In my view, it’s been another really excellent year for Reissues and Archival Recordings. I like to think this is quite an eclectic list, with something for everyone. A few years ago, my Reissues chart included countless live Grateful Dead recordings, but at the moment I’m taking a bit of a sabbatical from the Dead, and I only bought one Jerry Garcia Band album. Neither is there as much reggae as there used to be in my Reissues chart. A few years ago, I wondered whether the great re-release wellspring of classic 70s roots reggae and dub would ever run dry, and I fear that’s starting to happen now. Finally, there’s the rather worrying trend of reissues not being put out on CD, but only streaming/downloads (which I don’t like) and vinyl (which is rather expensive if one is a keen fan).
Anyway. Let’s start with the first batch of seven, from 20 down to 14. The next batch will come in a few hours’ time.
20. Fleetwood Mac – Live
The original 1980 double LP expanded into 3CDs worth of live recordings. Worth having
19. Mário Rui Silva – Stories from Another Time: 1982-1988
Interesting and diverse collection from the three mid-80s albums by this Angolan guitarist. Some tracks lean towards the West African tradition, while others more reflect Silva’s classical training and jazz background.
https://timecapsulespace.bandcamp.com/album/stories-from-another-time-1982-1988
18. Kevin McCormick & David Horridge – Light Patterns
Obscure Mancunian album from the early 80s. Sounds a bit like the Durutti Column.
https://smilingc.bandcamp.com/album/light-patterns
17. Jerry Garcia Band – GarciaLive Volume 16: November 15th, 1991 Madison Square Garden
In the 1990s, Garcia was considerably more interesting in his music-making with the JGB and with David Grisman than he was with the Grateful Dead.
16. Gideon Nxumalo – Gideon Plays
Resurrected jazz classic from 1968 by South African pianist. Reissued by the always-fab Matsuli records, who’ve done such a great job of unearthing decades of rich South African musical heritage.
https://matsulimusic.bandcamp.com/album/gideon-plays
15. Russell Potter – A Stone’s Throw
A big thumbs-up to Tompkins Square Records for reissuing the first two albums by this versatile American Primitive guitarist from Vermont. This is his debut, from 1979. His masterpiece would come two years later [see higher up the chart].
https://tompkinssquare.bandcamp.com/album/a-stones-throw
14. Neil Young – Carnegie Hall 1970
A very strong 23-track solo concert at the prestigious Manhattan venue. One could hardly wish for better live versions of the key songs of the early Neil Young canon.
More coming soon!
Mario sounds right up my street!
https://drumsandchants.com/mario-rui-silva-stories-from-another-time/
I’ve already added one of his tunes to my Guitars Galore playlist. From Gwenifer Raymond to Pat Metheny and then beyond!
If you enjoy that Warren Hampshire track, you need to check out some Harvey Mandel material.
Here’s a relatively recent performance of one of his signature pieces. His typically sustained lyrical guitar sound really kicks in at about 4 minutes. If you like this I urge you to seek out his first album, named after this track, and go from there:
Thanks for the Harvey Mandel tip, Vulpes. I shall investigate…
“Cristo Redentor”? That’s the Duke Pearson tune, isn’t it? Oh yes, I know it. Beautiful piece. It was on “A New Perspective”, the 1964 Blue Note album that Pearson did with Donald Byrd. the one with the E-type Jaguar on the cover!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBLJAM7jPUQ
That’s the one. I confess I bought that album because of the eye-catching cover; wasn’t disappointed.
Russell Potter sounds like a real guitar wizard.
Tompkins Square are definitively the go-to guys for American Primitives.
Check this out! Was there ever a better Xmas Afterword present?
Tompkins Square Trading Cards of Obscure Giants of the Acoustic Guitar!
http://www.tompkinssquare.com/obscure-cards.html
How can one be a giant and obscure? A slight contradiction in terms?
http://www.tompkinssquare.com/obscure-cards.html
The artists who did them, Shana Cleveland, also has a band.
Tompkins Square released Harvey Mandel’s recent(ish) album called Snake Pit – the artwork from the cover of that LP is the same piece that you can see on the front of Harvey’s guitar in the live performance Tube that I posted up the page. Great label. Painful wallet-pounding effect though!
@duco01 I know what you mean about not releasing stuff on CD – I really want the Studio one 007 licenced to Ska collection but its an RSD release of 7″‘s- I really don’t like 7″‘s as I have to reconfigure my turntable and I cant be arsed getting up every 5 minutes. They have missed some sales there I would think
Okey-dokey. Here we go with the next batch, from 13 down to No.7.
