I love LP sleeve notes, me. They hark back to a simpler, more innocent time, before fancy artwork took over, to an era when the record companies felt they had to sell us the music via some florid prose and a litany of painfully earnest (and often painfully untrue) facts and figures about the artist(s) in question.
Looking back now, many sleeve notes read like something out of Dickens (or Mills & Boon). Which is why I love them so much.
Just like before, here are the sleeve notes from a famous album with the identifying words blacked out. All you have to do is tell us the album title and the artist(s) involved.
And, even though it’s a fairly labour-intensive business to join in, it would be great if others felt moved to post their own sleeve note challenge for us.
http://i.imgur.com/dm8OoQS.jpg
Now read on —->
OK, you’re on!
Unless I’m mistaken, you’ve left a vital clue in the picture.
Erk – yes *hastily emails admins*
(I’m going to pretend I didn’t see that, so when the admins remove it I can make a guess and look clever).
Haha!
Is it Biggles?
Must be an early Purple?
A heavy rock album with sleeve notes? Whoever heard of such a thing?
I agree with the Foxy one, Shades of Deep Purple
Exactly. It’s the first Deep Purple album from 1968.
Here are the full sleeve notes.
http://i.imgur.com/pVqGB2W.jpg
Well the album obviously has Hey Joe on it but the sleeve notes and the obviousness probably rules out Hendrix. And the notes are too clever and jaunty for a KTel copy thing, so you can put me down as a don’t know. Oh go on then – Rick Wakeman. Largely because of the wittiness.
No, ‘fraid not. it’s a band. VV was almost there (above) despite my attempt to put him off the scent.
Here’s another one. Quite far out for the time I think
http://i.imgur.com/4ls3cCH.jpg
No! go on who is it Mr Conch?
If I didn’t know better, I’d guess Gary Numan produced by Joe Meek.
Thank you for your interest. It was a 1966 EP by Manfred Mann called Machines with faux Jack Kerouac style sleeve notes by Tom McGuinness. I didn’t expect anyone to get it, but I thought it was interesting.
http://i.imgur.com/QIFRdIP.jpg
Ta Conchy will have a look for something later.
As a youngster I always found Manfred Mann slightly confusing – there seemed to be a pair of identical twins who wore thick-rimmed glasses…there seemed to be no discernible reason for this to be so.
That would be the eponymous Manfred and bassist Tom McGuinness. I think we did a thread about bands with horn rim wearing members started by @mikethep
Interestingly, around 1966, frontman Paul Jones and guitarist Mike Vickers left the band, to be replaced by Mike D’Abo and the Fabs’ old Hamburg mucker Klaus Voorman.
McGuinness switched to guitar and Klaus took over on bass.
I recommend Tom McG’s book So You Wanna Be A Rock’n’Roll Star if you can find it. Very honest and funny about the music industry.
Tom has had a great life, starting out in The Roosters with a pre-Yardbirds Clapton. And just to amend my previous post, of course Jack Bruce played bass with Manfred Mann between Tom and Klaus and appears on their chart topper Pretty Flamingo
Also had a very good 70s in McGuinness Flint, making a shitload of money out of publishing and then ending up in the Blues Band. Not bad considering he can’t sing and wasn’t even that much of a guitarist until he was in his 40s. Terrific raconteur though.
And now he’s touring with the Manfreds (minus Manfred himself). I saw them live last year, but Tom called off sick.
OK pop pickers, I realise I’m pushing shit uphill with this one, as the Australian prime minster once said to the Queen. But I quite like this thread. So I’ll just do a few more then you can get back to your Showaddywaddy YouTube clips.
Here are some sleeve notes from 1965. Who knows from whence they came?
Ahh, those were the days, when people got excited about buying a packet of fags.
http://i.imgur.com/W3mCrLc.jpg
Wouldn’t be Marianne Faithfull, would it?
Good on you JC for paying homage to the long-lost art of the sleeve-note writer.
That really is quite a effectively gushy bit of writing.
Mim Farina …..Joni Mitchell….. Vashti Bunyan….. Judy Collins….Frank Zappa?
Thanks KFD. Mike got it in one. From 1965 it’s the second self-titled LP by Marianne Faithfull. She really was every schoolboy’s dream, wasn’t she, chaps?
How were we to know she’d become an anorexic homeless junkie by the 70s?
http://i.imgur.com/PQ1A6Qt.jpg
Well done Mike!
