Category Archives: Reissue

Ray Charles: Modern Sounds in Country and Western Volumes 1 & 2

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RayCharles_ModernSounds12The genius of soul re-imagines the Nashville songbook

Originally released on ABC-Paramount in 1962, Modern Sounds in Country and Western, was a revelation, both for fans of country music and for fans of Ray Charles. The former had never heard their favorites orchestrated with the depth of soul brought to the table by Ray Charles, and fans of the genius singer had never before heard him indulging his love of country songwriting so deeply. Nashville had adapted to brass and strings in an attempt to create crossover hits, but their charts and players never swung with the sort of big band finesse and bravado of these arrangements, and their vocalists rarely found the grooves mined by Charles. The second volume, issued the same year, follows the same template, with Nashville standards rearranged and conducted by Gerald Wilson and Marty Paich, and recording split between New York and Hollywood.

Having been a country music fan since his youth, Charles evidently didn’t hear any line that would separate him from the Nashville songbook. His recording supervisor, Sid Feller, was tasked with gathering songs, and ABC, thinking the whole ideas was a lark, left the pair alone to follow Charles’ muse. The album spun off four hit singles, including a chart-topping remake of Don Gibson’s “I Can’t Stop Loving You” and a heartbreaking cover of Cindy Walker’s “You Don’t Know Me” that fell just one rung shy of the top. Marty Paich’s strings brilliantly underline and shadow Charles’ vocals, adding atmosphere without ever intruding or overwhelming the singer or the song. Track after track, Charles, his arrangers and his band find wholly new ways through these songs, turning “Half as Much” into mid-tempo jazz, layering string flourishes into “Born to Lose,” laying the blues on “It Makes No Difference Now” and punching up “Bye Bye Love” and “Hey Good Lookin’” with big band sizzle.

Volume two may not have been as much of a surprise, but neither was it a second helping. Gerald Wilson’s soul vision of “You Are My Sunshine,” expertly rendered by Charles and a swinging horn section, leaves few traces of the song’s mid-20th century origin. Charles, spurred by backing vocals from the Raeletts, sounds like he’s reeling off a personal tale of devotion rather than singing someone else’s lyric. The Raeletts provide an edge to side one’s New York sessions, with the Jack Halloran Singers sitting in on side two’s Hollywood takes. Both album sides yielded hit singles, including a pained reading of “Take These Chains From My Heart,” and a slow, mournful take on “Your Cheating Heart.” As with the first volume, Charles finds a directness in country songwriting that matches the expression he developed with the blues.

Country music and Charles’ career each received a boost from these albums. Nashville expanded its audience outside its core region, Nashville songwriters found new ears for their songs, and Charles gained an influx of fans who might otherwise have never bought R&B records. These were all lasting marks, as Charles’ fame continued to expand, and country music gained new flavors for its crossover dreams. Concord’s reissue includes the two volumes’ original twenty-four tracks, full-panel cover art (front and back!), original liner notes for each, and new liners by Bill Dahl. Volume one previously appeared as a standalone CD in the 1980s, but the complete volume two only appeared on the (out-of-print) box set The Complete Country & Western Recordings 1959-1986. This single disc is the perfect way to get Charles’ 1962 country sessions in one sweet package. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

Creedence Clearwater Revival: The Concert

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CCR_TheConcertCreedence live on their home turf in 1970

After reissuing bonus-track laden CDs of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s first six albums, Fantasy’s new owner, the Concord Music Group, adds a straight (no bonus tracks) reissue of the group’s 1970 concert at the Oakland (California) Coliseum. While many bands’ live shows sound like their records, in Creedence’s case their studio albums had the muscle of their live shows. The difference may be lost on some, but it was never lost on the group’s audiences, who found themselves overwhelmed by the power of the rhythm battery and entranced by John Fogerty’s guitar playing.

With four albums under their belts and Cosmo’s Factory on the way (“Travellin’ Band” and “Who’ll Stop the Rain” are included here), the live set list was essentially a greatest hits package. The two non-Fogerty compositions are the blues “The Night Time is the Right Time,” and the traditional “Midnight Special.” The latter may as well have been a Fogerty tune, given how well it fits with his original tunes. By 1970 Creedence had moved away from the Fillmore-styled jams of their earlier days, with only the nine-minute “Keep on Chooglin’” getting a lengthy exploration.

Given their prowess as a band, it’s a shame they didn’t continue to stretch out more on stage, but with their audience accumulating listeners from radio, the two- and three-minute hits became the public part of their catalog. The short clips of chatter and song introductions show Fogerty to be an engaging front-man, backed by a powerhouse band and fueled by a killer song catalog. This isn’t a revelatory live album, such as the Allman Brothers’ At Fillmore East, but it is a true snapshot of the Great American Band at the height of their powers. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

Creedence Clearwater Revival: Covers the Classics

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CCR_CoversTheClassicsTwelve covers cherry-picked from Creedence’s albums

Early in their career as both a live band and a recording unit, Creedence was fond of covering material they loved. They rarely had hits this way, but they often managed to absorb even well known hits into the swampy Creedence universe. This new collection pulls together twelve covers that have been cherry-picked from Creedence’s studio albums. The only hits in the lot are single edits of Dale Hawkins’ “Suzie Q,” and the post-breakup release of Cosmos’ Factory’s “I Heard it Through the Grapevine.” Both singles forgo the lengthy psychedelic jamming that made them such essential album tracks. The rest of the collection is a good look at the group’s influences, but only a few of the covers beyond the two singles, notably “The Midnight Special,” and “Cotton Fields” truly benefit from the Creedence treatment. When mixed in with Fogerty’s originals, the original album’s cover songs provided linkage to his songwriting and performing influences, but drawn onto a separate disc, they don’t always add up to anything as profound as the group’s originals. With only 12-tracks and a 40-minute running time this collection is no substitute for any of the group’s first five original albums. If you want hits, you’re better off with Creedence’s greatest original hits rather than Creedence’s covers of other people’s greatest hits. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

Big Star: #1 Record / Radio City

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BigStar_NumberOneRadioCityTwo of the greatest pop albums ever recorded + two bonus tracks

So much has been written by the brilliant pop music of these two albums, that there’s little left to say about the music itself. Lauded by critics and ignored by pop music buyers, Big Star became the most influential rock band never to make it commercially. Their debut album, cheekily titled “#1 Record” (1972) and its follow-up, “Radio City” (1974), were reissued in 1978 as a gatefold two-fer that pricked the ears of pop fans and collectors who’d missed their original release. The group’s name would be bandied about by an ever-growing underground of in-the-know fans-cum-worshippers. The group’s unreleased-at-the-time third album (alternately titled Third and Sister Lovers) appeared briefly on vinyl on the PVC label shortly thereafter. The ‘80s passed before a CD reissue of the seminal first two albums appeared on Big Beat in 1990. This was followed by a domestic release on Fantasy in 1992, which was paralleled by a period live FM broadcast from 1974, Big Star Live, and a CD reissue of Sister Lovers.

The attention finally brought vocalist/songwriter Alex Chilton back to his Big Star catalog, and along with original drummer Jody Stephens and the Posies’ Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow, a reconstituted Big Star recorded a live album at Missouri University, Columbia. Additional reissues of the three studio albums followed, along with more archival live recordings and rehearsal tapes (Nobody Can Dance) and a studio album in 2005, In Space. The selling point of this latest reissue, aside from renewing media and retail interest in two of the greatest rock albums ever recorded, is a pair of bonus tracks. The first is the single version of “In the Street,” which is an entirely different take than the album track. This version was previously reissued on a grey-market vinyl EP in the 1980s, and appeared on Ace’s Thank You Friends: The Ardent Records Story. The second bonus is a single edit of “O My Soul” that shortens the original 5:35 to a radio-friendly 2:47.

The fold-out eight-panel booklet includes liner note from Brian Hogg penned in 1986 (as previously included in both Big Beat and Fantasy’s earlier CDs), and shorter liner notes by Rick Clark, penned for Fantasy’s previous domestic reissue. In fact, the booklet reproduces Fantasy’s 1992 insert almost exactly, with the original’s solicitation for a Fantasy catalog trimmed away and the two new tracks grafted onto the song listing in a font that doesn’t quite match. Those who’ve purchased one of the many previous reissues might see if download services offer the bonuses as individual tracks; if not, buy this for yourself and give your old copy to someone yet to discover Big Star. That should hold you until Rhino’s Big Star box set arrives in September. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

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Gary Lewis & The Playboys: The Complete Liberty Singles

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garylewis_completelibertysinglesEndearing legacy of overlooked mid-60s pop hit maker

Despite major commercial success in 1965 and 1966, including a chart-topping debut, five top-five and ten top-twenty singles, Gary Lewis’ music career was all but over two years after it began. His 1967 induction into the army left his label to release stockpiled tracks and record Lewis on occasional leaves; by the time of his discharge a phalanx of bubblegum bands had taken his place in the hearts and minds of young listeners. Though Lewis’ initial connections may have been eased by the fame of his actor/comedian father, Jerry Lewis, it was an inviting personality and a dream team of writers, arrangers and producers that made his vocals the center of an incredibly compelling string of singles.

The Playboys began public life in 1963 with a summer gig at Disneyland. Lewis initially played drums and rhythm guitarist Dave Walker handled lead vocals. But once in the studio with producer Snuff Garrett, Lewis found himself up front singing the group’s first single, “This Diamond Ring.” Co-written by Al Kooper, the song was originally released as a low-charting R&B single by Sammy Ambrose, but re-imagined by Garrett it became an unforgettable dollop of earnest pop, with Lewis’ vocal thickened by double-tracking and dramatized by Hal Blaine’s tympani. The double-tracked vocals would become a group trademark, with the second voice often provided by session singer Ron Hicklin.

Lewis, Garrett and arranger Leon Russell became a hit-making machine throughout 1965 and into 1966 as they reeled off “Count Me In” (written by post-Holly Cricket Glen D. Hardin), “Save Your Heart For Me” (originally a Brian Hyland B-side), “Everybody Loves a Clown,” “She’s Just My Style,” “Sure Gonna Miss Her” (with superb flaminco guitar by Tommy Tedesco), “Green Grass,” “My Heart’s a Symphony,” and “(You Don’t Have To) Paint Me a Picture.” All are superbly written, arranged and produced, turning Lewis’ limited vocal range into loveable approachability. Even today it’s impossible to resist Lewis’ immensely charming performances.

Lewis’ hit singles still turn up on oldies radio and compilations, and the single-disc Legendary Masters Series collects all ten of his charting A-sides; what sets this collection apart is the inclusion of rarities, B-sides, and later non-charting singles, many of which are as good as the A’s. Lewis’ jingle for Kellogg’s, “Doin’ the Flake,” is a Freddy Cannon-styled rocker that was originally available for box tops, and the title song from his dad’s 1966 film “Way Way Out” was issued only as a promotional single. The B-sides harbor some typical flipside fodder, including go-go instrumentals (“Hard to Find,” “Tijuana Wedding” and “Gary’s Groove”), novelties (“Time Stands Still,” on which the Lewis slips into an imitation of his dad’s wacky voice), and the celebrity-impersonation filled “Looking for the Stars.”

But the B’s weren’t always throwaways. Early flips, mostly penned by Garrett and Russell, include the terrific Jan & Dean styled “Little Miss Go-Go,” the Robbs-like harmony rocker “Without a Word of Warning,” and the moody organ-backed “I Won’t Make That Mistake Again.” Each has deftly crafted hooks that memorably complement lyrics of summer love and autumnal broken hearts. The songwriting team of Sloan & Barri served up their trademark folk-rock sound on “I Don’t Wanna Say Goodnight,” complete with chiming 12-string and a Brill Building styled chorus. The 12-string is even better on the Searchers-styled “I Can Read Between the Lines.”

As 1966 turned into 1967, Lewis’ material started to slip. An unreleased cover of “Sloop John B” is a pleasant sing-along, but without the magic of earlier hits. Still, there were some lower- and non-charting A’s and B’s that had something to offer, including light-psych harmony-pop (“Where Will Words Come From”), country-soul (“The Loser (With a Broken Heart)”), and California production pop styled production (“Girls in Love” and “Jill”). Lewis’ bubblegum sound reemerged on “Ice Melts in the Sun” and “Let’s Be More Than Friends,” turned to Monkees-styled pop on “Has She Got the Nicest Eyes” and Partridge Family harmonies on “Hayride.” A cover of Brian Hyland’s “Sealed With a Kiss” managed to hit #19, but additional covers ( “C.C. Rider,” “Every Day I Have to Cry Some,” “Rhythm of the Rain,” “Great Balls of Fire”) had both middling artistic and commercial success.

Lewis’ hitch in the army kept him from touring in support of his releases, and discord between his lawyer and label scuttled any real promotion. As quickly as he’d established himself with the chart run of 1965-66, he found top-notch releases in 1967 ignored by a fickle pop market. His last single, the self-produced, Box Tops-styled “I’m on the Right Road Now,” sports a snappy horn-arrangement and soulful backing vocals, but the quality only heightened the irony of the title’s failure. The market had moved on and so did Lewis, releasing a couple of solo singles (one on Scepter, one on Epic) in the mid-70s, continuing to tour and remaining a popular draw on the oldies circuit to this day.

Collectors’ Choice pulls together forty-five Liberty 45s, all remastered in sterling quality from the original mono tapes. Ed Osborne’s excellent liner notes are supplemented by release and chart info, and collector/producer Andrew Sandoval supplies numerous picture sleeve reproductions. This is a terrific package for anyone who craves lovingly produced, effervescent 1960s pop, and especially for those who’d like to hear how Lewis was presented to the public during the 45’s last gasp of uncontested dominance. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

Merle Haggard: Hag / Someday We’ll Look Back

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merlehaggard_hagStellar pair of 1971 albums continues Haggard’s incredible run

Merle Haggard proved himself a triple-threat country legend – a compelling live performer, a repeat hitmaker and one of the genre’s best album artists. When he started his run on Capitol with 1965’s Strangers and 1966’s Swinging Doors/TheBottle Let Me Down, he packed each with superb originals and beautifully interpreted covers. Even more impressive is that the quality never dipped as he released multiple albums per year throughout the 1960s and well into the 1970s. By the time he released this pair in 1971, Haggard was an international success (having been named the “Entertainer of the Year” in 1970 by both the ACM and CMA) and so deeply in the zone as to make these works seem completely effortless.

1971’s Hag followed tribute albums to Jimmie Rogers (Same Train, A Different Time) and Bob Wills (A Tribute to the Best Damn Fiddle Player in the World), and found Haggard returning to songwriting. He sustains the melancholy broken hearts of earlier albums in troubled romances, teary goodbyes and even a happy-go-lucky capitulation to bad luck. Though Haggard’s politics had been misinterpreted with “Okie Muskogee,” the social tolerance of “The Farmer’s Daughter” is plainspoken, and his call to a higher authority, “Jesus, Take a Hold” is clear in its assessment of the world’s ills. He holds true to himself with “I Can’t Be Myself” and closes the album with an inventory of some unusual experiential riches.

The album’s covers include Redd Stewart and Ernest Tubb’s “Soldier’s Last Letter,” as sadly poignant in the Vietnam era as it had been during World War II. Dave Kirby’s down-and-out “Sidewalks of Chicago” mirrors Haggard’s own hard-luck songs, as does the cast off alcoholic of Dean Holloway’s “No Reason to Quit.” This CD reissue adds three bonus tracks: a superb version of Hank Cochran’s outlaw declaration “I’ll Be a Hero (When I Strike),” a relaxed jazz-tinged cover of the blues “Trouble in Mind,” and a previously unreleased cover of the tin pan alley standard “I Ain’t Got Nobody” whose lively yodel, fiddle and swing beat recall Haggard’s love of Bob Wills.

