Josh White’s 1956 folk-blues classic returns to vinyl in grand fashion
By the time Josh White began recording for Elektra in 1955, he’d reached heights that few other African-American entertainers had attained. He’d become a recording, concert and radio star, a civil rights activist and confident of FDR, and appeared in mainstream and avant garde films. But he’d also run afoul of both the left and the right by voluntarily testifying in front of the HUAC, ending up blacklisted (officially by the right, unofficially by the left) and unable to make a living in the US. But Jac Holzman bucked both sides of the political spectrum and offered White an opportunity to record for his fledgling Elektra label, releasing The Story of John Henry… A Musical Narrative as a double 10-inch album and 12-inch LP.
The following year saw the release of Josh at Midnight, an album that helped restore White’s career and boosted Elektra’s commercial fortunes. Recorded in mono with a single mic (a classic Telefunken U-47), the sound is spontaneous, lively and crisp. White is backed by bassist Al Hall and baritone vocalist Sam Gary as he works through material drawn largely from the public domain. Many of these songs were, or became, favorites of the folk revival, but even the most well-known are fresh in White’s hands. The material ranges from the sacred (“Jesus Gonna Make Up My Dyin’ Bed†“Joshua Fit the Battle of Jerichoâ€) to the profane (“St. James Infirmary†“Jelly Jelly!â€), with several humorous stops in between.
Like its companion singles collection, this album box is a labor of love from the Turtles’ founders, songwriters and vocalists Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman. The six CD set includes all six original Turtles albums, the first three in both mono and stereo, and a wealth of impressive bonus tracks. This is an essential partner to the singles collection, not just for the greater reach of its album sides, but for album-specific takes and mixes of songs that had separate lives as singles. Listeners will discover the Turtles as a band, thriving and growing together as their imagination and musical ability stretched beyond the familiar pop of their hits. The group’s albums reveal a treasure trove of original material, deftly selected songs from rising Los Angeles writers, and interesting experiments that flew beyond commercial concerns.
The group’s 1965 debut, It Ain’t Me Babe, is filled with the jangle of West Coast folk-rock, and includes three Dylan covers. The group’s hit singles often came from the pens of other writers, but their original material, such as the terrific “Wanderin’ Kind,†could be just as good. The album includes a Dave Clark-styled rave-up of Kenny Dino’s “Your Maw Said You Cried Last Night†and a prematurally anguished take on “It Was a Very Good Year.†The latter originally entered the folk scene with the Kingston Trio, but was turned into a Grammy-winning signature for Frank Sinatra just a month before the Turtles album dropped. A pair of P.F. Sloan tunes includes an early version of “Eve of Destruction†and the single “Let Me Be,†Mann & Weil offered up the memorable “Glitter and Gold,†and Kaylin’s hearty “Let the Cold Winds Blow†takes the Turtles into Folksmen territory.
The group’s second album, You Baby, expanded beyond chiming 12-string with a mix of garage rock and harmony pop, including P.F. Sloan and Steve Barri’s superb title tune. Kaylan was still writing wayfaring folk-rock like “House of Pain†(with a tortured protagonist living on “crumbs and sternoâ€), but ventures into dystopian social criticism with “Pall Bearing, Ball Bearing World.†Turtles Al Nichol, Chuck Portz and Jim Tucker join in the songwriting with “Flying High†and “I Need Someone,†Bob Lind’s “Down in Suburbia†highlights the group’s growing sense of humor, and Steve Duboff and Artie Kornfeld’s “Just a Room” is a real sleeper. The album closes with a superb vocal arrangement of the folk revival standard “All My Trials†(rewritten here as “All My Problemsâ€) and Kaylan’s Kinks-styled rave-up “Almost There.â€
Lineup changes saw the departure of Portz and Murray, and the arrival of John Barbata, ex-Leaves Jim Pons, and briefly, Chip Douglas. The resulting LP, 1967’s Happy Together, was the group’s biggest hit on the album chart, led by the chart-topping, group-defining title song and its follow-up “She’d Rather Be With Me,†both written by the team of Garry Bonner and Alan Gordon. Noteworthy album tracks in include the original “Think I’ll Run Away,†and sophisticated material from Eric Eisner and Warren Zevon. 1968’s concept album The Turtles Present the Battle of the Bands, reimagined the group playing soul, psych, pop, country, R&B, surf and even bluegrass. The album’s singles, the last of the Turtles’ Top 40s, include their first group-written hit, “Eleanor,†and a radically reworked cover of Roger McGuinn and Gene Clark’s “You Showed Me.â€
Battle of the Bands shows off the band’s imagination and talent in full flight. The soulful opener cues a revue-style album, as the group takes the stage in a variety of guises. Ironically, the song that most sounds like the Turtles, “Eleanor†was written as a lampoon of “Happy Together,†intended to get the band’s label off their backs. Without a mono version of the album to fill this disc, the original stereo album is augmented by bonus tracks, including a trio of singles (“She’s My Girl,†“Sound Asleep†and “The Story of Rock ‘n’ Rollâ€) that appeared on the 1970 anthology More Golden Hits, and their non-LP B-sides. Outtakes include alternate versions of “The Last Thing I Remember†and “Earth Anthem,†a pair of songs (including the superb “To See the Sunâ€) that didn’t make the album’s final cut, a 3-minute radio spot.