This film consolidated her status as the ultimate schoolboy pinup.
I saw it an impressionable age. The “plot” consisted of little more than Marianne getting dressed up in leathers, riding a large throbbing motocycle and then getting undressed. There were few complaints from the audience.
A few from the cleaners, though
I went to the cinema to see this film on first release. I don’t recall much about the plot, but there was lots of slow unzipping of that leather body suit.
A lot of unzipping in the stalls too.
Thank the lord for home video.
*shudder*
If only I hadn’t worn my 501s that day things might have been so different. That’s what I told the magistrate, anyway
PS. @johnny-concheroo what is “second self-titled LP” ??? The correct nomenclature is “eponymous sophomore effort”, as you well know.
I am concern!
I was tempted to use “eponymous” I must confess, but managed to restrain myself. As for sophomore…
It was the heavy sweater that clinched it 😉
I didn’t realise she was a heavy sweater. Perhaps a side effect of being a heavy smoker?
I do like a lass in a nice bit of knitwear.
Mimi Fariña was certainly an interesting shout. If she’d had “Joan Baez on the record player”, as the sleeve notes say, she would’ve been enjoying one of her sister’s albums.
Those punctuation-free mid-60s sleeve notes, as seen on Dylan albums, were hugely cool for a while, but they look a but clunky now, I feel.
See also the back of Scott 3. “Narcissus in Metamorphosis…. ” and all that bollix.
epitomised by lowell george doing the same thing on counting backwards waiting for columbus last record album feats don’t fail me now sailin shoes and i would guess the debut and also third record dixie chicken although i can’t vouch for that as i’ve got the two originals package which probably cut the blurb for reasons of brevity on the sleeve anybody know get in touch
This might be a bit niche, depending on your age/tastes, but here goes:
N.B. I would be a “knees-up-nellie”.
Is it Manuel and His Music of the Mountains?
Haha! No.
Motown had several compilations titled 16 Big Hits (he said hopefully)
“Knees-up Nellie”: what a wonderful term. You don’t see many of those any more.
Are young people still necking, canoodling and spooning?
Maybe. But what’s a “gram deck” when it’s at home?
Looks like a failed attempt to create a portmanteau word from gramophone and record deck.
We youngsters would fingerpop to the fab and groovy tunes our phonogram deck. Ah the joys of youth.
Ou sont les neiges d’antan?
Oh and is it Mrs Mills?
Nope.
This reads a bit like those “Top Of The Pops” LPs
Ou sont les negligées d’antan?
Your post made me think of Mrs Mills in her frilly nightwear, Hubert.
A bit more:
Needs to sort his head out about this Johnny Worth thing.
It’s not Geoff L. is it?
Well, it’s certainly not Manuel & His Music of the Mountains 🙂
Is it Edelweiss hitmaker Vince Hill?
John Worth is actually quite interesting. As Les Vandyke, he wrote most of Adam Faith’s hits, as well as this.
Mr Worth, as Les Vandyke, wrote all the music on this album. The arranger in question hails from Scotland. His most famous work is probably the theme to a certain TV show.
Wait a minute – “actually quite interesting”? Your surprise is a little insulting, Mr Thep 🙂
^^^CLUES ^^^
Andy Stewart?
Och, nooooooo!
Geoff Love? Manuel (also Mr Love)?! Mrs Mills?!! Is this how you lot see my record ‘collection’? And I’ll have you know, young Sniffity, I don’t have any Top Of The Pops albums. Er, except that one I bought a couple of weeks ago for the Space Oddity cover. Um…
Johnny Keating, isn’t it?
Hurray! Here’s the sleeve in all its glory.
That a great sleeve. Look at those cats go!
Interesting record collector fact.
Ace of Clubs was Decca’s budget label releasing only music by UK artists.
There was a sister label Ace of Hearts which released material by American and non-UK artists.
Think I’ve still got a John Mayall album on Ace of Clubs. ” The Blues Alone”.
One of the biggest sellers on Ace Of Clubs and one of few to receive a CD release 20 years down the track.
Another one was Raw Blues a various artists Brit blues compilation with pictures of Clapton and Mayall on the sleeve (taken at the Beano Album cover shoot!). Although that one is long deleted on CD.
And another one from a little further back was this corker.
Raw Blues wasn’t strictly Brit only, containing as it did Champion Jack Dupree, Otis Spann and Curtis Jones, though I suppose CJD was an honorary Brits at the time.
