Beach Boys recordings, such as "Any Old Time Will Do" and "Why Does a Pretty Girl Sing Such Sad Songs?" from Mustard, another absolute must-have, classic Wood solo album, and the single "Forever".)

All of this variety is tied together by Wood’s peculiar genius for melody and his decision to use melodic and rhythmic approaches from one era with instrumentation from another, as when he uses madrigal to tell a story of a computer falling in love with a woman ("Miss Clarke and the Computer"), complete with electronically processed voice representing the computer, and a brief jazzy passage at about the 2:00 mark.

The music of Boulders is lively and rhythmic, the lyrics are intelligent and charming, and the entire affair has a real sense of both joy and seriousness. Boulders is truly one of the great albums of the rock era.

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