ALBUM REVIEWS: A SELECTION OF RECENT RELEASES, WINTER 2002-2003:

• The Blades of Grass, Are Not For Smoking
• Maxine Brown, 25 All-Time Greatest Hits
• Dean Carter, Call of the Wild!
• The Dixie Cups, The Complete Red Bird Recordings
• Episode Six, Cornflakes & Crazyfoam
• The Everly Brothers, It's Everly Time/A Date with the Everly Brothers
• Guilbeau & Parsons, Louisiana Man
• Lee Hazlewood, These Boots Are Made for Walkin': The Complete MGM Recordings
• Jimi Hendrix, Blue Wild Angel: Jimi Hendrix Live at the Isle of Wight (CD)
• Jimi Hendrix, Blue Wild Angel: Jimi Hendrix Live at the Isle of Wight (DVD)
• Elvis Presley, Elvis, The Great Performances, Vol. 2: The Man and His Music
• Elvis Presley, Elvis, The Great Performances, Vol. 3: From the Waist Up
• The Sallyangie, Children of the Sun [expanded edition]
• Dusty Springfield, Heart & Soul
• Various Artists, Better Than the Beatles
• Various Artists, Ed Sullivan's Rock'n'Roll Classics Boxed Set DVD
• Various Artists, Living in the Streets 3: Busting Out of the Ghetto
• Various Artists, Peculiar Hole in the Sky

PRESS BUTTON BELOW FOR MORE ALBUM REVIEWS, FROM 2000-2006:

The Blades of Grass, Are Not For Smoking (Rev-Ola). The Blades of Grass's only album is above-average by the standards of sunshine pop rarities, but not distinguished by the standards of general 1967 pop-rock, though it's amiable. "Happy," their sole (and small) hit single, is the most memorable track, and its combination of pop-rock melody and rhythm with thick orchestration is replicated throughout the rest of the album. The group was only responsible for penning two of the songs, nicely harmonizing against pleasing but rather anodyne melodies, and sumptuous but slightly overdone production in which the horns and violins sometimes get more precious than inventive. Echoes of the Beach Boys, Beatles, Mamas & the Papas (whose "Monday, Monday" is explicitly if super-briefly ripped off in part of the bridge to "That's What a Boy Likes"), and lesser talents like the Happenings slip into the vocal arrangements and overall ornate mood. But the songs don't resonate that strongly, sometimes sounding a bit like a quite minor-league Left Banke in both its musical and precious, fairytale-tinged lyrical auras (and in fact "Walk Away Renee" is covered on the LP). The 2002 CD reissue on Rev-Ola adds seven bonus cuts, six taken from non-LP singles, with the source of the last ("Leap into the Arms of Love") mysteriously left unidentified. These songs are similar to those heard on the LP, again focusing almost wholly on non-original material, and again emphasizing upbeat orchestrated sunshine pop whose songs aren't special, including a version of "I Love You Alice B. Toklas" (more famous as done by Harper's Bizarre).

Maxine Brown, 25 All-Time Greatest Hits (Varese Sarabande). There was more than one Maxine Brown greatest hits collection prior to this 2002 release, and no doubt there will be others in the future. On its own merits, though, it does a good job of assembling her best-known material, focusing on her mid-1960s recordings for Wand, which yielded the bulk of her best and highest-selling sides. One small advantage this does have over prior collections, such as Kent's fine Oh No Not My Baby: The Best of Maxine Brown, is that it does include her two key pre-Wand hits released on Nomar in 1961, in their original versions: "All in My Mind" and "Funny" (the versions on Oh No Not My Baby are later re-recordings). Otherwise, it's mostly top-of-the-line mid-1960s pop-soul, including her biggest and best singles of the era: "Oh No Not My Baby," "Ask Me," "One Step at a Time," "It's Gonna Be Alright," and good non-hits like "One in a Million," "Gotta Find a Way," "Put Yourself in My Place," and "Since I Found You." There aren't any of her recordings with Chuck Jackson, which might miff some fans as some of those singles charted. But really those duets weren't up to the standard of her best solo work, so it's not a significant flaw in focus. It's not a major gaffe, but two songs identified as previously unissued -- "Baby Cakes" and "Slipping Through My Fingers," both bearing the songwriting credit of Otis Redding -- have in fact shown up on previous Brown compilations, the first on Oh No Not My Baby, the second on Tomato's Maxine Brown's Greatest Hits.

Dean Carter, Call of the Wild!(Big Beat). A mere six of these 28 tracks were previously issued (in 1965-68, on the Milky Way and Tell International labels); the rest were taken from unreleased sessions spanning 1959-69, though it's all from 1964-69 except for a couple of 1959 straight rockabilly sides. That's the sign of an archival project that might seem excessive given Carter's obscurity. Fortunately, though, the sounds are quite worthwhile and deserving of release, both for their pretty high quality and from a historical standpoint, as there were few if any other musicians following Carter's odd path in the late 1960s. While there's much of the untamed rockabilly musician in Carter's vocal delivery and material, it's not quite rockabilly. It's more like rockabilly-garage-soul, rockabilly in spirit but with the production convincingly updated to absorb some mid-to-late-'60s trends. Because of his strange cover of "Jailhouse Rock" (which leads off the CD), where the tempo is accelerated past 100 miles per hour and fuzz guitar fights it out with Morse code bleeps, pounding piano, and a careening dobro solo, one might think of Carter as a novelty if that's the only track you're familiar with (which is likely if you've ever heard of him at all). But this ain't no Hasil Adkins, or some idiot savant cherished more for his weirdness than his talent. It's actually solid if strange hard-chargin' rock mixing good '50s and '60s traits, delivered with considerable vocal power by Carter, embellished at some turns by inventive touches like orgiastic female soul backup vocals. "Rebel Woman," the somewhat more conventional flipside of "Jailhouse Rock," is here and is another highlight, though some of the unreleased cuts come close to that caliber. On "Midnight Sun" and "Dobro Pickin' Man," two of the latest cuts on the CD, Carter unveiled a more mature country-soul side that's quite interesting too, though apparently not an avenue he pursued at length.

The Dixie Cups, The Complete Red Bird Recordings (Varese Sarabande). Only three years before the release of this CD, another comprehensive Dixie Cups anthology, Chapel of Love: The Very Best of the Dixie Cups, had appeared on the Collectables label. This has a very slight edge, however, as in addition to including everything from that prior compilation, it adds two more tracks: the fair midtempo pop-rocker "Wrong Direction," previously only available on the 1979 import compilation Teen Anguish Vol. 1, and a less notable mono single version of "Gee the Moon Is Shining Bright." In any case, it's a very good collection, containing the A-sides and B-sides of half-a-dozen 1964-65 singles they did for Red Bird, rounded off with less essential odds and ends (including an alternate version of "People Say" and an a cappella alternate version of "Iko Iko"). The Dixie Cups are usually remembered only for "Chapel of Love" and perhaps "Iko Iko," but as this disc demonstrates, there were a good number of solid girl-group sides on their other Red Bird recordings. Many of them were written by the estimable Brill Building hitmaking team of Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich, and some are quite good despite almost total obscurity (such as "Little Bell" and "Another Boy Like Mine"); a few other tracks have a strong New Orleans R&B influence. It's one of the better single-artist girl-group anthologies, and makes one regret that such a likable, melodic act was unable to record longer for Red Bird, where they teamed with such a suitable production and songwriting supporting cast.

Episode Six, Cornflakes & Crazyfoam (Purple). This double CD is a testament to the outer limits of 1960s rock archivism, presenting 51 songs -- unreleased during the 1960s themselves -- by a band that never had a hit record, and never became especially popular even on an underground or cult level. Of course, they did have a couple of future members of Deep Purple in the band, which guarantees some sort of specialist audience. It's a pretty amazing package insofar as the sheer bulk of obscurities it unearths, spanning 1964-69. There are home and studio demos,  alternate versions, a couple 1967 German TV cuts, and mucho British radio broadcasts, those UK radio sessions providing the bulk of the source material. Sharp-eyed aficionados might protest at this point that there's already been an entire CD of Episode Six BBC performances (RPM's The Radio One Club Sessions Live 1968/69), but unbelievably, this package repeats just six tracks from that compilation; none of the other cuts have appeared anywhere. True, some of the songs from British radio are duplicated between the CDs in different versions that are in fact similar enough that very few listeners are going to do A-B comparisons. So, all hail the compilers, who toss in a superbly detailed 24-page booklet to boot. But what of the music? Well, the liner notes hit the nail on the head, correctly pointing out that the band's biggest problem was that they were "too good with any style to actually work out what their own was." There were probably few groups in Britain with as eclectic and, usually, tasteful cover repertoire as Episode Six: here you can hear them cover well-known and not-so-well-known songs by the Doors, Love, the Fifth Dimension, Moby Grape, cult soul singers, Denny Laine, Harry Belafonte, the Beatles, the Tokens, Bob Dylan, Fats Domino, Doris Day, Muddy Waters, Donovan, Sandie Shaw, and others. Also sprinkled in are a few of their originals, some of them good, but in the main derivative of specific '60s rock trends. The fidelity is extremely variable, from dodgy lo-fi to studio quality. It's all rather interesting if you like the band, who are best represented on the compilation of their studio recordings The Roots of Deep Purple: The Complete Episode Six. And occasionally there's a cut that's good on its own terms, like the US single version of the ominous "Love, Hate, Revenge," or the Sheila Carter-sung cover of Gene Pitney's "Something's Gotten Hold of My Heart." Yet really this can only be recommended to extreme British Invasion and/or Deep Purple completists, with the Deep Purple crowd getting possible kicks out of hearing Ian Gillan sing unlikely pop material like "Que Sera" and Sandie Shaw's "(There's) Always Something There to Remind Me."

The Everly Brothers, It's Everly Time/A Date with the Everly Brothers(Warner Brothers). It's Everly Time and A Date with the Everly Brothers, both from 1960, were excellent albums, a match for any other albums they did (including their earlier ones on Cadence). It's a shame that this CD, which combines both of the albums onto one disc and adds a few bonus tracks, was released for territories outside of the US. But it's not that hard to find in the States as an import, and is about the best Everly Brothers release you'll come across outside of best-of compilations. There's not a stiff among the 12 tracks on It's Everly Time, though most of them are barely known outside of serious Everly fans. They include six stellar contributions by Boudleaux Bryant and Felice Bryant (particularly "Some Sweet Day," "Sleepless Nights," and "You Thrill Me (Through and Through)"), one of Don Everly's best compositions ("So Sad"), and incredible harmony singing throughout. Although the material on A Date with the Everly Brothers is not on quite the same killer level of It's Everly Time, there are some very fine songs. Particularly good are the smash hit "Cathy's Clown," their raucous cover of Little Richard's "Lucille," "Love Hurts" (which preceded Roy Orbison's hit version), and "So How Come" (covered by the Beatles in 1963 on the BBC). The five bonus tracks include the 1961 double-sided hit single "Walk Right Back"/"Ebony Eyes"; the less popular 1961 hit single "Temptation"; alternate takes of "Temptation" (this one previously unissued) and "Stick with Me Baby"; and the 1960 recordings "Why Not" and "The Silent Treatment," both released on the 1977 rarities compilation New Album, though neither of them are memorable.

