What Album Have You Just Bought?

[firehazard]

Otava Yo: Once Upon A Time

Punky Russian folk. Much fun.

[Low D]

A couple Jerry Jeff Walker LPs – Walker's Collectibles (1974) and Ridin' High (1975), both of which feature The Lost Gonzo Band (who are also on his classic ¡Viva Terlingua!). These are the musicians (Gary P Nunn, Bob Livingston, John Inmon, and others) who basically invented that Texas / outlaw country style, and wrote a few of the songs Jerry & others recorded as well.

Next up looking for Michael Martin Murphey's Geronimo's Cadillac and Cosmic Cowboy Souvenir, Jerry Jeff's It's A Good Night For Singin', which all feature the same band, and The Lost Gonzo Band's self-titled 1975 album.

Very few of these albums seem to have been reissued on CD, which seems like a serious oversite.

[Low D]

The Radiators From Space ‎– Live At The Southend Kursaal 1977 (Rejected Records, 2005)

A recording from their last night opening for Thin Lizzy, released on multi-coloured vinyl (mine an ugly marbled brown). The performance is explosive and fast, but the band is tight - they were a well-oiled machine at this point. And, as all the banter about Phil Lynott pranking them with smoke implies, they're having a lot of fun as well. Sounds like maybe a soundboard mix, with the vocals way upfront. Better than a bootleg but not as good as a properly recorded multi-track, but with so little live record available we'll take what we can get.

[Villajohn]

30.Kate Rusby.

[Low D]

The Skatalites - Rolling Steady: The 1983 Music Mountain Sessions (released 2007).

Those who like Return of the Big Guns will find a lot to like here - there's a similar pacing, their classic sound is here but with better fidelity, tunes are expanded with solos but the focus is still on their distinctive group playing. This recording features the original lineup of the band, with the exception of deceased Trombonist & composer extraordinaire Don Drummond, although the band pays sweet tribute to him with the song 'Big Trombone", featuring typically playful vocals from Lord Tanamo.

---

The story behind Rolling Steady

In 1983 the original Skatalites (minus trombonist Don Drummond) re-formed to appear at Jamaica’s Sunsplash Festival where they supported Peter Tosh. While they were in JA preparing for the show, they recorded eleven tracks at the newly opened Music Mountain studio prompted by Jackie MIttoo and under the guidance of producer/promoter Tony Owens. This was almost the last time the Skatalites recorded in the country of their birth.

It's not entirely clear what happened at those sessions, but it seems that after five days of recording the band members fell out. By then nine tracks had been more-or-less completed, and on the remaining two no horn parts were recorded. At that point Jackie Mittoo apparently absconded with the 24-track master tapes.

Many years later the tapes were somehow rediscovered courtesy of Tony Owens and some mixes were produced, but by then the original analogue masters were beginning to break down through ageing, and one song (Rolling Steady) had to be abandoned. The remainder were mixed down, but the steady clogging of the tape machine heads from the decaying tape is clearly audible on most of the mixes, which start off sounding fine and progressively become more and more 'wooly'. Several mixes were faded early in an attempt to hide the problem.

After those mixing sessions somebody must have realised that time was running out, and that unless something was done these unique recordings would be lost for ever, so an attempt was made to copy everything onto Alesis ADAT. Unfortunately the transfers all suffer from the progressive decay in quality noted above, only in many cases it's become more severe. These ADAT copies of the original analogue tapes are all that Motion Records had to work with, and before the advent of digital audio restoration most of the recordings would probably have been written off, as their condition was so poor.

However a long period of painstaking restoration work at Motion Studios brings us to the point where all nine of the completed originals are fit to be released. All of them run to their full recorded length, and there's very little to betray how close they came to being lost for ever.

Not surprisingly there's been a great deal of interest in this album since we initially announced it in July 2006. At that point we couldn't possibly have anticipated how difficult it was going to be to bring it to a releasable condition. Hopefully the paragraphs above now explain the long delay, but also bring the news of a truly excellent outcome.

[Low D]

The Clash - Combat Rock + The People's Hall

An expanded 40th Anniversary Special Edition. Of course I'm always happy to have new material, but it's really pissing me off that all my favourite albums are celebrating their 25th, 40th, and 50th birthdays, damnit.

