Table of contents for Issue 543 in Record Collector

rc.editorial@metropolis.co.uk www.recordcollectormag.com Record Collector Magazine @RecCollmag RecordCollectormag @recordcollectormag LIMITED COMPANY I have just received and am thoroughly enjoying the Pink Floyd The Dark Side Of The Moon special issue [RC 542] - I subscribe so am always pleased to get my copy early. I have an itch that really needs scratching! Having collected vinyl for years, I am far too often aware of so-called “limited” pressings. Can you, or anyone, please advise on what constitutes something that falls into this category? (or is it just a word used to pull us in?). I note Record Store Day use the term on literally ALL of its releases, yet press some records in crazy numbers - some are 10,000-plus, which surely is not “limited”. So, I have dreamed up what I believe…

A committed fan of The Who (p80) since first hearing Meaty Beaty Big And Bouncy as an impressionable teen, Rob Hughes this month gets to grill Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey about the band’s extraordinary live career. Matt Phillips is a writer, musician and record executive and is the founder of movingtheriver.com. His new book on the music of John McLaughlin will be published in September 2023. He interviews Lewis Taylor (p74) for this issue. After 20 years writing for legendary rock’n’roll magazine Bucketfull Of Brains, Simon Wright now runs the onlyrockandroll.london blogsite and DJs erratically. He financed his new book on The Only Ones (p70) by selling chocolate. Chris Catchpole first met Dan Auerbach (p66) in a pub in Brighton on The Black Keys frontman’s 30th birthday. The pair…

The Aladdin Sane: 50 Years Brian Duffy photo exhibition is at London Southbank Centre, 6 April-28 May. In addition, Chris Duffy’s Aladdin Sane 50 photobook is out via Welbeck, 30 March, and he has a Q&A at the Centre, 22 April, while Anna Calvi and Scissor Sisters’ Jake Shears perform the album 21 April. There’s also a free exhibition there, including unseen material from the Southbank Centre Archive. Richard Kleist’s Starman book is out via SelfMadeHero on 30 March, Simon Goddard’s Bowie Odyssey photobook is on Omnibus 25 May, followed by 74 in 2024, then 75, 76, 77, 78 and 79. A 7 February Omega Auctions sale included Jean Genie handwritten lyrics that made £57,000. The Celebrating David Bowie tour with Eric Schernerhorn (David Bowie), Peter Murphy (Bauhaus), Adrian Belew…

RC investigates COLLECTING In December 2013 and October 2018 (RC 421, 484), we visited UK rock’n’pop music museums. Our virtual visitation extended to the US in April 2020 (504) and, along with the US and UK, the Antipodes have spawned some of the top acts in post-war rock and pop. So, you’d expect there to be recognition of that heritage on home soil. The Aussies never do things by halves, and the Kiwis punch above their weight, and their pop museums reflect that. So, say g’day to music from the far side of the world. AUSTRALASIA Australia Arts Centre Melbourne The Centre’s Australian Performing Arts Collection is dedicated to the preservation of the country’s circus, dance, music, opera and theatre heritage. Among its 700,00-plus objects are troves from Kylie Minogue (490-plus…

Library music is much fawned-over by serious types these days. All those breaks and beats, all those swooshy synths, all those wonderful in-the-pocket musicians. What I love about it doesn’t seem to be what most people love at all. The original purpose of the music, after all, was to be used as a substitute for actual pop music or commissioned soundtracks, which would have been too expensive. I get my kicks when someone like the venerable Jonny Trunk (and that someone is usually Jonny Trunk) comes up with a clip of library music being correctly applied. A few weeks ago, he posted a clip from an episode of Minder during which a siege in a launderette was accompanied by Basil Kirchin’s Abstractions Of The Industrial North. I hadn’t been so…

OPINION Since his rise to mid-60s stardom with Manfred Mann, Paul Jones has been one of Britain’s premier blues/R&B singers. He also had his share of pop hits with the Manfreds and as a solo artist in the late 60s, as well as starring in some films and theatre productions, and hosting BBC 2’s The Blues Show for 32 years. While the simply titled Blues Band he fronted for more than four decades just retired, he still tours with the Mann-less Manfreds, and collaborates with other jazz and big band musicians. He celebrates his favorite music on The Blues, his recent compilation of blues songs he’s written or co-written on records spanning six decades, going all the way back to early Manfred Mann. What spurred The Blues compilation? March 2020,…

Mari Kawaguchi: Gary Farr and T-Bones were a Brighton-based British rhythm and blues band who had a Friday residency at the famed Marquee Club in London. Gary Farr (19441994) was the third child of Tommy Farr, a Welsh champion heavyweight boxer. Keith stayed in the band from September 1965 until the end of 1966. During his tenure with the band, they toured with Manfred Mann and The Yardbirds. Keith and Lee Jackson went on to form The Nice, and David “Cy” Langston became a long-time tour manager of The Who. Keith remained friends with Jackson and Langston until his death. Cy often met up with Keith at the Rainbow Bar and Grill in Los Angeles. Cy passed away in 2021. MK: It was a protest against the violence in the…

“Arguably the best rock single ever recorded,” declared allmusic.com. Stairway To Heaven? Brown Sugar? Space Oddity? No, Another Girl, Another Planet — a song that has never even been a hit, despite being released as a single twice in 1978 (re-released in January 1992, it would eventually spend two weeks in the UK charts, peaking at No 57). As soon as you hear that long and distinctly unpunk guitar introduction you are inexorably drawn into the adrenaline rush of the song itself, sheer pop-punk perfection. The Only Ones rarely did what was expected of them. When their debut LP, The Only Ones, was released, rather than opening with the uptempo … Planet they went with a deliciously languid ballad The Whole Of The Law complete with unfashionable saxophone solo. …Planet…

10cc The Original Soundtrack Mercury UMCLP 014 (LP) How Dare You! Mercury UMCLP 015 (LP) Deceptive Bends Mercury UMCLP 016 (LP) Bloody Tourists Mercury UMCLP 017 (LP) This quartet of mid-70s albums clad in distinctive Hipgnosis artwork represents the peak, certainly in commercial terms, of 1Occ’s career. While earlier efforts on Jonathan King’s UK label were impressive enough, the breakthrough to the mass market came with 1975’s The Original Soundtrack and its atmospheric single, I’m Not In Love. The departure of Kevin Godley and Lol Creme after the following year’s How Dare You! failed to affect the band’s chart trajectory, but deprived them of a large chunk of their humour and edge. Like Queen, the Manchester group cleverly combined hits with an “album-band” credibility. And while they lacked a Freddie…

Live albums, hey? Who needs them? Record collectors, obvs! (As the kids might say, before getting the plural of vinyl wrong.) Because if there’s one thing a record collector needs, it’s more vinyls. (Oops!) And as delightful as it is to hear an extended outro or Lou Reed’s slurred expletives, live albums are not just for listening purposes. They’re another means of stimulating debate and imposing your irrefutable expertise on any passing victims. Which is THE BEST live album? (Space Ritual) Who puts out the most good ones? (Neil Young) Which one’s most overrated? (Live/ Dead, probably.) Well, the Heavy Psych Sounds label has just released a batch of them. THE LORDS OF ALTAMONT’s To Hell With Tomorrow The Lords Are Now Heavy Psych Sounds) was recorded in a studio in Utrecht.…

A split with Burt Bacharach and Hal David in 1972 left DIONNE WARWICK adrift and despite a roll call of collaborators - Holland, Dozier and Holland, Jerry Ragovoy, Thorn Bell et al - it took a label change (from Warners to Arista in 1979) and a corresponding musical shift to put her commercially back on top. Dionne Warwick: Déjá Vu - The Arista Recordings (1979-1994) ( Soul Music Records) is a lavish 159-track 12-disc box set comprising her dozen albums for the label, nine of which are expanded with bonus tracks. It captures her commercial peak, propelled by Warwick’s move from sophisticated soul to a full embracing of mainstream pop working with Barry Manilow on 1980’s Dionne, Johnny Mathis on 1982’s Friends In Love; Barry Gibb on the same yeay’s Heartbreaker and…

Birthright: A Black Roots Music Compendium Craft CR 00497 (2CD) Timely folk, jazz and blues history lesson Leaning heavily on the Rounder Records catalogue, this US-curated compendium of acoustic blues, gospel and jazz attempts to explain how today’s US black music and culture reflects the sounds and artistry of yesteryear. The material stretches from the 50s to fairly recently (Taj Mahal and Keb’ Mo’ from 2017), while the artist roster ranges from the downright obscure to such recognisable names as the Staple Singers, John Lee Hooker, Odetta and Lightnin’ Hopkins. While one of the two introductory essays is printed in tiny type on a coloured background - when will labels learn? - the trackby-track documentation complements the music and the result is a thoughtfully conceived, well sequenced and keenly priced…

Eddie Chacon Sundown Stones Throw STH 2478 (LP) The re-emergence of US soul singer Eddie Chacon has been one of the more heartening musical stories of recent times. In a nutshell: Chacon was one half of Charles & Eddie, the early 90s R&B duo who scored an international smash hit in 1992 with their then-inescapable debut single, the sugar-sweet Would I Lie To You?. The pair’s fame was short-lived as subsequent singles failed to set the charts alight and their second album, 1995’s Chocolate Milk, struggled to find an audience. They were dropped by their label and Chacon embarked on a series of unrealised projects, including collaborations with 2 Live Crew and the Dust Brothers. When his former partner, Charles Pettigrew, died of cancer in 2001, Chacon put music on…

Hardback writer Richard Noiler on how his epic Beatles opus came together RC has noticed there are just a few Beatles books on the market. What inspired you to add to an already very overcrowded library? I started this as a lockdown diversion project. However, it has long irritated me that the post1970 releases are given over to a footnote in the vast majority of websites and publications. Many give them no recognition at all My book shows that there are a great deal of interesting and collectable releases from the period after The Beatles split. The explanation of the pressing processes and how to read matrices is a superb and illuminating addition. My initial plan had been just to document the labels and pressings. But discussions with collecting buddies…