Guilbeau & Parsons, Louisiana Man (Big Beat). In a way, this is an embellishment of Gib Guilbeau's obscure early-1970s album Cajun Country. All of the songs from that album are here, as are a number of additional singles, demos, and outtakes, though not all of those are credited to Guilbeau or recorded around the time of that LP. What's the story, then, and why is this CD credited to Guilbeau & Parsons? The confusing picture, in a nutshell: Gib Guilbeau and Gene Parsons released a couple of singles in 1967-68 (both of which are on this disc), and also recorded an album's worth of material at the time that almost got released in 1968. It didn't appear in the late 1960s, though, and eventually a slightly altered version of the original album came out, credited to Guilbeau and titled Cajun Country, in the early 1970s. This 25-track disc, then, has the album; the singles; a half-dozen previously unreleased Guilbeau & Parsons demos and outtakes; a 1969 Gib Guilbeau solo single; a Peter & Gordon-like 1965 single by Gib & Wayne (the duo of Guilbeau and Wayne Moore); a previously unissued home demo duo by Guilbeau and Darrell Cotton; and a 1968 single by Bruce E. Oakes produced by Guilbeau and Parsons. It's for a specialized collector market, for sure. But anyone seriously interested in the genesis of country-rock should hear this, both for its historic importance and for the quality of the music. Guilbeau and Parsons, as well as other musicians heard here like Clarence White and Wayne Moore (who played with Guilbeau and Parsons in the group that became known as Nashville West), were forging some country-rock directions on these obscure recordings that anticipated the late-'60s work of the Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers. Sometimes this amounted to country-tinged folk-rock reminiscent of Gene Clark and the Byrds (like the single "Your Gentle Ways of Loving Me," which was later done by the Byrds when Parsons and White joined, and "Woman's Disgrace," covered by the Gosdin Brothers); often it was close to Cajun-tilted Bakersfield country music; and often various ingredients of rock, Cajun, and country bubbled in the mix, with some R&B thrown in occasionally. There might have been a shortage of truly outstanding songs, but the blend was pleasant, creative, ahead of its time, and well done, with engaging vocals. The complicated story behind the routes Guilbeau, Parsons, and their associates traveled in the mid-to-late 1960s is unraveled in Alec Palao's lengthy accompanying essay.

Lee Hazlewood, These Boots Are Made for Walkin': The Complete MGM Recordings (Ace). This double CD is just what it says: all three of the albums Hazlewood recorded for MGM in 1965-67, with the addition of three instrumentals attributed to Lee Hazlewood's Woodchucks (two of which came out on a 1966 single, the third of which, "Batman," was previously unissued). His first two MGM LPs, The Very Special World of Lee Hazlewood (released in 1966) and the far more imaginatively titled Lee Hazlewood-ism: Its Cause and Cure (1967), together comprise the 22 songs presented on the first disc. In tandem, these two LPs arguably represented the peak of Hazlewood's mighty long and checkered career as a solo artist, containing some of his finest compositions; sympathetic production and arrangements combining pop, easy listening orchestration, rock, country, cowboy music and folk; and a unique fusion of droll humor with pop hooks, storytelling, and even some genuine romantic sentiment. There are some silly throwaways, to be sure, but there are also some real standouts, like his 1966 duets with Suzi Jane Hokum on "Sand" and "Summer Wine" (which predate the far more famous duets of those tunes he recorded with Nancy Sinatra); the bullfighting epic "Jose"; the Native American narrative "The Nights"; his own comic version of "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'"; the almost morbidly fascinating moping ballad "My Autumn's Done Come"; and neglected gems of brooding, sumptuously orchestrated melodramatic pop like "Your Sweet Love," "For One Moment," and "I Am a Part." It's a little strange, and perhaps distracting to those who own the original LPs, that these 22 songs don't follow the sequence from the original vinyl (and switch back and forth between those albums), but everything's here. Most of the second disc is devoted to Something Special, recorded (save for one song) in 1967 but not released for two decades (and then only in Germany). Sadly, this is far less worthwhile than his prior two MGM LPs, sounding like an eccentric lounge country-jazz-pop singer, with (except for "Shades") none of the full orchestrated arrangements that had distinguished his prior MGM output, the material boasting far fewer pop hooks (if just as much oddball lyrics). The set finishes with the three Lee Hazlewood's Woodchucks instrumentals, which though rare are throwaways, combining generic pop-rock with cheesy mariachi flourishes. In truth, almost all of the memorable songs on here can be found on the single-disc Lounge Legends compilation, which has almost everything from The Very Special World of Lee Hazlewood and Lee Hazlewood-ism: Its Cause and Cure, though the peppy, catchy "When a Fool Loves a Fool" (from The Very Special World of Lee Hazlewood) somehow escaped inclusion on Lounge Legends. But for those willing to spend a little more money and time, this two-disc anthology covers all the bases of Hazlewood's MGM era, augmented by detailed liner notes and an MGM sessionography.

Jimi Hendrix, Blue Wild Angel: Jimi Hendrix Live at the Isle of Wight (CD)(Experience Hendrix). Jimi Hendrix's show at the Isle of Wight Festival on August 30, 1970 was one of his final performances; he would be dead less than a month later. It's also one of the more famous, if not necessarily one of the best, of his later performances, since the Isle of Wight festival was filmed. This eleven-song, 70-minute set actually only presents a little more than half of the 18 songs he played that night. Five songs not on this CD do appear on the simultaneously released DVD of the concert, and, oddly, one song on the CD, "Hey Baby (New Rising Sun)," does not appear on the DVD. A Hendrix show at such a big event, and so shortly before his death, inevitably has a lot of historical significance, but it's not among his finest work, live or otherwise. The trio of Hendrix, drummer Mitch Mitchell, and bassist Billy Cox sounds a little less than 100%, understandably so since they went on at 3am. More importantly, though Hendrix's skills as a guitarist and singer were undiminished, this was a point in his career where his focus wasn't at his optimum. There's no shortage of thrilling guitar work here, but the arrangements do occasionally meander (as on a 19-minute version of "Machine Gun"). It was courageous for Hendrix to play some new material at the festival, like "Dolly Dagger" (the best of those songs), "Freedom," and "In from the Storm," but these just weren't as sharp and poignant as his best earlier compositions. Just a few of the more famous Hendrix standards -- "All Along the Watchtower," an 11-minute "Red House," and "Spanish Castle Magic" -- are included. A mangling of "God Save the Queen" (who said the Sex Pistols were the first to come up with that concept?) provides a surprise opener, as does its segue into a 50-second snatch of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." The sound is good, as is the annotation, but this is secondary on the list of available Hendrix live recordings.

Jimi Hendrix, Blue Wild Angel: Jimi Hendrix Live at the Isle of Wight (DVD), (MCA). Jimi Hendrix's set at the Isle of Wight Festival at the end of August 1970 was one of his final concerts, given a few weeks before his death. It wasn't one of his greatest shows, but it had its share of worthwhile musical moments, and was fortunately filmed as part of director Murray Lerner's documentary on the entire festival. This DVD, released simultaneously with a CD of the same title, has almost the whole concert, a quite lengthy one that ran about two hours. "Almost" the whole concert, it should be noted: the songs "Midnight Lightning" and "Hey Baby (New Rising Sun)" were performed, but aren't included, though "Hey Baby (New Rising Sun)" is on the CD. Since this concert doesn't contain the best versions of the songs Hendrix was performing live at this point, the DVD is a more valuable experience than the CD. The footage of Hendrix, drummer Mitch Mitchell, and Billy Cox going through a few old favorites and some of the later material Jimi wrote gives a close-up glimpse of Hendrix's guitar mastery and on-stage presence. The film quality of this nighttime performance is good, though there are occasional thin blue lines due to technical imperfections in the negative, and the lack of sunlight prevented more than a few audience shots. The performances sometimes waver between the extended and the drawn-out, particularly on a 19-minute version of "Machine Gun"; Hendrix actually gets more animated, in a showmanship sort of way, on "Foxy Lady," one of the older songs placed in the setlist to placate audience expectations. The focus is, naturally, usually on Hendrix and his vocal and guitar work, though Mitchell is seen fairly often; Cox, in contrast, is seldom seen, and his bass is expectedly far less prominent in the sound mix than Jimi's guitar. In addition to footage of the show itself, the main feature portion of the DVD also has some scenes of the festival getting set up, and interviews with Mitchell, Cox, and others. There are several worthwhile extra features too, including an interview with director Murray Lerner, and four songs presented in the Multiple Camera Picture in Picture format. These allow viewers to see "Spanish Castle Magic," "Red House," "Foxy Lady," and half of "Machine Gun" in a format that overlays a full-screen picture with one or (more frequently) two insets that let you see three or two simultaneous camera angles; all four of those songs are also included in a standard single full-screen format in the main feature portion of the DVD. Less essential, though of some interest, are a few artifacts and memorabilia, including festival posters, tickets, and Hendrix's handwritten directions to the site of the festival; there are also informative liner notes in the booklet.

Elvis Presley, Elvis, The Great Performances, Vol. 2: The Man and His Music (Rhino). The second volume of this three-part DVD series of vintage Elvis Presley footage is lighter on his 1956-57 TV appearances than the other three installments. Those are the rarest and most exciting early Elvis clips, and for that reason, this volume rates as slightly inferior to its companion discs. There's still plenty to enjoy in these 14 songs and 55 minutes, though, linked by bits of still photographs and documentary footage, with longtime Presley friend George Klein handling the voiceover narration. (It's interesting to see Elvis asked for an opinion about war protesters in a brief 1972 press conference excerpt; naturally, he demurs.) For one thing, there are three vintage live 1956-57 TV appearances, all of them exciting. These include a medley of "Shake, Rattle and Roll"/"Flip, Flop and Fly," from January 28, 1956, when he had yet to become a national star; an exciting "Blue Suede Shoes" from April 1956, filmed aboard a naval ship in San Diego; and a "from the waist up" rendition of "Don't Be Cruel" on The Ed Sullivan Show in January 1957 (as well as Sullivan's emphatic speech to the audience about what a nice young man Presley is). Most of the rest of the clips from the late 1950s and early 1960s come from his movies, and while that might disappoint viewers as they're neither live nor that rare, some good scenes are picked, like "Mean Women Blues" from Loving You and "Return to Sender" from Girls, Girls, Girls. There's also one song from his 1960 Welcome Home Elvis TV special. Less interestingly, there are a couple from his 1973 Elvis: Aloha from Hawaiispecial; a 1972 "Always on My Mind" from Elvis on Tour; and, to finish it off, "If I Can Dream" from his 1968 comeback TV special. The only DVD extra of note is a trivia track that can be turned on or off. This flashes factoids, both about Elvis and with some pretty superfluous (occasionally even silly) notes related to the lyrics and settings of the performances, in subtitle print at the bottom of the screen once in a while.

Elvis Presley, Elvis, The Great Performances, Vol. 3: From the Waist Up (Rhino). The third volume of this three-part DVD series of vintage Elvis Presley footage focuses almost exclusively on clips from his 1956-57 TV performances. Those clips qualify as the most exciting live footage of Presley's entire career, so this 51-minute disc is naturally both a pleasure to watch and historically valuable, despite some minor imperfections. There's not much to carp about when watching the clips themselves, all of them live, encompassing such classics as "Hound Dog," "Too Much," "Don't Be Cruel," and "Baby, Let's Play House," as well as lesser-known goodies like "Ready Teddy," "When My Blue Moon Turns to Gold Again," and "Love Me." Bono of U2 does the voiceover, which occasionally (though quite infrequently), unfortunately, goes over the clips. Most of the voiceover, however, is restricted to the additional footage and still photos that link the TV performances. Some of that additional footage, it should be noted, is quite interesting in itself, presenting silent mid-1950s movies of Elvis on stage, including 1955 shows in Texas predating his television debut. Also a brief clip of Bo Diddley doing "Bo Diddley" on The Ed Sullivan Show in the mid-1950s finds its way into the program, which isn't objectionable at all, since it's an exciting snippet and since Diddley was influential on Presley. As for the most amusing moment, that would have to be the first pass into the bridge on "Love Me," where Presley oh-so-briefly forgets the words and stumbles. Despite the title "From the Waist Up," by the way, most of this has Elvis in full-body gyration camera angles, though by the time of his final Ed Sullivan appearance in 1957 (four of whose songs are here), he was being filmed from the waist up. Note that footage from three of the songs on this DVD also appears on the previous two volumes in this series, though the overlap's not so huge as to be egregious.

