Jonathon Round, self titled.

The Westbound record label was primarily a funk and R&B label, putting out records by Funkadelic, The Ohio Players, and The Detroit Emeralds. Somehow, perhaps influenced by the drug-induced weirdness of some of Funkadelic’s material that George Clinton was brewing up, they decided to sign unknown Detroiter Jonathon Round to a deal.

Dennis Coffey helps produce and appears on several tracks. The record swings from theatrical rock to sort of psych-blues. I’m posting In Quest of The Unicorn because it reminds me of my friend Mark Maynard’s Severed Unicorn Head Superstore.

Mr. Round himself weighs in on the album, in a previous thread found on RateYourMusic.

Hi all,Jonathon Round here. Thank you all for remembering the work. The Westbound Album was the first deal I made after having started performing in the early seventies. Anyone who signed a contract in those days found out very quickly how little say they had over artistic issues. Overall I am proud of what was done. Many of the decisions made came about as a result of having signed with an R&B label. Many of the artistic decisions wrere made by folks who had been doing R&B all their careers. A second and then an independently produced third album were done but unfortunately never released. Either of these two more acurately reflect where I was artistically at the time. Perhaps I’ll get a chance to post some cuts from these some time in the future. Once again, thanks for the memories. PS - There is no truth to the rumor that I was ever at any party where “spiked” kind bud was passed out. I’m still looking for the guy who started that story — and so is my lawyer.

Thanks again folks, write soon, -JRound-

I should post his take on Sympathy For The Devil, which he was best known for, but warm up with this one first. The rumor, by the way, that Round denies, is that while at the release party for this album, he passed out joints laced with heroin without telling anyone what was in it, sending several freaked out people to the hospital. It’s a good urban legend that would make sense after listening to this album, but I’ll take his word on it.

In Quest of The Unicorn: