ALBUM REVIEWS: A SELECTION OF RECENT RELEASES, WINTER 2003-2004:

• The Beatles, The Four Complete Historic Ed Sullivan Shows Featuring the Beatles [DVD]
• The Beatles, Let It Be...Naked
• The Bee Gees, Merchants of Dream
• The Gosdin Brothers, Sounds of Goodbye
• The Guilloteens, For My Own
• The Gurus, The Gurus Are Hear!
• The Hard Times, Blew Mind
• Jimi Hendrix, Jimi Plays Berkeley [DVD]
• Jimi Hendrix, Live at Berkeley
• Ace Kefford, Ace the Face
• John Mayall & the Bluebreakers, A Hard Road [Expanded Edition]
• The Meters, Zony Mash
• Pink Floyd, The Dark Side of the Moon [DVD]
• The Poor, The Poor
• The Sonics, Psycho-Sonic
• Dusty Springfield, Reflections [DVD]
• The Who, Tommy [Deluxe Edition]
• Various Artists, Byrds Won't Fly Today
• Various Artists, Folk Rock and Faithfull: Dream Babes Vol. 5
• Various Artists, 94 Baker Street: The Pop-Psych Sounds of the Apple Era 1967-1969

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

The Beatles, The Four Complete Historic Ed Sullivan Shows Featuring the Beatles [DVD] (Sofa Entertainment). If this only had all of the footage from the four appearances the Beatles made on The Ed Sullivan Show) in 1964 and 1965  -- including performances of 20 complete songs -- it would be more than enough to qualify as a vastly important (and entertaining) historical document. This two-DVD package goes yet one step further, however. It really does have the complete original episodes, as they were originally broadcast on February 9, 1964, February 16, 1964, February 23, 1964, and September 12, 1965 -- all four hours' worth, including the commercials. That means you not only see everything by the Beatles, but also all of the other comedians, acrobats, singers, and cameo celebrity spots that also appeared on the shows featuring the group. On the one hand, it's cool to have a complete historical record of the shows as they were actually experienced. On the other, it's striking, particularly to generations of viewers who weren't around for the first broadcasts, at how mediocre all of the surrounding entertainment is.

To focus on the portion that makes this worth buying in the first place, the Beatles' performances are magnificent (and entirely live, not lip-synced, with the exception of Paul McCartney singing and playing guitar live to an orchestral backing track for "Yesterday"). The 1964 shows in particular were the ones that, more than anything else, made them into superstars of an unprecedented scale in America, and include exciting versions of all of their biggest early singles, including "I Want to Hold Your Hand," "She Loves You," "Twist and Shout," "Please Please Me," "From Me to You," and "I Saw Her Standing There." Although they only appeared on one 1965 show, they played six songs on that broadcast, all of them memorable: "I Feel Fine," "I'm Down," "Yesterday," "Act Naturally," "Ticket to Ride," and "Help!" (on which John Lennon briefly messes up the lyrics).

Unfortunately, there's nothing else on the four episodes that you could call ageless entertainment, and some of it's downright excruciating. There's dated comedy from the likes of Myron Cohen, Dave Barry, and, twice, Marty Allen (as half of Allen and Rossi); stilted puppetry from Pinky & Perky: card tricks from Fred Kaps; variety-show singing from Mitzi Gaynor, Tessie O'Shea, and the cast of Oliver! (in which, if you watch out for it, you can spot a pre-Monkees Davy Jones); trad jazz from Acker Bilk; and pop-jazz from Cab Calloway. Comedian Soupy Sales does his minor hit single "The Mouse," and the only other fellow British Invader, Cilla Black, does disappointing versions of "September in the Rain" and "Goin' Out of My Head" on the 1965 broadcast. It's all the kind of entertainment the Beatles were instrumental in eventually making passe, and there's not another pure rock'n'roll act in sight. Of course, the DVD format means it's easy to skip right to the Beatles portions if you wish, and those will indefinitely endure as vital documents of popular culture. The image quality (all in black and white) is good despite occasional wavy lines and flickers; it's unfortunate, though, that the Beatles' 1965 performance was filmed only weeks before the show went to color.

