This year has finally seen the release of Neil Young’s Hitchhiker, PP Arnold’s The Turning Tide and Bill Evans Trio’s Another Time, plus the rerelease of the very rare Bright Phoebus by Lal & Mike Waterson. All inhabit their unique, strange little worlds and have added to the sum of human gladness in mine, more so than many new albums.
These days, it seems almost everything ever recorded is available somewhere, legally or not. Is there any other buried treasure left that is yet to see the light of day?
Tom Tom Club’s second album, Close To The Bone, only got a brief CD issue tacked on as a two-for the debut. I think that deserves its day in the sun. I suspect there are plenty of Prince’s albums in the pipeline, maybe a definitive Dream Factory. I’d love to hear Springsteen’s electric, full band version of Nebraska. Is Black Gold by Jimi Hendrix simply a myth and is it all noodle? Would Marvin Gaye’s Love Man bear scrutiny? Was Paul McCartney right to shelve Cold Cuts?
Most of all, however, I’m still waiting for the official release of David Bowie’s Toy.