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FROM THE ARCHIVES
SPOTLIGHT ON CD REISSUES |
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1999 was another banner year for CD reissues and the prospects are good for the reissue bandwagon rolling on well into 2000 and beyond. Big labels like Legacy and Universal Music Group continue to fuel the desires of collectors while independent outfits like Collectables and Cuneiform keep the reissue flame high. One sad casualty on the reissue front in ‘99 was the demise of the great Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab. They will surely be missed. In this issue, MWE3.COM takes an in depth lock back at some of the finest reissues of the past several months. When it comes to back catalog
reissues, few labels can touch the
Pennsylvania-based
Progressive rock fans are
probably familiar with the catalog of Maryland-based Cuneiform Records.
NYC-based Retroactive Records
delighted CD collectors with earlier releases by U.K. rock legends like
Thunderclap Newman, Arthur Brown
A child prodigy who attended the
Julliard School Of Music at age nine, singer-songwriter and Brooklyn
native Neil Sedaka broke into the pop world way back in 1958. After
writing for other artists like
Polygram, Island and MCA are now
united under the Universal Music Group banner and under the arrangement
UMG continues to mine the vaults with their 20th
Century Masters Millennium Collections. Among the latest Millennium
Collection CDs include best-of titles from Steve
Any label that puts out a ten CD
box set entitled The Ultimate History Of Rock ‘N’ Roll Collection had better be
able to back it up. Minnesota-based K-Tel gets pretty close with their 150
song
Now that Capitol Records has
taken over the entire catalog of recordings
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NYC-based Legacy Recordings. True to
form, Legacy released several high profile CD compilations at the tail end
of ‘99 including the single disc, 20 track set The
Best Of Simon & Garfunkel. Legacy’s latest S&G collection
spans all the duo’s big hits, from their ‘65 smash “The Sounds Of
Silence” to their ‘75 reunion recording of “My Little Town”. The
set features every A-side S&G recorded for Columbia Records and is
further fleshed out by b-sides and essential LP tracks. Paul Simon and Art
Garfunkel changed the face of pop in the ‘60s and because their music
was so significant and well recorded their name still lives on. Another
classic act from the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, Poco is remembered with
a 14 track Epic / Legacy CD entitled The
Very Best Of Poco. Fronted by key members Richie Furay (from Buffalo
Springfield) and Jim Messina, Poco recorded eight well received albums of
country flavored pop. Early Poco albums like Pickin’
Up The Pieces and From The
Inside are still appreciated by music fans. Legacy’s new Poco
best-of assembles key album tracks from ‘69 to ‘74 and includes useful
liner notes. One of the coolest packages of late from Legacy is the three
CD mini-box set from The Isley Brothers entitled It’s
Your Thing: The Story Of The Isley Brothers released on
Epic/T-Neck/Legacy. The
Isley’s influence on ‘60s pop bands like The Beatles was huge
considering the Fab Four covered the Isley’s classics “Shout” and
“Twist And Shout”. It’s Your
Thing focuses on the Isley’s tenure with T-Neck Records, although
recordings on numerous other labels are also highlighted including tracks
from 1957-58 and late ‘60s work on Tamla/Motown. Also highlighted are
mid-60s recordings featuring a young Jimi Hendrix when he was a member of
the Isley’s back up band. Broken down into three periods: Volume
1- 1957-1970, Volume 2- 1971-1975 and Volume
3- 1976-1996, the triple disc package
contains all the big hits, from “Twist And Shout” (recorded back
in the Summer of ‘62), “This Old Heart Of Mine” (1966) and “It’s
Your Thing” (from 1969) to their famous mid ‘70s classic “That Lady
(Part 1&2)”. Any Isley’s fan will be amazed at the incredible
packaging of It’s Your Thing, which
is highlighted by a lavish and well researched 52 page full color booklet.