Off The Record is a record shop with a difference; every record they sell raises funds for a local hospice. The store’s Sandy Bell-Ashe tells Steve Burniston about this remarkable shop Tell us about the shop and the kind of music you sell. Off The Record is not your average music shop! Every record sold raises funds for local charity, Willen Hospice at Milton Keynes. Willen Hospice has always received a constant flow of good quality donated vinyl, so it was a great opportunity to reach local music lovers. We sell all types of music from easy listening to heavy metal. What was your route to working in a record shop? I’ve always had a deep interest in music - as has everyone who works at the store - and…

Did any dates titillate more than others? They’re all gorgeous venues, but I was particularly pleased to play the two Scottish ones that I’d never performed in - the beautiful Usher Hall, in my home town, and the finale at Glasgow Armadillo SEC. What an amazing way to finish! Do you have any techniques to stay show-focused? I always feel very in-the-moment during a show. I like to connect with individual people, instead of looking into a sea of faces. I’ll often lock onto a fan and have a moment with them if they’re especially loving a song. What are some of your favourite songs to perform? It’s always exciting to play new songs. You’re challenging your own playing, finding your way into the song, exploring while playing. There are…

London: Machine Gun Kelly, 31 May, Adam Lambert, 5 June, Van Morrison, 28 June, Royal Albert Hall. ■ Alison Goldfrapp, Outernet, 18 May. ■ JAAW, Seabright Arms, 20 April. ■ Roger Eno, St Luke’s, 19 April. ■ Sleeper, Islington Garage, 26 May. ■ Far From Saints, EartH, 5 June. ■ DEVO, Hammersmith Apollo. 19 August. ■ Maren Morris, Kentish Town O2 Forum, 5 July. ■ Sophie Ellis-Bextor, King’s Cross Lafayette, 30 June. ■ The last London International Ska Festival runs 6-9 April. See buytickets. at/hothotscorcher. Also: Friendly Fires play Friendly Fires, May (13) Norwich Waterfront (19) Hull Welly. ■ Kings Of Leon, Wrexham Racecourse Ground, 27-28 May. ■ Ludovico Einaudi, Glasgow OVO Hydro, 4 May. For more tours/gig news see www.recordcollectormag.com/latestnews.…

Ken Colyer’s Jazzmen Stockyard Strut (Decca LF 1152, 10”, 1953) £8 Rightfully regarded as one of the pioneers of the trad jazz movement, while serving with the Merchant Navy, Colyer jumped ship in America to visit New Orleans where he was given an opportunity to play with the likes of his idol George Lewis. Credited with introducing skiffle to the UK, trumpeter Colyer also played a significant role in The Crane River Jazz Band and The Chris Barber Band before striking out on his own. Humphrey Lyttleton And His Band Bad Penny Blues (Parlophone R 4184, 10”, UK, 1956) £12 This self-penned up-tempo boogie’n’blues would prove to be the only major chart success for self-taught trumpeter Lyttleton, who always disliked engineer Joe Meek’s sonic meddling that brought Stan Greig’s brushwork…

There is a consensus around who was or is the world’s ultimate live band. Or at least, there was or is a consensus around three: The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin and The Who. They each used to be hailed, emphatically, as The World’s Greatest Rock’N’Roll Band, implying that, more even than in their recorded output, it was on the stage that they routinely proved their primacy. Of course, of the three, only two continue to tread the boards, and so it is with no little pleasure that, on the occasion of their new live album, one of them – namely, Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey – chose Record Collector as the forum within which to discuss their most memorable gigs, from their days at The Railway in Harrow, through Monterey,…

How come you’re back now? The pandemic gave me time to do nothing - something that I crave and it was the best/worst of times. You think, “Let’s tell her everything now.” I allowed for more of myself to come forward and, psychologically, it’s the most integrated of my albums. All my parts are there. How long did it take? A month, then tweaking for a few days. What happened during the interregnum? My day job, to make money to make records. Then I got to stay inside. Having the world stop was really something, and probably the greatest time of my life. Where have your most successful markets been? I do best in the UK, which has been consistently supportive of me. Did you ever feel like jacking it…

Little from the postwar West Florida R&B scene has come out. What did you Find? We now have the first extensive collection, with 25 tracks featuring R&B artists who honed their craft in the black clubs and dancehalls of Tampa and St Petersburg in the late 40s and 50s. Why is Charles Brantley featured so heavily? Charley Brantley’s Honeydippers were the go-to outfit in Tampa and St Petersburg. So, when New York record man, Bob Shad, was in Florida, in 1951, he recorded Brantley and his vocalist, Clarence Jolly, for his Sittin’ In With label. The discs didn’t sell outside Florida, but we found some unissued Brantley tracks from Shad’s sessions, along with a rare release on Brantley’s B&L label. Why did Guitar Shorty go to Chicago to record? It’s…