The Sallyangie, Children of the Sun [expanded edition] (Sanctuary). The Sallyangie's Children of the Sun album has its charm, but it wouldn't be nearly as interesting to collectors as it is had it not marked the first appearance on record of Mike Oldfield and Sally Oldfield. Even by the standards of the late 1960s, it's fey, naive British folk with touches of pop, in Ray Warleigh's flute, Terry Cox's percussion, and David Palmer's arrangements. A fairytale ambience suffused the Oldfields' original songs, on which Sally Oldfield's high, trilling vocals overshadow brother Mike's guitar playing and less prominent singing. The 2002 CD reissue on Sanctuary expands the material into a two-disc set, with disc one a straight reissue of the Children of the Sun album, though it includes two songs ("Twilight Song" and "Song of the Harbor") that didn't make it onto the original US LP. The second CD reaches to the dustiest corners of the vault to fill up a disc, with three Mike Oldfield solo guitar improvisations. These are mostly instrumental, except for some very brief and frankly very annoying nursery rhyme chants from Mike, and although the acoustic folk guitar work on these is good (in the mold of John Renbourn), they sound more like sketches or works in progress than completed ideas. There are also a couple of tunes, "Color of the World" and "Two Ships," credited as Sally Oldfield 1970 solo tracks, though discographies have listed these as comprising a 1969 non-LP Sallyangie single. In any case, they're far more orchestrated pop-folk productions than anything on the proper Children of the Sun album, pleasant but twee, sounding like a conscious effort to emulate some of Marianne Faithfull's 1960s work. Rounding out the bonus tracks is a version of "Children of the Sun" "minus intro." The liner notes, sadly, don't shed any details about the bonus tracks, though they do include some comments by Sally Oldfield on this seldom-documented band.

Dusty Springfield, Heart & Soul(Varese Sarabande). Is this a valuable release for Dusty Springfield completists? Certainly; none of the 18 songs are too easy to find elsewhere, with seven of them never having appeared in the US before this CD, and eight of them previously unreleased anywhere. Do they comprise a musically strong and pleasurable release? Overall, no, even by the standards of rare Dusty Springfield material. In a reversal of the way such anthologies usually work, it leads off with the seven least interesting items, all culled from soundtracks and obscure singles and/or duets from the 1980s and 1990s. Although Springfield's voice is okay or better on these, in truth the material and arrangements -- usually leaning very heavily toward MOR and adult contemporary music -- are not only poor and bland, but ill-suited toward Dusty's style. Much better are the ten songs from live television performances from 1968-73, even if it's unfortunate the exact sources of these aren't given (though the year of recording is noted for all of these tracks). Among these are a few hits ("Son of a Preacher Man," "A Brand New Me," "The Look of Love") and, more intriguingly, some songs she never released in studio versions. Those include a musically uninteresting medley of Seekers hits written by her brother Tom Springfield; covers of "Up on the Roof" and "People Get Ready"; and a good rendition of "Won't Be Long" from 1971, though she had done that on a 1966 LP. The sound on these TV clips is okay, and the arrangements adequate but sometimes not too inspired; it's hard to tell, but it seems that sometimes she might be singing to a recorded backing track rather than live accompaniment. As a worthwhile bonus, there's an unlisted bonus track of her 1967 radio ad for Great Shakes milkshakes.

Various Artists, Better Than the Beatles (Knight). Almost certainly an unauthorized collection, this 27-track CD gathers more than two dozen novelties cut in the immediate aftermath of the Beatles' conquest of America. These are for the most part novelties exploiting the explosion of Beatlemania, it's important to point out, not imitations. You can tell as much from some of the titles and group names: "We're the Weavils" by the Weavils, "Buggs vs. Beatles" by the Buggs, "The Beatle-Bomb" by the Exterminators, "The Guy with the Liverpool Hair" by the Outsiders, "Ringo Boy" by Dorie Peyton, "I Want to Be a Beatle" by Bobby Wilding, and so forth. Like much novelty exploitation, it's not great music, but it has definite historical/curiosity/pop cultural value as a sampler of a fringe side effect of Beatlemania. If you were to take this with unwarranted sociological seriousness, many of the songs seem not so much a celebration of the Beatles as a reaction to a threat, with the group far more a target of satire than adulation. There's an irony, too, that in these takeoffs on and jabs at the Fab Four, the music itself is either in the early-'60s frat-rock/surf/twist mode that the British Invasion would soon make obsolete, or pretty dire attempts to emulate Merseybeat, or some sort of combination of the two.

Nonetheless, there's some good fun to be had, even with the bad cuts, and it certainly gives college radio DJs good light (and obscure) fodder for the playlist. Some of the cuts are even modestly enjoyable on musical merits. The Outsiders' "The Guy with the Long Liverpool Hair" (apparently not by the Outsiders famous for "Time Won't Let Me") is fairly good hard-driving faux tough Merseybeat. So is Tony Rivers & the Castaways' "I Love You," which actually has no direct Beatles references in the lyrics, was by a real British group, and was apparently chosen simply because it sounds like the early Beatles (and also isn't that rare, a much better-fidelity version appearing on the legitimate RPM release The Tony Rivers Collection Vol. 1: "Castaways"). There are some girl groups here too, like the Beatle-ettes' doing "Only Seventeen," which sounds like a weird hybrid of Merseybeat and Lesley Gore's "She's a Fool," and the Swans' with "The Boy with the Beatle Hair," which has the dippy circa-1963 girl group sound of acts like the Murmaids (of "Popsicles and Icicles" fame). There are even some musicians who achieved fame, like Gene Cornish & the Unbeetables, led by the future member of the Rascals (though the two songs here aren't good); Ernie Maresca, who had a big 1962 hit with "Shout Shout (Knock Yourself Out)," and whose "The Beetle Dance" is pretty crummy; and Gary Usher, famed as a songwriter/producer who worked with the Byrds and the Beach Boys, and whose flop single "The Beetle" is on this CD.

This doesn't contain every Beatle novelty by any means. Conspicuous by its absence is "Ringo, I Love You" by Bonnie Jo Mason, an early pseudonym for Cher, which is actually pretty gutsy and one of the best Beatles novelties, and ex-Crickets Sonny Curtis's "A Beatle I Want to Be." Also missing is the only Beatle novelty to make the Top Forty, the Carefrees' "We Love You Beatles, Oh Yes We Do," although a snatch of it's heard on the annoying, unnecessary "bonus track." Indeed, there probably would have been enough for a two-CD set; perhaps more were being saved for a second volume. It would have been nice if there was even a shred of documentation: there are absolutely no liner notes or original release labels and dates, though some of the labels of the original 45s are reproduced in the booklet.

Various Artists, Ed Sullivan's Rock'n'Roll Classics Boxed Set DVD (Rhino). Prior to going off the air in the early 1970s, The Ed Sullivan Show often gave rock musicians some of their greatest media exposure. This mammoth nine-volume DVD box set (also available in VHS) has nearly 150 rock'n'roll clips from the program, spanning the mid-1950s to the early 1970s, though the substantial majority of these are from 1964-70. There's much to praise about this package simply due to the sheer bulk of vintage footage of numerous rock'n'roll greats, including (and this is just a partial list) Elvis Presley, the Beatles (whose 1964 appearances, perhaps the most famous rock television appearances ever, are heavily excerpted), the Rolling Stones, the Supremes, Jerry Lee Lewis, the Beach Boys, the Jackson 5, the Temptations, Smokey Robinson & the Miracles, James Brown, Jackie Wilson, the Doors, the Jefferson Airplane, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Janis Joplin, Sly & the Family Stone, the Mamas & the Papas, and Buddy Holly. The discs (about an hour each in length), too, are broken up thematically if you're in the mood for certain sub-genres, with divisions for the British Invasion, Motown, '60s Rock, Love Songs, and other styles (including a whole disc devoted to the Temptations & the Supremes). The majority of it's in color, although there are a good number of pre-1965 black and white items.

There are some great clips here, like the Beatles' February 1964 live American television debut; Elvis Presley doing "Hound Dog," and not solely from the waist up (though some "waist up" clips are here too); James Brown dancing like a fiend on "Prisoner of Love" and a "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag"/"I Feel Good" medley; a pre-teen Michael Jackson dancing through some of his own amazing steps with the Jackson 5; Sly & the Family Stone dancing into the audience; the Temptations switching off lead vocals on "I Can't Get Next to You"; Santana coming to a boil on "Persuasion"; the Doors doing "Light My Fire"; Bo Diddley shaking through "Bo Diddley" in 1955, in one of the first nationally televised appearances of an out-and-out rock'n'roller; and Buddy Holly doing "That'll Be the Day" and "Peggy Sue" on some of the only TV he did before his death.  There's some more middle-of-the-road pop-rock that's not nearly as exciting, like Tom Jones, Gary Puckett & the Union Gap, Oliver, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Carpenters, B.J. Thomas, Petula Clark, and Paul Anka. But even those clips have their interest for both archival value and entertainment pleasure, not to mention some frightfully corny sets and early video tricks, like superimpositions of romantic scenes and psychedelic effects. It's also cool to see the occasional non-megastar song, like the Searchers' "Needles and Pins," Lulu's "To Sir With Love," and Jay & the Techniques' "Keep the Ball Rolling." You can also gauge the changing mood of the times by the camera work and set design; while most of the clips prior to the mid-1960s are just straightforward shots of the musicians and the stage, from 1965 onward they get increasingly gaudy, sometimes using specially created scenarios and special visual effects (particularly for the psychedelic numbers).

All those good things notwithstanding, there are some surprising shortcomings to the set that make it less of an ideal viewing experience than it could have been. Most importantly, there's exuberant-to-the-point-of-aggressive, and not extremely enlightening, narration by Jay Thomas between the clips. Also, different parts of the program are prefaced and linked by an annoying pseudo-'60s instrumental jingle that you'll be sick to death of hearing after the 50 or so times it plays over the course of the nine volumes. There are super-brief interview excerpts with musicians (and some of their colleagues) from time to time that add very little. Beyond the formatting, some might be surprised to find how many of the songs were lip-synced rather than played live, whether in whole or sung live to a backing track. It's not just the more lightweight groups or non-instrument-playing soul singers that do this; even the Rolling Stones used backing tracks. It's also disappointing to find that many of the songs were truncated into shorter versions, presumably necessitated by time restrictions when these needed to be fit into the original live broadcasts. What's worse, there seems to have been some editing done to the clips that were originally broadcast to compress them into a shorter running time in this reissued DVD/VHS format. This is particularly evident at times during the Beatles' 1964 songs, with "All My Loving" missing its second verse, for instance. Finally, a few clips are duplicated in different volumes (and once, in the case of the Jefferson Airplane's "Crown of Creation," actually duplicated within one volume), although that occurs seldom enough to be a major irritant.

As for special DVD features, there are few. The trivia track, which displays trivia in yellow subtitles as the footage plays, is fortunately optional, as the information bites range from reasonably interesting and informative to (more often) mundane and even inane. The selected discographies are virtually useless; you'll find far more depth in that regard in a number of standard rock reference books and on-line sources. There's just a bit of bonus footage in volume nine, which has a fairly interesting interview with one of The Ed Sullivan Show's directors, John Moffit, and the only in-camera interview of Sullivan that still exists, filmed in 1958 (and also including his wife Sylvia Sullivan). Overall, mind you, it's still a tremendous bounty of visual rock'n'roll history, and entertaining in what matters most, the footage itself, which does take up the overwhelming portion of the discs. Note that just two of the nine volumes in the box, volume one (with an assortment of hitmaking acts from 1965-67) and volume two (with another assortment of hitmmaking artists, from 1968-70), are available separately.

Various Artists, Living in the Streets 3: Busting Out of the Ghetto (BGP). The third volume of this unusual but very worthwhile series shows no signs of running out of steam in its excavation of obscure oddball goodies of the stranger manifestations of R&B in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and occasionally a bit later (one track on here's from 1979). The term R&B must be used, rather than Black music, since actually most but not all of the performers are Black: one of the better tracks, the Generation's storming funk-rock "I'm a Good Woman," features lead vocals by a pre-Cold Blood Lydia Pense. But there's a lot of prime soul, funk, and jazz from the era, usually in collision with and feeding off each other (and sometimes borrowing from psychedelic rock), reflecting a wild era in which boundaries were falling all over the place. Most of the cuts are very good, and very few of the performers will be known to anyone but collectors, save the Fatback Band, jazzmen Charles McPherson (as accompanist to singer Pat Bowie) and Gary Bartz, and perhaps eccentric soul veteran King Hannibal aka the Mighty Hannibal. But some highlights to listen out for include a rare 1969 socially conscious funk B-side by Johnny King & the Fatback Band; the Mighty Tom Cats' 1973 cover of Manu Dibango's "Soul Makossa"; Tanya Winley's 1979 recording "Vicious Rap," regarded by some as one of the very first rap records, though its musical backing still owes a lot to funk; Jade's "Viva! (Viva Tirado)," a vocal version of the El Chicano hit; Gary Bartz's "I've Known Rivers," inspired by a Langston Hughes poem; Lorez Alexandria's 1968 torch-soul single "I'm Wishin'"; and Pat Bowie's "Feeling Good," a magnificently contained interpretation of this classic standard, and the earliest cut here, dating from 1965. Certainly this isn't the most stylistically consistent anthology out there, but that's not an issue when the music is this good, and the presentation and annotation so expert.