13. Kenny Burrell – Midnight Blue
One of Blue Note’s most famous guitar-led albums, from 1963, gets a welcome LP re-release as part of the Classic Vinyl series. Features the great Stanley Turrentine on the tenor sax. Classic cover design, too.
12. Can – Live in Stuttgart 1975
Five improvisational pieces showcasing the mighty Can on primo-primo form. A revelation. Why on earth did they leave this unreleased for 46 years?
11. Bob Mould – Best of Distortion 1989-2019 [4CD version]
A very handy summary of Bob’s post-Hüsker Dü career for those of us who couldn’t stretch to the full 24CD megabox and haven’t kept up with his recent albums. Play loud!
10. Bill Evans – Behind the Dikes: the 1969 Netherlands Recordings
Tip-top studio and live tracks from Holland by Evans in his trio with Marty Morell and Eddie Gomez. All good stuff, but negative points for the hugely overpriced Record Store Day vinyl version of the set.
9. Bill Evans Trio – On a Friday Evening
It’s been a bumper years for Bill Evans aficionados. This is a previously unheard 1975 gig at the classic Oil Can Harry’s jazz club in Vancouver. With Eddie Gomez on bass and Eliot Zigmund on drums. Is it any good? Well, it’s a Bill Evans record; that’s all you need to know.
8. Rico – That Man is Forward
This is a 40th Anniversary reissue for an LP originally put out on Two-Tone Records by the Cuban/Jamaican trombone maestro who famously played with the Specials for a while.
7. John Prine – Live at the Other End: Dec 1975
This was a Record Store Day release. If you like the music of John Prine, and fancy acquiring a live album, this is the one. 39 songs over two discs, recorded in a New York City club. Contains his early classic numbers, although strangely, the best of them are crammed onto the brilliant first disc, leaving disc 2 as a bit of an also-ran.
The Superlative Top Six will be arriving in a few hours’ time!
That Rico is a splendid thing. Right between ‘The Revolutionaries’ and ‘Ricotti & Albuquerque’ on my vinyl shelf! ‘The Earth Is The Lord’s And The Fullness Thereof’ it says.
Rico’s other Two Tone album, Jama Rico, also got reissued this year. They both sound fab, having been remastered by Alchemy at Air Studios, as was The Selecter’s Too Much Pressure.
On a related note, The Specials’ Ghost Town 7″ & 12″ were remastered by king of the half-speed master, Miles Showell, at Abbey Road. Rico’s trombone solo on the 12″ still gives me the shivers.
Does the 12″ remaster sound better than the original 12″? Not that I have any intention of buying it, I just want to feel smug about having the original.
We need Father Billy O’Dwyer to do a compare-and-contrast
Hmm, Fentonsteve/Finton Stack. Any relation I wonder?
It sounds ruddy fantastic. My original, being 40 years old and played on a Dansette, is in less than perfect nick.
My only complaint, and I always say this about Ghost Town, is the bass isn’t loud enough. My neighbours would disagree.
We need more Horace Gentleman.
“I’ve had my fun and that’s all that matters”
I went to one of his Re-Play Papworth things and it was three hours of junglist techno.
I didn’t complain, I was too scared.
And so, dear friends, on to the final six. Two from the US, one from the US/Canada, one from Scotland/Ireland, one from Jamaica and one from Senegal.
6. Tim Buckley – Bear’s Sonic Journals: Merry Go Round at the Carousel (Live at The Carousel Ballroom, San Francisco, 15 June 1968)
“Bear” in the title of this album was Owsley “Bear” Stanley, the (in)famous sound engineer and LSD manufacturer for the Grateful Dead. He recorded this Tim Buckley gig in a rather bizarre way, putting John Miller’s double-bass on one channel, and everything else on the other. Buckley is generally in transcendent form, although occasionally his scat improvisations stray a little off-piste. On “I Don’t Need it to Rain”, he warbles “Don’t let your tonsils grow too long inside/You know that’s important”. Still, if you know and love Buckley’s “Dream Letter” live set from October 1968, as I do, then consider this album from 4 months earlier as a tasty little side-dish – a bit like a mushroom bhaji or something.
