The Afterword

Musings on the byways of popular culture

Menu

Navigation

You are here: Home / Noticeboard / Duffy Power – Dusty Road: The Adrian Millar Sessions 1972-73

Duffy Power – Dusty Road: The Adrian Millar Sessions 1972-73

by 14 Comments

Back cover blurb: One of Britain’s pioneering rock’n’rollers, Duffy Power emerged from the Larry Parnes stable to become a revered purveyor of blistering R&B, folk-blues and soul in the 60s, creating a now legendary body of work. His only ‘album proper’ was made at the end of his 1959-73 tenure as a pro musician – a self-titled LP produced by Adrian Miller and a clutch of rare singles mixes and unreleased tracks. This work is collected here in full for the first time, with splendid new mastering from Cormac O’Kane.

Colin H extra info: I was delighted to write a 6,000-word essay for this release – a fabulous new presentation of the late Duffy Power’s self-titled 1973 album for the obscure GSF label, superbly mastered on CD from the master tapes for the first time (by that Wizard of Sound Cormac O’Kane, on top form) plus rare/unissued single mixes, three survivors from a projected second LP (two newly mixed from multi-tracks) and one wholly unreleased song/recording, ‘Jumpin’ Jesus’ (also newly mixed from multis)… plus two period demos by songwriter Harvey Shield, of songs recorded by Duffy in these sessions. The 62-minute collection is released by the always excellent prog rock and Morris Dance connoisseur Malcolm Holmes on Talking Elephant, and Sean Perkins – owner of the Adrian Millar audio archive – has created the three new mixes and provided a lot of memorabilia for the booklet, including the rare 1972 PR pic used on the cover. (Amusingly, Sean and I were bidding against each other for this very photo on eBay a few years back.)

Curiously, when Adrian Millar licensed the GSF album to RPM in 2007, he did so using a vinyl rip. I always thought the album sounded flabby – a great album struggling with a marshmallow production, not helped by the RPM CD mastering from vinyl. This time around, we had the masters and Cormac O’Kane worked forensically to find the best way to make the music come alive – and he’s succeeded brilliantly. 😀

1. Dusty Road (2023 mix) 4:08
2. Be Beside You (2023 mix) 3:02
3. Jumpin’ Jesus (2023 mix) 3:02
4. Liberation 4:00
5. Glimpses of God 3:01
6. Holiday 3:03
7. Love is Shelter 2:57
8. Little Soldiers 3:12
9. Love Song 2:57
10. Halfway 3:27
11. Song About Jesus 3:20
12. Lilly 2:23
13. River 2:31
14. Little Soldiers (single mix) 2:59
15. Liberation (single mix/edit) 2:44
16. Love’s Gonna Go 4:19
17. Dusty Road (demo) 4:00
18. Be Beside You (demo) 3:21
19. Liberation (unabridged single mix) 3:57

0

Comments

  2. A fun aside… I was listening to the Motors last week (surely the greatest of the late 70s pub rockers) and checking out recent video postings online. This one is fun – Peter Cook introducing them in 1978 as ‘A nice middle-aged group who used to do backing tracks for Duffy Power…’ 😀

    Ironically, if Duffywas perceived as a has-been in 1978, his recorded works have had a greater afterlife than those of the Motors (albeit, the latter’s 2015 Virgin box set is near-definitive).

  3. Saw Duffy P on tour with Climax Chicago Blues Band at Warwick University around this time and both ne and CCBB were terrific. Apparently Argent were on the same tour but I have no recollection of seeing them so maybe they weren’t there that night or came on after it was time for the last bus

  4. That’s another ker-ching you can hear there, @Colin-H.

    Thanks for bringing this to my attention, I’d have missed it without your help.

    Next time you speak to Mr. Holmes, could you ask him if he has any plans to re-release any of the Neptune Tapes albums by Cyril Tawney? I’m a Plymouth lad, and I’ve always been a Cyril fan; I’ve got everything that’s available, either on CD, or on original Argo vinyl. But frustratingly the Neptune Tapes releases have not yet re-surfaced in the digital age, to my knowledge. Maybe Rosemary, Cyril’s widow, has the rights? There are several potential releases, all long overdue!

    • Well, I’ll certainly mention it to Malcolm – but the music releasing game is increasingly tough these days. Does Cyril still have much of a following?

      • Well, there’s certainly a diminishing fan base. After so many oggies, we are dying off.

        But these days, with the possibility of getting the tapes digitised and maybe even lightly remastered, then made available via Bandcamp, there might be sufficient uptake to pursuade someone savvy to all this stuff to do it anyway, just for the craic. I’d like to hope so, anyway.

  5. The new mix of ‘Dusty Road’ – Duffy backed by Kentish hard rock trio CWT, whose members Graeme Quinton-Jones and Peter Kirke contribute to the booklet:

Leave a Reply