Alan “Sonic Al” Harwood has always collected records. But over the past four decades, he has narrowed his focus to one band — as his nickname might suggest, he collects all things Sonic Youth. “I started getting into music when I was about 13, says Harwood, now in his fifties. “The first band I liked was Darts but when I heard The Damned’s Love Song on the radio I loved it, and I was off collecting. I had to have everything by them. I collected other bands including The Fall, Placebo, Radiohead, The Beatles, Neil Young and, of course, Sonic Youth. I worked as a sales rep for Pinnacle for 19 years and I got to work on some iconic albums, meet a lot of musical heroes and visit fabulous…

No 49: De Montfort Hall, Leicester De Montfort Hall, which was opened in 1913 at a cost of £21,000 (£3m at today’s prices), had a rectangular shape, barrelvaulted ceiling and brick pier foundations, giving it a reputation for superior acoustics. Steve Hackett described it as having “a particular natural reverb and ambience”, while Showaddywaddy’s Dave Bartram said, “The sound reverberated unwaveringly through every nook and cranny.” Bob Adcock worked the venue with Blackmore’s Rainbow, Iron Maiden and Scorpions and remembers, “It was always easy to load in and load out, the atmosphere was always fabulous, and you were assured of a good gig.” Buddy Holly headlined De Mont on 16 March 1958, inspiring audience members Ian Hunter and Jon Lord to go on to illustrious careers with Mott The Hoople…

It is a truth well-known but rarely acknowledged that some artists will forever be associated in the public mind with one album. It doesn’t matter how extensive their output - in fact, the more extensive the output the more select the association - for many bands and singers, they will forever be known as the band or singer who did one album and one album alone. Which is at least better than being known for one song alone, or for nothing at all. We’re discounting one-album bands here, obviously — by which I mean the likes of the Sex Pistols with one real LP, Never Mind The Bollocks, and Lauryn Hill, with The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill - because we’re talking about artists with a fair few records under their…

As the formidable frontwoman of Coventry 2 Tone group The Selecter, Pauline Black has had to be tough. Performing night after night in front of audiences that often erupted into violence, she firmly held her ground. “We knew what we were getting into,” she shrugs today. “If you were black it didn’t come as a surprise. We knew we lived in violent times, and we knew what the world thought of us. But we also knew what we were doing was cutting edge; we owned that stage while we were on it, and we were saying who we were and how we felt. We were the embodiment of 2 Tone, of multicultural Britain. We were the future.” Black takes the mantle of 2 Tone incredibly seriously. But there is another…

RECORD SHOPPING WITH DAN AUERBACH Over two decades as one half of The Black Keys, a solo artist, producer, label boss and co-leader of soul, R&B and psych-rock alchemists The Arcs, Dan Auerbach has built up a network of musical safe houses across the globe. From New York to London, Paris to Munich; wherever the plane lands, Auerbach knows who to call to find a studio, somewhere to jam and, of course, the very best record stores where he can switch off and lose himself among racks of black plastic. Record Collector finds Auerbach on a frosty January morning browsing the shelves at East London independent Stranger Than Paradise. Just around the corner, he and Arcs bandmate Leon Michels have been laying down some tracks at Liam Watson’s all-analogue mecca…

Andrew Lewis Taylor has never troubled the BRIT, MOBO or Grammy awards, never had a Top 40 single or album but, along with Amy Winehouse and Adele, he may be the most musically talented British solo artist of the last 30 years. Over six studio albums, Taylor’s work has embraced neo-soul, old-school R&B, prog, psych and yacht rock, influenced legions of blue-eyed-soul wannabes and been publicly lauded by David Bowie, Aaliyah, Paul Weller, Amy Winehouse, Leon Ware, Elton John, D’Angelo and Daryl Hall. But Taylor is also one of the most complex characters to emerge from the homegrown music scene, fascinated with “art born of a disintegrated mind” and peppering interviews with pointed references to mental illness, drug use, and reclusion. For a while it looked like he might even…

For much of his 77 years, Pete Townshend has never been too far from a stage. His dad Cliff was a sax player in RAF dance band The Squadronaires, while mum Betty sang with, among others, arranger Sidney Torch and the Les Douglas Orchestra. Growing up, the future Who guitarist/ songwriter would often be present at his parents’ shows. For him, he says, the stage has always represented a safe space, a home of sorts, which in turn seems to have fostered an ambivalent attitude towards the idea of performing. “Fm never going to come off stage and say I had fun,” he maintains. “Some of the boilers that I have to replace in the winter are more difficult than others, but I do a good job. It’s the same…

Founder member Graham Gouldman on why vinyl is the perfect format for these records, reaching a new generation and more. Do you welcome these vinyl reissues? I do, because I grew up with vinyl. It is a warmer sound, and the irony is that we were doing everything digitally and putting it through a virtual Studer to make it sound more like it used to do. The main thing for me is the artwork, the liner notes and the lyrics. People can sit down with an album and there’s a lot of information should you want to access it. I always want to know who played what on what, where it was recorded, who mastered it…. You don’t get all that if you stream! Was there any consideration of a Joy…

