Reissue CDs
Kieron Tyler
This new edition of People Move On, Bernard Butler’s April 1998 debut solo album, takes what was issued then to up to four CDs. Nothing unusual in that. Box set-isations of a single album customarily add alternate versions, outtakes, non-album tracks from singles, demos, live tracks, recordings from tracking sessions.However, the new People Move On takes a fresh tack. Disc One is the album as it was issued back then. Disc Two is the album – but with new vocals. Butler added them in 2021 to DAT recordings of the backing tracks, most of which differ from what was issued as they were not the Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The death of U-Roy was announced on 17 February 2021. A year on, the reappearance of his oft-reissued 1971 debut album Version Galore brings the opportunity to celebrate the music which brought him his earliest success; the music which propelled him into Jamaica’s top ranks.U-Roy – born Euwart Beckford – had been testing his skills as a DJ since the early Sixties. His initial inspiration was Count Macuki who, from the late Fifties, had performed with Tom Wong’s and Clement Dodds’s sound systems. U-Roy passed through Wong’s, Sir George The Atomic’s and Dodds’s set-ups before he came to King Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
In 1957, popular music was given a jolt when the first electronic pop record was recorded. “Song of the Second Moon” was created and composed by the Dutch musician Dick Raaijmakers who was working at NatLab, the research laboratory of the electronics company Philips.“Song of the Second Moon” was based around a rhythmic pulse, and incorporated tape manipulation and multiple Ondes Martenots. It predicted the bubbling sound which became associated with Jean-Jacques Perry and presaged the machine beat Giorgio Moroder incorporated into his Donna Summer productions. It is also echoed by the 1962 Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
For America’s oldies radio stations Sammi Smith will forever be about “Help me Make it Through the Night”. In 1970, she was the first singer to pick up on the Kris Kristofferson song. Her version took it into the US Top Ten.Although “Help me Make it Through the Night” was an important calling card for Kristofferson with mainstream America, Smith never again figured strongly on the mainstream charts though she remained and had been a regular on the country listings since 1968. As is made clear by a new collection aimed at more that the country audience, she was a singular artist.Last summer, " Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The Electric Prunes could feel happy at the end of January 1968. Since landing in London in late November 1967, they’d hung out with Jimi Hendrix and had a photo session with Rolling Stones-favoured photographer Gered Mankowitz. They also met The Beatles at Abbey Road as Magical Mystery Tour was being mixed.How hot they were live during this brush with Europe is attested to by a French TV appearance, viewable via the internet, and from the recording of a Swedish radio concert included on Disc Six of Then Came The Dawn Complete Recordings 1966-1969 (the show was first legally released in 1997 Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
What’s now been titled The 1959 Sessions represents an unreleased studio album completed by the Stan Tracey Trio on 5 and 8 June 1959 at Decca’s London studio at Broadhurst Gardens. If issued then, it would have been the swift follow-up to the trio’s debut album Little Klunk, recorded at the same studio on 22 and 26 May 1959.Little Klunk was made by Tracey (piano, vibes), Kenny Napper (bass) and Phil Seaman (drums). This release features those three on four tracks – Tracey originals – and Tracey and Napper plus Tony Crombie rather than Seaman on drums for the remaining four tracks: which are Read more ...
Music Reissues Weekly: Chris Farlowe & The Thunderbirds - Stormy Monday And The Eagles Fly On Friday
Kieron Tyler
TV-watching pop fans in many of the British regions were served a treat on 16 September 1966. A whole episode of Ready Steady Go! was dedicated to Otis Redding, who had arrived in the UK a week earlier on his 25th birthday.As would be expected Redding ripped through his performance segments, bringing his power to “My Girl,” “(I Can’t Get no) Satisfaction” and “Respect.” Room was made for local acolytes. Redding introduced Eric Burdon – in his first TV appearance after leaving The Animals – taking on “Hold on! I’m Comin’.” Burdon later introduced Chris Farlowe’s version of James Brown’s “It’s Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
“The Gun Club were true originals and Jeffrey Lee Pierce a genius. They were the inspiration behind many bands, I myself never thought about being a singer until I dropped the needle on Fire Of Love and in that instant I knew what I wanted to do with my life. Jeffrey was funny, smart and generous. He taught me so much about songwriting that I could never repay.”Mark Lanegan’s tribute to Jeffrey Lee Pierce – who died in 1996 at age 37 –and the band he co-formed is revealing as it makes plain an often unacknowledged truth. Now it’s said, it’s obvious. The spirit of Pierce, his LA-born band and Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The title borrows from the lyrics of Siouxsie and the Banshees’s August 1978 debut single “Hong Kong Garden”: “Harmful elements in the air, Symbols clashing everywhere.” It also refers to Marcus Garvey’s prediction that on 7 July 1977 two sevens would clash with damaging consequences, a forewarning acknowledged that year by Culture’s Two Sevens Clash album.Yet Jon Savage's 1977-1979 - Symbols Clashing Everywhere collects “Voices,” “Hong Kong Garden’s” B-side, and Two Sevens Clash producer Joe Gibbs’s single “Prophesy Reveal,” a version of "Two Sevens Clash" voiced by Marvin Pitterson in his Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The archive release which had the greatest impact, and still does, was Linda Smith’s Till Another Time 1988-1996. After it turned up, the reaction to a first play was instant. How could this have escaped attention? The compilation opened the door on a brilliant artist, one previously known to a particular audience.Till Another Time raises the point that it’s impossible to keep on top of everything, to know about everything. Even though she issued new releases until relatively recently, Smith had slipped through a personal knowledge crack. Thankfully, that’s now rectified.That’s one aspect of Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
“I do like this record. Despite their tremendously loser name, this group from America is pretty good. They have a sound of their own added to by Byrd-like guitar playing and Everly Brothers voices. In a funny way, it’s rather sexy.”Although Penny Valentine’s verdict on The Beau Brummels’s “Don’t Talk to Strangers” edges towards damning the single with faint praise, it was positive and homed in on an important aspect of the San Francisco band – their Everly Brothers’s resonance. Readers of her Disc Weekly reviews column that mid-November in 1965 will have been well-aware of America’s decisive Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
At the beginning of November 1964, a form of changing of the guard was evident in the UK’s singles chart. The Dave Clark Five sat at number 25 with “Anyway You Want it,” the highest placing for their follow-up to “Thinking of You Baby.” Although they were four places lower at 29, The Pretty Things would have been happy as “Don’t Bring me Down,” their second single, was rising up the charts. One band represented a primal interpretation of the recently popular R&B sound, the other an uncomplicated take on Beat Boom tropes.The DC5 wouldn’t have been bothered by their relatively poor UK chart Read more ...