Glen Campbell was one of a number of artists who, aside from their solo work, also recorded demo recordings on behalf of various songwriters to present to Elvis for consideration for use on future albums or movie soundtracks. Campbell, who actually played for Elvis on the Viva Las Vegas soundtrack, was recruited by the Weisman-Wayne songwriting team to do some of their demos that were at the time almost exclusively intended for film soundtracks as Elvis pretty much was only focusing on that kind of work in the mid-60s. This album is a revelation. It may be a hot take to say this, but most of Campbell's versions are far superior to what Elvis ended up recording. That's not necessarily a knock on Elvis, but it does show that clearly something happened between, for example, Campbell recording "Clambake" which has extra verses and a completely different "middle eight" than what Elvis pretty much sleepwalked through on the Clambake soundtrack. "Easy Come, Easy Go" is a very strong rocker with surprisingly risque lyrics for the time and amazing guitar work by Campbell; none of this is reflected in what Elvis recorded (he is famously quoted as referring to the ECEG soundtrack music as "s*it"). Even the infamous "Do the Clam" from Girl Happy (described by some biographers as the nadir of his career) comes off much the better in the demo version. (Trivia note: although the CD spells her name wrong, "Do the Clam" was one of several songs Weisman and Wayne wrote with Dolores Fuller who is also remembered as the girlfriend of director Edward D. Wood Jr and appeared in several of his infamous films such as Plan 9 from Outer Space).

The strongest tracks on the album are the Bobbie Gentry-influenced "All I Needed Was the Rain" (it has the same feel as Gentry's "Nicky Hoeky" from around the same time) and a remix of what appears to have been the only non-movie-intended demo of the bunch, the spiritual "We Call on Him" which was recorded by Elvis for a single as he started to pull out of just doing the soundtracks, and the CD effectively combines his vocals with Campbell's demo to make an effective duet (though I do wish they'd included the unedited Campbell demo for comparison).

The CD also lets listeners play a game of "what if" as several songs that were rejected by Elvis (or the filmmakers) are also included. Some of them are quite good (and on a few of them Campbell really does sound like Elvis) and it's fun to guess what movies the unused songs were intended for (for example, "Magic Fire" sounds like it might have been intended for Harum Scarum).

Campbell, of course, wasn't the only talented performer to record demos for Elvis (others include PJ Proby, as well as the songwriters themselves in a few cases). It would be interesting to see more such releases compiling these demos.

1 person found this review helpful.   ✔︎ Helpful Review?

Produced during the lockdown of 2020 and 2021, Simon and Hilary's new studio album - with a couple of live tracks for good measure - is a mix of English folk song, settings of English poetry, original instrumentals and poetry, all spiced with a little Tchaikovsky and JC Bach.
This album is also available as a DIGITAL DOWNLOAD.
(From the Acoustic Records website)

The artists are new to me, but they have a Wikipedia page each, showing that they have been working for 45 years as multi-instrument players, vocalists, authors and artists. Their style is eclectic and based on the contemporary folk style, with rich production and multi-tracking.

They also have the website mayorandjames.com

[YouTube Video]

1 person found this review helpful.   ✔︎ Helpful Review?

In the spring of 1970, 19-year-old Linda Hoover entered a New York studio to record her debut album for Roulette Records. Gary Katz was in charge as producer, while his protegés Donald Fagen and Walter Becker handled arrangements and contributed five songs. Other participating musicians included guitarists Denny Dias and Jeff "Skunk" Baxter. Ultimately, label boss Morris Levy declined to release the finished album after finding he would control copyright on only three of the 11 songs. Becker, Fagen, Dias, and Baxter formed Steely Dan two years later. Fifty years after that Hoover's record was finally released, restored from her quarter-inch tape copy. Okay, that's the history, but what about the music? Excellent. Hoover was a formidable talent; I agree with a review that likened her to Mary Hopkin. Becker and Fagen's five songs contain what became Steely Dan's signature quirky chords and cryptic lyrics. Hoover's three compositions provide a counterpoint, especially the lovely closer "The Dove." Highly recommended.

[YouTube Video]

[YouTube Video]

2 people found this review helpful.   ✔︎ Helpful Review?

This CD sounds amazing!

... Better even, than the original vinyl issue.