Various Artists, Peculiar Hole in the Sky (Big Beat). The Australian pop-psychedelia scene of the late 1960s was more akin to the British pop-psych scene than the American one, though it borrowed from both of those cousins. Really, however, it wasn't as distinctive as either, nor did it have many tunes to rate on par with the best of those from the UK or US. Nonetheless, this 27-track anthology of Oz pop-psych from 1967-70 does cover a scene that's rarely been noted by rock collectors or historians, particularly outside of Australia. Licensed from the Festival label (with the exception of a couple of tracks from Clarion Records), there aren't any names that will strike instant chords with the international pop connoisseur, though some of the writers and performers found wide fame in other contexts. Foremost among those is Bon Scott, who prior to joining AC/DC sang on the Valentines' "Peculiar Hole in the Sky," which in turn was written by Harry Vanda and George Young of the Easybeats (who released their own version shortly afterward). Vanda-Young also wrote R. Black & the Rockin' V's' "Walking & Talking," never recorded by the Easybeats, though that song's just okay. Other noted writers are behind some of the better tracks. Mick Bower of the Masters Apprentices, one of the greatest Australian rock bands, wrote the Bucket's very Cream-styled "I Can't Help Thinking of You." Graham Gouldman penned his usually classy pop on Normie Rowe's "Going Home," produced by legendary British impresario Giorgio Gomelsky. Barry Gibb authored Jon's anxious "Upstairs, Downstairs," which sounds much like the Bee Gees' own circa-1966 recordings. Overall, though, the songs tend toward the ordinary-with-a-touch-of-weirdness in material, sometimes with lingering British Invasion, mod rock, and sunshine pop influences. Once in a while a cut does jump out as worthy of attention, like the Executives' dreamy yet disquieting "Moving in a Circle," with its eerie organ and wispy vocal by Carole King (not that Carole King!).
 

ALBUM REVIEWS: A SELECTION OF RECENT RELEASES, FALL 2002:

• Buffalo Springfield, Sell Out
• Canned Heat, Don't Forget to Boogie: Vintage Heat
• Johnny Cash, At Madison Square Garden
• Crystal Circus, In Relation to Our Times
• Darius, Darius II
• Dave Davani, Fused! The Swinging Soul Sound of Dave Davani
• The Spencer Davis Group, Time Seller Special Edition
• Marianne Faithfull, Come My Way
• Lonnie Mack, Still on the Move
• The Merseybeats, I Think of You
• Duffy Power, Leapers and Sleepers
• John Renbourn, Another Monday
• The Spike-Drivers, 60s Folkrocking Psychedelia from the Motor City
• T.C. Atlantic, The Best of T.C. Atlantic
• The Velvet Underground, The Velvet Underground & Nico [Deluxe Edition]
• The Who, My Generation [Deluxe Edition]
• The Wildweeds, No Good to Cry: The Best of the Wildweeds
• Various Artists, Hot Generation!: 1960s Punk from Down Under
• Various Artists, King New Breed Rhythm & Blues
• Various Artists, Love That Louie: The Louie Louie Files
• Various Artists, Of Hopes & Dreams & Tombstones: Beat 'n' R&B from Down Under

Buffalo Springfield, Sell Out (Aurora Borealis, bootleg). There just isn't much high-grade unreleased Buffalo Springfield material that didn't make it onto their 2001 box set, but this CD gamely assembles some of the more notable scraps that haven't made it onto wide availability. Just two of these 16 tracks saw official release. One's the nine-minute version of "Bluebird" that opens the disc, which was on the 1973 double-LP Buffalo Springfield anthology; the other's a 45 mix of "Mr. Soul." Of the handful of other studio items here, by far the most notable is the 1967 outtake "Sell Out," a hard-rocking Neil Young tune that, while reflective of his generally anxious and jumpy style of songwriting from the time, isn't up to the level of the Young compositions that made it onto Buffalo Springfield's LPs. In addition, there's a 1965 Young solo demo of "Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing," from his 1965 solo session for Elektra that has long been circulating on bootleg; the minute-and-a-half version of the psychedelic instrumental "Raga," which has again long been making the rounds on bootleg; and an "extended version w/Neil Young overdubs" of "Bluebird," though this poor-sounding acetate lasts just half a minute longer than the relatively well-known nine-minute version from the Buffalo Springfield anthology, and whatever Young overdubs are present are superfluous. Most of the disc, however, is given over to live material, mostly from either a live 1967 show at Huntington Beach or a 1968 one from Dallas (the location of one live version of "For What It's Worth" isn't given). The recording quality of all of these is imperfect but listenable, though the liner notes say that the Huntington Beach and Dallas songs are taken from an "upgraded source." The band do perform pretty well on these, though they're more prone to improv indulgence, particularly in the guitar soloing, than the studio versions, and the vocals can be more ragged. Still, where else are you going to hear live versions of "Bluebird," "For What It's Worth," "Rock and Roll Woman," "Go and Say Goodbye," "Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing," "Uno Mundo," and "A Child's Claim to Fame"? Accepting the fact that there don't seem to be any good-quality live Springfield recordings in existence, it's a good supplement for major fans of the band, though not something that less devoted listeners are likely to enjoy too much.

Canned Heat, Don't Forget to Boogie: Vintage Heat (Varese Sarabande). This is actually a CD repackage of the 1966 recordings that appeared back in 1970 on the Janus LP Vintage Canned Heat. Produced by Johnny Otis, this was the group in its early formative stage, with the lineup that would play on their official 1967 debut album: Bob Hite, Alan Wilson, Henry Vestine, Larry Taylor, and Frank Cook. All but two of the songs are covers of well-worn blues staples, mostly from the classic electric Chess catalog, including "Spoonful," "Rollin' and Tumblin'," "Pretty Thing," "Got My Mojo Working," and "Louise," with John Lee Hooker's "Dimples" as well. Though more basic and tentative and than the late-1960s recordings for which they're well known, these are pretty brisk, concise performances that mark Canned Heat as one of the few enduring White American blues-rock bands of the era. Indeed, this lacks the jam-prone bombast that afflicted many of their famous releases, and even those who dismiss their familiar stuff for that reason might find themselves enjoying this. One of the two group originals, "Straight Head," sounds like they might have been trying, if just slightly, to aim a little closer to the pop market, in the manner of some of the tracks recorded around the same time by the Rising Sons (the L.A. folk-rock-blues group with Taj Mahal and Ry Cooder). It's only 24 minutes long, and one song, "Rollin' and Tumblin'," is presented twice (once with harmonica, once without), but it's a worthy archival collection.

Johnny Cash, At Madison Square Garden (Columbia/Legacy). Not released until 2002, all 26 of these songs -- adding up to a generous 77 minutes -- were recorded at Cash's successful show at Madison Square Garden in New York on December 5, 1969. Two best-selling live late-1960s Cash albums, At Folsom Prison and At San Quentin, have long been available, and it will be pretty difficult for this to dislodge those in prominence among those scouting for live material in the Cash catalog. Still, it's a good document of Cash as he reached the apex of his mainstream popularity. Also, its setting in a large, popular venue by itself guaranteed that the ambience would be somewhat different than it would be on the two aforementioned live albums, both recorded in prisons. While Cash has a full band (including Carl Perkins on electric guitar and his longtime associate Marshall Grant on bass), the sound to its credit remains spare. The sound is not amazingly top-of-the-line, but it's pretty good, and the repertoire is extremely varied, taking in oldies like "Big River," "I Still Miss Someone," "Long Black Veil," and "Folsom Prison"; his then-recent smashes "Boy Named Sue" and "Daddy Sang Bass"; the Americana and Native American advocacy of songs like "The Ballad of Ira Hayes" and "Remember the Alamo"; the spiritual "Were You There (When They Crucified My Lord"); and Ed McCurdy's anti-war folk revival tune "Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream." There are also guest star turns for Carl Perkins (who does "Blue Suede Shoes"), the Statler Brothers (who do their hit "Flowers on the Wall"), and the Carter Family, whose two songs are actually vivacious highlights of the disc, and a good change of pace from Cash's customary low chug. Between-song raps on the Vietnam War, prison, and other topics testify to Cash's ability to reach out to all stripes of his constituency, though the finale medley (and the bits near the end announcing the renewal of his TV show and explaining pregnant June Carter's absence) are a tad showbizzy.

Crystal Circus, In Relation to Our Times (Akarma). While not a major find, this collection of material -- all previously unreleased, save the two songs ("In Relation (To Our Times)" and "Merry-Go-Round") from their 1967 single -- isn't at all bad pop-psychedelia. It's rather like finding an unreleased Strawberry Alarm Clock album that might make a decent candidate for the best LP that group ever made, had it borne the Strawberry Alarm Clock billing. Indeed the Strawberry Alarm Clock influence is pervasive, especially on "In Relation (To Our Times)," but also on "Don't Say I Didn't Warn You," which sounds like the ultimate cross between the Strawberry Alarm Clock and the hardest-rocking sides by Paul Revere & the Raiders. Most of the other songs have nice bouncy tunes with major-minor melodic alternations, pleasing sunshine pop harmonies, and appropriately psychedelic organ, fuzz guitars, trippy orchestration, vocal distortion, and odd effects. The lyrics might be superficially far-out, but again, impressions like those recorded in "Circus and Zoo World" are a good complement for this kind of candy-pop-psych. Occasionally they get into more of a straightforward garage-ish hard rock-soul blend, like on "Never Again," but it's the more ethereal and poppy numbers that stand out.

Darius, Darius II (World in Sound). Darius was one of the better obscure late-1960s psychedelic singers who did only one album. So this release of 15 previously unreleased songs -- all recorded between 1967-71, though not many other details are given on this disc -- is quite welcome. The material's pretty good, too, though not as sharply refined and hard-hitting in its impact as the sole, self-titled Darius album. Darius really did have an unusual mix of flavors, leaning toward folk-rockish tunes and philosophical lyrics of tense introspection and confusion. Yet he had quite a blue-eyed soulful voice, one capable of both a hurt quaver and keening screams, and also had a good knack for romantic pop melodic hooks. Though the production quality and songwriting is uneven, all of these qualities are out in force through most of Darius II, whether it's the gutbucket soul-folk of "Don't You Get the Feelin'" (heard here in two versions), the foreboding acoustic acid-folk of "New Start," "Best Girl," and "No One Like You," or the comparatively jubilant soul-pop of "I Don't Mind" and "Summer Is Over." "44th Floor" borrows very liberally from the soul classic "I've Been Loving You Too Long," but enjoyably so, while "Beauty" is breezy downbeat jazz-soul-pop, if that doesn't sound like too many adjectives to fit into one tune. "For Now I Love You" is excellent moody late-1960s acid folk-pop, melodically similar to Three Dog Night's "Easy to Be Hard," but texturally far more similar to the bent orchestral psych-folk-rock of his friend Bobby Jameson. And the cover of Barbara Lewis's classic "Hello Stranger" is quite cool, with its imaginative, unclassifiably weird organ-synthesizer-like sounds. Only intense collectors are going to end up hearing this record, but unlike the bulk of such collections, this really is worth hearing by less specialized listeners who'd like to catch up on a significant -- and accessible -- late-'60s talent who somehow missed getting his music out in significant numbers.