De La Soul 3 Feet High & Rising Chrysalis RMM 0451 (CD, 2LF) Cassette) “What does Tush eht lleh pu’ mean?” It was the summer of 1989, and that innocuous rebuttal was just about the most aggressive moment on De La Soul’s game-changing debut album 3 Feet High & Rising. From now on, hip-hop was going to be a Dayglo sampladelic cartoon strip of good vibes. This was the Daisy Age (“da inner sound y’all”) and that meant saying goodbye to all that crazy cop shootin’ gangsta shit. Or so we thought. Long Island high school friends, Posdnuos, Trugoy and Maseo (two of them still in their teens, the other just turned 20), spelled their names backwards, too, but under the patronage of wizard DJ/producer Prince Paul, they were about…

Pink Floyd The Dark Side Of The Moon 50th Anniversary Pink Floyd Records PFR 50 (2CD/2LP/2BD/DVD/2×7”) There has been considerable kerfuffle around the internet about the 50th Anniversary box set of The Dark Side Of The Moon. A key question is simply, is it worth the Money for what is, musically, ostensibly eight versions of the album across four formats, plus two of the 1974 Wembley concert, the same work played live in its entirety? In these troubled times, it certainly seems to be creating a divide, an Us And Them for those that can and cannot afford this. But this is Pink Floyd, and what there is, is done extraordinarily well. There can be little doubt that the oversized matt black box in which it is encased is an…

Depeche Mode Memento Mori Sony 1965878421 (CD, 2LP) An album called Memento Mori made by inveterate electro-miserabilists Depeche Mode could have been bleaker than this. The untimely death of founding member Andy Fletcher last May left the remaining pair of Martin L Gore and Dave Gahan deliberating on whether they should even continue, such was the importance of his presence throughout the last four decades. Fletch looms large over Memento Mori, though that, too, was largely his job when he was alive. If his absence makes little difference to the publishing rights, it’s still disarming seeing Gore and Gahan now pictured as a duo. As it turns out, much of the record had already been written in 2020, a proverbial silver lining that came from the cloud of the Covid…

Eddie Chacon on unexpected surprises, turning 60 and his pop star past. How does it feel to be about to release the most anticipated album of your career? At this point, it’s the cherry on the whipped cream. It’s an unexpected surprise in my life. I just feel incredibly fortunate that I get to sing and make records again - to do this thing that I’ve been doing ever since I was a child, I guess I was kind of in a self-imposed exile for 20 years. What are John Carroll Kirby’s strengths as a collaborator? He’s a gentleman, a lovely guy. One of his magical qualities is that he has an ability to set a very relaxed, informal tone to the recording session. He gives you permission to completely…

Little Murders Wait Til The Summer Comes/ Tonight Tonight Tonight Off The Hip OTH 4059 The Fiction Almost Dead In Hollywood/La Dolce Vita Off The Hip OTH 4510 Brisk Melbourne power pop from a band which has been gleaming since ’79. Tidy as a hospital matron’s uniform, they blast a declaration of desire on Summer Comes, not a thrum out of place nor a cymbal splash overhit; there’s no mistaking its rock‘n’roll heart and throbbing bottom. Tonight Tonight Tonight, another song of urgent longing, is the stronger side, with neat harmonies and witty lyrics involving a taxi. Turn it up, nod your head. Before forming Little Murders, Rob Griffiths fronted The Fiction, a gritty group with overtones of the Undertones and Brisbane’s unholy legends The Saints. You can hear the latter in…

NEXT ISSUE: MAY 2023 (on sale 20 APRIL) Deadline for submitting adverts (Listings & Classified): Monday 27 MARCH Please email your advert (word doc/excel file/plain text) to: listings@recordcollectormag.com NEW Postal address: Record Collector Listings, Diamond Publishing Ltd, 2nd Floor, Saunders House, 52-53 The Mall, Ealing, London W5 3TA Following issue: JUNE 2023 (on sale 18 MAY) Deadline: Monday 24 APRIL…

A Certain Ratio April (20) Edinburgh Voodoo Rooms (21) Huddersfield Parish (22) Manchester New Century Hall (23) Leeds Brudenell (25) Nottingham Rescue Rooms (26) Birmingham Hare & Hounds (27) Bristol Exchange (29) London Islington O2 Garage The Damned March (31) Cardiff Great Hall April (1) Southend Cliffs Pavilion (2) Oxford O2 Academy (4) Nottingham Rock City (5) Liverpool O2 Academy (7) Newcastle NX (8) Glasgow O2 Academy (10) Leeds O2 Academy (11) Manchester Albert Hall (13) Birmingham Town Hall (14) Bristol O2 Academy (15) Norwich Nick Rayns (17) Brighton Dome (18) Southampton O2 Guildhall (20) London Alexandra Palace Delain April (21) Manchester Academy 2 (22) London Islington O2 Academy Duran Duran April (29) Manchester AO Arena May (1-2) London Greenwich O2 (4) Leeds First Direct Arena (5) Birmingham Utilita Arena…

