Category Archives: Reissue

Buck Owens and the Buckaroos: The Complete Capitol Singles 1957-1966

buckowens_completecapitolsingles5766The towering Capitol singles of Buck Owens

Having already been feted with exhaustive box sets, multidisc anthologies, vault finds, tribute albums, a posthumous autobiography, and dozens of original album reissues, one might ask: what’s left to say? As it turns out: plenty. Collecting Owens’ A’s and B’s from his most commercially fertile years, this generous two-disc set replays Owens’ emergence and dominance as both a country hit maker and a maverick artist. Recording in Hollywood, two thousand miles from Nashville, he added a new chapter to the country music playbook with the driving, electric Bakersfield sound, and established himself as an iconoclastic force on the both the singles and album charts. Among the fifty-six tracks collected here are twenty-two Top 40 hits, including an astonishing string of thirteen consecutive chart toppers.

While the hits will be familiar to most, and the B-sides to many, only the most ardent Owens fans will recognize the earliest Capitol singles. This quartet of originals, waxed in 1957, sounds more like Buddy Holly-styled rock ‘n’ roll than the Bakersfield sting Owens would later develop. The low twanging guitar, sweetly phrased lead vocal and backing chorus of “Come Back” is more doo-wop than country, and its waltz-time B-side “I Know What It Means” sounds like Nashville going pop. “Sweet Thing,” co-written with Harlan Howard, has rockabilly licks supplied by guitarists Gene Moles and Roy Nichols, and its ballad B-side, “I Only Know That I Love You” has a lovely guitar solo to accompany its double-crossed lyric.

Owens returned to Capitol’s studio in 1958 with a reconstructed backing unit that included fiddler J.R. “Jelly” Sanders and Ralph Mooney on steel. It was from this session that “Second Fiddle” launched Owens onto the country chart. The same group, which also included pianist George French, Jr., bassist Al Williams and drummer Pee Wee Adams, cut a 1959 session from which “Under Your Spell Again” climbed to #4. By year’s end, Sanders was out and Don Rich was in, Harlan Howard’s “Above and Beyond” carried Owens one notch higher, to #3, and Howard and Owens’ “Excuse Me (I Think I’ve Got a Heartache)” then reached #2. The B-sides include the charting “I’ve Got a Right to Know,” and the ironic “Tired of Livin’.” Ironic, because the song’s sad-sack complaint about a lack of success was fronted by a Top 5 hit!

1961 found Owens paired with Rose Maddox for the double-sided hit “Mental Cruelty” b/w “Loose Lips,” and he just missed the top slot twice more with “Foolin’ Around” and “Under the Influence of Love.” The success of his A-sides dipped slightly in 1962, though he was still charting regularly, minting staples like “You’re For Me,” and the B-side “I Can’t Stop (My Lovin’ You).” Owens turned out an incredible amount of high quality, original material throughout the ‘60s and ‘70s, winningly vacillating between sunny elation and sorrowful heartbreak. He also had an ear for other songwriters, recording albums dedicated to Harlan Howard and Tommy Collins, and charting covers of Pomus & Shuman’s “Save the Last Dance for Me” and Wanda Jackson’s “Kickin’ Our Hearts Around.”

Owens finally topped the charts in 1963 with Johnny Russell’s “Act Naturally,” kicking off a string of #1s that stretched into 1967. Incredibly, all of disc two’s singles topped the chart, except for a return duet with Rose Maddox that stalled at #15 and a 1965 Christmas single. The A-sides from this era are among the most iconic of Owens’ career, including “Love’s Gonna Live Here,” “My Heart Skips a Beat,” “I’ve Got a Tiger By the Tail,” “Waitin’ in Your Welfare Line,” “Open Up Your Heart” and Don Rich’s “Think of Me” (which became a staple for the Mavericks). The B-sides include the chart-topping “Together Again,” the stalwart “Don’t Let Her Know” and the woeful “Heart of Glass.”

The classic lineup of the Buckaroos had come together in 1964, with Owens and Rich joined by bassist Doyle Holly, drummer Willie Cantu and steel player Tom Brumley. Their chemistry was immortalized on Live at Carnegie Hall, and their instrumental skills carried “Buckaroo” to the top of the country chart. More importantly, it was this lineup that doubled down on Owens’ rejection of the Nashville Sound. The polite drum accents of 1961’s “Foolin’ Around” might have alarmed Music City’s gentry, but it was only a prelude to the more insistent tom-toms of “My Heart Skips a Beat,” Don Rich’s twangy fills and solo on “Act Naturally” and Willie Cantu’s full-kit drumming on “Before You Go.”

