Instrumental versions of Buck Owens’ and Merle Haggard’s hits
Ominvore’s two-fer combines two instrumental albums that bookmarked the Buckaroos’ solo recording career. The Buck Owens Songbook was originally issued in 1965, and features a dozen twangy Bakersfield-sound instrumental covers of songs written by (or in the case of “Act Naturally,” closely associated with) Buck Owens. This classic lineup of the Buckaroos included Don Rich, Tom Brumley, Willie Cantu, Doyle Holly (playing guitar instead of bass) and Bob Morris (playing bass), and their guitar-led arrangements are tight and clean. But without Owens out front pulling them along, the playing remains a bit sedate, perhaps – as the original liner notes and included lyrics sheet suggest – for singing along. It’s a nice curio, but no substitute for either the original hits or some of the Buckaroos more adventurous instrumentals.
Killer soul from should-be-legendary Florida studio and label
Stax, American Sound, FAME, Hi and Muscle Shoals Sound are all rightly famous studios, as are the artists who recorded there and the records they produced. But Valparaiso, Florida’s Playground Recording Studio and its associated Minaret label should be just as famous. From 1967 through the mid-70s, producer Finley Duncan waxed a series of soul singles that are as good as they are rare and highly prized by collectors. Incredibly, much like Leiber & Stoller’s Daisy/Tiger labels, Minaret’s soul sides failed to make even a faint mark on the charts. But the lack of commercial impact wasn’t due to a lack of goods: Minaret had records that were the equal of Stax, Atlantic or Hi, including B-sides that were as good (or in some cases even better) than their plug sides. How these records have remained unknown to all but the most dedicated crate-diggers is a mystery.
Minaret’s artists won’t roll off the average listener’s tongue, but even a cursory spin of these archival treasures will alert your ears to something big that was missed the first time around. Otis Redding, meet Big John Hamilton; Wilson Pickett, say hello to Genie Brooks; and if you’re one of the arranger-songwriters who brought life to Stax, you should probably get to know club member R.J. Benninghoff. Minaret’s house band was even more obscure than the studio’s performers (if that’s really possible), but – amazingly – the musical equal of the bands found at FAME and Stax. Bill Dahl’s detailed liner notes provides some detail on the players and their backgrounds, but it’s so completely revelatory as to almost feel like a hoax; as if someone wrote fictional histories for a make believe Pebbles volume of soul.
Rare and previously unissued tracks from the Paisley Underground
The Three O’Clock was a pillar of a rich mid-80s scene (“The Paisley Underground”) that included the Rain Parade, Dream Syndicate, Bangs, Green on Red, Long Ryders and others. Having started out as the Salvation Army, the renamed and expanded lineup of the Three O’Clock lowered their punk-rock buzz and heightened their flower-power pop chime for an EP (Baroque Hoedown) and LP (Sixteen Tambourines) produced by Earle Mankey for the Frontier label. Their first LP for I.R.S., Arrive Without Travelling edged away from the more overt psychedlia, and garnered MTV spins with the up-tempo “Her Head’s Revolving.” A second album (Ever After) and one for Prince’s Paisley Park (Vermillion) continued to polish the group’s sound, and, ironically, sound more dated than these more retro early works.
In celebration of the band’s recent reunion (which included shows at Coachella, an appearance on Conan and a short tour), the group’s drummer, Danny Benair, has put together this collection of odds and sods. The track list spans the band’s early years, from their inception as The Salvation Army, through their two albums on Frontier and their first release  for I.R.S. Although there are a few original EP and album sides, the track list focuses mostly on alternate versions, demos, lost session tracks, fan club singles and compilation appearances. Even if you’ve collected the previously released material (including the Radio Tokyo appearance of “All in Good Time,” the fan club original “In Love in Too,” covers of “Lucifer Sam” and “Feel a Whole Lot Better,” and a beautiful Michael Quercio arrangement of the Latin hymn “Regina Cæli”), the alternates give insight as to how material developed into its final form, and the demos and session tracks broaden the picture of the band’s progress.
A prime example of how tracks grew in the studio is an early mix of “When Lightening Starts” that’s still in need of the final version’s horns and higher-energy organ riffs. Similarly, the alternate take of “A Day in Erotica” has a harsher feel, with a harder guitar and without the vocal overlay that softens the song’s mood. In contrast, the raw version of “In My Own Time” sounds tougher without the brass added to the final mix, and stands interestingly on its own. Other changes show the band fixing problems and stretching their imaginations. The original version of “On My Own” features strings that were deemed off-pitch and replaced by keyboards, and a finished alternate take of “I Go Wild” reels in the signature bass line and uses guitar solos in place of keyboards.
