In my view, it’s been a really good year for Reissues and Archival Recordings. I hope the list is a little more varied than usual. Most years, my Reissues chart includes lots of live Grateful Dead shows; this year, for the first time in decades, I didn’t buy any Grateful Dead or Jerry Garcia archival recordings. None at all. I shall probably be expelled from the local Deadheads association. Neither is there as much reggae as there usually is in my Reissues chart: maybe the great re-release wellspring of classic 70s roots reggae and dub is finally starting to run dry. I hope not.
So, here we go, then, with the first batch of seven reissues or archival recordings, from 19 down to no. 13.
19. Rory Gallagher – Cleveland Calling
A Cleveland radio interview and eight acoustic songs performed live in August 1972. The Radio WCNR interviewer doesn’t seem to have much idea who Rory is, at one point asking “You have a bit of an accent. You don’t sound like you come from here. Where are you from?”
18. Wall Matthews – Spine River: The Guitar Music of, 1967-1981
In the 1970s, Wall Matthews played guitar with the US East coast experimental group Entourage. He also did a few solo guitar bits and pieces, which are collected here. Worth checking out.
https://tompkinssquare.bandcamp.com/album/spine-river-the-guitar-music-of-wall-matthews-1967-1981
17. Tidiane Thiam – Siftorde
Some acoustic guitar tunes from 2014, recorded lo-fi in Senegal at night, using only one microphone. Has a similar stripped-down vibe to some of the early Baaba Maal acoustic material.
https://tidianethiam.bandcamp.com/album/siftorde
16. Max Romeo – Revelation Time
An expanded version of the original album, which also went under the name “Open the Iron Gate” when it was reissued on Blood & Fire ages ago. Romeo’s vocal are very fine, and there’s some decent dub versions and deejay cuts included too.
15. Style Council – Long Hot Summers: The Story of…
As good a Style Council compilation as you can get on 2 CDs.
14. The Pogues – The BBC Sessions 1984-1986
An expanded version of a collection that was originally an RSD release. Spirited, no-nonsense version of many of their greatest songs from the early years.
13. Thelonious Monk – Palo Alto
This is a 1968 Thelonious Monk live album from a high school in California. You know what he’s going to play, don’t you? That’s right: he plays Blue Monk, Well You Needn’t, Epistrophy, and all the others. And you know how it’s going to sound, don’t you? It sounds great. It sounds like Monk. The incomparable Thelonious Sphere Monk.
That’s it for the moment. I shall return this afternoon with numbers 12 to 7. See you then.
Tempted by the Max Romeo title, but I don’t think it’s worth it for a couple of extra tracks – I bought the Blood & Fire reissue back a while. Like you I’m keen to dig into the wellspring of good reggae reissues, but there just haven’t been enough of them this year!
Indeed, my foxy friend. There are only two reggae reissues among the remaining 12 titles on my list.
Right: here we go with Part 2 of the list:
12. Lee Scratch Perry, Seke Molenga & Kalo Kawongolo – Roots from the Congo
One of the most bizarre and obscure albums ever to be recorded at Lee Perry’s legendary Black Ark studio. In 1977, as Scratch was finishing up his “Heart of the Congos” masterpiece with the Congos, two Zaïrean blokes speaking no English, whom nobody knew, appeared at the studio. Perry took this as a sort of divine sign from Africa, and put Molenga and Kawongolo to work doing some guitar parts and vocals in Lingala over the top of six choice Black Ark backing tracks that he happened to have lying around. The result was “Roots from the Congo”, which Island Records declined to release. Now, 43 years later, it’s widely available for the first time, on 45 rpm vinyl.
11. Augustus Pablo – Earth Rightful Ruler
This Pablo set from 1982 has been reissued several times before, sometimes under the title of “Earth’s Rightful Ruler”. On this occasion, however, they’ve decided to go without the apostrophe-s. Strange choice, and not one I can really endorse. Still, a fine album, with top names like Hugh Mundell, Robbie Shakespeare, Earl ‘Chinna’ Smith and Horsemouth Wallace all contributing.