While Nashville was busy courting pop fans with syrupy layers of strings and choruses, Owens was stripping his sound down to guitars, bass, fiddle and drums, and riding the beat. He also bucked another Nashville standard by recording with his band, rather than picking up session players. Red Simpson sat in for a few sessions in ‘65 and ‘66, and James Burton provided the sputtering electric lead on “Open Up Your Heart,” but what you hear on all the singles from ‘64 onward are the Buckaroos. The set ends with Owens’ last hit of 1966, “Where Does the Good Times Go,” two singles shy of the end of his continuous string of #1s, and well short of the success that ran up to Don Rich’s 1974 death. Owens moved on from Capitol to Warner Brothers, and returned again in the late ‘80s, but mostly retired from the studio to run his businesses and perform on the weekends at his legendary Bakersfield club.

The singles are presented in the order of their release, and remastered in mono from the original reel-to-reels. The brightness that Owens laid into the masters remains, but with more bottom end than you likely remember from AM radio. Owens emerges from these sides as a pioneering artist who wrote, sang (often doubling himself on harmony), picked guitar and led a band that was both revolutionary and commercially successful. And with the masters having come from the Buck Owens’ estate, you can add top-flight businessman to his resume. The CD package includes a 20-page booklet highlighted by Dwight Yoakam’s introductory notes, excerpts from Owens’ autobiography, detailed personnel and session data, and label and picture sleeve reproductions. All that’s missing is ‘67-’75, so here’s hoping for a sequel! [©2016 Hyperbolium]

Buck Owens’ Home Page

The Blind Boys of Alabama: Atom Bomb

blindboysofalabama_atombombReissue of post-Grammy album of gospel and faithful pop

After a four album Grammy run from Spirit of the Century through the Ben Harper-produced There Will Be a Light, the group re-teamed with producer John Chelew for this 2005 release. As on the preceding albums, the material was selected from a wide range of sources, the group’s gospel singing was combined with pop, rap, R&B and blues, and the studio welcomed guests that included harmonica legend Charlie Musselwhite, keyboard player Billy Preston and guitarist David Hidalgo. Unlike the star-fronted Go Tell It on the Mountain, the guests here support the Blind Boys’ lead vocals. If you liked the reach of the Grammy run, you’ll enjoy how the rich gospel harmonies are spent on both standards and pop songs of faith, including Norman Greenbaum’s “Spirit in the Sky” and Blind Faith’s “Presence of the Lord.” Omnivore’s 2016 reissue adds instrumental versions of seven album tracks and new liner notes by David Seay, providing a nice upgrade to those who already have the original release. [©2016 Hyperbolium]

The Blind Boys of Alabama’s Home Page

Cat-Iron: Sings the Blues and Hymns

catiron_singsbluesandhymnsObscure 1958 Folkways blues album returned to vinyl

If Christopher Guest were to make a mockumentary about the blues, it might open with a crate digger’s breathless recitation of time-worn details such as, “Louisiana native Cat-Iron was born William Carradine in 1896 and mis-nicknamed by the folklorist Frederic Ramsey, Jr.. Having converted to Christianity, Carradine was initially hesitant to lay down secular songs, but relented with a mix of blues and sacred hymns on a borrowed guitar, recorded in the front room of his house. The resulting 1958 Folkways LP included an eight-page booklet, was pressed on yellow wax, and quickly fell into obscurity.” What would make this absurd is its absolute truth in demonstrating how scholarly producers refashioned themselves into musical anthropologists who used hunches and recorders in place of maps and shovels.

Recorded in 1957 and released the following year, it was to be Cat-Iron’s only album, as he passed away in November 1958. Since then, two tracks appeared on anthologies [1 2], the album was reissued in the UK as a vinyl album in 1969, and domestically as a digital download and custom CD in 2004. Exit Stencil now returns the album to print as a limited distribution vinyl LP, struck on yellow wax, just like the original, with blues on side one and hymns on side two. Also included is a reproduction of the original eight-page booklet, including lyrics and Ramsey’s original liner notes. The latter sketch Cat-Iron’s background, the circumstances of the recording session, and provide Ramsey’s view of the blues as organic, communal literature.

As Ramsey noted, Cat-Iron sang everything with the combined fervor of the gospel and the blues, lending the former the grit of the latter, and the latter the eternal gravity of the former. The session began with the hymns placed on side two, with Cat-Iron accompanying himself on fingerpicked guitar that’s fretted with a glass medicine bottle and supplemented by the faintest, rhythmic thump of what was likely to be his foot. He’s carried away by the messages of “When I Lay My Burden Down” and “Fix Me Right,” and surprisingly melancholy on the first song he played that day, “When the Saints Go Marching Home.”

Of the blues numbers on side one, the most well-known (and regularly covered) is “Jimmy Bell.” It’s here that Cat-Iron’s regionalism is heard in the cultural themes he wrote and sang. As with most folk artists, Cat-Iron’s catalog is derived from lyrics he’d heard, borrowed, rearranged and augmented. The opening “Poor Boy a Long, Long Way From Home” is rooted in the oft-recorded “Poor Boy, Long Ways From Home,” with Cat-Iron changing the lyric from “Natchez,” where he resided and recorded, to “New Orleans.” He deftly weaves together lines from “Rambler Blues” and “Corinna, Corinna” for “Don’t Your House Look Lonely,” and sings “I’m Gonna Walk Your Log” with its similarity to “Baby Please Don’t Go” intact.

It’s something of a miracle that primitive field recordings, transcribed from analog to digital and back again, can transport the experience of a 1950s Mississippi living room into the twenty-first century. Cat-Iron’s voice is clear and strong, and balanced well against his guitar playing. There are hints of “studio” (that is, room) chatter around the edges of a few tracks, giving listeners a feel for the informality of the session; but once Cat-Iron gets going, his performances are authentic expressions of a hard life lived in a segregated nation that largely relegated its rural African-American population to clapboard shacks. For vinyl lovers who never crossed paths with the original artifact, this reissue will be a real boon. [©2016 Hyperbolium]

Exit Stencil Recordings

The Blind Boys of Alabama: Go Tell It on the Mountain

blindboysofalabama_gotellitonthemountainExpanded reissue of guest-filled 2003 Christmas album

Founded in 1939 and turned into a professional group six years later, it took more than fifty years for these gospel legends to record a Christmas album. Released in 2003, the album was third in a string of four Grammy-winning albums in four years, including Spirit of the Century, Higher Ground and There Will Be a Light. The album includes guests leading every track but the first and last, ranging from soul singer Solomon Burke, singer-songwriters Tom Waits and Shelby Lynne, to jazz vocalist Les McCann and funkmaster George Clinton. The wide range of guests lends the album a lot of variety, though in a few spots, such as Chrissie Hynde and Richard Thompson’s “In the Bleak Midwinter,” it mostly obscures title group.

There’s no losing sight of the group as they provide Aaron Neville an intricate a cappella backing for “Joy to the World,” provide harmony backing to Meshell Ndegeocello’s “Oh Come All Ye Faithful,” and add lively interplay to Mavis Staples’ “Born in Bethlehem.” One might lament how the cavalcade of guest stars cuts into the Blind Boys’ opportunities to sing lead, but the selection of guests and their interaction with the group and house band (John Medeski on keyboards, Duke Robillard on guitar, Danny Thompson on bass and Michael Jerome on drums) yields some nice moments. If you’re expecting a Blind Boys gospel Christmas album, you’ll be disappointed, but if you take this album as part of the group’s Grammy era artistic expansion, there’s much to like.

Omnivore’s 2016 reissue retains the a cappella rendition of “My Lord What a Morning” that was recorded for the 2004 CD reissue, and adds a pair of live tracks drawn from a contemporaneous holiday concert at New York’s Beacon Theater. The latter includes the title track and a closing rendition of “Amazing Grace” sung (as it was on Higher Ground) to the melody of “House of the Rising Sun.” The 12-page booklet includes photos and musicians’ credits, and Davin Seay’s liner notes add career context for the album and anecdotes about how the group, their guests and producers worked together in the studio. The album’s soulful productions and gospel backings will complement any holiday gathering and raise everyone’s spirits! [©2016 Hyperbolium]