Dave Davani, Fused! The Swinging Soul Sound of Dave Davani (Big Beat). This contains not only the entirety of Davani's only 1960s album, Fused!, but also a couple of 1965-66 singles and four previously unreleased outtakes from the same era. Fused! was a very respectable instrumental soul-jazz effort, with Davani's Hammond organ backed by the sort of sleek electric guitar and sturdy rhythm section one would have expected from mid-1960s Prestige soul-jazz sessions. Davani was a little (but not much) more pop-slanted than the average such Prestige act, particularly on the cover of "Big Boss Man," which with its harmonica and tambourine shows the influence of mid-1960s British R&B-rock. For the most part, however, the album presents covers of American jazz tunes by Miles Davis (an especially dynamite version of "Milestones"), Big John Patton, Cannonball Adderley ("Sack O' Woe," also covered by Manfred Mann around this time), Nat Adderley ("Jive Samba"), and Dizzy Gillespie ("The Champ"). Davani also covered "Swing Low Sweet Chariot" and James Brown's "Night Train," and penned a couple of his own tunes, including the title track, which has a tauter, more urgent beat than most of the soul-jazz done by his American counterparts. The bonus tracks are just as worthwhile, including their 1965 instrumental single cover of the "Top of the Pops" theme; the 1966 single "The Jupe"/"On the Cooler Side," which has more of a Swinging London R&B feel than most of the material from the album; a cover of Booker T. & the MG's' "Boot-Leg," intended for a 1965 single but not issued; two outtakes from Fused!; and a previously unreleased cover of Barbara George's "I Know."

The Spencer Davis Group, Time Seller Special Edition (RPM). Though named Time Seller Special Edition, this is actually something like an expanded edition of the band's first post-Stevie Winwood album, With Their New Face On. The first disc of this two-CD set consists wholly of With Their New Face On, a not-bad record that nonetheless could not come close to matching the best of what the band had recorded with Stevie Winwood in the group, no matter how much some collectors might want to put a different face on that situation. The album veered from fairly decent pop-psychedelia ("With Their New Face On" itself) and rather Traffic-sounding cuts ("Mr. Second Class") to solid blues-rock ("Don't Want You No More," covered by the Allman Brothers) and mundane filler in the same mold. This particular reissue is perhaps more notable for the second disc, a CD-ROM consisting of a 56-minute 1967 documentary film on the group, at the time when the lineup included singer-guitarist Phil Sawyer (who had left the band by the time With Their New Face On came out) and organist Eddie Hardin as replacements for Stevie Winwood and Muff Winwood. There are factors that work against the film being a major enjoyable experience, aside from needing to view the whole thing on your computer screen. Though all the dialog is in English, the commentary is in German, and not subtitled in English (though, conversely, some of the spoken dialog appears with German subtitles). The scenes in which the band are shown horsing around, doing photo sessions, and talking business are rather dull. Better is the glimpse of Davis and Sawyer working on a folky tune the band didn't record that year, "Robin Hood," and live footage (including some at The Marquee in London), largely of bluesy songs that were leftovers from the Winwood repertoire. Strangest is the scene of them recording the instrumental track to a tune that sounds much like, though not exactly like, their hit "I'm a Man"; when Phil Sawyer overdubs vocals (which are much like, but hardly exactly like, Stevie Winwood's), it turns out to be not "I'm a Man," but a "Great Shakes" soft drink commercial! Super-brief glimpses of Noel Redding and Mick Jagger are also seen in a film of archival interest that never penetrates deeply into the obvious question that hovered over the band at the time: did they have a future after the departure of Stevie Winwood?

Marianne Faithfull, Come My Way (Decca). When Marianne Faithfull released her first two albums for the UK market in the spring of 1965, she took the unusual step of issuing them simultaneously. One, simply titled Marianne Faithfull, was the pop-oriented collection that listeners of her hit singles would have expected. The other, Come My Way, by contrast was comprised solely of folk tunes, most of them traditional, the acoustic settings arranged by guitarist Jon Mark. Faithfull at this very early stage in her career still had the tremulous soprano common to many woman folk singers of the era. While her singing here is pleasant and competent, it's rather average when stacked against the emotional commitment and personality the best interpreters of such tunes brought to the material at the time. Indeed, Faithfull herself would do the same kind of repertoire, with considerably greater vocal imagination and more forceful musical backing, on her underrated third UK album, 1966's North Country Maid. Still, it's an okay record, Faithfull putting her pipes to reverent use on folk revival staples like "Portland Town," "House of the Rising Sun," "Once I Had a Sweetheart," and "Black Girl," taking on a contemporary writer with Ian Tyson's "Four Strong Winds." Her reading of "Lonesome Traveller" stands out for the propulsive backing, with hasty 12-string guitar strums and what sound like bongos. The CD reissue, available briefly in Britain in the early 1990s and then in Japan in the early 2000s, adds four bonus tracks: the 1964 B-side "Blowin' in the Wind"; "Et Maintenant," from a 1965 EP; the poppy and bluesy 1966 B-side "That's Right Baby"; and her classic 1969 single "Sister Morphine," which predated the Rolling Stones' version by a couple of years.

Lonnie Mack, Still on the Move (Ace). Still on the Move is a somewhat revised and expanded version of the 1992 Ace CD compilation Lonnie on the Move, which was itself a slightly revised reissue of a mid-1970s double-LP compilation album of 1960s Fraternity recordings. It's "somewhat revised" because it actually eliminates two tracks from Lonnie on the Move, "Soul Express" and "Jam and Butter." That's both because those are actually different titles for the same recording, and because that recording appears under its proper name, "The Freeze," on another Mack anthology on Ace, Memphis Wham. Still on the Move also adds a bunch of tracks that haven't been included on reissue comps before, among them sides from rare mid-1960s Fraternity singles and five previously unreleased alternate takes. What appeared where previously is a complicated enough exercise to make you wish, actually, that you didn't even know about those other compilations. What's important is that, when it's combined with the other two Mack Ace CD anthologies From Nashville to Memphis and Memphis Wham!, you have all the 1960s Mack Fraternity recordings you could possibly want. What's more important is that this is very good rock-R&B-country-soul, not quite as good as his best 1960s Fraternity stuff (as heard on the Memphis Wham! comp), but not far off that mark. His idiosyncratic vibrato guitar is consistently excellent, and the material (whether instrumental or vocal) is frankly much more varied and interesting than those of many other artists from the time who were working the same territory. "Wildwood Flower" sounds like a more even-tempered Link Wray; "Snow on the Mountain" is a first-class overlooked blue-eyed soul cooker from 1967; and the overdone "Money" gets a very cool minor-keyed interpretation. His singing is good enough to make you wish that he'd sung more often, and indeed some cuts, like "I Found a Love," sound suspiciously like they were meant to have lead vocals but never got overdubbed with them, as they have full backup vocal choruses. On the other hand, instrumental workouts like "Stand By Me" bring a fresh interpretation to such standards that wouldn't have been possible if they'd included vocals.

The Merseybeats, I Think of You (Bear Family). All 31 songs the Merseybeats ever recorded manage to fit on this single-CD compilation. That includes the A-sides and B-sides of all eight of their 1963-65 singles; all of the tracks from their sole album that weren't on 45s; the songs from their 1964 EP On Stage, none of which made it onto any other format at the time; and even German versions of "I Think of You" and "It's Love That Really Counts." That doesn't leave much to complain about. Nonetheless, it has to be said that if you have their Edsel best-of Beat & Ballads, which concentrates on their best singles, you're not missing much, even if it's only half the length. Of the cuts here that aren't on Beat & Ballads, few are memorable, largely encompassing some mediocre group-penned B-sides and drab covers, some of inappropriately pop-oriented tunes. Among this material, really, the only song that's up to the standards of what was selected for Beat & Ballads is a lively rockabilly arrangement of Rodgers-Hammerstein's "Hello, Young Lovers." And the liner notes aren't as good as those for Beat & Ballads, though they do have some comments by Merseybeat-for-a-time John Gustafson. Still...this does have everything, at no more expense than you'll likely incur from a used copy of Beat & Ballads. And much of the best stuff, like "Don't Turn Around," "Milkman," "Don't Let It Happen to Us," "I Stand Accused," and "It's Love That Really Counts," rates among the better unknown (in the US, anyway) Merseybeat, with "Last Night" counting as one of the best obscure early British Invasion pop-rockers.

Duffy Power, Leapers and Sleepers (RPM). For such a significant cult artist, Power's 1960s recordings have been fairly poorly documented and distributed, with the best known of them actually being mid-1960s demos that didn't come out until the early-'70s release Innovations. This two-CD, 34-song set does a magnificent job of filling in the major gap in the Power catalog by collecting both sides of all six of his rare 1962-1967 Parlophone singles in one place, as well as adding no less than a dozen previously unreleased outtakes. That's not all: there are also both sides of his rare US-only 1965 single (credited to Jamie Power), and eight 1965-67 Marquis Music session demos that were only previously available on the 1995 anthology Just Stay Blue. What's more important than the quite impressive lengths this compilation went to for assembling rare material, though, is the high quality of the music. There were few other singers exploring the eclectic tributary Power navigated in the 1960s, combining shades of blues, folk, jazz, rock, and pop in varying mixtures that never sounded forced, with vocals that could shift from croon to raunch. Power was an astute interpreter of material ranging from the Beatles' "I Saw Her Standing There" (just the second Beatles cover ever, incidentally; both the rare single and a previously unreleased alternate version are here) and George Gershwin's "It Ain't Necessarily So" to Goffin-King's pop-soul classic "Hey Girl" and Mose Allison's "Parchman Farm." Power also wrote some fine original material that was consistent with the vibes of the outside material he favored. He also used some great backup musicians, most notably the Graham Bond Quartet (with a pre-Cream Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker), who are heard on "I Saw Her Standing There" and several other songs, including Bond's own composition "Farewell Baby." A young John McLaughlin is heard on several other tracks. There's quite a lot to dig into here, some of the highlights including the lean blues-rock of "I'm So Glad You're Mine"; the unexpectedly fruity orchestral baroque pop production of his 1967 single (an outtake from that time in the same vein, "Take It Smoothly," is actually better than the tunes that ended up on the 45); the moody teen idol pop of the previously unissued 1962 outtake "Cupid's Bow" and the 1964 single "Where Am I"; and the bopping jazz-R&B of his self-penned 1962 B-side "If I Get Lucky Someday." Some of the previously unissued covers of familiar rock-R&B standards are only average, but that's a minor strike against a very pleasing, well-packaged set, complete with super-detailed liner notes that include many comments from Power himself.

John Renbourn, Another Monday(Castle/Sanctuary). Renbourn's second album was very much in character with many of the records he would release throughout the rest of his career, the only difference being that his approach here was perhaps somewhat more tentative. The guitar playing is not tentative; it's excellent folk-blues, virtuosic but full of heart and imagination, and open to other influences from jazz and world music, though not as much so as he would be in many subsequent efforts. The vocals (when he takes them; some tracks are instrumental) are more perfunctory, but they don't detract from the performances. His inclination toward Early Music is evident on "Ladye Nothinge's Toye Puffe" and "One for William," the latter of which also features oboe. More typically, though, he drifted into the blues idiom, one of the standouts being his interpretation of the oft-covered "I Know My Babe" (more frequently titled "I Know My Rider" when recorded by other artists) and his bottleneck playing on "Nobody's Fault But Mine." For Pentangle fans, the album's especially interesting for the recording debut of Jacqui McShee as accompanying vocalist on three numbers, although her singing is far more subordinate and less assertive than it would be in Pentangle. The album's biggest flaw, actually, is its short running time of a mere 28 minutes, with seven of the 12 pieces clocking in under the two-minute barrier. The 2002 CD reissue on Castle/Sanctuary adds lengthy historical liner notes by Colin Harper.

