Category Archives: Reissue

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark: Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark

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Domestic reissue of 1980 UK synthpop landmark

OMD is one of the transitional entities that bridged early electronic music pioneers like Kraftwerk, Brian Eno and Wendy Carlos, with the synthpop bands that populated the New Wave and dominated the early years of MTV. The band’s 1979 single, “Electricity,” pushed its synthetic instruments and machine rhythms up front, but warmed them with Andy McCluskey’s bass, a catchy electric pianotron riff and a duet vocal from McCluskey and Paul Humphries that celebrated the power source of their music. The flip, “Almost,” is an equal combination of synthetics and warmth, but the keyboards are less angular and more expansive, with a soaring lead line and steam-like backing for the lush, Bryan Ferry-esque vocal of longing and indecision.

For this first full-length album, issued in 1980, McCluskey and Humphries followed the same template, using their primitive electronic instruments to create pulsating and jabbing backings for vocals that borrow the strident tone of mod and punk. Their lyrics are often impressionistic sketches of emotions and concepts, including a soldier’s life (a theme they’d revisit to even greater effect on “Enola Gay”), the illusions of time, and fatalism. The new-wave “Red Frame/White Light” unspools a series of telephone box snapshots, and the album’s most conventional lyric in “Messages” finds the singer recoiling from the unwanted contact of a departed lover. The boozy near-instrumental “Dancing” sounds like a record caught off spindle, and the atmospheric “The Messerschmitt Twins” brings to mind the Human League’s first full-length, Reproduction.

Microwerks’ CD reissue is delivered in a tri-fold cardboard slipcase that reproduces the original LPs die-cut front cover and adds excellent liner notes by Jim Allen. The original ten tracks are augmented by four bonuses (though not the band-disliked Martin Hannett productions of “Electricity” and “Almost,” which were included on EMI’s 2003 import reissue). There is a longer single of “Messages” whose bassier, fuller mix greatly improves upon the album version, and three B-sides: the dark “I Betray My Friends,” an instrumental remix/dub of “Messages” titled “Taking Sides Again,” and a pop-staccato cover of Lou Reed’s “Waiting for the Man.” Though critics more highly laud the band’s follow-ups, Organisation and Architecture & Morality, this debut laid out the template and still sounds innovative today. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark’s Home Page

Clint Eastwood: Cowboy Favorites

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Clint Eastwood sings western songs on pleasant television tie-in

With so much incredible material in the Cameo-Parkway vault, most of which hasn’t seen  reissue in fifty years, one has to wonder why Collectors’ Choice decided to make this 1963 television tie-in one of the first C-P original album reissues. When originally issued, Eastwood had been starring in Rawhide since 1959, and though he’d become one of the most famous actors and directors of his generation, his singing career (which also included the 1969 film version of Paint Your Wagon and hit duets with Merle Haggard and T.G. Sheppard) remained mostly a sidelight. This album was the joint product of Eastwood’s background as a pianist and the early-60s penchant for cashing in on television popularity. Unlike the pop and rock records of Ricky Nelson, Shelley Fabares and others of the era, the 33-year-old Eastwood and his producers put together a set of western songs that played well to the actor’s voice. It was a good fit for the times, with Bonanza climbing to its mid-60s peak, and Marty Robbins’ “El Paso” and Gene Pitney’s “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence” having dented the pop charts. Eastwood proves himself a passable crooner (rather than simply a television actor stepping out), and the unnamed New York band (which seems unlikely to have been the hard-charging Philadelphia-based Cameo-Parkway house combo) is sharp but bland – even Eastwood’s jazz background can’t move the band to swing Bob Wills’ “San Antonio Rose.” Collectors’ Choice’s CD reissue includes the album’s original dozen tracks, with Eastwood backed by an all-male chorus, and both sides of his pre-LP single, “Rowdy” and “Cowboy Wedding Song.” [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Terry Knight and the Pack: Terry Knight and the Pack / Reflections

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Garage, pop, folk and blues-rock seeds of Grand Funk Railroad

Cameo Records, and its subsidiary Parkway label, were Philadelphia powerhouses from the mid-50s through the mid-60s. They scored with rockabilly, doo-wop and a string of vocal hits by Bobby Rydell. They had chart-topping success with Chubby Checker, alongside hits by other Philly acts that included the Dovells, Orlons and Dee Dee Sharp. By the mid-60s the labels were reaching further outside their neighborhood, releasing early singles by Michigan-based artists Bob Seger (including 1967’s “Heavy Music”), ? and the Mysterians (including the hit “96 Tears”), and a pair of albums on the Lucky 13 label by Terry Knight and the Pack. The latter group would subsequently seed Grand Funk Railroad (with Knight moved from the lead singer slot to management and production), turning the Pack’s albums into collector items.

Cameo-Parkway was shuttered in 1967 and the catalog sold to Allen Klein, who reissued very little of the vault material. The Cameo Parkway 1957-1967 box set and a series of artist Best Ofs broke the digial embargo in 2005, and six more releases this year (including original album two-fers by Chubby Checker, Bobby Rydell and the Orlons) further detail the labels’ riches. Terry Knight and the Pack’s self-titled debut was released in 1966 (reproduced here in mono) and highlighted by fuzz-guitar and organ that favored the garage-rock and neo-psych sounds of the time. They faithfully covered the Yardbirds’ “You’re a Better Man Than I,” turned Sonny Bono’s “Where Do You Go” into a dramatic P.F. Sloan-styled folk-rocker, and had a minor chart hit with Ben E. King’s “I (Who Have Nothing).”

Knight’s background as a DJ gave him an encyclopedic feel for sounds of the times, writing originals that borrow from Dylan (“Numbers”), electric jugbands (“What’s On Your Mind”), folk-rock (“Lovin’ Kind”), chamber pop (“That Shut-In”), blues rock (“Got Love”) and psych (“Sleep Talkin’” and the terrific, Love-styled “I’ve Been Told”). His vocals fair better on the bluesier garage numbers than the ballads (a cover of “Lady Jane” barely echoes the mood of the original), but his band, featuring Don Brewer on drums and Bobby Caldwell on organ (and later Mark Farner on guitar) is stellar throughout. 1967’s sophomore outing, Reflections (mastered here in stereo), sports a bit more muscle and a bit less garage whine. As on the debut, Knight fares better with the bluesier tunes, such as the original “Love, Love, Love, Love, Love,” a song recorded by the Music Explosion with the same backing track!

A cover of “One Monkey Don’t Stop the Show” shows Knight had neither the style of Joe Tex nor the speed rapping grooves of Peter Wolf, borrowing instead Eric Burdon’s approach from the Animals’ version without really adding anything new. His cover of Sloan and Barri’s “This Precious Time” similarly reuses the folk-rock template the Los Angeles songwriters had laid out for the Grass Roots. The album’s ballads are generally forgettable and the lite-psych breaks taken amid the country twang “Got to Find My Baby” no longer seem like such a good idea. Side two opens with the Brill Building styled yearning of “The Train,” but devolves into Dylan parody, faux psych and sing-song novelty.

The closing cover of “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” suggests the heaviness that Grand Funk would bring, but it can’t salvage the Pack’s second album. Both albums are distinguished more as rarities, this CD being their first ever reissue in the digital age, than as mid-60s essentials. The band is powerful and tight, making the most of Knight’s originals and giving him some solid riffs to work with on the up-tempo numbers, but in the end, Knight is not a particularly memorable stylist. Collectors’ Choice reproduces the original 24 tracks (72 minutes!), both front and back album covers, and new liner notes by Jeff Tamarkin. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Various Artists: Remember Me Baby- Cameo Parkway Vocal Groups Vol. 1

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Terrific vocal group tracks from the Cameo Parkway vaults

Cameo Records, and its subsidiary Parkway label, were Philadelphia powerhouses from the mid-50s through the mid-60s. Parkway is best remembered for unleashing Chubby Checker and the Twist dance craze, first in 1960 and again in 1962, making “The Twist” the only recording to gain the #1 spot on the Billboard chart twice! The labels hit with other memorable Philly-area artists in the early ‘60s, including the Dovells, Orlons, Bobby Rydell and Dee Dee Sharp, and it’s on these formerly out-of-print hits (finally reissued in box set, best-of, and original album form over the past five years) that Cameo-Parkway’s considerable reputation rests. But there’s more to the Cameo story, both before and after novelty dance hits brought the labels’ releases to worldwide acclaim.

Alongside four artist-centric two-fer reissues by Chubby Checker, Bobby Rydell, the Orlons, and Terry Knight and the Pack, Collectors’ Choice and ABKCO (the latter of whom  purchased the Cameo catalog in the late ‘60s) have put together this collection of doo-wop styled vocal group singles. There are some well known names here, including the Skyliners, Dovells, Tymes, Turbans, Rays, and Lee Andrews, but – winningly – the tracks collected here are generally obscure. Rather than including the groups’ hits (a few of which were waxed for or reissued nationally on Cameo, many of which were recorded before or after the groups’ time with Cameo), this anthology digs deeply into the vaults, unearthing little known gems that haven’t been available in legitimate issue for many decades.

By the time many of these singles were recorded, the sun was setting on doo-wop styled vocal groups. But you can bet American Graffitti’s John Milner would’ve dug these sides, and with good reason, as many of them match up in every way to the brilliance of doo-wop’s earlier years. Highlights include the calypso flavor, falsetto vocal reaches and energetic strings of the Turbans’ “When You Dance,” the Tymes’ superb, Drifters-styled “Did You Ever Get My Letter?,” and the impeccably soulful and inconsolable vocal of The Anglos’ “Raining Teardrops.” Inexplicably, the latter never made it past a test-pressing, making this track one of this set’s most exciting discoveries for all but the doo-wop fanatic.

Other highlights are Rick and the Masters’ hand-clapping “I Don’t Want Your Love,” the duet lead of the Gleems’ ballad “Sandra Baby,” the Buddy Holly vocal flourishes of The Impacs’ “Tears in My Heart,” and The Dovells’ mixture of “Shortin’ Bread” and “You Can’t Sit Down” on their 1963 side “Short on Bread.” Ed Osborne’s liner notes document the itinerant nature of these groups, showing how many alighted at Cameo for only one or two releases. Still, when they did stop in, they often had plenty of gas left in their tanks. All sides mono, with recording and production details for most listed in the liner notes. All that remains is to ask: where’s volume two? [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Bobby Rydell: Salutes the Great Ones / Rydell at the Copa

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A young pop crooner struts his stuff in 1960-61

Along with Fabian and Frankie Avalon, Bobby Rydell was one of the “Boys of Bandstand,” a trio of Philadelphia-based pop singers whose appearances on the original American Bandstand rocketed each to teen idoldom in the lull between Elvis and the Beatles. It’s no accident that the students in Grease attend Rydell High. Like Fabian and Avalon, Rydell was a pop singer whose hits crossed over to mingle with rock ‘n’ roll tunes on Billboard’s Top 100. His biggest hit, “Wild One,” feints towards the pop-rock with which Bobby Darin began his hit-making, and Rydell’s second big hit, “Volare,” was a finger-snapping nightclub gem in league with Darin’s “Mack the Knife. Rydell and Darin’s paths often crossed in the middle of the Great American Songbook, which both vocalists covered extensively.

This pair of albums from 1961 (Rydell’s third and fourth original releases) fully indulges the vocalist’s love of (and talent for) singing classic American songs. Among the material are Tin Pan Alley and Broadway chestnuts by Arlen & Mercer, George & Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, and Stephen Sondheim, and the jazz standards “Frenesi,” “So Rare” and “The Birth of the Blues.” Rydell also found a strong attraction to material made famous by Al Jolson, including “Mammy,” “April Showers” and “There’s a Rainbow ‘Round My Shoulder.” The arrangements swing nicely and Rydell is an enticing singer. He hasn’t the gravitas of the previous generation (Sinatra, Bennett, et al.), but the drama in his Broadway style give these songs some real verve.

In the summer of 1960, at the tender age of 19, Rydell launched a two-week stand at the Copacabana, a New York City it-club that had hosted the legends of nightclub entertainment. Greeted on the stage by a powerful horn chart, Rydell launched into a zesty take on “A Lot of Living to Do,” the swinging mambo of “Sway,” and a bouncy rendition of “That Old Black Magic.” He sounds confident and comfortable, and though every note isn’t pitch perfect, he more than makes up for it in joie de vivre. A fifteen-minute, thirteen-song medley fills the middle of the set, showing off Rydell’s range (both “Wild One” and “Volare” are worked into the mix) and his preternatural maturity as a showman.

The set’s hidden gem is “Don’t Be Afraid (To Fall in Love),” a ballad written by Cameo co-founder Kal Mann, and orchestrated with a terrifically moody horn chart by Joe Zito. Collectors’ Choice reproduces the original track lineups in stereo, reprints both front and back album covers, and adds liner notes by James Ritz with fresh remembrances from Bobby Rydell. It may strike some as odd to begin the reissue of Rydell’s catalog with his third and fourth albums, but as noted earlier, these songs cut deep into the heart of his artistic direction. For a tighter view of his popular chart hits, check out 2005’s Best Of, but for the seeds that would bloom into his long-term career as an entertainer, this is a great place to start. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Bobby Rydell’s Home Page

The Orlons: The Wah-Watusi / South Street

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Terrific early-60s Philadelphia vocal pop

The Orlons were a Philadelphia high school singing group who came to Cameo-Parkway Records on a recommendation from Len Barry of the Dovells. After a couple of flop singles they hit it big with the Kal Mann and Dave Appel’s dance tune, “The Wah-Watusi” in 1962. The single and debut album of the same name are highlighted by the terrific lead vocals of Rosetta Hightower, starting with the group’s excellent cover of “Dedicated to the One I Love.” Hightower doesn’t sing it with the power of the Shirelles’ Shirley Owen, but invests just as much heart and soul into the lyrics. Hightower also shines on the group’s cover of Dee Dee Sharp’s “Mashed Potato Time,” and its reprise, “Gravy (For My Mashed Potatoes),” each of which the group had backed on the original hits.

The group’s lone male vocalist, Stephen Caldwell, steps up front for “Tonight,” taking the group closer to doo-wop, as does Hightower’s pleading cover of the Chantels’ “The Plea” and the crooning “I’ll Be True.” Caldwell adds some wonderful bass singing behind the female duet cover of Johnnie and Joe’s “Over the Mountain, Across the Sea.” The backing harmonies are brought forward to introduce a heartbroken cover of the Chantels’ “He’s Gone,” and the Shirelles’ “I Met Him on a Sunday” is given a zesty, Latin twist by the drummer.  Like all of the Philadelphia-based Cameo-Parkway acts, the vocal group’s ace-in-the-hole was the house band, which provided incredible rhythm backing and fat-toned sax solos.

The group’s third long-player (their second All the Hits is still awaiting reissue), named for their third top-10 hit “South Street,” sounds more like a Coasters album, with honking sax and a slate full of novelties that includes the Rooftop Singers’ “Walk Right In,” John D. Loudermilk’s “Big Daddy,” Slim Gaillard’s “Cement Mixer” and the Coasters’ own “Charlie Brown.” Ironically, the latter is among the most soulful of the lot, with great harmonies and hypnotically rising piano figures. The album has a throwback feel amplified by covers of the band band-era “Between 18th and 19th on Chestnut Street” and Kid Ory’s jazz-age “Muskrat Ramble.” Stephen Caldwell is heard mostly in his low, growling “frog voice,” which feels tired by album end.

The group hits a gospel soul groove for Mann and Appell’s “Gather ‘Round” and introduces another dance with the R&B “Pokey Lou.” Those looking for an overview of the Orlons time at Cameo-Parkway are directed to the 2005 Best Of, which includes all eight of their charting singles (including their second Top 10 “Don’t Hang Up,” which is missing here) and a dozen more tracks. Fans who want to listen more deeply will truly enjoy this two-fer, particularly for the terrific material on the debut. Collectors’ Choice reproduces the original 24 tracks in radio-ready mono, both front and back album covers, and adds new liner notes by Gene Sculatti. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Chubby Checker: It’s Pony Time / Let’s Twist Again

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The King of the Twist does the pony and twists again on his 3rd and 4th albums

One might imagine that the passing of Allen B. Klein in 2009 has something to do with the emergence of six Cameo-Parkway CD reissues, including this one and titles from Bobby Rydell, The Orlons, Terry Knight and the Pack, a vocal groups compilation, and a novelty outing from Clint Eastwood’s years on Rawhide. The legendary Philadelphia labels operated from 1956 through 1967, hitting a peak during American Bandstand’s years as a Philly institution, and becoming the root of Klein’s ABKCO Records in 1967. Klein reissued vault material on vinyl in the 1970s, but was very slow to adapt to CDs. Bootlegs and re-recordings proliferated for decades before the embargo was broken with the 2005 box set Cameo Parkway 1957-1967, and a series of best-of discs for the labels’ biggest stars. Five years later ABKCO is really starting to dig into the vault with this volley of original full-length album reissues.

Oddly, rather than starting the reissue program with Checker’s (and the Parkway label’s) first two albums (1960’s Twist with Chubby Checker and 1961’s For Twisters Only), the series jump-starts with the twister’s third and fourth albums. Checker ignited a worldwide dance craze with his chart-topping cover of Hank Ballard’s “The Twist,” and hit the Top 20 again with a cover of the 1940’s dance number, “The Hucklebuck.” With his third album, he once again topped the charts with a novelty dance number, “Pony Time.” The album also yielded the lower-charting “Dance This Mess Around.” Later that year, he dropped his third of four albums for 1961, and with it scored a Top 10 (and a Grammy award) with “Let’s Twist Again.” He’d continue to ride novelty dance songs onto the charts into the mid-60s, including a return trip to #1 with his original recording of “The Twist.”

Checker’s albums were literally filled with dance tunes, old and new, here including “The Watusi,” “The Hully Gully” (sung to the tune of “Peanut Butter,” which Checker covered on Let’s Twist Again) “The Stroll,” “The Mashed Potatoes” (which preceded his labelmate Dee Dee Sharp’s hit “Mashed Potato Time” by a year), “The Shimmy” (which would be recycled in 1962 as a hit duet with Sharp as “Slow Twistin’”), “The Jet,” “The Continental Walk,” “The Charleston” and “The Ray Charles-Ton.” Throw in a couple of R&B covers, like “I Almost Lost My Baby” and “Quarter to Three” and you have a standard-issue Chubby Checker album. Despite the many variations on a few themes, Checker throws himself into each song as if it’s brand new, and the Cameo-Parkway house band swings hard on everything it plays.

As James Ritz’s liner notes point out, these are great, non-stop party albums, driven in large part by the fat sax tone of Buddy Savitt, and a swinging rhythm section (Joe Macho on bass and either Bobby Gregg or Joe Sher on drums) that even manages to sneak in a second-line rhythm for house arranger Dave Appell’s take on Lerner and Loewe’s “I Could Have Danced All Night.” Collectors’ Choice’s two-fer reissue includes the twenty-four tracks of the original albums and full-panel reproductions of both albums’ front and back covers. It’s a shame that detailed session credits at the time didn’t log who played on each track, as the house players were every bit the equal of their more name-familiar counterparts in the Wrecking Crew,  Motown and Stax house bands. Audio is radio-ready mono throughout, just the way these albums were originally issued. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Chubby Checker’s Home Page

Roland White: I Wasn’t Born to Rock ‘n’ Roll

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Long-lost string-band music from 1976