While I dearly love my original vinyl copy of this, my absolute favourite Rolling Stones album, which is not only one of the best double albums ever made (along with led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti), and is their most consistent, and consistently brilliant album, I love where it's coming from, with a very sleazy, slack rocking blues Groover vibe, which grooves from one end to the other like a something-or-other, with additional dashes of sweetness and soul, this, sonically is far superior, both in terms of clarity, sense of space and separation of instruments which perfectly compliments that "live in the studio" feel that this album has, with the band all playing together at once, rather than sounding like a patchwork of separately recorded pieces sewn together in the control room.

...I love the vinyl sound of the LP, which does give it that "vintage" sound that comes with vinyl, but this has power, punch and rocks even harder.

I did study the scant notes in the booklet, that comes with this, for a reason why it should sound so good, but only found the answer I wanted on the back cover.... With just one simple statement, that says it all:

"Remastered by Bob Ludwig"

Bang.

This has a whole lot of something extra, which I can only attribute to him.

The real beneficiary of his presence here, has to be Charlie Watts Drumming, which but has extra snap, crack, and an almighty bass drum thump.

I checked on Discogs, to see if there was a contemporary 1994 Ludwig vinyl to this, and apparently there was, but only in the US on 180g vinyl... And according to reviews on that vinyl issue, sounds awful!

Well, never mind, maybe later ones sound better (hopefully with the Ludwig mastering), but this CD is more than adequate.... It sounds great!

1 person found this review helpful.   ✔︎ Helpful Review?

Hard, Heavy, Crunchy and Grunge-y.

This is good.... really good!

Another CD I bought a while back, and ripped to hard drive, then forgot... as I probably dismissed it as yet another generic almost band, but then it pinged up on my Mp3 player's shuffle button, and it immediately took my ear, as something much more than that...

...It sounds exactly like early nineties Grunge, so much so it is almost exactly like Soundgarden, and Stone Temple Pilots, or certainly sitting somewhere in between the two, but with more conventional sounding metal riffs, bordering on AC/DC at times (but only occasionally).

The vocal however, is what pushes the character of this more toward Pilots than Soundgarden, and the lead here sounds a lot like Scott Weiland, or tending towards the newer, millennial sort of Blink 182 sound, which matches the strong melodic semi-pop / rock of the latter.

Thumping, cracking drumming, bass, and those guitars, all of that grunge / metal style, with a lot very strong tunes, of consistently high quality from one end to the other.

If you like Superunknown and Purple (Soundgarden and STP respectively), you'll like this.

(Think I've found a new walking / drown out the traffic album here :)

[YouTube Video]

[YouTube Video]

✔︎ Helpful Review?

Half a classic widescreen pop rock album, half phoned in makeweight filler.

I bought this to make up the numbers in my local charity shop's 3 for 1 pound deal on CDs, mostly because, having heard that all time classic widescreen summer staple: Sunshine On A Rainy Day, I wanted to see if the rest of the album was up to much...

...I wasn't optimistic, given that it's been years and years since it's release, and I figured if the rest was any good, I'd have heard some of it over the years, surely?

Fortunately, it kicks off with a stonker, that I have indeed heard before, but just forgot: Lightning, every bit the equal of that previously mentioned hit, and indeed, the whole first half of this album is full of very strong, memorable tunes done in that huge, big energy widescreen pop rock style underpinned with a synthy / hip hop - ish beat... so much so, that the first enormous surprise comes in this fashion, in shape of the title track: Scarlet, Red and Blue, which, if I didn't know otherwise, I could swear was a Massive Attack song!

(seriously, you cannot tell the difference)

And while Mountains, Loving Kind, and Holy Days are all of this standard of epic pop-ery, worthy of the price of the CD on their own, after the pinnacle of this album, Sunshine etc. the level seems to fall away considerably, either because it was always asking too much to keep that level up (and having front loaded the strongest stuff) or they just ran out of ideas, and had to pad it out a bit, it feels a bit flat thereafter...

...But, that said, the final song: Smile In The Darkness does pick it right back up to the standard of the first half... so a good save on the last tune.

Possibly the other tracks will grow on me over the time a little, but even if not, there is more than enough on this album to make it a great buy, so much so, this one is not going back to the charity shop!

>It's a keeper!<

:)

4 people found this review helpful.   ✔︎ Helpful Review?

This compilation is amazing!

Got it yesterday... already my favourite CD in the last year or so.

Hyper-intense, synth and punky indie stuff... all complicated rhythms, and never boring.