The group’s final original album, 1969’s Turtle Soup, was produced by the Kinks’ Ray Davies in his first and nearly his last producer’s credit outside the Kinks. Two group-written singles, “You Don’t Have to Walk in the Rain” and “Love in the City,†scraped into the Top 100, and despite its strong performance and message, “House on the Hill†missed entirely. The album remains the Turtles’ most satisfying and musically coherent long player, but with White Whale seeking only cookie-cutter pop that played to the group’s legacy of chart hits, positive reviews didn’t translate into sales. It remains a terrific album that deserves a much higher profile than its original release garnered. The original dozen tracks are supplemented here by a dozen bonuses, including demos, acoustic material from Kaylan and Volman, a period radio spot, and tracks completed for the aborted Shell Shock.
Shell Shock was to be the Turtles sixth and final album for White Whale, but with the group and the label both teetering on the edge of existence, the group’s last release was the 1970 odds and sods album Wooden Head. Reaching back to 1965-66, producer Bones Howe combined nine previously unreleased selections with the album track “Wanderin’ Kind†and B-side “We’ll Meet Again,†to create a surprisingly consistent album of golden age pop. The originals found the group developing their pop hooks alongside material from Peter & Gordon, Sloan & Barri, David Gates and a sprightly cover of Vera Lynn’s WWII classic “We’ll Meet Again.†The bonus material includes tracks drawn from Golden Hits and More Golden Hits, highlighted by balanced stereo remixes of “You Baby,†“Let Me Be†and “It Ain’t Me Babe.â€
From their first single, the group established a vocal sound unlike any other. Kaylan’s leads were sweet, but with an underlying toughness that was bolstered by Volman’s harmonies. The band’s instrumental backings were tight and fetchingly melodic, and though the albums didn’t chart well (only 1967’s Happy Together made the Top 40), they’re filled with terrific music that shows off the group’s imagination and ability to respond to changing times. The primitive stereo mixes of the first two albums split the voices left and instruments right, and though great to have in print, the mono mixes are more coherent. It wasn’t until 1967’s Happy Together that a full stereo mix was made, and the following year’s The Turtles Present the Battle of the Bands abandoned mono altogether.
Complete collection of singles – the hits and well beyond!
Although the Turtles had a parallel life as album artists, it was their singles that first reverberated in listeners’ ears. Starting with a 1965 cover of Dylan’s “It Ain’t Me Babe,†the group navigated folk-rock and harmony-laden pop to the top of the charts with 1967’s “Happy Together.†They scored nine Top 40 hits and five Top 10’s, all of which are included in this more-than-complete recitation of their singles. “More than,†because the full slate of commercial 45s is augmented by unissued singles, and sides released under nom de plumes. Tieing it all together is a 20-page booklet decorated with record label and picture sleeve reproductions, and stuffed with encylopedic (and microscopic) notes by Los Angeles music historian Andrew Sandoval.
The hits include titles written by Dylan, P.F. Sloan (“Let Me Be†and “You Babyâ€), Gary Bonner and Alan Gordon (“Happy Together,†“She’d Rather Be With Me,†“You Know What I Mean†and “She’s My Girlâ€) and Jim McGuinn and Gene Clark (a radically reimagined version of the Byrds’ “You Showed Meâ€). But they also wrote their own hits (notably 1968’s “Elenoreâ€), as well as a host of fantastic low-charting singles and B-sides that ranged from folk to sunshine pop to garage rock to psychedelic and progressive rock. The band’s reach wasn’t always evident on their hits, but their lower-charting singles and flipsides tip the even greater breadth of their albums.