The year’s second album, Someday We’ll Look Back, is more subdued, with several ballads lined by strings and pedal steel. There’s infidelity, relationships teetering on the edge and a tearful memory of better days, but there are also moments of optimism as Haggard dreams of a brighter future and considers dipping his toe back into the mainstream. There’s also some twangy Bakersfield-styled guitar licks and songs of the California fields. Dottie West’s “One Row at a Time” follows a Georgian’s migration to the coast, Haggard’s classic “Tulare Dust” sings of the hard labor at journey’s end, and Dallas Frazier’s “California Cottonfields” surveys the Golden State’s broken promise.

The gulf between hippies and straights is bridged once again on “Big Time Annie’s Square,” and the hopeless dreams of a convicted man provide grist for “Huntsville.” The bonuses include a cover of Bob Wills’ fiddle tune, “Spanish Two Step,” and Haggard’s multi-symptom “Worried, Unhappy, Lonesome and Sorry.” Haggard’s first dozen albums are remarkable in their consistency, and though this pair, much like the last few, consolidates rather than pushes forward, they remain among the best in his catalog.

Capitol’s series of two-fers include both original album covers (one on each side of the booklet), color photo reproductions, and newly struck liner notes. Though Haggard fans are likely to have a lot of this material on previous single-CD reissues or box sets, the logical album pairings and remastered 24-bit sound make these sets especially attractive. The only real nits one could pick is the absence of session credits, master numbering and chart positioning, as well as a lack of detail on some of the bonus tracks. These are minor issues for such a stellar series of five-star reissues. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

Various Artists: One Kiss Can Lead to Another: Girl Group Sounds, Lost & Found

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various_onekisscanleadtoanotherBroad anthology of girl group rarities

There’s little to fault in the research and production put into this set, but the breadth of collected works and the focus on rarities makes this the province of collectors rather than casual fans. Every track included here is likely the favorite of someone, but few have the global appeal of the era’s hits. The difference between a hit and miss may be razor thin (and at times circumstantial rather than artistic), but at 120 tracks, the back-to-back obscurities will really only hold the attention of aficionados who’ve internalized the genre’s flagships. Plaudits are due the set’s producer, Sheryl Farber, for pulling this set together, getting the clearances and documenting each of the tracks with notes (by Cha Cha Charming‘s Sheila Burgel), release data, label reproductions and photos. But it’s hard to imagine regularly listening to these discs beginning-to-end, or in place of hit-, label- and scene-based anthologies, group best-ofs or original albums. The mixture of Brill Building pop, Motown soul and British productions may be a fair representation (though where’s the non-English cohort?), but the combination is likely to leave less fanatical listeners pining for more of one and less of the others. The rarity factor is a great lure to collectors, and while casual listeners will discover a few new favorites, they’re likely to find the overall mass to be ponderous. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

Various Artists: Stax- The Soul of Hip Hop

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various_staxsoulhiphopThe soul behind the samples

The usual exercise one enjoys with hip-hop and other sample-based music is to work backward from the collage to its sources. Sample-crazy DJs such as Girl Talk’s Greg Gillis are often the subject of lengthy crowd-sourced lists that deconstruct the construction, and the releases themselves sometimes include an official list. Some samples, such as Clyde Stubblefield’s performance on “Funky Drummer,” have become so iconic in their abbreviated form that the sample all but eclipses the original source. Other samples continue to live as obscure, failed singles or album tracks only known to a few.

The fourteen songs gathered here, released by Stax primarily between 1971 and 1975, represent the record collection of hip-hop’s parents. These tracks provide figurative and literal ancestors in the form of beats, riffs and breaks handed down from one generation to the next. Heard in full, these productions offer both sonic context and musical ethos in their re-emergence from the shadows of deep album cuts. Only three of these tracks (Booker T. & the MG’s “Melting Pot,” The Dramatics’ “Get Up and Get Down,” and Rufus Thomas’ “Do the Funky Penguin (Part 1)”) became even moderate hit singles, the rest were rescued from closets and dusty record store backrooms by fans undeterred by artistic obscurity or the need to flip an LP to side two (or, really, play an LP in the first place).

