Maximum Darkness is an album by the Welsh progressive rock band Man

Man (band)

Man are a rock band from South Wales whose style is a mixture of West Coast psychedelia, progressive rock, blues and country-rock. Formed in 1968 as a reincarnation of Welsh rock harmony group ‘’The Bystanders’’, Man are renowned for the extended jams in their live performances, and having had...

 and was released on the United Artists Records

United Artists Records

United Artists Records was a record label founded by Max E. Youngstein of United Artists in 1957 initially to distribute records of its movie soundtracks, though it soon branched out into recording music of a number of different genres.-History:...

 label September 1975. It was the second complete live album released by the band, and featured John Cipollina

John Cipollina

John Cipollina was a guitarist best known for his role as a founder and the lead guitarist of the prominent San Francisco rock band Quicksilver Messenger Service...

 as special guest. It is, however, rumoured that Micky Jones had to over-dub Cipollina’s guitar, as it was out of tune, before the album could be released.
The album spent 2 weeks in the UK album chart, peaking at No 25. It was the band's last release on United Artists, before moving to MCA Records

MCA Records

MCA Records was an American-based record company owned by MCA Inc., which later gave way to the larger MCA Music Entertainment Group , of which MCA Records was still part. MCA Records was absorbed by Geffen Records in 2003...

.

Side one

1. "7171-551" (Deke Leonard
   Deke Leonard
   Roger "Deke" Leonard is a rock musician, "serving a life sentence in the music business." Best known as a member of the progressive rock band Man, which he joined and left several times, and for fronting his own rock and roll band Iceberg, which he formed and disbanded several times, he is also...
   
   ) – 11:05
2. "Codine" (Buffy St. Marie
   Buffy Sainte-Marie
   Buffy Sainte-Marie, OC is a Canadian Cree singer-songwriter, musician, composer, visual artist, educator, pacifist, and social activist. Throughout her career in all of these areas, her work has focused on issues of Indigenous peoples of the Americas. Her singing and writing repertoire includes...
   
   ) – 7:40
3. "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You
   Babe I'm Gonna Leave You
   "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" is a folk song written by Anne Bredon in the late 1950s. It was recorded by Joan Baez and released on her 1962 album Joan Baez in Concert, Part 1, and also by the English rock band Led Zeppelin, who included it on their 1969 debut album Led Zeppelin...
   
   " (Darling, Bennett, Bredon
   Anne Bredon
   Anne Bredon is an American folk singer, best known for composing the song Babe I'm Gonna Leave You while she was a student at University of California, Berkeley in the late 1950s...
   
   ) – 6:30

Side two

1. "Many Are Called But Few Get Up" (Martin Ace, Clive John, Micky Jones, Leonard, Terry Williams
   Terry Williams (drummer)
   Terrence "Terry" Williams is a Welsh rock drummer, whose resume includes work for Dire Straits, B. B. King, and Bob Dylan....
   
   ) – 13:40
2. "Bananas" (Jones, Phil Ryan, Williams, John) – 11:20

Bonus tracks

Esoteric Recordings

Esoteric Recordings

Established in 2007, Esoteric Recordings is a UK independent record label specialising in 70s progressive rock, folk, psychedelic and jazz-rock reissues as part of the Cherry Red Records umbrella of imprints...

 ECLEC 2061 (2008)

• C'Mon (23:56)
• Romain (5:00)

Both tracks recorded live at The Keystone, Berkeley, California in April 1975.

Personnel

• Micky Jones – Guitar, Vocals
• Deke Leonard
  Deke Leonard
  Roger "Deke" Leonard is a rock musician, "serving a life sentence in the music business." Best known as a member of the progressive rock band Man, which he joined and left several times, and for fronting his own rock and roll band Iceberg, which he formed and disbanded several times, he is also...
  
   – Guitar, Vocals
• Terry Williams
  Terry Williams (drummer)
  Terrence "Terry" Williams is a Welsh rock drummer, whose resume includes work for Dire Straits, B. B. King, and Bob Dylan....
  
   – Drums, Vocals
• Martin Ace – Bass, Guitar, Vocals

Credits

• Rick Griffin
  Rick Griffin
  Richard Alden Griffin was an American artist and one of the leading designers of psychedelic posters in the 1960s. As a contributor to the underground comix movement, his work appeared regularly in Zap Comix. Griffin was closely identified with the Grateful Dead, designing some of their best known...
  
   – Lettering, Logo Design
• Vic Maile
  Vic Maile
  Vic Maile was a British record producer. After starting his career as sound engineer with Pye mobile studios for The Animals on their song, "We Gotta Get out of This Place", Maile worked with some of the biggest names in the music industry, such as Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Eric Clapton, The...
  
   – Recording & Mixing
• Keith Morris
  Keith Morris (photographer)
  Keith Morris was an English rock photographer. Morris was responsible for several iconic images of Marc Bolan. He photographed musical figures including Led Zeppelin, Van der Graaf Generator, Janis Joplin, Fairport Convention, Richard Thompson, The Albion Band, B. B...
  
   – Front Cover Photograph, Inside Photos
• Edmund Shea – Inside Photos
• Rick Lefrak – Stage Lighting