Collectables
had a stellar year in ‘99 and among the label’s latest going into 2000
is a new 30 track best-of CD from rock and roll pioneer Bobby Vee entitled
The Very Best Of Bobby Vee. All
of Vee’s early hits like “Rubber Ball”, “Take Good Care Of My
Baby”, “The Night Has A Thousand Eyes” and more are featured on The Very Best Of Bobby Vee, which tacks on excellent liner notes and
artwork. Another winner on Collectables is The Very Best Of The Tower Recordings from the ‘60s West Coast
surf-pop cult group The Sunrays. Produced
by Murray Wilson, father of the famous Wilson brothers of Beach Boys fame,
The Sunrays were a cloned version of the Beach Boys. Featuring the vocals
of the group’s lead singer Rick Henn, The Sunrays recorded some fine
examples of mid-60s West Coast pop for the Tower Records label, 27 of
which are featured here. Like always, Collectables includes descriptive
liner notes. Another recent Collectables CD is Psychotic
Reaction- The Very Best Of Count Five. The song “Psychotic
Reaction” was a cult favorite with AM radio listeners when it was
released in early ‘66. Without a follow-up hit, The Count Five, mere
teenagers barely out of high school, were soon relegated to one-hit-wonder
status, yet the still great sounding “Psychotic Reaction” remains one
of the all time classic hits of the mid-60s. Collectables Count Five
collection also features the original album art of their now-historic
album debut. Collectables has also reissued a series of original albums
classics from the vaults of the legendary Sun Records including a two-fer
CD by the late, great Carl Perkins entitled Blue Suede Shoes / Original Golden Hits. The 21 tracks here include
Carl’s all-time classics including “Blue Suede Shoes”,
“Matchbox”, “Honey Don’t” and his ‘55 Sun debut, “Movie Magg”.
Liner notes offer a vital historic perspective. Although Perkins passed
away on January 19, 1998, he left behind a legacy of great music. 
One of the first U.S. labels to focus on the European-dominated prog-rock
sound of the ‘70s, Cuneiform’s catalog of CDs features exclusive
releases from artists such as Fred Frith & Henry Kaiser, Soft Machine
and SM founder Hugh Hopper, Happy The Man, Birdsongs Of The Mesozoic, Dr.
Nerve, French guitarist Richard Pinhas and his group Heldon, Sweden’s
Von Zamla, guitarist Steve Tibbetts and tons more. Among the latest
releases on Cuneiform are two titles by the California-based band Djam
Karet entitled Burning The Hard City
and Suspension &
Displacement. Simultaneously released by the band back in 1991,
Cuneiform have just reissued both CDs complete with new cover art. Both
discs certainly fall within the progressive instrumental realm of rock yet
tackle different musical terrain. Burning
offers a mind blowing array of guitar driven fusion while S&D
is a nocturnal soundtrack incorporating elements of ambient
electronics and more. Essential for disciples of cosmic bands like Gong or
Ozric Tentacles, both albums haven’t aged a bit and still sound great.
Other Djam Karet CDs on Cuneiform include The
Devouring and Live At Orion.
Cuneiform’s import and catalog division, Wayside Music, has a jam-packed
catalog of CDs bound to impress the most jaded music fan.
www.cuneiformrecords.com / 
and The Creation and now the label adds
to their reissue roster with the release of Gonna Have A Good Time by Australian-based rockers The Easybeats.
The Easybeats are fondly remembered for their 1967 international smash hit
“Friday On My Mind”, a song covered by everyone from David Bowie to
The Shadows. Fronted by the songwriting team of Harry Vanda (from
Scotland) and George Young (from Holland), The Easybeats first took
Australia by by storm and after relocating to London in early ‘67 they
teamed up with famed producer Shel Talmy for the making of their best
known hit “Friday On My Mind” and the rest as they say is all history.
By the close of the ‘60s it would be all over for The Easybeats,
although after hearing their new 22 track reissue on Retroactive it’s
quite clear they recorded a wealth of great pop and rock music. Gonna
Have A Good Time is further enhanced by numerous photos and quite
detailed liner notes. Retro-rock fans should pay special attention to
further titles on Retroactive, a label that clearly has it’s finger on
the reissue pulse. 
Dinah Washington and Connie Francis, Sedaka
scored with his first solo outing entitled “The Diary” in December,
‘58 opening the door to his own successful solo career. Together with
co-composer Howard Greenfield, Sedaka scored numerous hit songs while
becoming a prime architect of early ‘60s rock and roll. “Oh! Carol”
(1959), “Calendar Girl” (1960) and “Next Door To An Angel” (1962)
are just a few of the pop classics featured on the recent RCA Records
release of Neil Sedaka Sings The Hits. The first half of the double CD set
features most of Sedaka’s chart topping pop hits from ‘58 to ‘65,
while the second CD spotlights Sedaka covering an array of pop standards
from the likes of Rogers & Hart and Jobim and more. Disc one is
clearly where the fun is and that’s the reason why these songs will be
forever played on oldies stations everywhere.