This month: Mike Vernon While his founding of the Blue Horizon record label in 1965 remains pivotal to British bluesrock, Mike Vernon had been haunting the backstairs of the industry since the dawn of the beat boom. His career résumé would embrace production work for such disparate acts as John Mayall, David Bowie, Dr. Feelgood, Bo Diddley - and, of course, Fleetwood Mac, whose two years as Blue Horizon’s flagship act was deemed, by no less than Mick Fleetwood, to be “the band’s most prolific period”. Later he would re-emerge in Rocky Sharpe & The Replays, something of a thinking man’s Showaddaywaddy. As the turn of the century loomed, Vernon retired to Spain, though he resurfaced as featured vocalist - backed by The Mighty Combo — on 2015’s Beyond The…

This month: Sha-Na-Na, Uriah Heep and Paladin, Memorial Hall, Barry, 10 July 1971 I had a summer job, cleaning at Barry Butlin’s, so the opportunity to see one of the highlights of the Woodstock film (Sha-Na-Na) plus one of the up-and-coming bands of the day (Uriah Heep) was too good to miss. The Memo caters for an audience of around a thousand and has quite an intimate feel, but that didn’t matter to me as I was in the front row with an excellent view of the bands and directly in front of a bank of very loud speakers. First up were Paladin. I can’t say I’d heard any of their music before; nor, for that matter, have I since. But they were very good and featured two keyboard players,…

London’s Victoria & Albert Museum announced in February that it’s acquired from David Bowie’ s estate his personal collection of 80,000-plus objects, due to be housed in a free exhibition at a new David Bowie Centre For The Study Of Performing Arts, V&A East Storehouse, Stratford, from 2025. As well as 70,000-plus photos, slides and contact sheets, the archive includes stage costumes, such as Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane and the Earthling sleeve. There are also stage designs and props, handwritten letters, notebooks on unrealised projects, and lyrics for Fame, Heroes, and Ashes To Ashes, plus the Marc Bolan Stylophone used on Space Oddity, Brian Eno’s synthesiser played on Low and Heroes, guitars, amps, and other equipment and instruments, awards, film and videos, sheet music, and album designs and artwork. See…

Nick Drake tribute, The Endless Coloured Ways 2CD, 2LP, with Fontaines DC, John Grant, Let’s Eat Grandma, Self Esteem, Emeli Sande, Elbow’s Guy Garvey, Camille, David Gray, Bombay Bicycle Club, John Parish, Ben Harper, Karine Polwart, Liz Phair, Radiohead’s Philip Selway, Chrysalis, 7 July. The I Am A Pilgrim: Doc Watson At 100 tribute, with colleague Jack Lawrence, Dolly Parton, Jerry Douglas, Jeff Parker (Tortoise), Matthew Stevens (Esperanza Spalding), Steve Earle, Rosanne Cash, Corey Harris (Keb’ Mo’), Bill Frisell, Chris Eldridge (The infamous Stringdusters), Marc Ribot, FU, 28 April. The Rules To Live By: Joni Mitchell And Poetry event is at London Wilton’s Music Hall, 22 May. Beverley Craven Memories 3CD/signed postcard, with Beverley Craven, four bonuses, Love Scenes, five, Mixed Emotions, eight, Cherry Red, 26 May. Due: March (31) Harry Taussig…

This month: The Avons. Seven Little Girls Sitting in the Backseat It’s my 12th birthday and I ’ making my way to the local Co-op with my birthday money, to buy my first record - in those days (1959) most Co-op stores had a music department. I have a pretty good idea what record I want to buy, but I just want to check, so I ask for a copy and take it to the listening booth, don the headphones and sing along at the top of my voice. Yes, that’s the one I want, so I hand over my 2/6d and run all the way home to listen to it all over again. Over the next few days I drove my parents to distraction, incessantly playing the only record…

ABBEY ROAD Tape Recording Consoles $225,000 A pair of 2-track, ¼ valve-powered, EMI BTR2 (British Tape Recorder) tape recording consoles from 1953. The Beatles used them throughout their Abbey Road association, as did Pink Floyd, Deep Purple, Jeff Beck, The Hollies, The Pretty Things and - let’s not forget - Shirley Bassey. Abbey Road owned six BTR2s. Supplied by Rockaway ELVIS PRESLEY Badge $9,000 Apparently, Elvis had a thing about badges. Especially law enforcement badges. This was awarded to Deputy Sheriff Presley by Sheriff Gene Barksdale on 1 September 1976. For his arresting performances, perhaps? Supplied by GWS EDDIE VAN HALEN Guitar £35,580 From 1993, an Ernie Ball Music Man Edward Van Halen (EVH) Model Electric Guitar. Used, signed, then given to a bloke in… Doncaster. Actually, the owner of…