I think the US artists on Raw Blues were recorded in the UK and backed by British musicians (thus qualifying for the Ace Of Clubs “British recordings” proviso). And as you say CJD actually lived in Britain (Halifax!) at the time.
There are four medleys, three of them fairly ordinary, but the first, “Hully Gully”, is fantabulously groovy. Here are those notes in full, plus a close-up of the man himself.
The TV theme was of course Z Cars.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cQh-b11vcM
Haggis eh? Love that racial stereotyping!
I wouldn’t know Johnny Keating from John Keats. My loss, evidently!
I think if you were dancing to this in ’64 you’d be considered a bit square, but I love it.
I seriously did consider the Z Cars theme but then remembered it was based on the traditional tune “Johnny Todd” and so dismissed it.
Here you go, I hope.
Swarbrick is playing, so I was suspecting some kind of Fairport connection. But then this bloke is some kind of world champíon…..
Football? Boxing? Wrestling? Table tennis?
One of those is correct, I saw him sing with Fairport once at Cropredy..
Here he is!
Well done it was Brian’s debut album. He made another with even more Fairport members.
Crikey. I’d never heard of this guy Brian Maxine.
Next you’ll be telling me that the album had Kendo Nagasaki on psaltery and Giant Haystacks on crumhorn.
They were on Brian Maxine’s ill fated medieval/renaissance album tentatively called ‘Brian Maxine gets Medieval on your Ass’ Alas never released.
Here is in in 82 with Fairport.
I got another Johnny Keating record at the weekend. No sleeve notes, but a groovy cover.
Here’s one more. Probably not that hard, but I couldn’t resist it, if only for possibly the first mention of Jimmy Page on a record sleeve.
From 1964, let’s read all about Big Jim and Little Jim.
http://i.imgur.com/fmB6jIr.jpg
Big Jim and Little Jim …Sheffield lad Dave Berry’s first album by any chance?
That’s it! Well done Mike. I haven’t looked at this LP for decades and had no idea Jimmy Page (then just a session man) was credited so prominently 4 years before Led Zep were dreamed of.
http://i.imgur.com/dFDb9pC.jpg
I had (still do, for all I know) the My Baby Left Me/Hoochie Coochie Man single, and I always seemed to know that Little Jim did the guitar work, including the blinding solo , although I can’t have done at the time.
I knew Page played on some of the Dave Berry singles (especially The Crying Game) but only found out after Zeppelin became big around 1969
You might enjoy thid LP, JC – essentially Bobby Graham & Jimmy P in January 1965 getting a load of their sessioning mates in, writing some tunes, covering some others, and getting a big cheque from French labelmaestre Eddie Barclay:
https://www.discogs.com/Le-London-All-Star-British-Percussion/release/2428847
Those credits in full:
Arranged By – Nicky Welsh
Bass – Alan Weighell*, Arthur Watts
Drums – Andy White, Ronnie Verral*
Engineer – Bob Auger
Horn – Jim Buck Sr*, Jim Buck Jr
Lead Guitar – Jimmy Page
Organ – Kenny Salmon
Percussion – Barry Morgan, Eric Allan*
Photography – Hulard
Piano – Arthur Greenslade
Producer, Liner Notes – Bobbie Graham*
Rhythm Guitar – Johnnie Mac Cloughlin*
Saxophone – Bill Skeets*, Don Honeywell*, Keith Bird, Rex Morris, Roy Willox
Trombone – Jack Thurwell*
Trumpet – Albert Hall (2), Bert Ezard, Ray Davis*, Stan Roderick
Trumpet [Tenor] – Gib Wallace, Johnnie Edwards, Keith Christie
I suspect it’s only me and @mikethep playing this game now, but here another golden oldie for y’all to have a crack at.
Note: his group is not a “raving” group.
http://i.imgur.com/50H5CwP.jpg
The big beat…. it could be Bentley Rhythm Ace.
I’m playing I just don’t have a clue.
Thank you anyway hubert!
“The leader…..then lambasts the vellum of a tambourine with all the venom of a boxer getting at a punch-bag”
Ee, they knew how to have a good time in them days.
Here’s the sleeve notes from the second album by the group/artist above.
http://i.imgur.com/SkqDMsR.jpg
The mention of Jack Baverstock probably means it is a Fontana release….Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders..?
Very good. Was Jack the Fontana in-house publicist/sleeve note guy as well as the recording manager?