The Spike-Drivers, 60s Folkrocking Psychedelia from the Motor City (RD Records). This collection of 15 previously unreleased recordings from 1965-68 doesn't include their rare Reprise singles, though it does have different versions of three songs from those 45s ("High Time," "Baby Won't You Let Me Tell You How I Lost My Mind," and "Strange Mysterious Sounds"). A little better documentation about exactly when and where this stuff was cut, in fact, would have been quite useful if it's known, though the 16-page booklet has otherwise very detailed liner notes from lead guitarist Sid Brown. It's more psychedelic than folk-rock, sounding quite a bit like an early San Francisco band might, though they were from Detroit. At times there's a resemblance to the Great Society, particularly in the minor-keyed tunes and improvisational-raga influences, though that group (Grace Slick's pre-Jefferson Airplane outfit) had considerably better songs, melodies, and vocal/instrumental personality. The Spike-Drivers are not a major find as far as obscure early psych bands go, but all those negatives out of the way, there's some fairly cool stuff here, if on the charmingly naive side. "Strange, Mysterious Sounds" is a little like a collision between doomstruck raga rock and Mamas & the Papas harmonies, and "Portland Town" is a haunting drawn-out acid-folk cover of the traditional folk song. Other tracks, like "Got the Goods on You" and "Baby, Can I Wear Your Clothes?," mine a much lighter tone lyrically and musically, with their offbeat mixtures of British Invasion, folk-rock, and bohemian lyricism. Some of the tracks do get into grating (and sometimes sub-standardly recorded) noisy psychedelic improvisation without much of a compositional backbone, though. And as singers they're far below the level of a Jefferson Airplane, though like the Airplane they were a mostly male group with one female singer (Marycarol Brown, who takes lead vocals rather infrequently).

T.C. Atlantic, The Best of T.C. Atlantic (Bacchus Archives). This focuses entirely on the band's studio output, including nothing from their rare 1967 album Recorded Live at the Bel Rae Ballroom. With the exception of their mesmerizing 1966 single "Faces," one of the finest obscure psychedelic records with its entwining fuzz-raga guitars, the band didn't produce anything of enduring magnificence, though their early singles weren't bad. It's that handful of 1965-66 singles that lead off the CD and are by far its most interesting selections, including "Faces"; the Zombies-like "I Love You So Little Girl"; the strange Merseybeatish pop of "Once Upon a Melody"; a surprisingly good cover of Bo Diddley's "Mona" with "I Want Candy"-like drum; and a raucous, brief cover of "Baby Please Don't Go." After that, unfortunately, they became a pretty anonymous if competent late-1960s group with far greater hard rock and soul influences, though "I'm So Glad" wasn't bad pseudo-Merseybeat and "(20 Years Ago) In Speedy's Kitchen" typical baroque psych-pop. Not as typical, and not very good, were the novelty single "O-Rang-A-Tang" and a re-recording of "Faces" with strings and wah-wah guitar (issued on a late-1960s single) that was far inferior to the original version. The discographical documentation in the otherwise good liner notes is indefinite, but for whatever reason, a few songs that came out on 45s are missing, like their 1966 single "Shake"/"Spanish Harlem"; also a few songs that were not released at the time, apparently recorded in the late 1960s, are included.

The Velvet Underground, The Velvet Underground & Nico [Deluxe Edition](Polydor). The "deluxe edition" of the Velvet Underground's classic debut album is somewhat disappointing in that it fails to offer any previously unreleased material, even as it expands its length from one to two CDs. The key bonus is the inclusion of both the stereo and mono versions of the album, which fill up most of disc one and disc two respectively. To fill out the program, disc one also includes the five songs from Nico's first album, 1967's Chelsea Girl, in which Lou Reed, John Cale, Sterling Morrison, and Nico were involved in the songwriting; disc two adds the 45 single versions of "All Tomorrow's Parties," "I'll Be Your Mirror," "Sunday Morning," and "Femme Fatale." To be frank, the differences between the stereo and mono versions are not major enough to be noticed by most listeners, although hardcore collectors will probably appreciate the opportunity to pick up a mono version rather than ante up for an expensive original mono LP. The five Nico songs, though quite good, are easily available on Chelsea Girl itself. Finally, the differences between the 45 RPM single versions and album ones are real minor: "All Tomorrow's Parties" is heard in an edited version that reduces its running time by half, and "Sunday Morning" has a little bit of studio chatter at the very beginning. More significantly, "I'll Be Your Mirror" does not fade out as it does on the album, but goes on for five additional seconds, coming to a rounded ending on a guitar chord. That's about the most notable musical bonus on this package, and it's a pretty steep price to pay for two CDs worth of material (much of which many interested in the Velvet Underground will already have) just to hear that. The booklet has a reasonable overview essay and lyrics, but isn't that huge or detailed, and again offers little that intense fans of the album and band wouldn't already know. This is great music, of course, as many critics have noted, innovative in its lyrical exploration of drugs, sex, the psychology of romance, and urban decadence; musically explosive in both the assaultive avant-garde construction of its louder numbers and the magnificent melodies of its ballads; and filled with great songs like "I'll Be Your Mirror," "All Tomorrow's Parties," "Venus in Furs," "Femme Fatale," and "The Black Angel's Death Song" (not to mention the Nico solo tunes of an only slightly lower caliber, like "Chelsea Girls" and "It Was a Pleasure Then"). But it's not something that you really need if you already own The Velvet Underground & Nico, unless you're a truly major devotee. By the way, like the original LP this has a peelable banana on the cover, though the packaging (with the track listing on a plastic case) is set up so that you'll probably end up peeling it whether you want to or not when you slide the album in and out of the case.

The Who, My Generation [Deluxe Edition](MCA). As many Who fans know, disputes between the Who and producer Shel Talmy held back the release of a CD version of My Generation taken from the best available original sources for quite some time. Eventually the dispute was resolved, and 2002 saw the release of this deluxe edition of this classic album, expanded into a two-CD work with the addition of no less than 17 extra tracks. So is it time to celebrate and finally throw away that scratchy old My Generation LP, whichever version of that you have? Unfortunately, not quite.

Pluses first: the sound, remixed in stereo by Talmy, is very good indeed, very clear and punchy without sacrificing the enormous power the band brought to the sessions, sometimes revealing parts with a clarity never before heard. This also, finally, adds some seminal non-LP tracks also recorded in 1965 (most notably their debut single "I Can't Explain"), as well as a bunch of R&B cover outtakes that previously surfaced on the 1980s comps Who's Missing and Two's Missing. There are also slightly longer versions of a few tracks; an instrumental track for "My Generation" and an "a cappella version" of "Anytime You Want Me"; and one (1) genuine previously unheard song, "Instant Party Mixture," a weird and not good takeoff on Dion's "Runaround Sue" that was recorded in early 1966 as a possible B-side.

So what's to carp about? Well, some overdubs used in the original version of the LP have been lost, and their loss is not just something that audiophiles or unhealthily completist record collectors will notice. Specifically, on "My Generation," Pete Townshend's guitar is virtually missing from the instrumental break, and the group's backup vocals at the song's climax are likewise mostly gone missing. Other little omissions crop up too, and though this compilation makes up for that a bit with "monaural versions with guitar overdubs" of "My Generation" and "A Legal Matter," it's no small loss. Also, unbelievably, although "Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere" is here (and misspelled on the cover), it's an alternate version with different vocals from a French EP. It's fine to include that, but the classic single version itself, a tremendously exciting and important record, isn't present at all, and no one could reasonably claim there shouldn't have been room made for both. Too, the version of "Leaving Here" is an alternate, and while that's fine to have as a marginally interesting addition, the version that first showed up on Who's Missing is, um, missing.

These shortcomings are not unimportant. If a group and label is going to bill something as the ultimate package of classic album-plus-bonus tracks, it should have everything you want to hear. This deluxe edition doesn't. It doesn't, of course, mean that it doesn't contain much great music, particularly the My Generation album itself, a tour de force of British mod music maturing from R&B raveups into melodic power pop with riveting instrumental and lyrical hooks. Good also it is to hear the nice early R&B cover B-sides "Daddy Rolling Stone" and "Anytime You Want Me," and while the R&B-oriented outtakes of Motown songs like "(Love Is Like a) Heat Wave" aren't so good, as historical documentation they're important. The sessions are also documented nicely in a booklet of liner notes. But no doubt we'll have to wait for the SACD or DVD or some such configuration to correct some of these flaws and separate us from more of our hard-earned cash.

The Wildweeds, No Good to Cry: The Best of the Wildweeds (Confidential). Although this doesn't get into the group's later, brief stint as a country-rock band on Vanguard Records, this truly is the best of the Wildweeds, focusing on their best and earliest output. Both sides of all four of their 1967-68 singles are here, along with ten previously unreleased tracks (one of them a stereo version of their debut single "No Good to Cry," another an instrumental version of the same tune). There was another, odd Wildweeds collection back in the late 1980s, but this is superior, as the sound (remastered from the original tapes) is better, and the liner notes tell the full history of the band, with quotes from most of the members, including Al Anderson. The music itself is uneven, but it's an interesting and usually good meld of soul-rock with some garage, pop, and psychedelic touches. The Rascals are an unavoidable reference point, though the Wildweeds were indubitably rawer, though their original material wasn't in the Rascals' class. They're also separated from Rascals comparison by the distinctive upper-range, almost strangled blue-eyed soul vocals of Anderson. No other song is quite as good as their biggest regional hit, "No Good to Cry," though actually one of the outtakes, "Where Is Our Love," comes close. The rest of the unreleased material likewise comes close to the standard of the singles, perhaps with a greater pop leaning on some cuts. All of those outtakes are original songs except a cover of "I Can't Stand It," though the instrumental "Fuzzy Wuzzy" is something of a throwaway. Note that this isn't a collection of the entire Wildweeds discography: there's the entire country-rock album they did for Vanguard (reissued in Italy on CD), and also the late-1980s LP Greatest Hits...& More! has a few other stray outtakes.

Various Artists, Hot Generation!: 1960s Punk from Down Under (Big Beat). "Punk from down under" seems like more of a marketing tag than a dead-on description of the 30 mid-1960s Australian rock cuts on this compilation, all taken from the vaults of the country's Festival label. If anything, that subtitle's underselling the CD, which is plenty energetic, but also a good deal more melodic and therefore memorable than the average '60s punk (i.e. '60s garage) compilation. Australian rock of the time had closer stylistic ties to British Invasion music than '60s American garage did, so what you get here is something that's somewhat rawer and more juvenile than much of British Invasion mid-1960s mod and freakbeat sounds, yet more tuneful and professional than many US '60s garage bands. No famous acts are here, though several have large-to-modest reputations among international '60s rock collectors, including the Sunsets, the Purple Hearts, the Black Diamonds, and Steve & the Board; others, such as Normie Rowe, Tony Worsley, Johnny Young, and Ray Brown, had some substantial commercial success in their homeland, though this comp focuses on their most raucous material. Some of the sides are just okay, but others are good or close to great, like the Sunsets' surf-cum-mod "The Hot Generation"; Ray Brown & the Whispers' mesmerizing tough Merseybeatish "Go to Him"; the Black Diamonds' "See the Way," a superb piece of reverberant '60s guitar pop; Robbie Peters's giddy "She Does Everything for Me," surely one of the finest Zombies covers ever done; and Johnny Young's "Good Evening Girl," written by three of the Easybeats but never recorded by that group, although it's easily up to the standards of their better songs. Even the occasional covers of the well-known American or British rockers have original twists to offer, like Worsley's molten rendition of the Birds' "How Can It Be" and Peter Doyle's version of the Spencer Davis Group's "High Time Baby."