✔︎ Helpful Review?

Musically the album is similar to Big Blue Ball, as it features additional vocalists, but has a more interesting atmosphere, more ambient. Interesting recordings are certainly "Low Light" and "The Time Of The Turning". However, the biggest misunderstanding is the opening track of the album, "The Story Of OVO". The rap that appears in it is a completely wrong idea and fortunately, the artist rarely experiments with this kind of music.

1 person found this review helpful.   ✔︎ Helpful Review?

On first listen this sounds like the John Barry compilation I've been waiting for all these years.

Absolutely brilliant stuff and a perfect selection of the big hits and the more obscure.

I'm already hoping there's a second volume in the works!

2 people found this review helpful.   ✔︎ Helpful Review?

Going to do something a little odd here, and review just one song on this.

(This is because it doesn't seem to have been released as a single, so can't review it, except on an album)

It's one of those songs that has been kind of "with me" for a while, but mostly somewhere in the background of my mind, and I've only relatively recently become consciously aware of it, and sought it out.

The song in question is: Can't Find My Way Home which although not overtly, made quite an impression on me when first hearing it in one of my favourite films: Benny And Joon.
Having recently re-watched it (again! :) I decided I wanted to find the track at long last, did a search on the internet... To my surprise, I saw it was written by Steve Winwood, and moreover, was done so, and performed by him for the "Supergroup" album: Blind Faith - That whole Clapton ensemble thing with the front cover controversy.

It surprised me, as I had heard that whole album some years before even seeing the film that brought the song to my attention, and remember having been distinctly underwhelmed by it - very disappointing album given the people gathered on it especially. I remember a largely flat, tuneless affair that made no impression on the memory...

...So I decided to re-listen to the Blind Faith version of the song again on Youtube, and yup, a very lifeless, thin sounding song came forth - really amazed at this, as Winwood sings, and gives a very thin, whiny vocal, not at all like his earlier or later stuff, which we know he is capable of, and even famed for - that natural Bluesy voice that he can belt out at whim... No the original Blind Faith one is crap.

I tried for another version, perhaps a re-record from later years by him, ,maybe giving it a little extra oomph, but no, just a couple of live versions just as weakly rendered, but this time, acoustic, and solo.

Very disappointed, I then discovered an Eric Clapton live version, also somewhat floppy and vague sounding.

Finally, I came back to Joe Cocker, but couldn't seem to find the version from the film - the versions I happened upon were from the Cocker album: Organic, which, if anything, seem to go too far the other way - too throaty, too guttural sounding for me.

At last, I found this version on this album, which is the version from the film, but does not seem to appear on the soundtrack album...

(Grrrrrr... I hate it when they do that, have a song prominently feature in a movie, then leave it off the soundtrack album! - Grrrrr again!)

...It's not quite lived up to my expectations or hopes, but not far short.

But this is truly an excellent song I think, and I feel that maybe the definitive version is yet to be made by.... someone.

[YouTube Video]

✔︎ Helpful Review?

As usual with Repertoire releases the quality's a little hit or miss here, tape hiss/mix issues, some tracks mastered too loud or distorted, or dubbed from vinyl ("Anyway That You Want Me" seems to suffer most from this, and was that one really that difficult to access the original tapes for?) but overall isn't too obtrusive and is a comprehensive collection of their singles. Nice batch of rarities and mid/later 70's stuff on here, plus including their rare solo singles, which does make this well worth tracking down for any Troggs fans, I just wish the audio quality were a little better. Still, I'd recommend it.

4 people found this review helpful.   ✔︎ Helpful Review?

Being a big Skynyrd fan, I bought this on vivyl as soon as I could lay my hands on it. Lynyrd Skynyrd had a lot of tragedy, - the plane crash, the just before the Rossington Collins Band were to go on tour, Allen Collins' wife suddenly died. There were some British dates earmarked and I was looking forward to seeing them. This album is as good as any of the Lynyrd Skynyrd albums in my opiinion. Every track is excellent and Dale Krantz was in fine voice. I bought this CD in Florida in 1990 and the guy who worked in the record store was a huge Skynyrd fan and I spoke to him about this album and where Dale Krantz had come from as I'd never heard of her. He said that she had been a backing singer only as far as he knew, before joining the Rossington Collins band. A lot of Skynyrd fans were not happy about a woman fronting a band with the remains of Lynyrd Skynyrd. Dale proved them wrong and her vocals on this are excellent. Brilliant Album - In my top ten favourite ablums !!!!