That same inventiveness led the group to reimagine Kenny Dino’s “Your Maw Said You Cried†as a Dave Clark 5-styled rave-up, and Vera Lynn’s WWII-era “We’ll Meet Again†(a song that had been renewed in the mid-60s consciousness by Dr. Strangelove) as Lovin’ Spoonful-styled good-time music. They stretched themselves even further with original material “Rugs of Woods and Flowers,†“Sound Asleep,†and “Chicken Little Was Right.†The latter’s sitar arrangement differs greatly from the album track, making this single version unique. B-sides were often given to artistically rewarding material, such as Warren Zevon’s “Like the Seasons,†rather than throwaways (though there are the Red Krayola-styled freakout “Umbassa the Dragon†and Brian Wilsonish “Can’t You Hear the Cows.â€).
While some of their A-sides may have been ill conceived commercially as singles, others simply failed to gain the response they deserved. Sloan & Barri’s deliciously sweet “Can I Get to Know You Better†has all the hallmarks of a Turtles’ hit, yet struggled to only #89, Nilsson’s “The Story of Rock & Roll†was scooped by a same-week release from the Collage, and three Ray Davies-produced singles from Turtle Soup failed to cracked the Top 40. Ditto for the beautiful “Lady-O.†There are several B-side gems, including Warren Zevon’s “Outside Chance†and the original “Buzz Saw,†that managed to find their own form of popularity – the former as a favorite of the Beatniks, Sounds Like Us, Bangles and Chesterfield Kings, the latter as a much loved break-beat sample.
The set’s bonuses include two singles that never saw release. First is the original 1966 mono single of Goffin & King’s “So Goes Love,†and its Al Nichol-penned B-side “On a Summer Day.†Though the former was included on 1967’s Golden Hits, and the latter on 1970’s Wooden Head, the mono single mixes are previously unreleased. The second is an early version of the Ray Davies-produced “How You Love Me,†featuring Howard Kaylan on lead vocal. Additional rarities include a horn-free single mix of “Making Up My Mind,†the holiday single (as The Christmas Spirit) “Christmas is My Time of Year,†a cover of Lee Andrews and the Hearts’ “Teardrops†(released as the Dedications), its unreleased B-side cover of Jan & Arnie’s “Gas Money,†and the promo-only “Is It Any Wonder.†Also included are unlisted tracks at the end of each disc featuring period Turtles-sung commercials for Pepsi and Camaro.
Although Paul Chastain and drummer Ric Menck recorded a number of singles as Choo Choo Train, Bag-O-Shells and The Springfields, they first came to wider notice as Velvet Crush with 1991’s In the Presence of Greatness. Critics and fans latched on, but it wasn’t until they released 1994’s Teenage Symphonies to God, with U.S. distribution by Sony, that they made their biggest splash. Three years and a change of producers (Mitch Easter replacing Matthew Sweet) between the two albums left a gap bridged by a few singles and an EP. The post-album afterward yawned even wider as the band mostly parked themselves, recording with Stephen Duffy, and didn’t re-emerge as Velvet Crush until the release of 1998’s Heavy Changes.
Omnivore’s sixteen-track collection helps fill the gaps, offering up Teenage-era demos and live performances. The first eight tracks cherry-pick demos previously released on the out-of-print Melody Freaks. Included are early versions of six album tracks, plus the otherwise lost “Not Standing Down,†and a cover of Three Hour Tour’s “Turn Down.†For listeners whose neurons have been organized by repeated spins of Teenage Symphonies to God, the demos provide an opportunity for renewal. You know these songs, but then again, you don’t. The pieces are there – lyrics, melodies and guitars – but not the final polish; but what the demos give up in nuanced construction they redeem in initial discovery. It’s the difference between a candid snapshot and a posed portrait – they each say something about the subject, but they also say something about each other.
Mitch Ryder’s chart singles, with a splash of mono
As a recent documentary on the Grande Ballroom notes, 1960s Detroit was both a hard rocking city and the home of Motown, America’s most commercially successful purveyor of R&B. Few exemplified these dual influences better than Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels. Though deeply steeped in soul music, Ryder’s biggest hits – “Jenny Take a Ride!†“Devil With a Blue Dress On†and “Sock It to Me-Baby!†– had a propulsive energy akin to Britain’s take on America’s early rock. Varese’s 16-track collection brings together all seven of the Detroit Wheels’ charting singles and four of Mitch Ryder’s solo outings. All tracks are stereo except for 5, 6, 8 and 15; the mono single of “Sock it to Me Baby†is especially welcome for its unique vocal track.