Various Artists, King New Breed Rhythm & Blues (Kent). This collects 24 R&B sides from the esteemed King label cut between 1956 and 1967, though the emphasis is on the brands of R&B that preceded the golden age of soul music. The aim, and very successfully realized too, was to capture the poppier side of King's R&B, often mixing together varying amounts of blues, rock, soul, and pop. Many vault compilations of labels such as King -- and Kent/Ace has been as guilty as anyone in this respect -- are genre exercises, pleasing for completist collectors, but just too homogenous to maintain interest for less specialized tastes. In contrast, King New Breed Rhythm & Blues is not just varied, but almost unerringly good-to-excellent, in large part because so many of the songs do fall a bit outside the party musical lines expected or demanded of many a blues or soul purist. For one thing, many of the songs boast minor, moody tunes that just weren't the norm in much blues or soul. If it's true that several of the songs are explicitly derivative of "Fever" (with which Little Willie John had a huge hit on King in the mid-1950s), it's also true that tons of blues songs from this era stick to a 12-bar formula, and at least this was a different formula. Yet most of these tracks don't refer to specifically to "Fever" (though Joe Tex's 1956 single "Pneumonia" certainly does), and some aren't even moody. They're just different from the norm, usually with edgy, exciting performances. Tiny Topsy's 1959 single "Just a Little Bit" is a true monster, too strange in construction to be a hit perhaps (and similar to but almost not quite the same as Rosco Gordon's "Just a Little Bit"), but brimming with sullen energy. Albert King's excellent "Had You Told It Like It Was (It Wouldn't Be Like It Is)" is downbeat soul-pop, but just as passionately performed as his more standard blues classics, and a good deal more melodic. Other big names here include Little Willie John (with one of his better singles, "I'm Shakin'"), Freddy King (who duets with Lula Reed on "It's Easy Child," covered by the Moody Blues on the B-side of their hit "Go Now"), James Brown's right-hand man Bobby Byrd, Johnny Watson, the "5" Royales (whose "Think" isn't rare, but is an R&B classic with great guitar), and Ike Turner (whose 1957 single "She Made My Blood Run Cold" is a weird Screaming Jay Hawkins-like slice of  ghoul rock). Yet some of the no-name performers (and there are a lot of them) here offer tracks of the same caliber, whether it's Mike Pedicin's "Burnt Toast and Black Coffee," Bobby King's minor-keyed "Thanks Mr. Postman" (an answer record to "Please Mr. Postman"), Mary Johnson's girl-group influenced "Hard Forgetting Memories," or the peppy, upbeat 1963 dance soul of Hannibal's "My Kinda Girl." There's got to be more stuff around from this era like this that breaks boundaries a bit, whether on King or other labels, and Kent/Ace is to be applauded for compiling R&B-soul cuts that mine grooves that have not often been covered by other reissues.

Various Artists, Love That Louie: The Louie Louie Files (Ace). The "Louie Louie" saga is about as interesting as any song's journey through the rock'n'roll folk process. Its arrangement evolved several times via several cover versions between the time author Richard Berry did the first one in 1957 and the Kingsmen had a #2 hit with it in 1963. Since then it's been covered innumerable times, of course. This disc presents no less than 15 versions of the tune, as well as three pre-Berry songs that influenced the first "Louie Louie"; four basic "Louie Louie" rewrites; and two "sequels" to "Louie Louie." That's 24 tracks in all, chronologically spanning Johnny Mercer's 1951 recording of "One for My Baby (And One More for the Road)" (a lyrical inspiration for the Berry composition) to Toots & the Maytals' 1972 reggae interpretation. The biggest coup in this rather extraordinary document is the first CD reissue of the original Richard Berry 1957 Flip recording, which had previously been license-proof. Of course the Kingsmen hit single is here as well, but the real treat is the variety of takes by other artists, some of them quite rare, most of them relatively little-heard. There are half-a-dozen 1960s versions from the Northwest, including ones by Rockin' Robin Roberts & the Wailers (the act most responsible for reviving it into a more rock-oriented arrangement), the Kingsmen, Paul Revere & the Raiders (whose 1963 single competed head-to-head with the Kingsmen but lost out nationally), and the Sonics. There are covers by 1960s stars the Beach Boys, Otis Redding, and the Kinks. There's the obscure mid-1960s garage version by the Swamp Rats, and easy listening renditions by the Sandpipers and Sounds Orchestral. There are the sequels "Have Love Will Travel" by Richard Berry and "Louie Go Home" by Paul Revere & the Raiders. There's an attempt to revive "Louie Louie" by the lead vocalist on the Kingsmen's single, on Jack Ely & the Courtmen's "Louie Louie '66." There's even Rene Touzet's 1956 cha-cha "El Loco Cha Cha," which contains a riff real similar to the principal one of "Louie Louie." Does it get too be too much, these two dozen "Louie Louie"s or spinoffs thereof one after the other? Not really; there's a good amount of variety to the arrangements, some of the versions are really good, and it's historically fascinating. No doubt some major collectors might bewail the absence of an item or two, like the young David Bowie's cover of "Louie Go Home" (as lead singer of Davie Jones & the King Bees on the B-side of his 1964 debut single) or the Epics' wild 1965 garage-soul takeoff "Louie Come Home." But this is an excellent, and fun, collection of the most important versions, and considerably superior to previous anthologies that have assemble multiple "Louie Louie" interpretations. It's also boosted by lengthy and fascinating (if eye-strainingly small) liner notes detailing each track and the song's evolution, augmented by interviews with some of the key figures on some of the most important recordings of the tune.

Various Artists, Of Hopes & Dreams & Tombstones: Beat 'n' R&B from Down Under (Big Beat). All 31 of the tracks on this anthology of mid-1960s Australian rock were licensed from Festival, the most active independent label in recording Australian rock of the era. Although its limitation to one source inevitably means it can't serve as a best-of (or one of the best-ofs) for the Australian scene as a whole, it's a good collection of material from a vibrant corner of '60s rock that's been fairly neglected by listeners not from down under. There's not a single name on here that might be known even to most reasonably knowledgeable '60s collectors, but hardcore internationalists will be familiar with some of these from Australian '60s compilations on Raven and Festival itself. Among them are some very fine artists, even if they usually didn't record much, like the Purple Hearts, Steve & the Board, the Sunsets, and Ray Brown & the Whispers. It's not easy to characterize the Australian sound of the period as a whole, but generally it would be fair to say that it blended some of the better aspects of American garage and British Invasion Mersey, mod, and R&B, with some echoes of surf, novelty, Bo Diddley, and American soul thrown in. Some of this material's ordinary (if always energetic), but there are at least a dozen standouts, though some of this has already appeared on other Australian reissues. The Sunsets' "When I Found You" is certainly an irresistible blend of British Invasion and surf sounds, while Chris Hall & the Torquays' "Don't Ask Me Why," the Five's "There's Time," and Jimmy Crockett & the Shanes' "That Lovin' Touch" (with the typically un-PC garage lyric "you've got that sweet lovin' touch, but you keep talkin' too much") is certainly as good as much of the garage rock compiled on the Nuggets box sets. The production, melodies, and variety are frankly better than they are on the average American garage comp, though the energy is of an equal level. It also helps that some of this is more quality pop-rock than it is simple garage, like Ray Brown & the Whispers' melodramatic and brooding "Too Late to Come Home," the downbeat R&B of Tony Worsley & the Blue Jays' "If You See My Baby," and Mike Furber's downright sorrowful "You're Back Again," which sounds like a particularly gloomy spin on the Merseybeats.

ALBUM REVIEWS: A SELECTION OF RECENT RELEASES, SUMMER 2002:

• The Byrds, The Byrds Play Dylan
• Wilma Lee & Stoney Cooper & the Clinch Mountain Clan, The Very Best of Wilma Lee & Stoney Cooper & the Clinch Mountain Clan
• Dando Shaft, An Evening With Dando Shaft
• Neil Diamond, Play Me: The Complete Uni Studio Recordings...Plus!
• Fairport Convention, Heyday: The BBC Sessions 1968-1969/Extended
• Family, Music in a Doll's House/Family Entertainment
• Aretha Franklin, The Queen in Waiting
• Francoise Hardy, If You Listen
• Keith Jarrett, Restoration Ruin
• The MC5, Human Being Lawnmower: The Baddest & Maddest of the MC5
• Nico, Heroine
• Odetta, Odetta Sings Dylan
• Duffy Power, Sky Blues
• The Searchers, The Iron Door Sessions
• Simon & Garfunkel, Live from New York City, 1967
• The Springers, The Best of the Springers: Nothing's Too Good for My Baby
• Steve and the Board, Steve and the Board...and the Giggle Eyed Goo
• Various Artists, Das War Ein Harter Tag: Beatles Leider Auf Deutsch
• Various Artists, Legends of Harmonica

The Byrds, The Byrds Play Dylan (Columbia/Legacy). The Byrds' unsurpassed ability, at least most of the time, to arrange and interpret Bob Dylan songs was but one facet of their greatness. Still, it was an important facet, and this 20-track collection of Dylan covers gathers all the evidence in one place. There are 20 tracks, but that doesn't quite mean 20 Dylan songs; a number of these are represented by both a studio version and an alternate take or live performance, though fortunately the multiple readings are spaced far enough from each other to avoid undue redundancy. As far as the contents go, about half of a dozen of these cuts are undisputedly among the best Dylan covers ever, including "Mr. Tambourine Man," "All I Really Want to Do," "Chimes of Freedom," "My Back Pages," and "Spanish Harlem Incident." Most of the others are well done and satisfying at the least, though some aren't so hot, like "Lay Lady Lay" and "Just Like a Woman." It's strange that it's sequenced so that rather than leading off with their "Mr. Tambourine Man," the most important and famous recording in all of folk-rock, that cut appears sixth, but that's a small reservation. Nothing here is previously unreleased, though about half a dozen were not issued until long after they were recorded, on rarity compilations, the group's box set, and expanded CD editions of their original LPs. Those rarities, for the curious who might not have kept up with all those reissues, include an early studio version of "The Times They Are A-Changin'"; live versions of "Chimes of Freedom" and "It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)" from the late 1960s and early 1970s; the 1971 studio outtake "Just Like a Woman"; the 1965 studio outtake "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue"; an alternate take of "Lay Lady Lay"; and a 1990 recording of "Paths of Victory" by a reunited version of the Byrds.

Wilma Lee & Stoney Cooper & the Clinch Mountain Clan, The Very Best of Wilma Lee & Stoney Cooper & the Clinch Mountain Clan (Varese Sarabande). As a 19-track CD that covers the duo's most commercially successful period, this should be considered the best compilation of the Wilma Lee & Stoney Cooper's work as a duo. Devoted to their Hickory material from 1956-63, it features seven Top Twenty hits: "Come Walk With Me," "Cheated Too," "Big Midnight Special," "The Wreck on the Highway," "There's a Big Wheel," "Johnny, My Love (Grandma's Diary)," and "This Ole House." That's less than half of the anthology; more importantly, it captures them in their artistic prime too, at a good midpoint between their Appalachian old-time country music and the more modern commercial Nashville sound (including some drums and electric instruments). Wilma Lee Cooper's vocals still jump out with an exuberance that mark her as one of the most emotional, expressive, and downright extroverted country singers of the time. The material selected for this comp is a real good and diverse mix, including the near gospel-boogie of the Louvin Brothers' "There's a Higher Power," Woody Guthrie's "Philadelphia Lawyer," "The Tramp on the Street" (Wilma Lee Cooper's singing reaches sublime heights of yearning on that cut), some originals from the pen of Wilma Lee Cooper, and the reworking of the folk standard "Midnight Special" into "Big Midnight Special." "Johnny, My Love (Grandma's Diary)," one of their best hits, was written by Boudleaux Bryant and Felice Bryant, the same team responsible for many early Everly Brothers classics. There's some real hot country and rockabilly picking, too, on songs like "Cheated Too," the rollicking "I Tell My Heart," and "There's a Higher Power."

Dando Shaft, An Evening With Dando Shaft (Edsel). On their first album, Dando Shaft came off as something like a more folk-oriented, yet also more hippie-oriented, Pentangle. The percussive pulse of Roger Bullen's bass in particular gave much of the material a rhythmic swing that helped it stand apart from traditional folk, as did original material based around images of nature: rain, wind, leaves, the dawn, flowers, the country, and so on. The singing and songwriting betrayed a notable debt to Bert Jansch, though with a more whimsical bent that Jansch usually allowed. Their greatest assets, certainly in terms of putting their own stamp on a sound that bore close resemblance to aspects of Pentangle (and, more distantly, the Incredible String Band), were the colors added by multi-instrumentalist Martin Jenkins's mandolin, flute, and violin. As progressive folk that was pastoral in mood and not quite folk-rock, it was pleasant but ultimately not as distinguished or interesting as their unavoidable reference point, Pentangle. The Pentangle comparisons would if anything multiply when they added a female vocalist, Polly Bolton, for their next two albums.