6 people found this review helpful.   ✔︎ Helpful Review?

I have five Graham Nash solo albums, and this is his best in my opinion. There are some very well crafted songs on this album. In fact they are all good songs with 'Prison Song' the stand out track for me. And so it goes and grave concern run it a close second. I still give this a spin every now and then. I've made some compilation CDs and MP3s for the car and most of the songs here appear somewhere on them.

8 people found this review helpful.   ✔︎ Helpful Review?

This little curio is definitely one for Goldmine Soul Supply Completists and/or Motown/NS fanatics and I think completes the full set of Goldmine CDs here at 45Worlds (I could still be proven wrong of course).

As stated in the notes section, this was released to coincide with the publication of Kev Roberts' "Northern Soul Top 500" book in 2000 and tracks 1 and 3 have Frank Wilson being interviewed about his early career and the events surrounding the withdrawal of his proposed single release of "Do I Love You (Indeed I Do)" on Motown's "Soul" label back in '65.

Track one has instrumental versions of "Do I Love You (Indeed I Do)" and "My Sugar Baby" playing in the background whilst Frank Wilson is being interviewed by Kev Roberts, Track three is entirely spoken word.

Track two is Frank singing a version of his song "My Sugar Baby" (a tune that became an NS anthem when the version by Connie Clarke started to get plays in the mid '70s). It should be noted that it is NOT the same version of the song that came out on the "Cellarful Of Motown" CD in July 2002 but one that uses the same backing arrangement as the Connie Clarke version. Maybe it was specially recorded for this release using the original backing-track?

[YouTube Video]

Unsurprisingly, the booklet notes by Frank E Wilson are essentially the same essay that appeared as the foreword at the start of the "Northern Soul Top 500" book.

6 people found this review helpful.   ✔︎ Helpful Review?

Although owning the 2012 Record Collector re-issue of this album I have never been able to play it because my equipment is in storage. It was great to stumble across this _very_ limited release on CD and finally get around to hear what it was like. The music overall is quite good but I wouldn't rave about it as it all sounds very amateurish and this is no doubt down to how it was recorded in the first place. The band though, with a proper producer and more time to record these songs might well have been a very different matter. It has the makings of some great sounds and in particular the guitar player who sounds like he had the talent to take it even further. His playing on this album has the sound and feel of Kim Simmonds on the Savoy Brown album Looking In which is one of my personal favourites. So all-in-all a worthy effort and one defintely for the Savoy Brown fans out there. I would give it 7/10 for the effort and it's just a pity they couldn't have taken it further.

6 people found this review helpful.   ✔︎ Helpful Review?

Not a bad collection by any means - and there are quite a few others out there - but the booklet lets the whole thing down. Aside from the obvious / predictable purple colour theme (yawn!), the typography and layout is poor; the designer must have thought it was a great idea to only use half the available space on each page of the booklet and then choose a very small font for the track titles and credits. Brilliant.. the only flaw in this approach, however, means that it can hardly be read. Maybe no-one reads this stuff any more though - they just bung the CD into the machine and listen to it. No gripes about the content really, and it was certainly worth the £3 I paid for it. So what's actually on this? Taking a magnifying glass to the booklet it tells me that these are mostly single edit versions of familiar tracks, a couple of '97 remixes (Highway Star, When A Blind Man Cries), a 25th Anniversary remaster (Smoke On The Water), a 30th anniversary remaster (Hush) and a two later album cuts (Ted The Mechanic and Any Fule Kno That). All in all an inessential compilation but one that works well as an intro to the band or just as a convenient and enjoyable 'Best Of'.

1 person found this review helpful.   ✔︎ Helpful Review?

I'm building an opinion on this album, as I didn't immediately take to it due to comparisons with a phenomenal first impression made by their debut album...

...But the other day I took my shoes for a walk for the first time in a long time (Over any meaningful distance)...

((Good grief, my ass has turned to memory foam during lockdown! - have to get back to Superbad condition!!!))

... and this, not taken as a Garbage album (in not making that comparison), but judged on it's own terms, and for what I needed it to do (drown out the monotonous drone of both heavy traffic and the horror of family visits, as well as propel me along the roadside while I was pushing pavement), is a winner!

