Family Album is the second album by American rock

American rock

American rock is rock music from the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, rhythm and blues, and country music, and also drew on folk music, jazz and classical music. The creation of American rock music was highly influenced by the British Invasion of the American pop...

 band Stoneground

Stoneground

Stoneground was a rock band formed in 1970 in Concord, California. Originally a trio, Stoneground expanded to a 10-piece band by the time of their eponymous 1971 debut album. The group appeared in two films, Medicine Ball Caravan and Dracula A.D. 1972 , and released three albums before singer Sal...

, a double album

Double album

A double album is an audio album which spans two units of the primary medium in which it is sold, typically records and compact discs....

 released in late 1971 on Warner Bros

Warner Bros. Records

Warner Bros. Records Inc. is an American record label. It was the foundation label of the present-day Warner Music Group, and now operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of that corporation. It maintains a close relationship with its former parent, Warner Bros. Pictures, although the two companies...

. It consists of both live and studio recordings and includes a mix of original songs and covers

Cover version

In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...

.

Composition and recording

Family Album is a double LP

Double album

A double album is an audio album which spans two units of the primary medium in which it is sold, typically records and compact discs....

 that contains three sides of live recordings taken from a KSAN-FM (San Francisco

San Francisco Bay Area

The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a populated region that surrounds the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, along with smaller urban and rural areas...

) radio broadcast, and one side of studio material.
Musically, Stoneground combined rock and roll

Rock and roll

Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...

, blues

Blues

Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...

, country

Country music

Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...

 and gospel

Gospel music

Gospel music is music that is written to express either personal, spiritual or a communal belief regarding Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music....

.
It features Stoneground originals, cover versions of songs by such artists as Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...

, Johnny Cash

Johnny Cash

John R. "Johnny" Cash was an American singer-songwriter, actor, and author, who has been called one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century...

, Hank Williams and Swamp Dogg

Swamp Dogg

Jerry Williams, Jr., , is a soul music artist who is better known by his pseudonym Swamp Dogg.Born in Portsmouth, Virginia, Williams made his first recording in 1954 under the moniker "Little Jerry", a 78 rpm single on the Mechanic label titled "HTD Blues" / "Nats Wailing"...

, as well as compositions by Sal Valentino

Sal Valentino

Sal Valentino is an American rock musician, singer and songwriter, best known as lead singer of The Beau Brummels, subsequently becoming a songwriter as well. The band released a pair of top 20 U.S...

's former Beau Brummels

The Beau Brummels

The Beau Brummels were an American rock band. Formed in San Francisco in 1964, the band's original lineup included Sal Valentino , Ron Elliott , Ron Meagher , Declan Mulligan , and John Petersen...

 bandmate Ron Elliott

Ron Elliott (musician)

Ron Elliott on October 21, 1943) is an American musician, composer and producer, best known as songwriter and lead guitarist of rock band The Beau Brummels. Elliott wrote or co-wrote the band's 1965 U.S...

, who is credited as co-producer on the album.

Critical reception

In a review for the album, Billboard

Billboard (magazine)

Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...

praised Lynne Hughes' vocals on "Passion Flower", Valentino's vocals on "You Must Be One of Us", and described the album's music as "infectiously exciting and ... colored by a wonderfully lighthearted feeling."
Writer Colin Larkin

Colin Larkin (writer)

Colin Larkin was the editor and founder of the Encyclopedia of Popular Music, described by Jools Holland as 'without question the most useful reference work on popular music' and by The Times as 'the standard against which all others must be judged’....

 called the album "the group's definitive collection" as it "showcased the contrasting vocal styles and informal playing which made their music so appealing."
A Gramophone review criticized the "pseudo-spontaneous, pseudo-joyful whooping and 'oohing' that the small studio audience insists on inserting between songs."

Track listing