Stoneground 3
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Album Summary
Stoneground 3 rolled out in 1972 on Warner Bros. Records, the band's third studio offering and a testament to their restless, communal spirit. The album was produced with that loose, organic feel that defined the Bay Area scene — these cats weren't chasing the studio gloss of the era, they were chasing truth. Recorded with the kind of collective energy that only a band living and breathing music together could conjure, the record captured Stoneground at a crossroads moment, pushing their sound into deeper, bluesier territory while keeping that soulful, freewheeling groove that made them a beloved fixture of the early-seventies West Coast scene.
Reception
- Stoneground 3 found a warm but modest audience, appreciated most deeply by the faithful who had been following the band since their days as part of the Medicine Ball Caravan — it was a record for the true believers.
- Critical response recognized the album's authenticity and raw emotional honesty, though the band's communal, non-superstar ethos kept them from breaking into the mainstream spotlight that flashier acts of the era commanded.
- The album did not chart significantly, but within the circles that mattered — the underground rock press and the devoted Bay Area faithful — it was received as a worthy and soulful entry in the band's catalog.
Significance
- Stoneground 3 stands as a document of the post-Woodstock communal rock ideal in its purest form — a band of brothers and sisters making music for the love of it, not the chart position, embodying the spirit of early-seventies West Coast rock with rare sincerity.
- The album reflects the transitional moment in rock history when the euphoria of the late sixties was giving way to something earthier and more introspective, with tracks like 'From A Sad Man Into A Deep Blue' showcasing a blues-soaked emotional depth that pointed toward where rock's soul was heading.
- Stoneground's multi-vocalist, egalitarian approach — heard across the album's twelve tracks — was a genuinely countercultural statement in an era increasingly dominated by solo star-making, making this record a quiet but meaningful artifact of rock's communal possibilities.
Tracklist
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A1 Dancin' —
3:59
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A2 On My Own —
2:50
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A3 You Better Come Through —
2:55
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A4 Ajax —
3:17
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A5 Down To The Bottom —
3:56
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A6 From A Sad Man Into A Deep Blue —
3:33
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B1 From Me —
5:03
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B2 Lovin' Fallin' —
4:01
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B3 Butterfly —
3:13
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B4 Gettin' Over You —
2:15
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B5 Heads Up —
4:04
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B6 Everybody's Happy —
3:17
Artist Details
Stoneground was a sprawling, soulful collective born out of the San Francisco Bay Area scene, a band that wore its communal heart right on its sleeve and never once apologized for it. They rose to wider attention as part of the legendary Medicine Ball Caravan in 1970, a rolling musical happening that captured the last gasps of the sixties idealism on film, and they carried that freewheeling, everybody-sings spirit into every record they made. With a rotating cast of voices and a deep love for blues, rock, and raw Americana, Stoneground was less a conventional band than a musical family, and their records remain warm, honest artifacts of an era when rock and roll still believed it could change the world.