The Blind Boys of Alabama’s Home Page

Donna Fargo: That Was Yesterday

donnafargo_thatwasyesterdayDonna Fargo’s late-70s return to the charts

Top 40 listeners will remember Donna Fargo for her pair of 1972 crossover hits, “The Happiest Girl in the Whole U.S.A.” and “Funny Face,” but country fans will also recall the decade-long tail of her career. After her commercial fortunes began to fade in 1975, Fargo moved from Dot to Warner Brothers, and reignited her chart success with “Mr. Doodles.” That song provides the launching point for this collection of Fargo’s Warner Brothers-era sides, running through 1981’s non-LP “Lonestar Cowboy” and “Jacamo.” There are a few singles missing (1979’s “Walk on By” and a pair of low-charting sides from 1980’s Fargo), but what’s here covers the core of her commercial success at Warner Brothers, including six Top 10 hits, and the chart topping title track “That Was Yesterday.” Unusually for the times, Fargo wrote most her own material, only turning to others for hits (including “Mockin’ Bird Hill,” “Shame on Me,” “Do I Love You (Yes in Every Way),” “Ragamuffin Man,” and “Another Goodbye”) in the late ‘70s. For her earlier material on Dot, check out Varese’s Best Of collection, but to fill out the second half of her hit-making years, this is the set to get. [©2016 Hyperbolium]

Donna Fargo’s Home Page

Peter Case: Peter Case

petercase_petercaseA soulful rock ‘n’ roller creates a modern folk sound on bonus-laden 2016 reissue

Two years after the breakup of the Plimsouls, Peter Case returned with a solo album that departed from soul-tinged rock ‘n’ roll and moved to folk and blues rendered in modern hues. T-Bone Burnett’s production includes electric guitars and drums, but they’re layered carefully among acoustic and synthetic elements. Case’s new material sported more abstract surfaces and tackled introspective and socially conscious themes, and combined with Burnett’s production, led the singer to more subtle vocals. A few of the songs, including “Walk in the Woods” and the Pogues’ “Pair of Brown Eyes,” are narrative, but others, including “Echo Wars,” “Steel Strings” and “I Shook His Hand” remain more open ended.

Case’s is matched by Burnett and the assembled musicians, as harmonica and percussive guitar are backed by a Van Dyke Parks string arrangement on “Small Town Spree,” and Jerry Marotta’s drum machine adds texture on several tracks. Omnivore’s 2016 reissue includes a sixteen-page booklet with new liner notes by Case, and expands the original twelve-track lineup with seven bonuses. The latter features acoustic versions of “Steel Strings” and “I Shook His Hand” previously issued on the promo-only Selections from Peter Case, and five vault finds. Latter day fans who haven’t dug back this far in Case’s catalog now have a reason to do so, and fans have a good reason to upgrade. [©2016 Hyperbolium]

Peter Case’s Home Page

Gene & Eddie: True Enough – Gene & Eddie with Sir Joe at Ru-Jac

geneandeddie_trueenoughRare late-60s and early-70s Baltimore soul sides

Omnivore’s second volume of material from Baltimore’s Ru-Jac label focuses on the singles of Washington, D.C. soul duo Gene Dorsett & Eddie Best, and fills out the disc with a trio of tracks from their producer Sir Joe Quarterman and a pair from Gene & Eddie’s time with the Nightcaps. Ru-Jac was founded as one of the first African-American owned labels by Rufus Mitchell, and grew out of his work managing and booking musical acts for the Carr’s Beach summer resort in Annapolis. The label’s catalog began in 1963 (with Jessie Crawford’s “Please Don’t Go“) and stretched into the early 1970s, featuring mostly soul, but also some jazz and even garage rock.

Gene & Eddie opened for and toured in support of major R&B acts, but never broke nationally. They had a regional hit with the doo-wop influenced “It’s So Hard,” and plenty of other hit-worthy original material, but a small, independent label from Baltimore apparently didn’t have the muscle (or the funds) to break the act nationally. Their early singles show the influences of Sam & Dave’s effervescence, Otis Redding’s mournfulness and Wilson Pickett’s funky bounce. Quarterman’s mono productions are full-bodied and nicely balanced, backing Gene & Eddie with horn-rimmed arrangements and solid female backing vocalists. By the early 1970s, “It’s No Sin,” “Darling I Love You” and their B-sides turned from Stax to Philly and Motown for sound inspiration.

