Betty

Betty – Handful (1971/2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 34:24 minutes | 416 MB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © RidingEasy Records

Original pressings of this private press biker rock GRAIL have sold for as much as $2000! Only 13 very lucky people have this record in their collection and nearly 300 have it in their wantlist on Discogs. Tough luck for most, considering only 200 copies were pressed back in 1971! “Thank you for being what you really are”… key words from this impossibly rare 1971 private pressing LP.

BETTY lays down who they really are straight upon “Handful” like a breathing snapshot in time. The performances and mix sound like they were done on the fly, which in the private pressing tradition means the artists are captured unfiltered with diamond-in-the-rough vitality. Their influences are seamlessly integrated into a personality filled biker rock roadhouse attack with discreet echoes of Canned Heat, Steppenwolf, the Doors, even throwing an early ’60s UK beat rock curveball at one point. They are pro at communicating but not slick enough to compromise their own reality by aping their influences. The musical elements here will be familiar but the band’s audacious attitude fire this baby up with undiluted excitement. The music feels like real life captured out in the wild rather than created in the studio.

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