BELL ORCHESTRE Mainstay Richard Reed Parry on the Canadian indie-rockers’ return Tell us about the new album. Most of it was gleaned from long, improvised sessions with the tape rolling - the best way for us. Is there anything still unissued? Endless unfinished/unreleased material. We record everything that we do as we're doing it. Often, we accidentally improvise our way into a great arrangement or one-time performance of a non-existing piece of music. Have you done anything that fans may not know about? Two tracks for a French, collaborationbased compilation that remotely paired artists, to finish each other's music. I don't know what happened to the two pieces. If you could re-visit any of your albums, what’d you change? I would've finished the cool record between As Seen Through Windows…

FIVE OF BLACK’S BEST The Selecter Too Much Pressure (2 Tone Records CDL TT5002, LP, UK, 1980) £25 Black hates the Errol Ross production, but regardless, their debut captures the group at their height with ace singles Three Minute Hero and Missing Words plus covers of Carry Go Bring Come and James Bond. The Selecter Celebrate The Bullet (Chrysalis CHR 1306, LP, UK, 1981) £20 The reconfigured iine-up transcend the 2 Tone sound mixing reggae with new wave, postpunk and pop as songs take on a reportage vernacular: see Bombscare, Bristol And Miami and the anti-gun title track. The Selector Made in Britain (Vocaphone Records VOCA 1964, LP, UK, 2011) £70 The comeback album: Black and Gaps reform the group and make an album that sounds like their first but moves…

Tommy Vann & The Professionals For Goodness Sake (B-Side to Soul Sister Annie, Capitol 2168, 7”, US, 1968) £20 “This is one of my favourite records. I found it in Minneapolis. There’s this amazing bridge on it, the way it breaks down. Shit, I must have ripped it off in some way a million times.” Sheryl Swope Run To Me (B-Side to Are You Gonna Do Right This Time, Duo Records D-7452, 7”, US, 1968) £70 “I keep an eye out for stuff on Duo. It’s not as consistent as a Hi record, but it’s got some really good stuff. This is just a classic. I play it all the time.” Little Sonny The Creeper Returns (Enterprise, ENA-9013, 7”, US, 1970) £8 “I think that was cut at Stax and…

Sheriff Jack Laugh Yourself Awake (Midnight Music CHIME 00.21 S, UK, LP, 1986) £5 Taylor’s guitarheavy debut imbues classic Brit songcraft (XTC, Kinks, Madness, Soft Boys) with a punky energy, complete with off-colour lyrics, to create some unsettlingly jaunty psych-pop. Lewis Taylor Lewis Taylor (Island ILPS 8049, UK, LP, 1996) £100 The classic solo debut album in all its glory, from sensual, soulful balladry to dense sound collages influenced by Bitches Brew, Trouble Man and Scott Walker’s Tilt. Lewis II (Island CID 8098, UK, CD, 2000) £5 A superb consolidation, Taylor’s second album updates his debut with more contemporary beats, raunchy guitar solos, a few more concessions to neo-soul and an in-your-face mix. Stoned Part 1 (Slow Reality SRCDO1, UK, CD, 2002) £5 A slick, commercial update of the classic…

THE LOUDEST BAND ON EARTH On 18 May 1974, The Who played Charlton Athletic’s football ground, The Valley, in southeast London. An estimated 80,000 (30,000 over the limit) crammed into the stadium for a spectacle that also featured Montrose, Lindisfarne, Bad Company, Lou Reed, Humble Pie and Maggie Bell. “They were the first rock events in a football stadium and our soonto-be manager. Bill Curbishley [brother of future Charlton manager Alan], pulled it off,” explains Pete Townshend. “I think we did it without the approval of the local council. I drove there in my bus.” It was an event. The Who’s formidable set was filmed by the BBC and screened later that year. “It was fantastic,” Townshend adds. “Wiggy [John Wolff], our lighting guy, had created this ceiling over the…

Maybe if the Kansas City trumpeter CARMELL JONES hadn’t moved to Germany in 1965, where he lived for 15 years, he might have been a more familiar name in the jazz world Sadly, he is largely a forgotten figure but thanks to the timely revival of his debut album, The Remarkable Carmell Jones ( Pacific Jazz), which has just been reissued as part of Blue Note’s audiophile Tone Poet series, his music just might find a new generation of admirers. A graduate cum laude from the Clifford Brown school of hard bop hornblowing, Jones played the trumpet with a blend of sweetness and power, two qualities that are readily apparent on the album which was the first of two for Dick Bock’s Pacific Jazz imprint. Jones is supported by a small but…

Just a few weeks before his death, Dave “Trugoy The Dove” Jolicoeur recalled the dawn of a new hip-hop era. The early records have been absent from streaming services, meaning there is a new generation of hip-hop fans who probably haven’t ever heard them. Early in our career, there was no such thing as streaming services, no language about internet or downloading. So, it has meant a lot of renegotiating and unfortunately, it didn’t seem that labels who held our catalogue had any interest in doing that. Our parent company, Tommy Boy, had folded and our music was being bounced around so much we were never sure who the right people were to sit down with. But it’s good that new listeners will hear it now. At our shows, there’s…