Sir Joe’s own sides are higher energy than those he produced for Gene & Eddie, with “Every Day (I’ll Be Needing You)” featuring a psychedelic guitar break. The bonus tracks include a pair recorded in 1965 with the Nightcaps, a third Sir Joe track, and previously unreleased stereo mixes of “You Don’t Fool Me” and “Let Me Go Easy.” The Nightcaps’ 1965 take of “It’s So Hard” hangs onto 1950s influences, contrasting with the 1969 soulified remake, and the sax and guitar of “Check You Later” give Gene & Eddie a real go-go spark. Omnivore’s usual attention to detail – clean remastering, a 16-page booklet stuffed with detailed liner notes, rare photos and label reproductions – makes this an extra special package of soul. [©2016 Hyperbolium]

The Searchers: The Very Best Of

searchers_verybestofThe Searchers’ US and UK hits in stereo!

The Searchers had seven U.S. Top 40 singles, highlighted by their covers of Jackie DeShannon’s “Needles and Pins,” the Orlons’ “Don’t Throw Your Love Away,” and the Clovers’ “Love Potion #9.” The band had even greater success in their native England, where they topped the singles chart three times, landed a dozen singles in the Top 40 and waxed more than a dozen albums. Their original recordings for Pye have been extensively anthologized [1 2], but for those seeking a hits-focused single disc, Varese’s gathered together all of the group’s UK and US chart entries (except for an early cover of Brenda Lee’s “Sweet Nothin’s”), and sprinkled in a few album cuts. The collection utilizes stereo mixes that were most likely produced by UK Pye for the American Kapp label (at the demand of label head Dave Kapp). These are genuine stereo mixes made from the original 3-track masters, and they’re surprisingly well balanced. That said, they aren’t the mono singles listeners originally heard on AM radio, which themselves can be found on the longer Pye collections. Listeners unaccustomed to mono will enjoy the stereo mixes, but Searchers fans should really own both, as they’re equally authentic artifacts. [©2016 Hyperbolium]

The Searchers’ Home Page

Various Artists: Afterschool Special – The 123s of Kid Soul

various_afterschoolspecialthe123sofkidsoulInfectious collection of 1970s kid soul

In the same way that “A Hard Day’s Night” launched a thousand rock bands, the Jackson Five launched a wave of family and kid bands that rolled on for decades. A few – including the Osmonds, DeFrancos and New Edition – found fame, but many more issued obscure records that have become crate diggers’ rarest finds. The archival Numero Group label has pulled together a collection of this delicious bubblegum soul, packed tightly around the seminal kid soul year of 1973. The track list reaches back to 1970 for the Folkways-released “James Brown” (CD/LP only) and the topical “I’m Free, No Dope For Me,” hits its choreographed stride with Magical Connection’s 1972 “Girl Why Do You Want to Take My Heart,” and is fully consumed by 1973.

Jimi HillIronically, just as the Jackson Five’s chart results were fading, their influence was blooming in charming, adolescent lead vocals and propulsive soul backings on obscure indie labels. Among the jewels are the Scott Three’s “Runnin’ Wild (Ain’t Gonna Help You)” and Next Movement’s “Every Where You Go,” but you can also hear the Jacksons’ impact in Jimi Hill’s Memphis-tinged “Guessing Games” and Leonard (Lil’ Man) Kaigler’s frantic “You Got Me Believing.” The sounds of the Dells and Dramatics and some harder funk backings are also here, but the kid vocals always bring your ears back to Michael Jackson in his early prime. By the mid-70s you can hear the beat of disco in “I Love You Still” and jazz-funk in “Love Got a Piece of Your Mind,” but it’s still sweet as candy.

Greer BrothersThere are a few actual hitmakers here. Chicago’s Brighter Side of Darkness reached the Top 20 with “Love Jones,” appeared on Soul Train and released a full album on the 20th Century Fox label (coincidentally, also the home of the DeFranco Family). But their follow-up indie single “Because I Love You” failed to click and the group quickly faded. The Next Movement never hit the top of the charts, but after a scattering of singles in the ‘70s and ‘80s they landed in Las Vegas where they continue to perform to this day. Numero Group has put together a brilliant collection (including a terrifically potent cover of Gil Scott-Heron’s “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” and the original protest song “We Don’t Dig No Busing”) and magnified it with detailed liner notes, rare photos and label reproductions. [©2016 Hyperbolium]

Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet Reissued!