5. Neil Young & Crazy Horse – Way Down in the Rust Bucket
A white-hot 1990 live set from Santa Cruz. The concluding 38-minute rampage through “Like a Hurricane”, “Love and Only Love” and “Cortez the Killer” is quite simply a meltdown-monster. The album will sit nicely on your shelf next to “Live Rust” and “Weld”. Mr Young is deducted a point, though, for not bothering to list the members of Crazy Horse on the album sleeve. For such a blistering performance, Ralph, Frank and Billy deserve a bit better than that.
4. The Waterboys – The Magnificent Seven [5CD/DVD clamshell box]
The greatest iteration of the Waterboys was the septet that existed for about 15 months up to and including the recording of “Room to Roam” in 1990. This box, lovingly curated by Mike Scott, is jam-packed with live tracks, demos, offcuts, spontaneous jams and everything one could wish for. It even includes a recording of Scott singing “Something that is Gone” in a Los Angeles hotel bathroom, with only the water splashing around the cubicle for accompaniment.
3. Culture – Children of Zion: the High Note Singles Collection
After recording their first two albums (“Two Sevens Clash” and “Baldhead Bridge”) for Joe Gibbs in 1977-78, Culture spent a couple of years with Sonia Pottinger’s High Note label. Gathered on this 3CD set are all the 7” and 12” singles from the band’s tenure with High Note, complete with innumerable dubs and instrumental versions. I suppose you could say that the barrel is very thoroughly scraped indeed, but luckily, it’s an absolutely outstanding barrel.
2. Russell Potter – Volume II: Neither Here nor There
Google tells us that the 61-year-old Russell Potter is now a college lecturer in Rhode Island, writing on the subjects of “hip hop culture, popular music, and the history of British exploration of the Arctic in the nineteenth century”. But when he was just a lad, in 1981, he made this, his second and final album of acoustic guitar pieces. A triumph. Real buried treasure.
https://tompkinssquare.bandcamp.com/album/neither-here-nor-there
1. Gëstu de Dakar – Diabar
I love the sound of Malian and Senegalese music from the 70s and early 80s. You know – bands like Les Ambassadeurs, or the Super Rail Band de Bamako, or the early Orchestra Baobab. And this LP from 1981, put out on the Syllart label in Paris as part of its “Pearls” reissue programme, fits in nicely in that company. It’s unmistakeable: that rolling, humid, sinewy sound. Guitars, bass, trumpet, alto sax, percussion and vocals. I confess I’d never heard of Gëstu de Dakar before, and I don’t know a great deal about the LP other than that “diabar” means “wives”. Oh yes – and that it sounds great.
And that’s about yer lot! I hope you find something here that’s of interest.
Your Afterword brother,
duco
Never heard of Gestu De Dakar either, but you can’t go too far wrong with Syllart Records. Is there anyone in the band that we might know?
I’ve got a feeling that Virgin Frontline released some of the Culture Sonia Pottinger tracks on an excellent compilation. I had been toying with the idea of getting the Doctor Bird box set and will now definitely invest.
Anybody buying the Neil Young & Crazy horse album knows who the Crazy Horse members are (were)
I think his point was, that roadies, and lighting crew, and everyone else involved gets a credit …..except the band.
I’m very grateful to you, duco. It turns out that I bought Children Of Zion in June. Another purchase I haven’t listened to yet! I don’t know what’s happening to me.
Thank you
Gotta say, Dukey Boy – for me it’s your “Albums Of 21”, one point versus your “Reissues Of 21”, three hundred points. An absolute pearler of a list!
Well, I think I probably agree with you there, Lodey.
Maybe it’s inevitable that a Reissues and Archival Recordings list has the edge over a new albums list. I suppose … if an album is worth reissuing after 25 or 50 years, then it’s probably at least a pretty decent record, giving it an immediate advantage over most new albums released today. But, yes, 2021 has been a particularly fine year for old treasures brought to light…
So many excellent albums, I don’t know where to start.
I’ve begun by dipping my toe into that Waterboys box( on Spotify, thank goodness).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2j5R_uTn6MI4
What a preposterously good band they were.
The same seems to be true for Gestu de Dakar.
This smashing interview makes me very keen to Tigger-Test the album.
A great list, as ever, Duke.
I have to particularly register a thank you for the mighty Culture’s ‘Children Of Zion’ heads up.
Ordered in a trice. I have most of the material but the temptation of those 12” mixes is far too strong to resist!
Yes. Duly prompted, it was my soundtrack of choice on my walk today and I had quite the spring in my step consequently..