The sleeve notes are from the first two Wayne Fontana & the Mindbenders LPs, 1964 & 65 respectively:
http://i.imgur.com/BJMte5F.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/ReCXBCH.jpg
The name rang a bell for some reason. Just fact checked….this is from the Phillips website….
In 1958 Philips created a subsidiary record label Fontana and appointed Jack Baverstock (who had worked for the New Musical Express and had assisted in introducing the Top Twenty charts to the UK), as the label’s A&R Manager. Jack had previously also produced discs for Oriole and Embassy Records.
http://www.philipsrecords.co.uk/Fontana%20Records.html
I never knew that Fontana released CBS material before they set up their own operation in the UK. I knew they released licensed Island product from Chris Blackwell and Vanguard stuff (Joan Baez in particular).
I knew that Philips (Fontana’s parent company) handled CBS material in the UK before they got their own imprint around 1960/61. All those early Johnny Mathis and Doris Day albums (and even a Johnny Cash LP or three) appeared on Philips in the UK before CBS was established.
That’s good research Nigel.
The Woolworth’s Embassy label was, of course, part of the Oriole label.
*pant, puff* Only just got here. You won’t believe this, but Manchester and tambourine put Wayne and his Mindbenders into my head – but Nigel got there first. Teach me to lie in of a Sunday morning…
I left Manchester in thinking it may be a bum steer, leading to Freddie & the Dreamers or the Hollies.
And there’s your man from 10CC looking very young indeed.
And future Macca collaborator too
He’s always had an expression of smirking smugness to me…mind you, with his output, he can probably get away with it.
It’s probably worth a thread of its own: seemingly anonymous beat boom band members who went on to eclipse their original groups
Wayne Fontana had a sad end to his career, of course.
From Wiki:
In 2005, he fought off bankruptcy but was arrested after police were called by bailiffs who went to his home in Glossop, Derbyshire. He poured petrol on the bonnet of a bailiff’s car and set it alight with the bailiff still inside. Fontana was remanded in custody on 25 May 2007. He later appeared at Derby Crown Court dressed as Lady Justice, complete with a sword, scales, crown, cape and dark glasses, and claiming “justice is blind”. He dismissed his lawyers. On 10 November 2007 he was sentenced to 11 months for setting fire to the car but was released because he had already served the equivalent of the term, having been held under the Mental Health Act 1983. After his release he settled in Spain. Fontana continues to perform, notably in the Solid Silver 60s Shows.
“I got close to going berserk”. High praise indeed.
Here’s an interesting one. The writer of these sleeve notes is probably better known to most of us here than the artist in question. I’m expecting great things from @Colin-h here, by the way.
Two answers please.
http://i.imgur.com/xezk185.jpg
The Doors
Richard Meltzer
Hmmm no way it’s them – silly nomination
No, not the Doors.
Massive clue left in there, JC – my lips are sealed, unless/until…
I can’t see it, unless it was their hometown? If that’s not it, maybe send me a PM?
How about Electric Flag ?
and Ralph Gleason
Good answers both, but not correct
complete guess 1 : HP Lovecraft
complete guess 2 : Robert Palmer as the writer of the liner notes
No, sorry.
That would have been funnier had it been HP Lovecraft with sleeve notes by HP Saucecraft
Is it The Flock?
And the sleeve note author?
well, I have the album but I can’t recall offhand (and I didn’t recognise the note – mustn’t have read it in decades). Go on, tell us…
PS This may surprise you, but I had the first Flock album (which is brilliant) long before I owned any Mahavishnu albums. An uncle gave me his copy for some reason, when I was about 14.
Yes, it’s the first album by The Flock and sleeve notes by the king of the blues boom – John Mayall
http://i.imgur.com/4sNNmEn.jpg
we’ve not heard that blues boom talked about round here much. Do you know anything about it, JC?
It’s something of a niche topic Colin, discussed only in hushed tones in the most far-flung recesses of the Afterword. Or the “dark blog”, as I like to call it.
It’s anagram for ‘slob muse Bo’ – clearly, a load of people dressing scuffily and playing turgid extemporisations on Bo Diddley riffs. which isn’t too far from the truth, is it?
or, indeed, ‘be slob muso’…
Bet Hobos Mule
Drat – just realised I used the S twice. But then you’ve cheated and added ‘the’… 🙂
Be Subtle Homo
Mob Use Hotel (on the foreign tours, naturally)
Or indeed O lesbo bum…
We cater for all orientations in the world of the 12-bar
I wondered about that but was thrown by the reference to gospel.