After a few false starts, the three album run of Canada’s Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet has been finally reissued in expanded form on LP, CD and digital download!

shadowymenonashadowyplanet_savvyshowstoppersSavvy Show Stoppers

Formed in Toronto in 1984, this instrumental trio released a number of singles and EPs before dropping this compilation album in 1988. The original sixteen track lineup cherry-picked from 1985’sLove Without Words, 1986’s Wow Flutter Hiss ’86, 1987’s Schlagers!And Live Record With Extra Bread And Cheese and 1988’sExplosion Of Taste. Out of the gate, this was a trio to be reckoned with, as their compositional and instrumental talents collided with a wicked sense of humor. Though often pegged as a surf rock band (leading eventually to the composition “We’re Not a Fucking Surf Band”), they were more truly an instrumental combo in the vein of the Shadows, Link Wray (whose 1963 single “Run Chicken Run” is covered here), the Fireballs and peers like the Raybeats and Pell Mell.

The collection’s most familiar tune is likely to be “Having an Average Weekend,” which gained exposure as the theme for Kids in the Hall, but listeners will also recognize “Harlem by the Sea,” as it gives a rousing guitar-rock twist to the Viscounts’ moody “Harlem Nocturne.” Other highlights include the deep bass and tense guitar of “Zombie Compromise” and the Cramps-like “Vibrolux Deluxe.” Bonuses on the 2016 reissue include the primitive “Big Saxophone Lie,” which (appropriately) doesn’t feature a saxophone, covers of Erroll Garner’s “Misty” and Heinz Meier’s “Summer Wind,” the Charles Burns-narrated “Big Baby,” and a sax fueled version of “Customized.” Remastered from the original tapes, this is the album’s first CD reissue since 1993, and first-ever digital download. A must have for instrumental rock fans!

shadowymenonashadowyplanet_dimthelightsDim the Lights, Chill the Ham

Three years after collecting together singles and EPs for their 1988 full-length debut, Savvy Show Stoppers, this Toronto instrumental trio released their first full album of new material. The band augments their twangy guitar instrumentals with organ, harmonica and whistling, and edits in odd bits of dialogue here and there. Their original material is complemented by covers of the Beach Boys’ “In My Room” and Sonny Bono’s “Bang Bang,”, and Louis Prima’s swing-era “Sing, Sing, Sing” is threaded into the original “I Know a Guy Named Larry.”

As on their debut, the band’s rhythm section drives Brian Connelly’s guitar, and the music stretches beyond instrumental rock to include blues, jazz and post-punk. Yep Roc’s 2016 reissue adds bonus tracks from 1989’s Tired of Waking Up Tired, 1991’s Music for Pets and 1994’s It’s a Wonderful Records! Missing from the digital download are bonuses that accompanied the original vinyl (“Vinyl”), cassette (“Tape, Tape, You Bought Our Tape”) and CD (“Thanks For Buying Our CD”), as well as a Johnny Kidd cover (“Shakin’ All Over”) that appeared on all three. But even without those original extras, this is a sweet second chapter!

shadowymenonashadowyplanet_sportfishinSport Fishin’ – The Lure of the Bait, The Luck of the Hook

The third and final album from this Canadian trio features plenty of the twangy, boss guitar for which they were known, including the rockabilly-styled “Fortune Tellin’ Chicken” and a revved-up cover of Gene Pitney’s tale of forbidden love, “Mecca.” The latter’s surf style is wiped-out a few tracks later by the post-punk declaration, “We’re Not a Fucking Surf Band.” The trio stretches out with Celtic and progressive flavors in “Spend a Night, Not a Fortune,” hypnotic mystery in “Relax, You Will Think You Are A Chicken,” surf vs. spy drama in “Plastics for 500, Bob,” and terrific, jazz-like interplay in “Cheese in the Fridge.” The album also includes the group’s first (and hopefully only) melodic vocal, on the saccharine “The Singing Cowboy.”

Duane Eddy, Link Wray and other guitar giants echo throughout the album, and the crescendo of a live cover of Johnny Kidd’s “Shakin’ All Over” can be found as an unlisted bonus at the end of “Babywetsitself.” Yep Roc’s 2016 reissue features seven bonus tracks, including two (“Lick” and “Sugar in My Hog”) drawn from Fred Schneider’s 1996 solo album, Just Fred. The bonuses close with a six-minute medley of signature riffs from the B-52s, Nirvana, Deep Purple, Dee-Lite, T-Rex, Mott the Hoople, Kinks, Rolling Stones, Ramones, Bad Company, Alice Cooper, Cream, Thin Lizzy, Sly & The Family Stone, Gary Glitter, Sweet, Golden Earring and many others. The band dissolved three years later, and after several false starts, their catalog is finally back in print! [©2016 Hyperbolium]

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