Burt Bacharach & Elvis Costello The Songs Of Bacharach & Costello UMe 4848614 (4CD) When 23-year-old Elvis Costello included Burt Bacharach & Hal David’s I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself in the set of his first tour with The Attractions in late 1977, it’s unlikely he entertained notions of ever collaborating directly with one of popular song’s grandmasters. A little more than 20 years later, however, he was sharing equal billing on the sublime, sophisticated Painted From Memory. That album of 12 co-writes provides the skeleton of this box set, assembled during the latter half of 2022 but destined to now be seen as a form of eulogy following Bacharach’s death, aged 94, on 8 February. As a whole, it’s a much wider chronicle of a creative…

Lana Del Rey Did You Know That There’s A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd Polydor 4859191 (CD, 2LP) Lana fans and the less partisan will be looking for two different things as the Empress Of Angst releases her ninth album, 12 years since Video Games wept her to fame. Fans will want it to yearn like nobody except Lana has yearned before. On that score, it convincingly delivers, as within the title track we get a dramatic, gospeltinged refrain of “don’t forget me” which sounds like every heart in the world breaking at once. Furthermore, the same song offers another hook of “When’s it gonna be my turn?” which is the sonic embodiment of a wallflower'’s inner thoughts at a high school dance if that dance was an allegory for a…

Made In The U.K. — A Complete Overview Of The Beatles Singles Manufactured In The U.K. Richard Noller with contributions by Ed Dieckmann APCOR Books, 670 pages ISBN 9789082843460, £60 Record Collector has been delighted with the quality of the recent Beatles books on the market, as, no doubt, have many of you readers. Perhaps as soon as Mark Lewisohn wrote his first volume of All These Years in 2013, the standards have risen. From the group’s own Get Back to Craig Brown’s One Two Three Four and And In The End: The Last Days Of The Beatles by Ken McNab, there are several superb examples. However, occasionally one comes along that visits the sunlit uplands of Revolution In The Head or The Complete Beatles Recordings Sessions. Made In The U.K.…

SOUTH EAST Across the Tracks - ‘On busiest corner of hip pest city, open seven days. Thousands of rarities in the shop that aren’t on the net. All genres, including classical and new CD promos, nothing mundane. Collections bought.’ 110 Gloucester Road, Brighton BN1 4AF. Tel: 01273 677906. edfrombrighton@tiscali.co.uk www.acrossthetracksrecords.com Alan’s Record & CD Shop - ‘Diggers paradise! Over 18,000 quality used 7”/12” LPs/CDs. Specialising in Reggae, Soul, Jazz, Rock, Hip Hop, Dance. Open Tuesday to Sunday from 11:30am, Wednesdays by appointment only. Independent and stubbornly individual.’ 218 High Road, East Finchley, London N2 9AY. Tel: 0208 883 0234. alanrecordman@tiscali.co.uk Ben’s Collectors Records - Long standing record shop in the heart of Guildford with an ever changing large stock of records cds & cassettes at the most reasonable prices in…

Spotlighting an upcoming road trip This month: KENNY WAYNE SHEPHERD How have you been preparing for the tour? When I realised that the 25th Anniversary of Trouble Is… was coming up, it made sense to do something special. We decided to do a concert celebrating it in my home town, Shreveport, at the same venue that we had the original release party. We recorded and filmed it for streaming, and the response from fans was so strong that we decided to do a tour. We did rehearsals for the tour just prior to the first concert. Will you be playing any songs that you rarely perform? We do the entire Trouble Is…, which is something that we’ve never done before. There are several songs that we haven’t played much over…

This month: Lieutenant Pigeon There are one-hit-curios and there’s the marching-band drumming and pipes of one of the greatest British novelty pop records of all time, Mouldy Old Dough by the longforgotten Lieutenant Pigeon. In an era when the novelty song ruled, Mouldy Old Dough beat Bowie, Bolan, and Slade to the enviable plaudit of second bestselling hit of 1972 — they were narrowly beaten by the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards and their version of Amazing Grace. But Mouldy Old Dough clearly struck a chord. In a gloomy era of strikes and three-day-weeks, any musical colour was gratefully received. Colour and a hefty dose of carousing: Lieutenant Pigeon tapped into the long-lost spirit of Albion, all pints of ale and a singsong. It all started back in the mid-60s when…

CODA Hank Williams I'm A Long Gone Daddy (MGM 10212, 10-inch, US, 1948) £15 I grew up in Kirkdale. We weren’t a musical family: my dad was a stevedore, a docker, and my mum was a barmaid. My older brother was a seaman - he went back and forth to the States, and he brought back records. That’s how I first heard Hank Williams, on these 78s he brought back. They were my introduction to the pop world; I was captivated from then on, wanting to play the guitar and be in a band. Not long after, I started playing skiffle on street corners with the tea chest and washboard. Elvis Presley Elvis Presley (RCA Victor LPM 1254, first pressing, LP, US, 1956) £1000 My first album, again brought back…