A drum break or instrumental riff that can be effectively looped, stretched and otherwise repurposed doesn’t necessarily spring from an original track worth hearing in whole. But producer Jonathan Kaslow has repeatedly hit the trifecta of artistically meritorious tracks whose samples add catchy hooks to historically important hip-hop releases. The result is a highly listenable collection of old-school soul whose sampled moments will surprise you with their original context, and send you searching for their multiple reuses. For example, those who recognize the signature guitar sting of Cypress Hill’s “Real Estate” may be surprised to find it surrounded by deep bass, stabbing organ, crisp horns and funky drumming on the Bar-Kay’s original “Humpin’.”

Isaac Hayes’ “Hung Up On My Baby” is instantly recognizable as the backing for the Geto Boys’ “Mind Playing Tricks on Me,” but the original’s cinematic reach is constrained to a small looping sample behind the Geto Boys’ gritty lyrics. Similarly, the signature organ of Wendy Rene’s 1964 “After the Laughter (Comes Tears)” is easily picked out of the Wu Tang Clan’s “Tearz,” but in this case an original vocal sample reused in the chorus brings more of the original’s mood to the rapping remake.

In addition to the best known breaks, many of these tunes offered up second and third samples that led in different directions. Kaslow’s liner notes pay tribute to the original artists and tracks, and trace the multiple reincarnations of their works. All that’s missing is a companion disc of the sample reuses. No doubt (and with great irony) cross-licensing and royalty sharing likely made that financially insolvable. You can hunt down the reuses on services like imeem, but having the often obscure original sources in one place is the real treat. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Hung Up On My Baby Isaac Hayes
Stax Records Home Page
Stax Museum of American Soul Music

Country All Stars: Jazz From the Hills

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countryallstars_jazzfromthehillsAll star country string-jazz session

This CD reproduces the 1954 RCA ten-inch String Dustin’, featuring country legends Chet Atkins, Homer Haynes, Jethro Burns and Jerry Byrd, and adds sides from 1956 that augment the all star lineup with jazz guitarist George Barnes. In retrospect, it’s easy to think of Atkins picking jazz, but at the time it was still unusual for country artists to cross over. Those who know Homer & Jethro from their comedy records may be surprised by their top-notch guitar and mandolin playing. The material is a mix of pop and jazz, and the group (which included a changing line-up of session bassists, drummers and pianists, as well as fiddle player Dale Potter) gives most of these tunes a hillbilly twist. Haynes, Burns and Byrd each sing a few, but the real charm of these sessions is the high-spirited instrumental interplay. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

Various Artists: The Ikon Records Story

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various_ikonrecordsstoryTreasure trove of mid-60s Sacramento garage sides

This two-CD set catalogs 58 obscure garage-rock sides waxed at Sacramento’s Ikon Studio in the mid ’60s. Ikon was one of Sacramento’s top professional recording studios, and in addition to commercial work, they operated the custom Ikon label. Local groups, including many Battle-of-the-Band winners visited Ikon to imortalize themselves on a hundred copies of a 7″ single. The low production runs kept Ikon a secret from even many ardent garage rock collectors, and poorly mastered third-party vinyl (by Modern in Los Angeles) often failed to convey the high quality of the original recordings.

Compilation co-producer Alec Palao dug up a reel of original masters, and as the project rolled along, additional masters were recovered. The resulting snapshot of mid-60s young Sacramento is rendered in sound quality often better than the original singles. As a studio-for-hire, Ikon recorded all kinds of music, but Palao and co-producer Joey D keep a bead on garage rock (including snotty punk, folk rock, surf, frat stompers and organ rave-ups), some quite polished and some lovingly inept. This set is a gem, offering top-notch sound quality, good tunes, and plenty of spirited performances. Palao’s extensive band notes fill out a booklet thick with photos and reproductions of period ephemera. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]