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Rating: A brief historical introduction is necessary here.
In 1964, the Beau Brummels recorded a couple of singles that climbed the overseas charts with the small label Autumn, making them the first American group to successfully respond to the British invasion. In 1965, thanks to their success, they released two excellent albums, "Introducing The Beau Brummels" (which also includes the singles "Laugh, Laugh" and "Just A Little" from the previous year) and "Vol. 2". However, while they were working on their third album, the label that had them under contract went bankrupt and was absorbed by the major label Warner, which, finding itself with a high-charting group, forced them to record an album of covers, taken from recent hits by the Beatles, Byrds, Mamas & Papas, and even "Bang Bang" by Sonny And Cher, abandoning the original material they were working on, resulting in a commercial failure and undermining the band's stability. In 2001, Sundazed (with the invaluable collaboration of the band's singer Sal Valentino) revisited the 'forgotten' recordings from '66 and released this album that brings the lost work to light.
Originating from San Francisco, the Beau Brummels were the first 'folk-band' to climb the charts, beating contemporaries like the Byrds to the punch, and foreshadowing the psychedelic movements that would radiantly explode in the Bay Area in the following years. Permeated by a deep melancholy, "Gentle Wanderin' Ways" shows the band at its creative peak and is even more incredible considering it wasn't released at the time. Some pieces are still in embryonic form, such as the acoustic ballad "On The Road Again" or the gentle "Stay With Me A While", testament to the project's incompleteness, but as a whole, it reveals a particularly inspired and creative band, intent on blending the cultured American songwriting of Dylan and Cohen with the soft harmonic constructions of the British sound of the Beatles and Kinks, leading to the wonderful results of the pop ballad "Hey Lowe", the psych-folk digressions of "She Sends Me", the desolate "This Is Love", or the restless title track... just to name a few.
But the strength of the album is in its cohesiveness, where every piece fits perfectly in the realization of the colorful mosaic envisioned at the time by Ron Elliott, guitarist and songwriter. The group dissolved and reformed as a trio, producing a couple more excellent works for Warner, the experimental "Triangle" from 1967 and the country-oriented "Bradley's Barn" from the following year, two good works that, however, lack the polychromatic vision of music present in this 'non-album'.
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