When i was a young punk ass, this was the last Clash album i got, as "Should I Stay..." and "Rock the Casbah" made me think it was just a pop album. When i finally picked up a used vinyl copy one day it quickly became just as favourite as all the others. Watching their evolution, their stylistic restlessness, evolve album after album was the greatest thing about this great band. What a shame they split, who knows where they would have gone next?

[Low D]

On the surface, this may seem like more of a Mavis album than a Levon album - excepting a verse on The Weight, he only sings some harmony and is one of two drummers in the ensemble. In truth this was an epic coming together of Mavis Staples and her amazing backing band, including her now late sister, Yvonne, and the incredible Levon Helm Band into a mega soul gospel folk roots rock orchestra performing a set about half made up of Levon Helm Band staples*. There is so much talent in this band, including a glorious combined choir of harmony singers, yet still space for every individual to shine - a fiddle line on one song and a tuba solo on another, for example, stand out among the 18 or so musicians and singers on stage.

There is a lot to love here for any fan of either artist. Politics, joy and optimism (recorded 2 yrs into Obama's term) are up front here. Listening to Levon's gloriously swinging drums behind an artist he was both close friend and huge fan of make this an emotional journey, especially in the knowledge that it was one of Levon's final recordings. It's an emotional listen politically as well, in the knowledge of all that has come since for America. But on display here is a real feeling of hope and change brought to you by a Black civil rights campaigner and a white southerner in beautiful musical harmony, pointing the way to another America.

*Pun unintended

[Low D]

Since the world's biggest Horslips fan, Philip Chevron, is no longer with us, i thought I would draw this upcoming release to everybody's attention: Horslip's 35 disc box set - More Than You Can Chew.
€299.99* may seem like a lot, that's only €8.57 a disc!

*€429.99 for deluxe edition

Now available for preorder: https://www.celticnote.com/merch/horslipsdeluxeboxset

[Villajohn]

Get On Board.Taj Mahal & Ry Cooder. Reunited for the first time in decades.Recently,for the first time in decades,i checked out the albums Taj Mahal recorded for CBS/Direction in the late 60's......awesome!

[Low D]

I've just ordred Neil Young Street by Scott B. Sympathy b/c i still have the cassette, but my cassette player has finally called it quits, so i found the LP on the ebay. Cheaper than a flight to Toronto to dig through the used record stores there. A stunning debut by Scott Bradshaw this was, and a killer band Sympathy was.

"Drinking With The Poet" by Scott B. Sympathy - with the Sympathy Band featuring a who's who of amazing Toronto-ish musicians, incl. Ian Blurton (Change of Heart) on guitar, Gord Cummings (The Lawn) slide guitar, and the amazing Willie P. Bennett on harmonica. One of my favourite albums of the early 90s, long lost & reclaimed on ebay for $0.99! The smoking cover of Dylan's "Something's Burning, Baby" is seriously stuck in my head. Just played it about 5 times straight while driving to work. What a voice.

12 & 13 years later, i've just bought remastered CD reissues of both of these albums (there's also vinyl & cassette for Neil Yonge Street), released on Curve Music. These albums haven't dated*, and I wonder now as I wondered back in the early 90s why these albums didn't blow the world up.

https://curvemusic.com/curve-music-reis ... -sympathy/

*although some of the music videos arguably have... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aVXx5u3yHE

[Villajohn]

Jameson Street.The Mahones.Bonus track is a live version of If I Should Fall From Grace with God,in 2003 featuring Philip and Terry.....with a nice bit of dialogue at the end!

[Low D]

Jameson Street.The Mahones.Bonus track is a live version of If I Should Fall From Grace with God,in 2003 featuring Philip and Terry.....with a nice bit of dialogue at the end!

STILL can't believe I missed that show! Apparently there's a full concert recording, glad they're finally releasing SOMETHING.

[Ciderman]

Jameson Street.The Mahones.Bonus track is a live version of If I Should Fall From Grace with God,in 2003 featuring Philip and Terry.....with a nice bit of dialogue at the end!

I could swear I can hear Ronnie Drew on this?

[firehazard]

The Mary Wallopers: The Mary Wallopers

Cracking stuff.

[soulfinger]

The Mary Wallopers: The Mary Wallopers

Cracking stuff.

Me too! Yes indeed. Absolutely splendid. Glad I bought tickets for their Manchester gig before they got featured in the Grauniad. It'll be full of hipsters...