Jeff St John, stalwart of the Australian '70s psych scene, lent his name to two previous bands (Jeff St John and Id and Jeff St John and Yama) before releasing Joint Effort as Jeff St John and Copperwine. St John, born Jeffrey Newton in Sydney in 1946, was diagnosed at birth with spina bifida, an affliction which he faced with fortitude throughout his life. Although never achieving significant commercial success, St John's stint with Copperwine proved to be the most successful period of his career with the band touring incessantly and even playing a gig with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. However, friction began to develop between St John and Copperwine, resulting in the singer's departure in 1971 to pursue a solo career. Joint Effort, originally released on the Australian Spin label (SEL 933742), and probably the pinnacle of St John's recording career, is very much a psych prog crossover album, although some soul influences do crop up, particularly on the surging organ-based cover of The Temptations Cloud Nine as well as highly competent covers of Sly Stone's Sing A Simple Song and Blind Faith's Can't Find My Way Home. The rest of the album is made up of some excellent self-penned material, the outstanding tracks being the long instrumental, Any Orange Night and the psych-tinged Fanciful Nights Of Mind. Joint Effort is excellently recorded, capturing the fragile essence of much of the material beautifully.

I agree this is one of the worst pressings I've ever heard. I think there sounds like a problem with the mastering. Bass notes are distorted, has a hissy sound on the right channel and a whoosh sound as the record spins. Almost sounds like it was mastered from a needle drop using low quality equipment. This is nothing like the original Spin pressing which in comparison is rich, dynamic and wide.

I agree. I thought there was something up with my record player and had been fiddling around with all the connections this evening before reading your comment. A real shame as it's a cracking album.

just a heads up in case you don't know , radioactive is a criminal organization.please don't make mr plummer any richer .

very sad that this reissue wasn't done right ,the main issues are the mastering and "hiss" that is common with beginner level sound engineers .apart from that it is one of those low volume recordings which always results in more noticeable crackle and pop.

yes I realize much of the original mastering was made to sound like an old record on some of the tracks , I had no idea about the 45 minute thing and low volume mastering .maybe it should have been made as a two disc version to minimise additional surface noise .

You do realise the last song on side one was recorded to sound like an old 78? Hence the needle drop noise, static and surface noise. It was on the original lp, cd reissue , master tapes and the way the band recorded it. The album is almost an hour long you are not going to get a loud record. Once a record gets longer than 45 minutes the volume drops. Buy an original copy of the album to compare if you don't have one.

this album is a true work of art , while there are one or two songs I don't love , the high points are lofty to say the least .overall this is a masterpiece with some psychedelic edges that will live forever !5/5