Never heard of him but Amazon recommmended his best of to me yesterday and I got curious.

I've only been able to discover a little about him via Amazon, AMG and a quick google. It seems though that he's a 60's/70's English singer/guitarist with a small cult following. He was singer of a couple of english bands I've never heard of -- Alan Brown Set and Bronco -- before taking lead vocal duty with the Butts Band, a band formed by Robbie Kreiger and John Densmore after Jim Morrison died. He left them after their first album and went solo plus did some studio guest work including backup vocals on Mott the Hoople's Wildlife album and lead vocals on a Keef Hartley album (who I've also had recommended to me before). His first solo album was recorded in New Orleans in 1974 with Allen Toussaint on production and piano, Art Neville on keys, Zigaboo Modeliste of the Meters on drums and some other recognizable N.O. names including George Porter Jr., Leo Nocentelli and horns by "New Orleans Horns."

He gets labelled "blue-eyed soul" and I saw some comparisons to Rod Stewart and Frankie Miller and Lowell George, but the band Amazon based its recommendation on was an early 70's english country rock band, Unicorn, which I've never heard but have in my shopping cart to maybe buy at some point based on supposed similarities to other The Band'esque albums I've bought and really liked.

There's enough here for me to be intrigued but still I dunno. Anyone familiar with him?

I'm curious too, particularly with any comparison to Lowell. I have access to his self-titled from '74 and Blowin' from '77. D'loading now.

Oh cool.

You know what to do if its any good.

The Lowell George reference was really only made relative to one song on the Blowin' album in an AMG review. I'm guessing that '74 album at least ought to be decent though and its oop.

Looks like the '74 self-titled was reissued on CD in 2002.

This is definitely worth a listen. Surprisingly funky.

And yeah, I read that Blowin' review and based on what I'm hearing now, he's definitely kindred spirits with Maggie Bell.

I think it's Jess Roden, and otherwise don't know much about him. With a little help from youtube and and old RS record guide though, it seems safe to say he was in the same general ballpark as Frankie Miller up to '77 (even described as a funky Robert Palmer), and then he started to really earn the "blue eyed soul" disclaimer in the years after.

It also has a similar sound to another mid-70s artist I grabbed earlier in the week, Randall Bramblett.

Yeah, you're right it's Roden not Rodin. I don't know why I never think to look on youtube. Some guy on Amazon who really likes Roden has a 3 album listmania list of best obscure Toussaint projects which included Frankie Miller's High Life album. Ironically, I was giving a first listen to that Frankie Miller album at the time I started looking into Roden. I really liked it although you were probably right in saying I'd like it more than you. For whatever its worth, the other two on that list were Browning Bryant's S/T album from 1974 and King Biscuit Boy S/T. I know nothing about those either. I was going to look into those too until I starting looking at his reviews and saw a favorable one for some mid 70's Robert Palmer album and decided maybe I should confirm that Jess Roden was good first.