The Beatles, Let It Be...Naked (Apple). When Let It Be was first issued in 1970, it had undergone controversial Phil Spector post-production, particularly in the addition of strings to a few tracks. Let It Be...Naked remixes the material yet again, to keep it more in line with the live unadorned sound the Beatles originally had in mind. This is not, however, the original version/mix of Let It Be (then titled Get Back) that was prepared for release by Glyn Johns, and which has since circulated on bootleg. It's newly mixed and mastered, so that there are yet more small variations for Beatlemaniacs to spot and nitpick
over. It does succeed, however, in making the album play as a tighter, coherent, more organic listening experience, though at first it's hard to get used to hearing the album differently than it played in the 33 years prior to the release of this retooled version.

The biggest difference is the removal of Spector's string overdubs from "Across the Universe," "I Me Mine," and "The Long and Winding Road." In every case, the new versions are improved, particularly "The Long and Winding Road," in which the Spector-dubbed orchestration and voices were excessive. In addition, all the somewhat forced-sounding between-song chatter has been removed; the track sequence has been totally re-ordered, pretty intelligently actually (especially now that "Get Back" is first and "Let It Be" last); the magnificent "Don't Let Me Down" (the first released version of which was only issued as "Get Back"'s B-side) added; and the two off-the-cuff jams, "Dig It" and "Maggie Mae," removed entirely. Yet there are more than enough additional differences sprinkled throughout the entire album to keep the Beatle chat groups busy for years. Billy Preston's electric keyboards are way more to the front at times, particularly on "Dig a Pony," where you hear lines in the intro entirely missing from the previous version. "Let It Be" is restored to a version much closer to the original 45 mix than the somewhat bloated, guitar-solo-laden one of the original LP, though even here you hear electric keyboard parts that were previously buried-to-nonexistent. On "Across the Universe"'s fadeout, John Lennon's vocal wafts into the distance in a bare-bones ghostly manner entirely befitting one of his most ethereal songs. And the charming spoken aside "yes I did!" at the beginning of the second verse of "One After 909," all but inaudible on the original LP, comes through loud and clearly on the new edition.

The rejigging's not all for the better, though. The ad-libbed-sounding fade verse of "Get Back" (as heard on the original 45 version) is unfortunately excised entirely. "The Long and Winding Road," though fixed up so that the playing's slicker and thankfully shorn of the orchestration, is actually inferior to the less ornate, more  spontaneous-sounding Spector-less version that appeared on  Anthology 3. Too, the 22-minute "Fly on the Wall" bonus disc montage of largely previously unofficially released rehearsals and conversations from the January 1969 Let It Be sessions is a disappointment. The juxtaposition of disjointed conversations and snippets of music makes it something you're unlikely to listen to for pleasure, and the musical excerpts of the 21 songs represented are exceedingly brief, only once running more than a minute, and in some cases lasting less than ten seconds. Of course the complete versions of those outtakes are available on bootlegs if you really want them, and some of the best outtakes are available in legit form on Anthology 3. But it certainly would have been nice to hear complete alternate versions of some of the songs on the album, as well as more complete excerpts of items that didn't make it onto the record at all, like "Child of Nature" or their early attempt at "She  Came in Through the Bathroom Window," the last of which is represented by a mere five-second soundbite here. Likewise, the extracts from the original Let It Be book (which accompanied the first pressing of the LP) that are reprinted in the CD booklet are nice, but why not go whole hog and reprint everything? Even with these considerable flaws, though, Let It Be...Naked does an interesting and worthwhile job of making the album truer to its original vision, and in some ways making it more listenable,  powerful, and consistent -- not that it was ever hard to listen to in the first place.