I'm about half way into liking this a lot, and it's winning me over song by song, as I work my way into it, just as it works it's way into me...

A much more settled blend of the "punky" attitude and the electronica power pop this time, and I expect, what with the almost Kashmir-esque harmonica toot of Control, and the absolute ear-worm of Blood For Poppies, to start rating these individual tracks higher and higher over time.

[YouTube Video]

[YouTube Video]

✔︎ Helpful Review?

Loved this from when it came out and first appeared on YT but hadn't seen a CD until now

Canadian Heavy Metal parody band who feature butchery and mysoginy, liberally embellished with the F and S words

At that time there was also a cartoon version of F The S in which the band are headlined to play at a local PTA sports day, and when they come on stage and launch into F The S all the parents and children are stupified with horror until the headmaster comes over and unplugs the PA whereupon there is a "Zzz" and silence is restored

Please don't watch this if you are easily offended

[YouTube Video]

1 person found this review helpful.   ✔︎ Helpful Review?

There's an awful lot more to Lynyrd Skynyrd than Sweet Home Alabama and Free Bird much of which can be witnessed on this concert footage shot in 1976 at Knebworth. For me the star attraction of this disc set has to be the concert footage. The only other time I saw this was on BBC's special 15 hour event called "Rock Around The Clock" on 27th August 1983. It was part of a phone in vote which won and was subequently aired. Free Bird is a great track but at this concert it was the pièce de résistance. Filmed at sunset during the summer of '76 (which was one of the hottest summers I ever remember) this version of Free Bird is so full of energy you felt exhausted by the end of it, an absolutely stunning performance which is still talked about to this day, I would've just loved to have been there, now with this Blu Ray edition and Home Cinema I can get the next best thing to being there. This is one not to be missed, BUY IT!

1 person found this review helpful.   ✔︎ Helpful Review?

This CD does what it says on the tin - versions of famous instrumentals with lyrics added. While a few are clearly tongue-in-cheek, others are played straight and work really well. Not all the songs here have had lyrics written specifically for this album - You Can Count on Me is a cover of Sammy Davis Jr.'s vocal version of the Hawaii 5-0 Theme from the early 1970s and I have heard a version of Popcorn with lyrics before. Many of these work really well: Magic Star is "Telstar" but manages to recapture the magic of the original space-race instrumental. Apache becomes a love song. Walk Don't Run gives a rationale for the title. But the best track on the CD is Honky Tonk. I have no idea if there were lyrics ever written for the original, or if these were written for Dickerson but the fact I can't tell shows how well they fit the Bill Doggett classic. Be warned, though, if you think Popcorn sticks in your head now, just wait till you hear it with lyrics!

1 person found this review helpful.   ✔︎ Helpful Review?

I saw Bronco supporting Free in 1970. Not really heard anything of them before that. I was impressed by them, especially the front man - Jess Roden. Bought the album Country Home the next day. Has some good tracks on it. "Time" and "Well Anyhow" are the stand out tracks. Still give it a spin every now and then. Ace of Sunlight is no better than average with one or two decent tracks.

2 people found this review helpful.   ✔︎ Helpful Review?

This is my all-favourite studio album from Carly Simon, and originally released in 1975 on vinyl and cassette for Elektra. My favourite tracks are After The Storm, More and More [the only track featured Ringo Starr on drums],Slave Attitude Dancing [also a cover version by Fred Astaire, which became an album title on the United Artists label],Waterfall, and of course Playing Possum, the name of the album title]. Overall, it`s a great album for me and I was 8 years old, when the original album released, and it still brings me back memories for me.

6 people found this review helpful.   ✔︎ Helpful Review?

This is one of Goldmine's more unusual compilations and doesn't use the label's normal numbering sequence.

The lack of any barcode or songwriter credits and the note on the cover that it is "A special limited edition pressing for RightTrack Merchandising" all point to it being something pressed up privately for Northampton based Promoter/D.J. Paddy Grady. Does anyone out there know the full details?

For those who are wondering "The Shades" was a nightclub that operated in Northampton between 1969 and 1974 and was "The Birthplace of Underground Soul" if the cover of the CD is to be believed.

In his notes Paddy Grady describes "The Shades" as having been "one of the South's top soul clubs", which I find to be a bit strange as I always thought that Northampton was in The East Midlands!! The BBC website has a brief article detailing the history of the place which can be read here.