Motherlode of previously unreleased Big Star mixes
The slow catching flame of Big Star’s belated renown has recently been stoked by a feature-length documentary, and now by this Record Store Day double-LP of period demos and alternate mixes, and a few remixes made for the film. Depending on your viewpoint, the new mixes may be revelatory and revisionist, or both. The period material, however, will be welcomed by all of the band’s fans. For those who’ve been wearing out copies of #1 Record, Radio City and Third since their original appearances on vinyl, even the slightest variations in these tracks will prick your ear with something new. The quality of the original recordings and the condition of the tapes remains impressive, and the opportunity to hear these variations on much loved themes (decorated in a few spots with studio chatter) is a rare opportunity. What appeared to the public as highly polished diamonds turned out to be – perhaps unsurprisingly if you ever stopped to think about it – the results of a lot of intention and hard work. The seeds of the final tracks are here, even in the demo of “O My Soul,” but not in the balance that’s been etched into fans’ ears.
Extraordinary solo demos for Gene Clark’s White Light
Having passed through the New Christy Minstrels, founded and left the Byrds and dissolved a fruitful partnership with Doug Dillard, Gene Clark escaped the burdens of Los Angeles and relocated to a quiet spot on the Northern California coast. Although he owed A&M a pair of albums, Clark was given time to write new song under relatively little pressure. The label’s co-owner, Jerry Moss, eventually persuaded Clark to return to Los Angeles and record, first these demos, and subsequently his second solo album, White Light. The latter, produced by Jesse Ed Davis (who also produced these demos), remains one of the high-points of Clark’s career, but these guitar-harmonica-and-voice demos, released here for the first time, are equally fulfilling.
However direct listeners found White Light, these spare demos are even more so. Stripped to their essence, Clark’s songs explode with creativity, and recorded live in the studio, Clark plays the songs more as expressive notes to himself than as performances for posterity. There’s a delicacy in his vocals and a pensiveness in his approach that would be overwhelmed by a band, and he displays an eagerness to sing these new songs that could only have been captured once. Half of these titles reappeared on the original version of White Light, and two more appeared on the album’s 2002 CD reissue. “Here Tonight” was recorded in alternate form by the Flying Burrito Brothers, and three titles, “For No One,” “Please Mr. Freud” and “Jimmy Christ” were simply left in the vault.
Clark’s performances return to his earliest folk roots, with a heavy Dylan influence apparent in several of the songs. The tempos are often slower and the presentations more gentle than the later band recordings, suggesting that Clark may have gained confidence in performing these works by the time he waxed the album. But from the start, he shows deep confidence in the songs themselves – perhaps even more evident in such a stripped down form, where the words have nowhere to hide. As fine as was the band assembled for White Light, Clark sounds perfectly comfortable exposed as a solo troubadour sharing his wares. The poetic verses of the album’s title track flow more easily as Clark responds only to his own guitar, and the simplicity of “Where My Love Lies Asleep” adds a starkly personal touch.
By the time that George Jones left Mercury and signed with United Artists in 1962 for his chart-topping “She Thinks I Still Care,†he’d been steadily minting hits since his 1955 debut, “Why Baby Why.†His two-and-a-half year run on UA produced sixteen singles, which the label managed to stretch over nearly five years of releases. All thirty-two sides – sixteen A’s and their flips – are included here in their original mono. Jones continued to be a steady hit maker (sometimes charting both sides of a single), but he also had his share of misses and obscure B-sides. This set includes favorites like “You Comb Her Hair†and “The Race is On,†but with so many singles over so many years, it’s easy to have lost track of superb A-sides like the rockabilly-tinged “Beacon in the Night,†the murder-suicide “Open Pit Mine,†the up-tempo “Your Heart Turned Left (And I Was on the Right)†and the fiddle-and-twang shuffle “What’s Money.â€
Haggard’s original 1960s Capitol singles – A’s and B’s
As with their collections of singles on Wanda Jackson and George Jones, Ominvore’s anthology of twenty-eight Merle Haggard sides – fourteen A’s and their respective B’s – shows off a perspective not covered by greatest hits collections or original album reissues. In addition to Haggard’s thirteen charting 1960s Capitol A-sides (eight of which topped the charts), the set includes the non-charting “Shade Tree Fix-it-Man.†Haggard wrote all but one of the A-sides (“The Fugitive,†penned by Liz Anderson), and most of the flips, but his first Capitol single was backed by a lush-stringed arrangement of Ralph Mooney’s “Falling for You,†and he later covered Anderson’s sorrowful “This Town’s Not Big Enough.â€