The Bee Gees, Merchants of Dream (Polar Bear). Although much of this material had previously circulated on other bootlegs, this two-CD set is the most comprehensive package of unissued rarities from the Bee Gees' early (1966-68) career. Disc one alone takes in two 1966 demos; the fruity First outtake "Mr. Waller's Wailing Wall"; alternate mixes of several cuts from First (including three alone of "Turn of the Century"); "One Minute Woman" with an alternate vocal; and ten 1967 BBC tracks. Disc two is just as worthy, starting off with what sounds like a complete 1968 live concert in Bern, Switzerland, followed by an instrumental version of "Jumbo," two 1968 Coca Cola jingles, and five '67-'68 BBC performances. There are a few other stray items from this era that only show up on other bootlegs, but this will sate the appetite of almost any Bee Gees fan serious enough to consider finding bootlegs of the group in the first place. Naturally it's not nearly as vital as their studio recordings from the same era, particularly as the sound quality (especially of the live and BBC stuff) is usually well below official release standard. But it's virtually all of listenable fidelity, and there are some goodies, starting with the 1966 demos "Mrs. Gillespie's Refrigerator" (which was certainly worthy of inclusion on a bona fide album, and is also here in a BBC version) and the odd raga rock of "Deeply Deeply Me." The BBC tracks usually don't differ too notably from the studio arrangements, but as is par for BBC takes, offer some fresh spontaneity for those inured to the studio versions. The '68 Bern live gig is no less than fascinating for students of the group, as the band do some of the songs with orchestral accompaniment. Unfortunately, while the sound is fairly clear for a '68 live unreleased show, the audio balance is very uneven and the vocal mike clarity less than ideal. Still, where else do you get to hear live late-'60s concert recordings of hits like "New York Mining Disaster 1941," "Words," "Holiday," and "Massachusetts," as well as some far lesser known tunes, including surprises like "Gilbert Green" (never included by the band on their official releases, and consistent with the jaunty baroque-pop of their first albums) and unexpected detours into cover versions of the Four Seasons' "C'mon Marianne" and Cream's "Strange Brew"? Overall this collection can be confidently recommended to major fans of the group in their late-'60s incarnation.

The Gosdin Brothers, Sounds of Goodbye (Big Beat). It's enough of a blessing that the Gosdin Brothers' rare 1968 LP Sounds of Goodbye was finally reissued 35 years later. It doubles the pleasure to have the length of the album itself doubled to 24 tracks, with numerous rare 1966-68 non-LP singles and previously unreleased outtakes. This was the period in which the Gosdin Brothers, who started as a far more traditional country and bluegrass act, made their biggest crossover to folk-rock and country-rock, with their early country-rock forays in particular overlooked precursors to the late-'60s Southern California country-rock explosion. On the cuts from the LP, the Gosdins sometimes came off as a somewhat more country-slanted Gene Clark in their subdued, slightly melancholy country-folk-rock, with influences aplenty from the mid-'60s Byrds. It helped that there were plenty of good songs, like the ringing "Love at First Sight" (where the Gosdin Brothers were at their Byrdsiest), "Love of the Common People," the downcast "The Victim," and the gorgeous ballad "She's Gone." The extra cuts aren't up to the consistency of the album material, but again offer some mighty interesting, often high-quality blends of country, rock, and folk, even if the country was always stronger than the rock and the folk. Among the more noteworthy of those bonus cuts are the 1968 single "There Must Be a Someone (I Can Turn To)," covered by the Byrds themselves on the 1969 album The Ballad of Easy Rider; the futuristically mellotron-coated singles "Hangin' On" (which was actually a small 1967 country hit) and "She Still Wishes I Were You"; the strange quasi-protest folk-rock of the previously unissued "Uncommitted Man"; the strong, super-rare 1967 country-rock single "One Hundred Years from Now," produced by then-Byrd Chris Hillman; and the Everly Brothers-sounding "Wishing," produced by early Byrds co-manager Jim Dickson (and also previously unreleased). Exhaustive liner notes by Alec Palo do much to more fully unearth this underappreciated and, until now, under-documented corner of proto-country-rock. Note that this CD does not present the original LP in sequence, followed by bonus tracks; it spreads out the songs from the LP in a new order, interspersed with the bonus material, though of course you can program the songs from the LP to play in the original running order if you wish.