Musically the CD is fairly representative of what was considered to be "Rare Soul" around 1970/71 (later to be rebranded as "Northern Soul") and maybe Paddy Grady's description of the club as being in the south is a reminder to us all that appreciation of "Rare/Northern" Soul was by no means confined to Lancashire and surrounding counties back in the early '70s and that many "Rare Soul" venues existed throughout The Midlands and The Home Counties at the time.

All the tracks on this CD had previously been included on commercially available Goldmine CDs, presumably to prevent any unwanted licensing issues from delaying its production. It is all very Motownesque and a half of the tracks are from the Mirwood group of labels (Los Angeles' own mini-Motown) and most of the remainder are from Motown's competitor labels in Detroit.

Musical highlights for me include J.J. Barnes "Please Let Me In", The Olympics "Secret Agents" (a tongue in cheek look at mid '60s TV shows) and The Parliaments "Don't Be Sore At Me", but there really isn't one dud track on here.

[YouTube Video]

[YouTube Video]

[YouTube Video]

The CD is certainly an interesting compilation and the notes chronicle an often overlooked chapter in British musical history.

6 people found this review helpful.   ✔︎ Helpful Review?

i bought this cd to get a copy of one track i heard someone - almost certainly john peel - play from an import lp in 1968: "cypress grove blues". all i knew about it (because i didn't realise I'd want the information until after he'd started playing the track) was that it was "delta blues" - which didn't mean anything to record shop staff in north london, newark-on-trent, kendal, durham, or newcastle. (it probably didn't inspire confidence either, that i said i thought the track was called "cypress tree blues", and it was really old...)

- just by chance, i happened to spot this skip james cd - at a reasonable price - and knew i had naught by this classic bluesman - and there it was, not just the title, but in the track-listing on the back of the digipak!

- and the rest of the tracks on this album are pretty fine, too... classic delta blues from one of the original great bluesmen as lived into the recording era.

3 people found this review helpful.   ✔︎ Helpful Review?

A tall glass of milk never tasted sweeter, nor more healing. All the hits are here exept for "Silver Threads and Golden Needles", as well as several non-hits you've probably never heard before, but should have. This CD edition adds two more tracks, "Poor Baby" and "Hair", both essential and exemplary. That said, with the two bonus tracks, we're looking at a mere 42 minutes. There's at least six more A-sides from the MGM period that could have been included with free space to spare. So if you can find this at a good price, it's a perfect listening experience, but you're better off with a more comprehensive collection which will be very much worth the extra cash.

8 people found this review helpful.   ✔︎ Helpful Review?

This is the DESS 2007+ release, with a c2010 disc shown.

The Audio is from a post-1971 pressed original LP, whereas the 2002 version had the far lower quality pre-1971 LP pressing audio.

2005-2007 did not contain genuine Dutch audio but audio from a German LP of the same name.

2 people found this review helpful.   ✔︎ Helpful Review?

Mixed bag all round. Some incredible tracks like Tilt - Libel from their excellent debut album with Cinder Block's booming vocals sounding amazing against heavy guitars. NOFX's cover of Don McLean's Vincent which should be awful, but it's solid. Fat Mike has never been the best vocalist, but he sounds good on this over dreamy guitars. Germany's Wizo's raum der zeit has Husker Du style vocals albeit in German and jittery guitars and is catchy. Frenzal Rhomb's run is a fun intro to the band with a cheeky riff stolen from The Banana Splits theme song. Underrated band Diesel Boy put out a nice track with funny teen angst vocals that's good fun. Two good slices of Lagwagon who were a great signing for the label. The album finishes with Country Roads while not a patch on the original with Spike's vocals nowhere near as good as Jon Denver's (but whose are?) the hammer off guitar riffs make it a smile inducing bookmark.

For me the two Snuff tracks are on the mediocre side. Don't get me wrong I love Snuff, but for me these aren't their best. An OK track by Hi-Standard covering California Dreamin' - I get it, it starts with a cover and ends with a cover and while not horrible, it's just OK for me. Wait For The Sun by them I also find a bit meh. Mother Superior by Good Riddance also not their best work by a mile. Nation States by Propagandhi I love Chris's quickfire vocals, but it does nothing for me beyond that. They later went onto perfect their sound along with Strung Out (Rotten Apple's not their best) with incredibly difficult to play riffs and more emotional impactful lyrics.

