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Gentle Soul
Biography
The Gentle Soul were the singing-songwriting duo of Pamela Polland and Rick Stanley, and made one LP for Epic in 1968 that bridged the folk-rock and singer-songwriter/soft rock eras. The self-titled album, despite coming out on a major label, is extremely rare, and has never been issued on CD. Produced by Terry Melcher (the Byrds, Paul Revere & the Raiders), it had quite a stellar supporting cast of session musicians, including Ry Cooder on guitar, Van Dyke Parks on harpsichord, Paul Horn on flute, and Larry Knechtel (later a founding member of Bread) on organ, plus noted arranger Jack Nitzsche. A nice, though not major, effort, it was indeed a gentle record, usually paced by the close male-female harmonies of Polland and Stanley; they also wrote most of the songs, usually but not always as a team. The folky and acoustic-flavored, but not totally acoustic, ambience and harmonies recalled the Stone Poneys. The balance between male and female vocals, however, was naturally far more even than it was with the Stone Poneys, who were dominated by Linda Ronstadt even on the numbers with harmony lead vocals. Another reference point, though far more obscure, would be the Bay Area folk-rock duo Blackburn and Snow, although the Gentle Soul were more subdued, in fact foreshadowing the soft rock of the early 1970s.
Selected Discography
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