Stoneground 3, sometimes stylized as Stoneground Three, is the third album by American rock

American rock

American rock is rock music from the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, rhythm and blues, and country music, and also drew on folk music, jazz and classical music. The creation of American rock music was highly influenced by the British Invasion of the American pop...

 band Stoneground

Stoneground

Stoneground was a rock band formed in 1970 in Concord, California. Originally a trio, Stoneground expanded to a 10-piece band by the time of their eponymous 1971 debut album. The group appeared in two films, Medicine Ball Caravan and Dracula A.D. 1972 , and released three albums before singer Sal...

, released in 1972 on Warner Bros

Warner Bros. Records

Warner Bros. Records Inc. is an American record label. It was the foundation label of the present-day Warner Music Group, and now operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of that corporation. It maintains a close relationship with its former parent, Warner Bros. Pictures, although the two companies...

. It was the final studio album to feature the band's original lineup, as eight of the ten members quit shortly after the album's release.

Composition

In contrast with the band's first two albums, which featured a blend of hard rock

Hard rock

Hard rock is a loosely defined genre of rock music which has its earliest roots in mid-1960s garage rock, blues rock and psychedelic rock...

, country

Country music

Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...

 and blues

Blues

Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...

, Stoneground 3 is musically quite a bit more straightforward pop rock

Pop rock

Pop rock is a music genre which mixes a catchy pop style and light lyrics in its guitar-based rock songs. There are varying definitions of the term, ranging from a slower and mellower form of rock music to a subgenre of pop music...

.
The album consists of twelve original songs including six written by Sal Valentino

Sal Valentino

Sal Valentino is an American rock musician, singer and songwriter, best known as lead singer of The Beau Brummels, subsequently becoming a songwriter as well. The band released a pair of top 20 U.S...

, who also produced the album. Only three songs clock in at more than four minutes, another departure from the band's earlier releases.

Release and reception

Released in late 1972, Stoneground 3 sold poorly and the band was dropped by Warner Bros.
With no label and escalating tensions within the group, Stoneground played a final concert on January 6, 1973 at the Sacramento Memorial Auditorium. The performance was released in 2001 as an album titled The Last Dance.
Within weeks of the concert, Valentino quit the group.
Band members Cory Lerios

Cory Lerios

Cory Lerios is an American pianist and vocalist noted for his fast and flowing style of playing. He is one of the founding members of the platinum-record selling rock and roll band Pablo Cruise, and for the past 30 years has scored music for film and television.-History:Cory Lerios got his first...

 and Steve Price

Steve Price (musician)

Steve Price is the drummer and percussionist for the California smooth rock band Pablo Cruise. Price was member of the band at its conception in 1973 and stayed until early 1981. In 2004, Price and two other original members of the band re-united with a new member, George Gabriel, to tour across...

 left and formed a new group, Pablo Cruise

Pablo Cruise

Pablo Cruise is a pop/rock band currently composed of David Jenkins , Cory Lerios , Steve Price and Larry Antonino . Formed in 1973, the band released eight studio albums over the next decade, during which time four singles reached the top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100 chart...

. The remaining members also departed except for Tim Barnes and Annie Sampson, who reformed Stoneground with a new roster later that year.

Bob Koch of Isthmus

Isthmus (newspaper)

Isthmus is an alternative weekly newspaper in Madison, Wisconsin. It was founded in 1976, and has built a reputation for authoritative writing on news, arts and features. The paper prints more than 60,000 copies each Thursday, reaching an estimated 40% of all adults in Dane County, which includes...

wrote that album track "From a Sad Man into a Deep Blue Sea" is possibly Valentino's finest Stoneground composition. He also claimed that Stoneground 3 is the band's "most coherent-sounding album due to the more unified sound," but was unsure "whether that coherency is an improvement over their earlier more free-wheeling efforts."

Track listing