Waylon Jennings The Essential disc 1
Compilation of one time Holly bassist's early years up to the point where he gained control of his music from record company dictate. He had always preferred recording with the same band he played with live - The Waylors but often had the record company insist on who he recorded with.
This first disc runs from '65 to '73 when he won artistic autonomy. He mainly plays electric guitar in a style I think others had picked up on. I think I recognise some of these songs from other people's versions but it may just be similarity of influence apart from Bacharach's You Can have Her which I had by Dionne Warwick with the gender of the individual talked about changed.
I really like this, it is more rooted in honky-tonk than the countrypolitan stuff taht was beginning to prevail around the time that the earliest material here came out. Funny since it was Chet Atkins who produced some of this early material who was one of the main popularists of the style in productions he did for other country artists
Aswad BBC sessions
a late 90s compilation of material recorded by the London based one time roots reggae artists. This runs from tracks recorded in '76 when they were recording for John Peel through several tracks recorded for other Radio 1 DJs as they became more popular up to some sessions recorded in '88 when they had pretty much lost their roots in most of the recordings they were making for release. They actually seem more rootsy on those later tracks here than i remember them from the charts.
I've been looking for some way of getting the early material by the band when they were one of the main underground uk reggae bands so was happy when this turned up locally for a couple of €€. Would prefer to avoid their poppier material which a few of the early 80s tracks veer too close to. Might try to get the Roots Rocking Island Years Anthology which is supposed to have a full disc of the better early stuff on the 1st disc and the less poppy good stuff from their post '84 pop era. Also just seen taht the BBC sessions was majorly expanded for a 2cd set in 2009 ciontaining all the sessions this is picked from.
Flipper Public flipper Ltd disc1
I think this is the more corruscating disc of the 2 in this live compilation. Toetapping tunage about nihilistic despair about man's relationship with man and drugs etc. Walls of sound created by the washes of Ted Falconi's guitar. Yum Yum.
Barbara Mandrell Treat Him Right & The Midnight Oil
2 lps of her early work with Billy Sherrill who was also working with Charlie Rich and Tammy Wynnette. Here she is approaching country soul from the country side of the equation. I've been hearing more of that kind of area approached more form the soul side I think.
Anyway this is great stuff very different to what she went onto when she became more popular, added strings and large doses of schmaltz.
She was originally known as part of her parents' family band where she was a renowned pedal steel guitar player.
I think the change may have come almost straight after the 2nd lp here which had me thinking about a turn-around thread tho the current Horrors one, one in which good material from otherwise frowned o artists is highlighted. I think there was a similar thread from a few years ago.
Devo Hardcore disc2
THis band's early pre 1st lp recordings. There are a number of r'n;b covers here, not sure how expected taht would be. If they had that as a recognised part of their sound or if it was something they were consciously working away from. I'm not familiar with their later material. I did used to have a very scratched up copy of their 1st lp way way back
This material does seem very stiff an awkward but I think taht was part of teh style. Glad this compilation, which has both of the volumes of an older compilation series in one 2cd package, has been reissued. I was hoping to get the old one for a few years.
The same label has also reissued a 2cd package of the 1st MX-80 Sound lp Hard Attack alongside a compi disc of other material from them around teh same time, not sure how much crossover there is between that and their Big Hits compilation e.p. plus possibly their Live in The Library material. That live lp is one of their best.
Jackie Wilson The History of Jackie Wilson Vol. 3: The Chicago Soul of
Nice 2 cd set of later material by the Reet Petite singer. This includes Higher and higher, Whispers (Gettin' Louder), The Who Who song and a version of Light My Fire.
I hadn't realised that Jackie's onstage collapse was as late as it was '75 , I thought it was late 60s. Apparently he was making great music up to just before that including some early 70s lps that are regarded as pretty classic.
He had a great voice and some great backing here from the house band from Motown. Lovely.
Altona s/t
1st lp by a band with ex-members of Thrice Mice playing pretty hard jazz-rock stuff. Sounds pretty good for a German band from the mid 70s, not a couple of years earlier when the Kosmische scene was at its peak.