Haggard’s B-sides are far from the filler many producers used to force DJ’s onto the plug side; the productions were carefully crafted, and the instrumental backings are often highlighted by Ralph Mooney’s piercing steel and Roy Nichols’ sharply picked electric and resophonic guitars. It’s hard to imagine how DJs kept themselves from flipping “The Legend of Bonnie and Clyde†to play the equally attractive “I Started Loving You Again.†There are a few lighter sides, like “The Girl Turned Ripe,†but the lyrics are most often of afflicted love – relationships bound to end, ending, or receding too slowly in the rear view mirror. Haggard’s jazzier inclinations come out on Hank Cochran’s “Loneliness is Eating Me Alive†and the original “Good Times,†and his love of Jimmie Rodgers is heard in a cover of “California Blues.â€
Recent collections of singles from Roy Orbison, Carl Perkins, Ray Charles and others have shed new light on much-loved performers. In addition to well-known hits, these anthologies highlight the valiant misses and B-sides that faded from an artist’s repertoire as their catalog was reduced to greatest hits collections. Wanda Jackson’s rockabilly and country recordings have been well-served in reissue, with both original albums and anthologies in print, but Omnivore’s 29-track collection provides an expanded view of her career as a singles artist. In addition to her well-loved A-sides “Hot Dog! That Made Him Made,†“Cool Love,†“Fujiyama Mama,†“Honey Bop,†“Mean Mean Man,†“Rock Your Baby,†“Let’s Have a Party,†“Riot in Cell Block Number Nine,†“Right or Wrong,†and “In the Middle of a Heartache,†the set is stocked with ace chart-misses and B-sides.
As early as 1956 Jackson was backing up her incendiary rockabilly singles with country flips that included “Half a Good a Girl†and the maiden recording of Jack Rhodes and Dick Reynolds’ “Silver Threads and Golden Needles.†She added a rockabilly croon to the Cadillacs’ bluesy doo-wop B-side “Let Me Explain†and shined brightly on Boudleaux Bryant’s calypso novelty “Don’a Wan’a.†Her ballads were often backed by Jordanaires-styled male harmonies and hard-twanging guitars (courtesy of A-list players Joe Maphis and Buck Owens) that keep her rock ‘n’ roll roots simmering. Even more straightforward country weepers like “No Wedding Bells for Joe†and “Sinful Heart†have downbeats that are more insistent than their Nashville contemporaries.
Jackson’s original “Little Charm Bracelet†didn’t make the charts, but it’s a cleverly written story of a relationship’s hopeful start and interrupted ending. Fans may be surprised to find that the favorite “Funnel of Love†was actually a B-side (to the country hit “Right or Wrongâ€), as the release signaled the beginnings of Jackson’s transition to the country charts. Still, even as the A-sides turned country, the B-sides held onto their sass with originals “I’d Be Ashamed†and “You Bug Me Bad,†and a bouncy version of Bobby Bare’s “Sympathy.†The productions are split between Los Angeles (tracks 1-17) and Nashville (tracks 18-29), and while the latter show countrypolitan touches, several of Jackson’s hottest rock ‘n’ roll records were recorded with Roy Clark and other Music City luminaries.
After dozens of original album reissues, an omnibus box set series [123], pre-Bakersfield and post-Capitol material, tributes [123], and a two collections of duets with Susan Raye, one might wonder what was left in the vault. Omnivore answers that question this month with two new releases, including a previously unreleased album by Owens’ right-hand man, Don Rich, and this volume of cover songs originally recorded for the syndicated run of television’s Hee Haw. Those who enjoyed Owens’ weekly performances at his Bakersfield club might remember how enthusiastically he played requests for country classics, and how easily they mixed with his original hits. The same was true for his television performances, where the covers gave older audiences a comforting connection to country music’s past.
The eighteen tracks collected here were originally produced by Owens between 1972 and 1975 in his Bakersfield studio for exclusive use on the television show. In the recording studio, Owens would lay down a guide vocal that was dropped for the television soundtrack; Owens sang live on the Hee Haw set as the band mimed the backing track. But ever the perfectionist, Owens invested in the guide vocals, giving performances that demonstrate his deep affection for these songs. The Buckaroos, led by Don Rich on all but one recording from 1975, were as sharp as ever, and though the backing tracks were reduced to mono for Hee Haw, this CD is mixed in full-fidelity stereo from the original multi-track studio masters.
Instrumental versions of Buck Owens’ and Merle Haggard’s hits