Neil Diamond, Play Me: The Complete Uni Studio Recordings...Plus! (MCA). Neil Diamond was a Uni artist in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the period that coincided with his greatest commercial success and most consistently popular singles. This three-CD, 74-track set is just what it says it is: every last song from all six of his 1968-72 Uni studio albums, plus seven cuts from his live Gold and Hot August Night records (also originally released on Uni). It shouldn't be taken as the total summary of Diamond's early career, as it's missing all of the hits for Bang Records that were recorded before he joined Uni (though the seven live songs do include versions of most of those big Bang hits). For all his talents as a major pop singer-songwriter, Diamond was really not a good album artist, and hearing six albums at once is going to test the limits of all but his devoted fans. If you do take the plunge, though, it's rather interesting to hear that Diamond was certainly a more eclectic stylist than he's usually given credit for, even if some of his odder ventures were rather lousy. There's some country, some near-gospel, and quite a few covers of other major singer-songwriters. Still, there's no getting around it: only the hit singles (of which there are quite a few, to be fair) really reach out and grab you. Much of the rest sounds like the AM pop of the hit singles, but not nearly as good. There are some obscure above-average songs to be heard here, like the small 1968 hit "Two-Bit Manchild," the Dion-like bluesy "Dig In," and "Coldwater Morning." But these are balanced by some real turkey goofball experimentation, like the raps on "The Pot Smoker's Song" the country satire "You're So Sweet Horseflies Keep Hangin' Round Your Face," the kiddie tune "I Am the Lion" (where it almost sounds like he's trying to dilute Arthur Brown's "I am the God of hellfire!" shtick for the little ones when he sings the title!), "Crunchy Granola Suite," and the weird art-cum-mainstream pop of "African Suite." In addition, as an interpreter of other people's songs, Diamond is not too interesting, though you'll hear plenty of that on this set, including covers of "Chelsea Morning," "Both Sides Now," Randy Newman's "I Think It's Gonna Rain Today," "Until It's Time for You to Go," "Mr. Bojangles," and "Everybody's Talkin'." Not to harp too much on the absence of Bang material, but it should also be noted that the version of "Shilo" (from his 1968 album Velvet Gloves and Spit) is not the same as the one on the hit Bang 45.

Fairport Convention, Heyday: The BBC Sessions 1968-1969/Extended (Island). In its previous edition (first released in 1987), Heyday was an important document of Fairport Convention's early days, its dozen tracks including numerous songs (mostly folk-rock covers) that they didn't put on their late-1960s albums. The 2002 edition adds to its value considerably by adding eight more tracks, all of them also taken from 1968-69 BBC recordings, and all 20 of the songs featuring the lineups (with varying personnel) in which Sandy Denny was included. The twelve songs that were also on the original release, though, remain the most interesting due to the absence of studio counterparts, but also due to their exceptional quality. The version of Leonard Cohen's "Suzanne," with Ian Matthews and Sandy Denny alternating lead vocals, is perhaps the best cover of that standard. There are also fine interpretations of songs, sometimes quite obscure, by Gene Clark, Eric Andersen, Joni Mitchell, Richard Farina, the Everly Brothers, and Bob Dylan, as well as the quite good Simon Nicol original "Shattering Live Experience." The newly added eight songs, by contrast, are mostly versions of tunes that also showed up on their official late-1960s albums, though Jackson C. Frank's "You Never Wanted Me" (which did previously appear on the Sandy Denny Who Knows Where the Time Goes box set) is an exception. Still, it's good to hear different versions of standouts like "Fotheringay," "Si Tu Dois Partir," "Autopsy," and "Tam Lin," though the arrangements aren't significantly different from the familiar studio ones. A new sleeve note by Ashley Hutchings is another good reason to pick this up. Incidentally, some other Fairport BBC cuts from the time have been bootlegged but eluded inclusion on this disc, though perhaps subpar fidelity had something to do with those decisions.

Family, Music in a Doll's House/Family Entertainment (See For Miles). This two-CD package is a little more interesting than a typical reissue combination of two albums. Most importantly, it adds two bonus tracks, both from their pre-Music in a Doll's House 1967 single "Scene Through the Eye of a Lens"/"Gypsy Woman," that had never been legitimately reissued on compact disc before. It's also enclosed in a hardback miniature CD-sized book, with 40 pages of liner notes and, for those who care about such things, remastered with super 20-bit technology. (Though, unfortunately, there are no additional tracks other than those from the 1967 single, although some interesting non-LP cuts are mentioned in the liner notes.) As for the music itself, it's good late-1960s British psychedelia, not quite in the first tier, but among the best bands below that level. On these first two albums, Family adeptly combined bits of hard rock, trippy psychedelia, blues, folk, poetic lyrics, and classical music into something fairly whole and coherent, though not as immediately memorable as some other bands they resembled in some ways, like Procol Harum and Traffic. They were closer to Traffic than anyone else, particularly in their use of some non-conventional rock instruments, especially saxophones, mellotron, and above all Ric Grech's violin. Still, they were more sinister and unsettling than Traffic, though not in a way that prohibited a wide variety of moods. As for the rare 1967 single, the A-side, "Scene Through the Eye of a Lens," is one of the best British psychedelic rarities from that year, moving from a pastoral ballad to a quirky hard psychedelic passage with disembodied vocals and inventive synthesizer effects. The B-side "Gypsy Woman," though, is a blander affair that's indicative of their most blues-rock-oriented roots.

Aretha Franklin, The Queen in Waiting (The Columbia Years 1960-1965) (Columbia/Legacy). Franklin's Columbia years are hard to summarize in compilations, even fairly extensive ones such as this two-CD set, which includes six previously tracks and one previously unavailable alternate take among its 40 songs. In part that's because she explored several different styles during this era without really finding a home in any of them; in part that's because the quality of the recordings themselves were so erratic; and in part it's because Sony keeps putting out compilations that duplicate each other to a fair extent. About half the songs on this anthology, for instance, also appear on the most comprehensive previous Franklin/Columbia retrospective, Jazz to Soul. On its own merits, this is a fair summation of some of her more notable Columbia recordings, slightly more pop-oriented in its track selection than Jazz to Soul, and at least including something new in the handful of unissued numbers. David Ritz's informative liner notes make a case for viewing the Columbia years as ones with numerous artistic successes. But the fact remains that the mixture of lush pop, Billie Holiday-style jazz-blues, Dinah Washington-Nancy Wilson-style jazz-pop crossover, early Dionne Warwick-style light soul-pop ("Cry Like a Baby" is actually a quite good cut of that sort), and hints of gospel is unfocused, if often promising. And it's not nearly as good or expressive as the soul she'd delve into at Atlantic after leaving Columbia. Her accompanists sometimes deserve their share of blame as well; the drums of "Nobody Knows the Way I Feel This Morning" almost totally lose the rhythm at one point, and the harmonica player on "Evil Gal Blues" sounds like she or he had just been dragged in off the street. There's not much soul music here, in the accepted stylistic sense, other than the two best tracks, "Soulville" and "Lee Cross," which are the ones that point most convincingly to her future triumph as the queen of soul. The previously unreleased items (all on disc one) are as variable as the rest of the set, ranging from the satisfyingly bluesy cover of Ray Charles's "Hard Times (No One Knows Better Than I)" (with some fine Franklin piano) and the respectable jazz-R&B-gospel of "Please Answer Me" to trifling Bobby Scott-produced orchestrated pop ballads and an unremarkable alternate take of "Bill Bailey, Won't You Please Come Home."

Francoise Hardy, If You Listen (Virgin France). Sung (except for one track) in English, this 1972 album (originally titled just Francoise Hardy) was reissued on CD by Virgin France in 2000 under the title If You Listen, and issued in some foreign territories under yet different titles in the 1970s. However it was titled, it was a good, tasteful, and subdued set of folk-rock- and singer-songwriter-influenced covers (though the one French song, "Brulure," was the sole original Hardy composition). It's no surprise that the mood here is dignified rainy-day sorrow. But that was Francoise's forte, and the arrangements, emphasizing acoustic guitar and light strings, seem to indicate she was doing some listening to British folk-rock and American singer-songwriters. So does the choice of covers, including songs by Buffy Sainte-Marie, Neil Young ("Till the Morning Comes"), Beverley Martyn, and Randy Newman ("I Think It's Gonna Rain Today"). There's also the quite obscure "The Garden of Jane Delawnay," a misspelled interpretation of "The Garden of Jane Delawney" by the British folk-rock band the Trees; "Let My Name Be Sorrow," originally done by Mary Hopkin; and a couple of tunes co-written by Mick Jones, later of Foreigner. None of songs rate among her best work, but it's still a good album, often overlooked even by Hardy fans, and notable in that just one of the English songs ("Bown Bown Bown") was also recorded by Francoise in a French version.  It's also much superior to her album of English cover versions of just three years before, Francoise Hardy En Anglais, which was over-produced and far heavier on the syrup.

Keith Jarrett, Restoration Ruin (Vortex). Restoration Ruin is a real oddity in the Jarrett catalog: a vocal album on which he plays all the instruments. And not a jazz vocal album, either, but a folk-rock one, in which he alternates -- quite literally, track to track -- between sub-Dylan outings and more folk-baroque ones that echo the late-1960s work of artists like Love and Tim Buckley. There's a certain amateurish appeal to the LP, in keeping with other crossover "acid-folk" artists of the period. Yet the fact is that Jarrett is a major jazz musician, but a journeyman-at-best folk-rock singer (with a hoarse, wavering croon-whine), instrumentalist, and songwriter, with a bent for flaky wordplay that gives this a bit of a fried-psychedelic tinge. At times, to be harsh, it's less than journeyman, particularly on the Dylanesque cuts, which have almost embarrassing wheezing son-of-Dylan harmonica, and some downright embarrassing out-of-sync drums. Better are the daintier, more melodic tracks with trimmings of flute, strings, and flamenco-like guitar, like the title song, "For You and Me," and "Sioux City Sue New," with their bossa nova feel. The record was reissued on a single-disc CD in 1999 that made it seem yet weirder by pairing it, incongruously, with a respected, all-out early-1970s avant-garde jazz album by the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Bap-Tizum (recorded live in 1972 at the Ann Arbor Blues and Jazz Festival).

The MC5, Human Being Lawnmower: The Baddest & Maddest of the MC5 (Total Energy). If you want more MC5 than the official albums, but aren't interested in collecting each and every archival release of additional material, this is one of the better supplementary collections to get. Be cautioned that like all of the collector-oriented MC5 product that's come out on Alive/Total Energy, it is erratic; it's just less erratic than some other such releases. About half of it was previously unreleased, these cuts including a studio outtake of "Skunk" that moves along pretty well in its blend of the band's usual incendiary hard rock with soulful brass, at least once you get past the grandstanding drum introduction. Also previously unissued: a respectable live cover of Ray Charles's "I Believe to My Soul," recorded live at the same shows that produced the Kick Out the Jams album, though it unaccountably fades out while they're still in the midst of a chorus; an instrumental alternate take of their early single "Looking at You"; the blues-soul-rock "Gotta Keep Movin'," a studio outtake from High Times; "Rama La Fa Fa Fa," another outtake from the live gigs that yielded Kick Out the Jams, and not one of their best early songs, if a characteristic one; and an unreleased instrumental guitar-only demo of "Over & Over." As for the rest, MC5 completists might be distressed to have to buy a bunch of previously issued songs they might already own to get to the unreleased stuff. But at least most of those previously available songs are among the more listenable of the cuts that have already been exhumed. These include "Motor City Is Burning" (another performance dating from the live Kick Out the Jams shows), a muffled studio outtake of "American Ruse," and a "flat mix" of the early single "Borderline" that, say the liners, are taken for the first time from master tapes. Some of this, though, is the kind of stuff that only diehards will want to sit through repeatedly, like the interminable "I'm Mad Like Eldridge Cleaver," which ends with cacophonous jamming just as indulgent as the worst of the California hippie bands to whom the MC5 were supposedly alternatives. Lengthy liner notes by John Sinclair weave details about the tracks' sources with personal recollections of the group.

Nico, Heroine (Anagram). There are a plethora of live recordings by Nico from the last decade of her life, enough so to discourage even fans from investing a lot of time and effort in acquiring each one. Heroine, however, must rank not only among the best of those recordings, but among her best 1980s work. Recorded at the Library Theatre in Manchester around 1980 (an exact date is not available), it immediately has a leg up on her studio work of the era (as heard on her Drama in Exile album) in its minimal, at times almost bare arrangements. Nico was not made to be a rock star, as some of her production seemed to insist on trying to make her. She was best as a lonely voice peering out of the darkness, and though she's backed by a band (the exact musicians are unidentified) on this set, the accompaniment's spare and spooky, as it should be. The repertoire's a good cross-selection of material, spann