Umezu Kazutoki KIKI BAND
couple of live sets from a current japanese band that are tagged as jazz-rock but seem to be working on a more primitive non-muso level than that name would imply. Seems to be a lot more gritty,like honking r'n'b but still pretty well played and mixing in some later influences. may verge on prog in places too.
Hangman's Beautiful daughters
a live set from this mid 80s indie band who had some 60s/velvets influence worked pretty well. Sound pretty gritty for a female fronted band from the era. Would like to hear more from them.
Jefferson Starship
There has been a torrent flood of their early material from '74/'75 when they were still playing material from the Grunt era solo lps like Grace's Manhole, Kantner's Blows Against The Empire and I think a couple of tracks from Baron Von TollBooth and The Chrome Nun as well as the early couple of jefferson Starship lps which were actually pretty decent.
Line up for the band at the time was
Johnny Barbata
Craig Chaquico
Papa John Creach
David Freiberg
Paul Kantner
Pete Sears
Grace Slick
who were largely people who'd appeared on that batch of solo lps that appeared on Grunt - Jefferson Airplane's vanity label material.
Freiberg was in Quicksilver Messenger Service at their peak and both Pap JOhn Creach and John Barbata were later-day members of the Airplane. Barbata replaced Joey Covington on the last couple of lps under the Airplane name. I haven't looked into those lps since I can't stand Joey Covington's drumming and haven't taken the opportunity to look them up since i found out about this.
Anyway the band was pretty interesting at this time. Not quite as good as the Airplane but then Jorma, Jack and Spencer were pretty superlative players. Spencer Dryden is one of my alltime favourite drummers. Jorma and Jack had gone off to Hot Tuna who were also very interesting at this point putting out some pretty psychedelic heavy rock lps like Yellow Fever which have recently been reissued. I'm not sure what Spencer Dryden was up to in the mid 70s, probably should be.
Who 's Next
Great heavy early 70s lp with Baba O'Riley and Won't Get Fooled Again as possibly stand out tracks
THis is the 1st disc of the Deluxe set which I found pretty cheap somewhere some years ago. I think I should listen to the band a lot more since they were great. This disc is rounded off with some great tracks from a New York recording session.
Must get around to picking up the most recent Quadrophenia set.
several other bits & pieces which will inevitably come back to me later.
Loads of material on my walkman I think including some tracks i hadn't heard on there before. Do wish that player's contents were easier to edit though.
Reading
The White Goddess
Robert Graves' detective work on the Celtic tree Alphabet and the riddle poems of gwydion. Finally getting seriously into reading this after meaning to for years and picking it up about 4 years back but continually being distracted into other stuff since
Manchild in The Promised Land Claude brown
memoirs of a black childhood in post world war 2 New York by a man who strayed to the wrong side of the law pretty early on. Very readable , so it shouldn't have been sitting on my shelf unread for as long as it has. Not sure how long that is but a few years anyway.
I think I'd recommend this to anybody interested in this type of area of writing. It's not as in your face as Iceberg Slim but still pretty good.
2000Ad
Slaine's reappeared recently and the last couple of issues have had very psychedelic artwork in his pages.
Promethea Alan Moore's tale of the human embodiment/crossover of a goddess who is part story. Not got very far through this so far, only on about #5. But looking great.
Watching
Blake's 7
early episodes are pretty bleak/dark if very low budget. They use a lot of backstairs and carparks of office type buildings as sets. It was interesting hearing them talk about budget restraints and compromises in the 'Cult of Blake's 7' 1/2 hr documentary about the series.
Unfortueately some of the acting verges on pantomime as the story goes on.
Also interesting that Gareth Jones who played Blake agree to come back for the last episode of series 4, on the proviso that the character was permanently killed, after he had initially left at the end of series 2. The concept behind the series on inception was 'Dirty Dozen in Space' though a bit watered-down, everybody was an antihero, with Avon veering on sociopathy. The end of series 4 ends with all of the group being gunned down in a watered down take on Sam Peckinpah. Hope that isn't too much of a spoiler for anybody.
Stevo
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