Untold Tales Of The Holy Trinity

In May 1968, Brian Auger and the Trinity & Julie Driscoll were part of an international rock 'n' roll disaster. That fiasco created a stash of urgent, commanding recordings, capturing a golden moment that took half a century to reach the wider world. A year after Monterey Pop but a year before Woodstock, The Pop Musica Festival was envisioned as a four-day event in Rome featuring musicians from all over the world: Donovan, Pink Floyd, The Byrds, Traffic, Captain Beefheart and Fairport Convention were just a few of the acts lined up for the big Roman blowout. Poor planning, inadequate sound and an underwhelming turnout made the festival a flop and Auger, Driscoll and company ended up at the Piper Club. And that potent Piper set is paired here with an equally intense appearance at Ce Soir On Danse in Paris, from the previous month. In 1968, the partnership between keyboardist Brian Auger and singer Julie Driscoll was at its peak; the blend of psychedelia and post-mod soul that powered their radical reinventions of Bob Dylan's This Wheel's on Fire and Donovan's Season of the Witch earned them both the embrace of the emerging counterculture and a place on the British pop charts. The Ce Soir On Danse set opens with Auger a deep-swinging take on Wes Montgomery's Bumpin' on Sunset. Driscoll turns up on the third song, as she pushes Auger and the lads into Aretha Franklin's Save Me. On the final Paris cut, Auger weds his organ-trio jazz influences with the psychedelic sorcery of the time on an instrumental version of The Beatles' A Day in the Life. The Rome set begins with Auger displaying his prowess on Mose Allison's If You Live. That tone is amplified in a spooky Season of the Witch, with Driscoll's soul-inflected vocal bouncing off the band's vibe.

The eerie mood segues into the apocalyptic of This Wheel's on Fire. This is a magical double-header of live material from the band's heyday, a phenomenon as rare as the proverbial hen's tooth.