Merryweather and Carey, "Five Days on the Trail" (1971)

Neil Merryweather and Lynn Carey shall live long in my heart for releasing this album containing the absolutely incandescent slab of treacle-thick fugitive blues that is "Five Days on the Trail", a song that damn near breaks my neck any time I drop a needle on it:

Merryweather & Carey - Five Days On The Trail by doggziller

Merryweather and Carey have both had long and varied careers in music (mostly independent of one another, though they were apparently lovers when this album was released) - and with more than a few brushes against  giants of popular culture. For instance, one of Neil Merryweather's earlier bands, the Mynah Birds, was fronted by a young Rick James (not sounding much like his Cold-Blooded era self back in the mid-60s).

Lynn Carey belted out vocals for fictional group "The Carrie Nations" in the Russ Meyer/Roger Ebert collaboration Beyond the Valley of the Dolls - very loosely dubbed over actress Dolly Read's lip-syncing (Roger Ebert - these days notorious for his endorsement of 1997 Jamie Foxx vehicle "Booty Call" - would later claim this and all other flaws in the film were intended for comic effect).



Although Russ Meyer evidently considered her "too flat-chested" for the silver screen, Lynn Carey nevertheless appeared in Penthouse a couple of years later to promote her and Merryweather's new band Mama Lion (a band most famous for a minor scandal surrounding the cover of its first album - Lynn seemingly not especially shy at this point in her life)

A number of young men were to profess a keen interest in Isaac Asimov's article on immortality.

Penthouse December 1972 is also notable for containing "Xaviera Hollander's first advice column", which was to run for about 35 years. Xaviera will of course be familiar to you as the author of the best-selling saxophone sex mystery, Yours Fatally!

Oh Fausto! Your legacy lives on.