Winwood, Robert
Palmer and Neil Diamond. The Steve Winwood collection selects album
various tracks the rock legend recorded with The Spencer Davis Group,
Traffic and Blind Faith. With an enormous amount of solo material also in
the vaults, Winwood is clearly an artist that transcends one 11 track
best-of collection. Containing hits like “Sweet Caroline” and “I
Am...I Said”, UMG’s 11 track Neil Diamond Millennium
Collection examines the Brooklyn-born artist’s career during
1968-73. UMG’s Robert Palmer best-of spotlights 10 R&B based
soul-pop tracks beginning with the English singer’s mid-70s early solo
career all the way to “Addicted To Love” from his ‘85 album Riptide.
Each UMG Millennium Collection CD features color photos and liner notes.
Other recent arrivals from UMG include two more upgraded CDs from the
Steely Dan back catalog, The Royal
Scam (1976) and Aja
(from 1977). Originally
released on ABC Records, both albums have been digitally remastered with
original artwork and liner notes. FM radio was constantly playing these
albums when they came out and even if you never owned either album before,
you will recognize the songs. Fleshing out the memorable music of Walter
Becker and Donald Fagen are smooth performances from top session guys like
Jim Keltner, Larry Carlton, Wayne Shorter and Elliot Randall. Both albums
follow UMG upgrades of earlier Steely Dan albums Can’t
Buy A Thrill (1972), Countdown
To Ecstasy (1973), Pretzel Logic
(1974) and Katy Lied (1975).
Ultimate History box set.
Released a while ago, the box is notable because, while the cuts here do,
in fact feature the original artist, they’re not the original hit
version. Remakes of classic hits by the original artists that made them
famous in the first place makes for some pretty lively listening. Broken
down into ten chapters of ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s music, high points
include Chapter Three’s Teen Idols with hits from Bobby Vee, Tommy Roe, Lou Christie and
Chubby Checker. Chapter Four’s Rockin’
Instrumentals spotlights The Ventures, The Tornadoes, The Marketts and
The T-Bones. Other chapters include Rock’s
Pioneers (Little Richard, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis), The
Great Bands (The Beach Boys, The Box Tops, The Zombies), Soul
Explosion (Sam & Dave, Eddie Floyd, The Capitols), Those
Were The Days (The Turtles, Mungo Jerry, Mary Hopkin) and so on for
ten volumes! By the time you reach Chapter Nine’s Easy ‘70s most of the magic is gone, yet anyone who remembers just
how great the music of the ‘50s and ‘60s was (and still is!) will get
a buzz from K-Tel’s The Ultimate History Of Rock ‘N’ Roll. 
by The Beach Boys, the label
is planning to roll out a series of albums released by the Boys on their
own label Brother Records during the ‘70s. As a prelude to reissuing
long out of print Beach Boys classics such as Surf’s Up and The Beach Boys
Love You, Capitol has just released a 20 track sampler CD entitled The
Beach Boys Greatest Hits Volume 3: Best Of The Brother Years. These
were the years that Beach Boys mentor and primary songwriter Brian Wilson
assumed behind the scenes production chores and sort of shared the
songwriting spotlight with the other members including his younger
brother, the late, great Carl Wilson. Featured here are the classic Brian
Wilson compositions “This Whole World” and “Surf’s Up”, which
sit neatly alongside (decent, but not great) Beach Boys covers of “Rock
And Roll Music” and “Peggy Sue”. The lack of Brian Wilson’s
incredible vocals on many of these tracks and the dearth of anything from
the late, great Dennis Wilson is disappointing, though all told, the CD
brings back a wealth of musical memories for diehard fans.
Also recent on Capitol Records is
the double disc set, Nightcap from rock legends Jethro Tull which is finally seeing
it’s first U.S. First issued in the U.K. back in 1993, Nightcap is full of rare and unreleased Tull goodies including the
famous Chateau D’isaster Tapes which
would later be revamped as Tull’s 1973 album A Passion Play. Much more than a collection of scraped sessions,
outtakes, instrumentals and b-sides, Nightcap
features two hours of vintage Tull topped off by track data and
reflective notes by Tull founder Ian Anderson. Long time Tull fans who
still swear by the group’s early sound won’t be disappointed as more
than half the set features the ‘70s Tull in prime form. 