The Guilloteens, For My Own (Misty Lane). Both sides of all five of the Guilloteens' mid-1960s singles are on this collection, adding up to an erratic but generally above-average garage rock listen. Some of the earlier tracks are distinguished from the garage rock norm by Lewis Paul's husky blue-eyed soul vocals, and the folk-rock-pop-punk of "I Don't Believe," a big hit in their native Memphis, could have easily been a nationwide smash given the right exposure. More along the lines of the more typical Pebbles/Nuggets garage sounds is the frenetic sub-Kinks riffing of "Hey You. " The class of the bunch, though, might be the 1966 single "Wild Child," which with its ominous clanging riff and catchy pop-punk chorus is really a very good garage rock obscurity, though it's made it onto relatively few compilations. Some of the rest of the material is just alright stuff that mixes derivative Merseybeat with poppy garage stomp, though "For My Own" again taps into a nice folk-rock-influenced mood, and well-known Southern rock musician Jim Dickinson was responsible for co-writing "Crying All Over My Time." The LP's dragged down a bit, though, by the tamer sub-Lovin' Spoonful pop of their final singles (including a thinly disguised rewrite of "I Don't Believe," retitled "I Love That Girl"). As a bonus track, the record ends with Buddy Delaney & the Candy Soupe's lame "Girl," recorded by ex-Guilloteens bassist Delaney after the group broke up, which is nothing more than a slight rewrite of the Guilloteens B-side "Hey You."

The Gurus, The Gurus Are Hear! (Sundazed). The Gurus Are Hear! was actually advertised in Billboard and Cashbox in 1967, but the album was canceled only a few weeks before its projected release. More than 35 years later, it finally emerged as this Sundazed CD, augmented naturally by five bonus cuts. So is it just as mysterious and exotic as psychedelic collectors suspected? Not exactly, but it's a pretty interesting if slightly contrived and kitschy hybrid of psychedelic rock and middle eastern music. As it turns out, the best of their demented anguished-psychedelia-in-a-falafel-restaurant-bellydancing-room had already been issued on their two singles (both sides of which are included on the album). From those 45s, "Come Girl," "Blue Snow Night," and "Everybody's Got to Be Alone Sometime" are genuinely fine and rather ahead-of-their-time songs. Singer John Lieto howls like a pained cantor while the band plays psychedelia fit for a harem, with oud trills, raga-rock electric guitar, bent notes, and tortured minor keys aplenty, though not bereft of some garage rock energy and hooks. The other songs aren't quite up to that level, aren't terribly varied, and are sometimes quite a bit more pop-oriented and normal-sounding, with "Contact" penned by the Bonner-Gordon team of "Happy Together" fame. But not all of those extra cuts are unmemorable, the band totally overhauling "Louie Louie" into a dervish-swirling dance that must rank as one of the weirdest covers of this covered-to-death song. And you've gotta love a song ("Shaker Life") with the line "come life eternal, shake it out of me, all that is carnal," set to a tune and beat like "Twist and Shout" gone to temple. The less essential bonus tracks include another Bonner-Gordon tune, "They All Got Carried Away," and alternate versions (one of them wholly instrumental) of four songs from the album.

The Hard Times, Blew Mind (Rev-Ola). The Hard Times' sole album was a weirdly variable affair that not only sounded like the band's original raw folk-rockish sound was being emasculated, but also sounded almost as if it could have been the product of several different groups. Much of the LP was soft rock, sometimes over-polished to soft-as-marshmallow consistency, as on their cover of the Beatles' "Here, There and Everywhere." At other points they went into sub-Association sunshine pop, overly precious folk-rock (a cover of Donovan's "Colours" and a strange baroque arrangement of the old Reverend Gary Davis blues "Candy Man," which is miscredited as a Fred Neil-Beverly Ross composition in the sleeve notes), clean-cut Rolling Stones-like R&B ("Fortune Teller," which crept into the bottom of the Top Hundred), and slightly tougher Paul Revere & the Raiders-like pop-rock. It's fairly unremarkable stuff that leans toward the milder sounds of the period's L.A. pop-rock, taking a sharp upswing in quality on the final two tracks. One of those, "Sad Sad Sunshine," is a nice, obscure Al Kooper folk-rock composition bearing a marked Bob Lind influence; so obscure, in fact, that Kooper himself didn't even list it in the comprehensive discography in his autobiography. The other, "Blew Mind," is an utterly unexpected slice of early brooding psychedelia with booming low bell peals, disconsolate bluesy moaning vocals, and periodic rumbles of what sounds like mission-control space radio chatter way in the background.