The album is an early one, but it's not recorded that well. Sounds like it's been recorded through cotton wool. I've got similar albums from this era on other labels including Therapy's Infernal Love and they all suffer from quiet recording levels so it's no reflection on Fat Wreck, and to be fair this album does sound a lot better than their first compilation.

8 people found this review helpful.   ✔︎ Helpful Review?

Better on CD than vinyl!

I have this on both vinyl and this CD, and I have to say, this is a great sounding disc...

... The vinyl has a nice warmth you'd expect, and which is sympathetic to the nature of the music, but the overall sound design seems much more fitting to this. One of those that sounds made for CD...

... There's a very broad stereo field and a real sense of space and depth here which suits the ethereal quality of the songs.

And it does this while still retaining weight and punch in the bass, and not sounding slightly shrill and tinny, which is a particular flaw with many CD versions of some albums.

Many of the songs here are among my favourite Kate Bush tunes now, even if one or two are a bit filler-ish...

... And with that extra track (not on the vinyl) being one of the better ones, I think you're better opting for this CD first, before going for the inevitably more expensive original vinyl issue.

2 people found this review helpful.   ✔︎ Helpful Review?

I purchased this CD for only one reason. To get "Second Avenue", perhaps my all-time favorite Garfunkel track on CD. You see, this tune had only been available as a 45 since 1974 and I needed to hear it again desperately. Okay, so here we get an abbreviated version which is extremely annoying. Even on this collection there is a certain amount of wallpaper like "When A Man Loves A Woman". Yes it is a fine song but, my gawd, why has everybody and his brother recorded it? Truthfully I am sick of it. The best tracks are stunning, "All I Know", "Bright Eyes", "99 Miles From L.A." and "A Heart In New York" to go along with the previous mentioned "Second Avenue". Other tracks I didn't really need or want are the syrupy "So Much In Love" and the redundant "What A Wonderful World". One of Garfunkel's problems is that he doesn't write his own music so in that regard he is at the mercy of others. In the past, though he nearly always had impeccable taste in choosing his material like Stephen Bishop's "Looking For The Right One" or Van Morrison's "I Shall Sing", neither of which is included here unfortunately. In short, this might be a good starting place for you to enjoy Art Garfunkel and his glorious voice but after you digest this, and it won't take long, you need to dig deeper.

7 people found this review helpful.   ✔︎ Helpful Review?

This CD marked a return to a more rootsy sound on several of the 12 tracks. In many ways this recording may be his crowning accomplishment. The musicianship is excellent, production and sound also very good. The band comprises of John Hobbs on keyboards, Joe Chemay on bass, Red Rhodes on steel guitar, John Jorgenson on guitar & mandolin, Louis Conte on percussion and Nesmith on guitar. “Yellow Butterfly” is the opening track and while understated and fairly uneventful, it seems noteworthy that a steel guitar is in evidence subtly telling us the frivolity of “The Newer Stuff” is a thing of the past. "Laugh Kills Lonesome" is an up-tempo piano driven cowboy song based on a Charles Russell painting of the same name. "Julianna" is a romantic love song without much if any country flavor. "Brazil", one of three cover songs, is sung convincingly in Spanish and surprisingly fits in with all the rest. The other two covers are both by Cole Porter "In The Still Of The Night" and "Begin The Beguine". He amazingly manages to blend these somewhat jazzy pieces into a mix with country, tex-mex and Spanish rhythms…and with ease. Other stand-out tracks are “Moon Over The Rio Grande”, a track that Roy Rogers would have been proud to do and “Rising In Love”, a happy little song that is sneaky good. The two part track, “One…For The Island” is particularly entertaining, especially the first section which is mostly instrumental and quite delightful. It all ends with "Twilight On The Trail", another cowboy song much along the lines of "Prairie Lullaby" and several other songs he's done in this vein. This is a very easy CD to like. It’s got melody, lyrics and fine arrangements. Beginning probably with “Infinite Rider”, he seems to have become much more adventuresome and versatile as a tunesmith, something that was not quite as evident on his earlier LP’s. It is another recording that would be a good introduction to those who don't know his music. Whenever I'm listening to Nesmith I'm always thinking, "When is the rest of world going to discover this guy?" Well, it’s probably too late and the truth is the rest of the world missed out. This CD is as good as it gets.

4 people found this review helpful.   ✔︎ Helpful Review?