Whilst listening to a ‘Mind Fusion’ compilation, there was this track with vocals that sounded very much the same to a young Michael Jackson. First thoughts where, this might of been a Jackson 5 song that I’ve missed, but then the sound of the band wasn’t quite 70s Motown. There was more ‘Rock’ to their already present jazzy sound and more ‘freeness’ in the way they played. (Motown didn’t allow much or even any creative control with the Jackson’s, hence their move to CBS) Further on into the track an expressive, psychedelic guitar solo hit and I knew that this wasn’t the work of (Motown) the Jackson brothers.
I later learned that the track was called ‘Pick Your Feet off the Ground’ and the vocalist who I’d thought to be an adolescent Jackson, (or other guy at least!) was actually a young woman called Sarah Archer also known as Rush Winters. Sarah Archer and the instrumentalists where german group called ‘The Real Ax Band’ and the song that I’d heard was sadly from their only LP release ’Nicht Stehenbleiben/Move Your Ass In Time’. And as for that unique, psychedelic, jazzy, rock sound they produced, it had a name. Krautrock. Which was a movement prominent in the late 60s to the 70s.