The 2003 CD reissue on Rev-Ola adds ten bonus cuts, including five non-LP tracks from 1966-67 singles; mono 45 versions of three songs from the LP; and the New Phoenix's single "Give to Me Your Love"/"Thanks" (the flipside just being an instrumental version of the A-side), on which at least some members of the Hard Times played. More so than on most such expanded CD reissues, these bonus tracks do a great service to the band's legacy, as the non-LP singles (all originals except for a cover of Bob Lind's "Come to Your Window") are far gutsier than most of the record, boasting a slightly raw folk-rock feel with echoes of the early Byrds and Beau Brummels, though the songs aren't as good as the early work by those two great '60s bands. The mysterious New Phoenix single "Give to Me Your Love" is pretty respectable psychedelic-influenced folk-rock, a little like some of Stephen Stills's songs for Buffalo Springfield that went in that direction; it's the most solid indicator of the more original phase the band might have evolved into had they been given more time and sympathetic record company support.

Jimi Hendrix, Jimi Plays Berkeley [DVD] (Experience Hendrix). The Jimi Plays Berkeley film, documenting his performances at the Berkeley Community Theatre on May 30, 1970, was about as haphazardly organized as most of the projects from the final year or two of his life were. It endured a post-directorial cut from Hendrix manager Mike Jeffery and, even with the insertion of some footage of period Berkeley rioting and protest, still clocked in at less than an hour. Perhaps it could have been better if more footage was prepared -- and, unfortunately, a few of the songs weren't filmed in complete versions -- but what remains is actually a pretty enjoyable and valuable document of Hendrix in concert. Just a few months prior to his death, he's backed by the reliable Mitch Mitchell on drums and newer trio mainstay Billy Cox on bass, mixing some old classics ("Purple Haze," "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)," "I Don't Live Today") with quite a few selections he wouldn't release on record during his lifetime ("Johnny B. Goode," "Hey Baby (New Rising Sun)," "Lover Man," "Hear My Train a Comin'"). Jimi seems to be a little tired and fed-up on some of the footage that survives of Hendrix concerts from his final months, but that's not the case here. He seems relaxed and in a pretty good mood, even on the obligatory "Purple Haze," the one song on which he really pulls out his most famed bag of tricks, like playing the guitar with his teeth. There's also "The Star Spangled Banner," not destined to make the lasting impact as the version filmed for Woodstock of course, but impressively executed here. The DVD has an audio-only section of concert recordings from the second set of the night's performances (also available separately as a standard audio CD, Live at Berkeley). It's unclear, though, why neither the CD nor DVD included any material from the first show; as a consequence, some songs seen in the film, like "Hear My Train a Comin'" and "Johnny B. Goode," aren't heard on the audio-only portion. There aren't any other DVD extras, but there's a booklet with extensive liner notes about the genesis of the film.

Jimi Hendrix, Live at Berkeley (Experience Hendrix). On May 30, 1970, Jimi Hendrix performed a couple of sets at the Berkeley Community Theatre, which were filmed for the movie Jimi Plays Berkeley. This CD presents the entire 67-minute second set, and it should be noted that it's not identical to the music you see performed in Jimi Plays Berkeley, which includes some songs ("Johnny B. Goode," "Hear My Train a Comin'," apparently filmed during the first set) not represented on Live at Berkeley in any form. There have been tons of live Hendrix recordings issued since his death, and perhaps this particular one would be more exciting if it hadn't been preceded by so many others, many of which contain other versions of songs included here. Judged on its own merits, though, it's a good, well-recorded live Hendrix show. The demerits are worth noting, too. His run-throughs of classic songs that he had done for years by 1970 ("Stone Free," "Hey Joe," "Foxey Lady," "Purple Haze") aren't as fresh and fiery as the best earlier live versions in existence, and some of the material that at the time of the show was recent and fairly unfamiliar to the audience ("Hey Baby (New Rising Sun)," "Machine Gun," the jam "Pass It On (Straight Ahead)") can meander. On the other hand, he and the Experience really cut into "Lover Man" and a gig-ending, hard-edged "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)" like they mean it. Incidentally, this set of material is also available as an audio-only section of the DVD of Jimi Plays Berkeley, simultaneously released with this CD by Experience Hendrix.