By the time mandolinist and vocalist Roland White cut this album in 1976, he was a well-seasoned bluegrass performer. His family band, the Country Boys had morphed into the Kentucky Colonels, released several albums and toured the U.S. When the Colonels broke up in 1965, White’s brother Clarence became a sought-after session guitarist, a member of Nashville West and, in 1968, a member of the Byrds. During the same period Roland joined Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys, and later, Lester Flatt’s Nashville Grass. The brothers had a short-lived reunion in a reformed Kentucky Colonels, but when a drunk driver struck and killed Clarence, Roland was once again on his own. White joined Country Gazette in 1974, staying for 13 years and recording this album with their instrumental and vocal backing. The progressive elements the band brought to their group albums are left behind as these songs are drawn from classics by Flatt & Scruggs, Jimmie Davis, and Bill Monroe, highlighted by the seven-minute, six-song medley, “Marathon.” White proves himself a compelling vocalist, adding bluesy slides to his solo phrases and fitting tightly into the backing harmonies. The set’s lone original is the White brothers’ “Powder Creek,” joining two other instrumentals on the original album. This first-ever CD reissue, with one bonus track (“She is Her Own Special Baby”), is remastered from the original tapes, and sparkles with the energy the players brought from the stage into the studio. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Roland White’s Home Page
See Roland, Eric and Clarence White’s childhood home movies

Dixie Chicks: Playlist – The Very Best of the Dixie Chicks

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Short overview of game-changing country trio’s career

Whether or not Natalie Maines’ opinions give you heartburn, there’s no denying her arrival in the Dixie Chicks launched the group to unparalleled commercial and artistic success. With her lead vocals and her bandmates’ harmonies and instrumental chops, the group cut a new template for commercial country radio, finding favor with both the mainstream and traditionalist crowds. All was peaches and cream until Maines’ outspoken criticism of the Bush administration placed them at odds with the Nashville establishment and many of the band’s fans. But in the face of a country radio backlash, the group stuck to their guns, found favor with the pop buying public, and netted their fourth consecutive country album Grammy – and their first Album of the Year – with the unapologetic Taking the Long Way.

This twelve song collection includes tracks from the four studio albums recorded with Maines’ as lead vocalist, and skips over the group’s three earlier releases. It follows the form of earlier Playlist releases by combining a selection of hits with album tracks that the artist has selected as representative of their career. That means most of the Dixie Chicks’ sixteen Top 10 hits are omitted in favor of album tracks (all twelve tracks have been previously issued and are readily available on the group’s regular releases), including the concert favorite “Sin Wagon” and a poignant cover of Patty Griffin’s “Let Him Fly.” The chronological set plays quite well, giving listeners a good helping of the Chicks’ vocal and instrumental talents, and shows how they straddled the line between rootsy twang and polished radio country with their cannily selected cover of Fleetwood Mac’s “Landslide.” The Dixie Chicks deftly bridged their country home base with their pop influences, magnifying, rather than losing, the potency of each.

These songs say as much about the group members’ lives as their careers, following the turbulence of divorces and marriages, professional daring, and settled family lives. The disc is delivered in an all-cardboard folder, with a digital booklet that includes six highly-styled photographs, liner notes, production/writing/chart credits, an interactive album discography (that conveniently links to Sony BMG’s online store), and a pair of desktop wallpapers. What’s here is compelling, but what’s missing is essential to really telling the group’s story; a recitation of the group’s hits can be put together from digital download services, but at a cost that’s likely to keep many waiting for a more definitive greatest hits collection or career anthology. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Dixie Chicks’ Home Page
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Reno & Smiley: Bluegrass 1963

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Archival CD release from Reno & Smiley’s early-60s television show

These eighteen live performances are drawn from Reno & Smiley’s program, Top o’ the Morning, which aired daily on Roanoke, Virginia’s WDBJ-TV. Recorded in 1963, only a year before Red Smiley’s initial retirement, the titles highlight many of the duo’s classics (including a terrific version of “I Wouldn’t Change You If I could”), well-selected standards (including a fiercely picked rendition of “Panhandle Country”), and guest spots by Ralph and Carter Stanley. The former joins Don Reno for a banjo duet on “Home Sweet Home,” and all four stars sing and play together on “Over in the Gloryland.” Reno & Smiley are backed throughout by their long-time accompanists, the Tennessee Cut-Ups, and though the mono recordings are missing some high-end on the first eight tracks and a few at disc’s end, the quality and joy of the singing and playing (especially Don Reno’s banjo picking and Mac Magaha’s fiddling) make these well worth hearing. The introductory chatter is edited to a minimum, so this set is primarily music; it would be interesting to hear a full program, if producer Ronnie Reno has any among his archives. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]