Expanded re-reissue of the Zombies live on the BBC 1965-68
Varese’s 43-track, 2-CD set expands on their earlier double-LP with five previously unreleased tracks. This augments material that’s been reissued in numerous configurations, including Rhino’s landmark Live on the BBC, and Big Beat’s Zombie Heaven and Live at the BBC. This is now a one-stop shop for the biggest helping yet of the recordings the Zombies made for the BBC. Included are live versions of the group’s three early hits, “She’s Not There,†“Tell Her No†and “She’s Coming Home,†along with other much beloved originals, “Whenever You’re Ready,†“If It Don’t Work Out†and “Friends of Mine,†and a slew of covers. Notably missing is a full take of “Time of the Season†(though it’s heard as background to the last interview segment), as its success postdates these BBC sessions.
The origin of these recordings (and similar catalogs for other British Invasion bands) lays in limits placed on the BBC’s use of commercially released records. To supplement their programming, musical artists were recorded in the BBC’s own studios, the recordings pressed to transcription discs, and the discs circulated to affiliates for broadcast. With the BBC failing to archive these works, it’s transcriptions of found copies that form the core of this set, supplemented by off-air recordings of material for which transcriptions haven’t yet surfaced. The quality varies, and while none match the productions of the group’s formal releases, they’re all quite listenable. The live energy and deep reach of the cover selections are essential additions to the group’s small catalog of commercially released work.
What’s immediately noticeable is how unique the Zombies sounded, even among the British Invasion’s explosion of creativity. Colin Blunstone’s voice gave the group an easily recognized front, Rod Argent’s keyboards added distinctive flair, and the group’s melodic sense was like nothing else on the radio. The tracks include several cover songs the group never released commercially, and multiple versions of “Tell Her No,†“Just a Little Bit,†“Will You Love Me Tomorrow,†“You Must Believe Me†and “This Old Heart of Mine.†Variations from the commonly circulated commercial masters – such as an acoustic piano on the February 1965 version of “Tell Her No†– are especially interesting in how they influence the tone of the performances.
Overdue reissue of country-punk-rock ‘n’ roll shoulda-beens
Originally from Pittsburgh, this hyphenate country-punk-rock ‘n’ roll band regrouped and restaffed a few times before making their mark in the clubs of Los Angeles. This 1985 full-length debut was a college radio hit, and led to a high profile appearance in the film Pretty in Pink (but not, alas, on the soundtrack album), and a deal with Epic. Their major label debut, The Book of Your Regrets, failed to capitalize on the band’s momentum, and after an uptick with their third album, Chance, the band was dropped, and broke up a few month later. But not before providing TV’s David Silver the soundtrack for his contest-winning dance moves on the Spring Dance episode of Beverly Hills 90210.
The band’s Epic albums were previously reissued as a two-fer, but their debut EP and album for the Fun Stuff label have remained maddeningly out of print. Until now. The vault door has finally swung wide open, providing not only the album’s original ten tracks, but eleven bonuses that include live radio performances and material produced by Steve Berlin and Mark Linett for a scrapped second album. Over 78 minutes of vintage Rave Ups that sounds as vital today as it did thirty (30!) years ago. Stephen Barncard’s production has none of the big studio sounds that have prematurely aged so many mid-80s records, and the band’s timeless rock ‘n’ roll foundation was cannily woven with potent threads of country, punk and blues.
“Positively Lost Me†opens the album with a memorable rhythm guitar lick and the boastful kiss-off “you lost a lot when you lost me.†The bravado appears to crack as the forfeiture is inventoried in a pedestrian list of ephemera (“six paperback books and a dying treeâ€), but it’s a setup, as the real price is lost confidence and broken trust. Singer-songwriter Jimmer Podrasky was full of great lyrics and catchy vocal hooks, and the band stretched themselves to find deep pockets for his songs. There’s a punk rock edge to the square-dance call “Remember (Newman’s Lovesong)†and the Beach Boys pastiche “In My Gremlin,†and an improbable demo of “If I Had a Hammer†is cannily wed to a La Bamba beat.
Expanded reissue of 2002 follow-up to gospel-soul breakthrough