Ace Kefford, Ace the Face (Castle). You might think it quite unlikely that even the most enterprising reissue label could manage to come up with a whole album of Ace Kefford material, given that the ex-Move man released just one single under his own name. The most amazingly unlikely '60s rock relics were being discovered several decades after the fact, though, and it turns out that Kefford recorded an entire unreleased album in mid-1968, with Tony Visconti as producer. Nine tracks from that album form the backbone of this compilation, which also includes both sides of the 1969 single by the Ace Kefford Stand; a demo of the A-side of that single, a cover of the Yardbirds' "For Your Love"; three other previously unreleased 1968 outtakes; the A-side of a 1969 single by Big Bertha, in which Kefford played; both sides of the 1976 single by Kefford's subsequent band Rockstar; and even the Lemon Tree's 1968 single "William Chalker's Time Machine," written by Kefford. There's no faulting the diligence of the archivism, but for all the fruitless effort invested in launching a post-Move solo career for Kefford, he really wasn't much of a singer or songwriter. It's true the unreleased album tracks were abandoned before they were finished, but they meander between unremarkable, just-about-passable stabs (usually self-penned) at pop-rock, folk-rock, country-rock, and hard rock with a generic late-'60s British feel. These are often done in a slightly heavier, more serious style than that associated with the late-'60s Move, sung in a husky but slightly croaky soul-rock voice. Subdued echoes of his well-documented fragile mental health hover in the uncertain, troubled tone of songs like "Holiday in Reality," "Trouble in the Air," "Step Out in the Night," and "White Mask." (Jimmy Page, incidentally, makes a little-known session appearance on the cover of Paul Simon's "Save the Life of My Child.") The Ace Kefford Stand material is more fully produced, but on the mundane early hard rock side, including covers of "Born to Be Wild" and "Daughter of the Sun" (the latter much better known via its more psychedelic treatment from Sharon Tandy). The Rockstar tracks, oddly, aren't too bad, and very much in an early-'70s David Bowie-influenced style, particularly "Mummy." What a shame that the best cut on here, the Lemon Tree's whirling (and quite Move-like) psych-pop ditty "William Chalker's Time Machine," doesn't even have Kefford playing on it.

John Mayall & the Bluebreakers, A Hard Road [Expanded Edition] (Deram). Some Mayall fans might be disappointed to find that this radically expanded two-CD edition of A Hard Road actually includes no previously unreleased material, even though it tacks on a whopping 22 additional tracks. It's more a complete document of the Bluesbreakers' recordings with Peter Green, of which A Hard Road was just the most prominent part. It might be an awkward fit for Mayall completists, since much of the bonus material also appears on other Mayall releases, particularly the Looking Back and Thru the Years compilations. For those just looking for a comprehensive overview of the Green-Mayall era, though, it's excellent, with the extra tracks including several non-LP singles (among them the 1967 B-side "Rubber Duck," which had never before appeared on CD); the A Hard Road outtakes that first showed up on the 1971 Thru the Years LP; the Green-sung and -composed "Evil Woman Blues," which was placed on the Raw Blues various-artists anthology; "First Time Alone," the Blues from Laurel Canyon track on which Green guested; and all four tracks from the 1967 EP that paired John Mayall's Bluesbreakers with Paul Butterfield.

A Hard Road itself was a good if uneven blues-rock album, highlighted by Green's incredible sustain on the instrumental "Supernatural" (a clear influence on Carlos Santana). Green also took some of the lead vocal and songwriting duties, though Mayall remained the dominant singer, whether on covers (the best of them being Freddie King's "Someday After a While (You'll Be Sorry)") or originals (highlighted by the uncharacteristically frantic "Leaping Christine" and the moody "Living Alone"). But some of the non-LP tracks are among the best recordings the Bluesbreakers did with Green in the lineup, like the supremely downbeat Green-written-and-sung B-side "Out of Reach"; the quality outtake (again written and sung by Green) "Missing You"; the hard-edged outtake "Please Don't Tell," cut in March 1967 months after the A Hard Road sessions; and the haunting 1968 B-side "Jenny," actually done in late 1967 after Green had left for Fleetwood Mac, but featuring a return visit from him on lead guitar. Other of the extra tracks are duller and more routine, but at least it accounts for everything done by the Bluesbreakers with Green in tow, with the unimportant exception of a 1967 session on which they backed Eddie Boyd. Note, incidentally, that while Green and Mick Fleetwood briefly played together in the same Bluesbreakers lineup, just two tracks here (the 1967 single "Double Trouble"/"It Hurts Me Too") feature Fleetwood on drums.