So the Jerry Goodman Mahavishnu connection
Exactly!
Intrigued by Mayall’s sleeve notes I played the Flock LP today for the first time in decades and was pleasantly surprised how good it is. It’s very much the Jerry Goodman show, with his violin all over every track, but there’s much else to enjoy.
With its avant garde classical-tinged instrumental flourishes, opening track Introduction could almost pass for the Mahavishnu Orchestra in places. Elsewhere things are more mainstream and there’s even a Kinks cover (Tired Of Waiting) and, gasp, a blues of sorts (the 15 minute extravaganza Truth). Guitarist Fred Glickstein is heard sparingly, but when he does stretch out, he’s a fiercely capable player.
The brass section recalls Chicago or Blood, Sweat & Tears at times and my only reservations are the vocals. Those distinctly American close harmony vocals (think: Vanilla Fudge) sound very dated now.
The back cover photo shows Goodman in full flight, his hair billowing in the breeze and it reminded me that the same picture was used for the front cover of the 1970 UK CBS sampler 2/LP set Fill Your Head With Rock. Most buyers probably didn’t know who he was at the time, I’ll warrant.
http://i.imgur.com/IiG1uMZ.jpg
Here’s The Flock in action
Here’s another. The writer of these sleeve notes was a well-known BBC radio panel show kind of guy, so I can’t work out if he’s taking the piss here.
This one harks back to the very dawn of rock & roll (British rock & roll, anyway)
You won’t know the album, so let’s have the name of the artist and, if you’re feeling cocky, the author of the sleeve notes, too.
http://i.imgur.com/pD2Tqza.jpg
I’m thinking the pundit was probably Steve Race, choosing his words very carefully? As for the group, unless the word skiffle is a red herring, it can only be Lonnie Donegan – or possibly the Vipers. Or Chas McDevitt and Nancy Whiskey? I’m struggling here, but I imagine they were the only skifflers allowed to make an elpee.
You’re half right there Mike.
Well I can’t be half right with a choice of 3 skiffle groups, so I must be right with Steve Race.
To recap. One of the three artists you named is correct. But Steve Race is incorrect.
Dennis Nordern?
No, think jazz.
Hi JC – I think it might be Benny Green.
Correct Gary. And as Mike guessed it’s the one and only 10″ LP by The Vipers Skiffle Group from 1957. That’s future kids TV star Wally Whyton second right.
Sleeve notes are by Benny Green the jazz sax player turned doyen of radio panel shows.
His son Leo Green also plays sax and in 2005 was appointed Artistic Director of Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club, booking rock acts like Jeff Beck and Van Morrison,
As you can see, my copy has seen better days.
http://i.imgur.com/7AtC90B.jpg
Excellent! Those sleeve notes are quite prescient given what subsequently happened.
He looks a bit different from his panel show days, but I think this Benny is playing on this:
Yes! I forgot that jazzer Benny slummed it for a while with ersatz rock & roll instrumental outfit Lord Rockingham’s XI
While Mike is thinking about the last one, here’s another easier one from the same era. Who is this?
http://i.imgur.com/rMo27hw.jpg
Tommy Steele?
Tommy Steele?
I thought it was Steve Race above too, Gilbert Harding?
Yes! It’s Tommy Steele from 1957 with one of several 10″ LPs he released around that time. He’s playing a big ass ol’ Hofner guitar on the cover there and the way his guitar strap is all gathered in the photo has been playing havoc with my OCD for decades.
Re. the earlier one. Not Gilbert Harding or Steve Race, although you’re on the right lines with jazz.
http://i.imgur.com/5YzmHLt.jpg
Not Gilbert Harding? How about Lady Isobel Barnett?
Humphrey Littleton?
See above
After seeing off the “Beatle Blight of ’64” this band “literally skyrocketed to European fame” .
But who are they?
It’s interesting how the entire UK/British Isles really just equates to “England” in the collective American consciousness.
http://i.imgur.com/qTeznn6.jpg
I’m guessing…The Searchers.
Bah! I mean, well done Sniff.
Yes, it’s the first US LP by the Searchers
http://i.imgur.com/igjrbHC.jpg
Famous band and an equally famous sleeve notes writer. Pseud’s Corner awaits, I suspect.
But who is it?
http://i.imgur.com/SsORKuY.jpg