10. Ryo Fukui – In New York
“In New York” sounds like it could be a live album, but it’s actually a studio set from 1999. Thumbs-up to the boldly named We Release What The Fuck We Want Records for making all the albums by the Japanese jazz piano maestro available again on CD and vinyl. There’s not a weak moment on any of them.
9. Rory Gallagher – Check Shirt Wizard: Live in ‘77
The past few years have been good ones for Rory Gallagher fans. Ignore the dodgy title and cover design, and enjoy the great Irish bluesman in excelsis on his 1977 UK tour. The acoustic mini-set at the beginning of disc 2 is worth the price of entry by itself. This album proudly takes the bronze medal in the great pantheon of Rory Gallagher live albums, behind the unassailable “Irish Tour ‘74 and “Live in Europe”.
8. Arvo Pärt – Für Alina
“Für Alina” and “Spiegel im Spiegel” are two of Arvo Pärt’s best-loved, most beautiful and shortest works. The most famous recording of them is probably the 1999 ECM one with the pale green cover. Even if you know that album, it’s still worth hearing these recordings, with the Russian pianist Alexeit Lubimov, the German cellist Sebastian Klinger and the Israeli violist Vadim Gluzman. Quite magical.
https://mississippirecords.bandcamp.com/album/f-r-alina
7. Richard and Linda Thompson – Hard Luck Stories: (1972-1982)
I buy very few big, expensive boxed sets, but I did buy this one. The material from Richard and Linda’s years as a duo is so consistently strong. Sadly, the 8CD box only includes two live tracks from the infamous 1982 “Tour from Hell”, but other than that, fans can have complaints about the material compiled here. It’s just a pity that so many purchasers found that some of their discs were faulty.
OK. That’s it for today. Join me tomorrow morning for the sensational Top Six!
I passed on the R< box because I have so much of it already in one form or another, even the live stuff that supposedly hasn’t been available before (cough). And I certainly didn’t welcome the prospect of having to play all the discs from end to end straight away just to check that they weren’t faulty. There’s no excuse for such poor quality control.
The Rory set is a total blast – I pre-ordered that one as soon as i saw it was coming out, partly because I was lucky enough to have seen him play on that very UK tour.
I’ve got loads of Augustus Pablo releases; like many from that era they’ve been repackaged, re-sequenced and otherwise mutilated many times, and not always to great effect. Can’t beat the early originals but any newly escaped stuff – even later period – is welcome. I missed spotting this one’s escape so I shall investigate further! What’s the label called who have put this out again?
The Upsetter and some vague chums? Hmmmmm. The old rascal; gotta love him, but don’t forget to reach for that pinch of salt. Not sure I want to venture there; Lee Perry could record his gardener reading the phone directory and bugger about with it to make it entertaining. Not only that, but his Swiss based lifestyle must cost him a fortune, so he needs to keep shovelling stuff back out from the tapes that time forgot! And anyway, I try not to bother with vinyl any more – this kind of release smacks of jumping on the vinly bandwagon. I bet I can find a decent copy of these recordings somewhere else without having to fire up the Planet. If Trojan had just put it out on CD in a decent form I’d buy it of course.
Hi Vulpes,
The label that’s put out Augustus Pablo’s “Earth Rightful Ruler” is some outfit called Only Roots, which I’d never heard of before:
https://www.onlyroots-reggae.com/en/dub-instrumental/147250-lp-augustus-pablo-earth-rightful-ruler.html?search_query=augustus+pablo&results=67
I’m hugely envious of anyone who saw Rory Gallagher live in concert. What a player!
As regards vinyl – yes, I unwisely jumped (back) on that bandwagon a few years ago, and now it’s clattering along at such an infernal speed, I find I can’t get off!
Thanks @duco01.
I’m looking to get a CD copy of this, even if it’s not as nice an artefact as that vinyl reissue. Sadly, Discogs is currently offline (gives a 404), but I’ll follow it up later on.
I saw Rory play live twice, and was blown away both times.