It’s interesting to note that
with artists like Steve Hackett and Ozric Tentacles on their roster,
U.K.-based Snapper Music have also issued a double disc set by the
America’s long favorite instrumental surf-rock group The Ventures
entitled Stars On Guitars. The
booklet features 4 pages of well written liner notes which informs you
that these 38 tracks were recorded for Japanese labels during the late
‘80s and early ‘90s. Among the 20 tracks on disc one are nostalgic
Ventures-style guitar-based instrumentals of early ‘60s AM radio smashes
like “Hey Paula”, “Goldfinger” and “Rhythm Of The Rain” while
disc two compiles 18 live in Japan rave-ups of “Secret Agent Man”,
“Kyoto Doll” and “Paint It Black” recorded in ‘90 and ‘93.
Apparently The Ventures have always been more respected in Japan and
fittingly, these recordings are among the last with original Ventures
drummer Mel Taylor adding further weight to this guitar driven surf-rock
CD set. From the import specialists at Musicrama. 
Following CD releases from big
names like Jethro Tull and Julian Lennon, L.A.-based Fuel 2000 Records
goes full blast into the reissue world with a new series of BBC In Concert
series titles. The first CD released by Fuel is Badfinger- BBC In Concert 1972-3. Badfinger’s history was marred
by the unfortunate suicides of the group’s chief songwriter Pete Ham in
1974 and later Tom Evans in 1983. With that morbid fact out of the way,
Badfinger at the Beeb captures the band in their prime from two separate
Radio One shows. The June ‘72 show highlights tracks from their classic No Dice and Straight Up albums
along with spirited covers of “Feelin’ Alright” and “Only You Know
And I Know” written by Dave Mason. An August ‘73 BBC show features
songs from their final Apple Records album Ass
and their Warner Bros. debut Badfinger.
The disc closes with a their most famous song “Come And Get It”
from a 1970 Top Of The Pops show. Performed in front of an enthusiastic
audience and featuring pretty good sound quality, the disc will no doubt
further fuel Badfinger’s reputation as one of the U.K.’s finest,
albeit short lived pop treasures. Fuel’s newest BBC archive series
include CDs from The Small Faces and Humble Pie and Procol Harum (in
March). 
Anyone who remembers the heyday
of early ‘60s AM radio can tell you that when it came to recording two
and a half minute wonders of pop joy, The Four Seasons were up there with
the best of them. Not only did the group have the crack songwriting team
of Bob Crewe and Bob Gaudio guiding the FS musical ship but they also
boasted a top rate singer in Franki Valli. Sort of the N.Y./N.J. version
of the The Beach Boys, (Brian Wilson is a big fan), The Four Seasons
recorded various albums which also contained their great hit singles.
It’s a real shame that their albums have never really been properly
reissued, but Nashville-based Curb Records comes close with their 10 CD
series of Four Seasons music. Not much in the way of liner notes or track
data with these reissues, but it’s so cool to hear these songs again
that you just don’t care. Titles such as Sherry
& 11 Others (Vol. 1) and Dawn
& 11 Other Hits (Vol. 4) gives you a good indication of what the
series has to offer. Decent sound quality and nostalgic cover art are also
noted throughout the ten CD series. 
No music fan who lived through
the ‘60s will ever contest that it will always be the decade remembered
for the most innovative pop music of all time. L.A.-based The Right Stuff
proves that point with their own double CD compilation to the ‘60s
entitled Positively ‘60s. The
brief liner notes salute ‘60s icons like Dr. King, The Kennedys, Dylan
and The Beatles, but the fact is these songs sound just as great now as
they did back then. Eschewing the innocence of early ‘60s AM radio, the
30 track Positively ‘60s takes
you back to the heart of late ‘60s psych-pop with Donovan (“Hurdy
Gurdy Man”), The Moody Blues (“Ride My See Saw”), The Plastic Ono
Band (“Give Peace A Chance”), Dion (“Abraham, Martin & John”)
and perhaps the best protest song of the ‘60s, “Eve Of Destruction”
by Barry McGuire. Music fans who recall the turbulent ‘60s will agree
many of the songs on Positively
‘60s do indeed provide the optimum soundtrack to that golden decade.