Volume 3: A Child's Guide to Good and Evil
| Volume 3: A Child's Guide to Good and Evil | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
||||
| Studio album by The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band | ||||
| Released | July 1968 | |||
| Recorded | 1968 | |||
| Genre | Psychedelic rock | |||
| Length | 38:20 | |||
| Label | Reprise | |||
| Producer | Jimmy Bowen, Bob Markley | |||
| The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band chronology | ||||
|
||||
| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |    |
Volume 3: A Child's Guide to Good and Evil is the fourth album by the American psychedelic rock band the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band (WCPAEB), and was released on Reprise Records in July 1968. By the time the group commenced recording on Volume 3, guitarist Danny Harris had excused himself from the WCPAEB, reduced their numbers down to a trio. As with the WCPAEB's earlier work, the album again saw the band continue to blend psychedelic influences and complex studio techniques, and was marked by a bizarre fusion of innocence and malice in the band's lyrics. Volume 3 featured the WCPAEB's most ambitious music to date, and the striking cover art of John Van Hamersveld, yet it failed to sell in sufficient copies to chart nationally. In more recent times, the album has been considered the band's most accomplished work and a masterpiece of the psychedelic genre.
The WCPAEB had toured extensively on the Los Angeles live circuit during the first two years of their existence, but by 1968 the band excused themselves from performing to become a studio band and focus exclusively on record production. In terms of record sales, the WCPAEB had fallen short of success on their major label albums Part One and Vol. 2 (Breaking Through) released by Reprise Records. After Danny Harris succumbed to what his brother bassist Shaun Harris described as a "sort of manic depressive illness", the group was effectively dropped to the trio of Bob Markley, Shaun Harris, and Ron Morgan, with session musician Jim Gordon on drums.
Recording sessions for Volume 3 commenced in early 1968, with Markley and Jimmy Bowen producing and Joe Sidore serving as the audio engineer. Morgan was instrumental in creating the psychedelic sound effects that adorned much of the album's tracks. In an interview, Morgan's younger brother Robert recalled how Morgan provided his contributions to the album: "Ron could really put on his guitar antics! He would use some very unusual effects. He had a Magnatone which Seers Roebuck made for accordions and it had a wild organ-type of sound. He would also use a Lesley speaker and a lot of Vox equipment - amps and 12-strings - because the group were sponsored by them for a while".
...
Wikipedia