Have a great Christmas break! We’ll be playing the Fahey Christmas Guitar album tomorrow while the TV stays silent – it’s become a tradition here.
I wanted to know more about Ni 12 – Rots from the Congo.
Here’s a bit morer nackground…
https://www.musicmaniarecords.be/778-lee-perry/7476-roots-from-the-congo/
Okey-dokey: here we go with the sizzling sextet of albums that are my choices for the top reissues and archival recordings of 2020: three from the US, two from Japan and one from Jamaica…
6. Yabby You/The Prophets – King Tubby’s Prophecies of Dub
Dear oh dear, this reissue by Pressure Sounds is a really confusing release, in the fine tradition of the Jamaican music industry. For starters, it has nothing to do with the better-known Yabby U album “King Tubby’s Prophesy [singular] of Dub”, which Blood & Fire reissued in 1995. This album is vaguely credited to “The Prophets”, whoever they were, because not all the rhythms are Vivian Jackson (Yabby You) originals – some are old Striker Lee tracks. And although the magic words “King Tubby’s” appear on the cover, on closer inspection, it appears as if the album’s tracks were actually dubbed by an engineer at Tubby’s studio called Pat Kelly. But such confusion is easily forgotten when one listens to the set, which is still terrific.
https://pressuresounds.bandcamp.com/album/prophecies-of-dub
5. Various Artists – The World is a Cafeteria: American Soul Music (and one song from Ghana) 1955-1998; and
4. Various Artists – Do You Believe It: American Soul Music 1960-1972
Since 2018, Cairo Records have released six vinyl-only collections of American deep soul treasures from the 50s, 60s and 70s – four double LPs and two triples. These two compilations are their fifth and sixth releases, containing a total of 58 songs. They maintain the overall standard set in this series, which is staggeringly high. Many of the tracks are incredibly obscure singles by unknown artists who never made another record, but these are interspersed with little-known gems by some of the greatest artists of all time. Nina Simone, Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, etc. If you like, for example, Dave Godin’s soul compilations “Taken from the Vaults” for Kent records, then these albums will be right up your street.
3. Yumiko Morioka – Resonance
Yumiko Morioka is a 64-year-old Japanese pianist, and “Resonance”, released in 1987, is the only solo album she ever made. Fans of the record have kept interest in Morioka alive through YouTube videos, etc., and this year, the German record company Métron finally reissued “Resonance” as a vinyl LP. What a beautiful album it is: piano pieces influenced by Erik Satie, with the odd bit of violin and oboe thrown in. It’ll be winning avid new fans for decades to come…
https://metronrecords.bandcamp.com/album/resonance
2. Ryo Fukui – A Letter from Slowboat
This was the final album released by pianist Ryo Fukui. Fourteen months before his death in 2016, he and his trio played a couple of hometown dates in Sapporo at his own jazz club, Slowboat. The album culled from those dates is his crowning achievement, and was finally given a release outside Japan this year. Colossal.
https://wrwtfww.com/album/a-letter-from-slowboat
1. Robbie Basho – Selection from Song of the Avatars: the Lost Master Tapes
It had been rumoured for years that someone was going to put out a big box set of lost tracks by Robbie Basho (1940-1986). And now they have. Basho had bequeathed over 100 reel-to-reel tapes in various states of repair to an organisation called Sufism Reoriented, which made the material available to producer and documentary maker Liam Barker. The material spans Basho’s entire career until his tragic death at the hands of a dodgy chiropractor, who tried out a risky manoeuvre on Robbie’s head and neck.
The full set is a 5CD box, but what I have is a single cherry-picked vinyl LP of seven selected tracks that was a Record Store Day release. Basho’s singing and playing here is brilliant and certainly driven, but still kept in check, and not completely bonkers. It’s so brilliant, I now wish I’d gone for the full box. Basho is often lumped in with other American Primitive guitarists like John Fahey, Sandy Bull, Leo Kottke and Mark Fosson, but really, no one sounds like Robbie. His rather …. erm …. ‘wayward’ nature and lifelong obsessions with Indian ragas, Japanese poetry, Persian philosophy and native American culture were all reflected in his music, wherein he howled, shrieked and drove his 12-string guitar to the absolute limit. There’s a reason Robbie Basho played like a man possessed: he WAS a man possessed.
https://tompkinssquare.bandcamp.com/album/selections-from-song-of-the-avatars-the-lost-master-tapes
That’s it! Cheers and good wishes for the holiday season, with hopes that 2021 is a nicer year in general for the whole of the Afterword community.
//duco
Thanks for the list/reviews @duco01 it’s been an education!
Personally, I find one or two Basho discs is all any collection needs, and I’ll be swerving past the ‘Lost Master Tapes’ in its expensive entirety!
Anything touched by Vivian Jackson gets a sympathetic listen hereabouts, since many years ago I bought my copy of ‘Conquering Lion’ which proudly sports the legend ‘MADE IN JAMAICA’ on the rear of the sleeve! The notes that accompany the proud announcement are an interesting read. One suspects that they were written by someone not unfamiliar with the mental discombobulation and tangential logic brought about by the inhalation of copious clouds of collie smoke. I’ll be buying this little title too, now that you’ve alerted me to its existence – thanks!
Felicitations to you for a relaxing and healthy festive season and a melodic New Year.
Yes, I agree with you about Robbie Basho. One has to tread warily. I’ve got a couple of his albums where he climbs aboard the Weird Shit Special and really opens the throttle.
My favourite Basho album remains the first that I bought, “Visions of the Country”, which is simply brilliant. Coincidentally, it’s been reissued by Gnome Life Records this year:
https://gnomelife.bandcamp.com/album/visions-of-the-country
I enjoyed doing a playlist from your fine list, Duke. You seem to have a had a lot of fun rediscovering all these gems.
Frustrating that Yumiko Moioka is not on Spotify. But, as well as Bandcamp, the whole album is on YT and very good it sounds too.
Like the sound of the Yumiko Morioka album – and the description on Bandcamp:
“Whilst by no means a commercial failure, the album was mostly found in the background of Japanese TV documentaries, maternity clinics and healing shops…”
Sounds ideal for these times!
Indeed. I can imagine that many Japanese newborn babies were gently lulled to sleep to the sounds of Ms Morioka’s “Resonance”.
Dare I point out, Duke, that there have been a few albums on your previous lists that have certainly NOT lulled any babies to sleep.
I think you will find this interview with Yumiko rather interesting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjyoROuCPEg
This Nick Luscombe bloke seems to be worth checking out.
I was intrigued to hear in that interview that in 1995 Yumiko had done an album with Bill Nelson: Culturemix.
https://www.discogs.com/Culturemix-With-Bill-Nelson-Culturemix-With-Bill-Nelson/release/1580130
Here is a track
Strangely, I was just listening to that very clip, just before coming back and seeing this. I’d be very interested to hear those recordings (mentioned in the interview) that she made with Bill Nelson. And try some of Yumiko’s chocolate. I wonder if my UK chocolate-making friend Dom Ramsay knows her.
I’m getting very nerdy this morning!
A little digging around revealed that Bill Nelson has a Japanese connection. After the break up of his second marriage in the 1990s, he moved to Japan for a year. He has a Japanese wife, Emiko, who he married around 1995. She was previously married to the drummer of the Yellow Magic Orchestra, Yukihiro Takahashi.
https://www.soundonsound.com/people/bill-nelson
Emiko is mentioned in this excellent interview with Yumiko.
https://testpressing.org/magazine/nothing-is-a-coincidence-yumiko-morioka
What a life! She spent several years in the US in the 60s and lived in San Francisco.
What was the album that really blew her away at this time?
Tarkus by ELP!
Back in Japan she became a pop songwriter. This song made her millions. But she had to keeo very quiet abit it, i order not to shock her very conservative parents.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjVErf-xQpI
She got seriously into scuba diving and the music of Brian Eno.
And now she makes chocolate, A very fascinating woman.