The Meters, Zony Mash (Sundazed). Zony Mash rounds up 13 tracks from the Josie era that didn't appear on the Meters' first trio of albums in the late 1960s and early 1970s, eight of them from non-LP singles, five of them from the bonus tracks added to Sundazed's CD reissues of those LPs. As such, it's not recommended as one of the first Meters albums to buy if you're just starting to build a collection of the band's work. Actually, however, were this the first album of Josie-era material you were to hear or buy, it wouldn't disgrace the band's legacy by any means. On both vocal and instrumental numbers, the band offer first-rate tight yet rubbery funk-soul. And it's not like this stuff went totally unheard at the time: three of the songs ("A Message from the Meters," "(The World Is a Bit Under the Weather) Doodle-Oop," and "Stretch Your Rubber Band") were small R&B chart hits. Plenty of contemporary soul-funk influences are floating around, like Booker T. & the MGs on "Soul Machine" and the title cut; the wah-wah psychedelia of Hendrix and others; and the rhythms of James Brown. At some moments they sound uncannily like early War, though given the dates of these recordings, it's more likely that War borrowed from the Meters than vice versa. But it's more the Meters' own funkified brand of New Orleans R&B than anything else, even on the graceful cover of Bacharach-David's "The Look of Love."

Pink Floyd, The Dark Side of the Moon [DVD] (Eagle Vision). This visual documentary of the making of The Dark Side of the Moon is everything it should be. There are interviews with all four of the band members, as well as some music critics and key associates like engineer Alan Parsons, sleeve designer Storm Thorgerson, and mix supervisor Chris Thomas; some vintage footage of the band working on the material in the studio; and, perhaps most exciting of all to those already familiar with the basic story, some excerpts of bare demos of songs that ended up on the album. It seems like Nick Mason doesn't have as much to say about the project as the others (particularly Waters and Gilmour), but the band's articulate on both the development of the music and, in Waters's case, the lyrical themes. Richard Wright, for his part, has a nice bit where he discusses the Miles Davis-derived source for one of the particularly memorable chords in "Breathe." There are some other stories which aren't overly familiar, like the source of some of the spoken-word aphorisms mixed into the background, the discussion over cover design selection, and "Us and Them"'s roots in material the band recorded for the Zabriskie Point soundtrack. The participation of session vocalists (particularly Clare Torry's scatting on "The Great Gig in the Sky") and saxophonist Dick Parry is also discussed, though unfortunately there's no interview material with any of them. The DVD bonus material adds more extensive interview comments that didn't fit into the main feature.

The Poor, The Poor (Rev-Ola). In addition to collecting both sides of all four of their 1966-68 singles, this also has both sides of the two 1965-66 singles cut by the Soul Survivors, the group from which several future Poor members hailed. With the addition of "Study in Motion #1" (whose source isn't identified in the liner notes), this is indeed the long lost Poor album. However, probably at least in part because it was culled from half a dozen one-off singles spanning about three years, there's not much of a consistent sound or group identity that permeates the collection. The Poor could play extremely well-executed California pop-rock, with varying shades of sunshine pop and folk-rock overtones and very accomplished vocal harmonies. What this lacks are extremely strong songs, whether original material (including the early Randy Meisner composition "Come Back Baby") or outside tunes by each half of Brewer & Shipley (Michael Brewer supplying "Feelin' Down," and Tom Shipley the better-known "She's Got the Time (She's Got the Changes)," also recorded by Brewer & Shipley themselves). It's a pleasing period Los Angeles sound, skirting toward the edge of vaudevillian country-rock in the none-too-impressive "Love Is Real," getting into gutsier pop-psych on one of the better cuts, "My Mind Goes High," and echoing the Millennium school of harmony pop on "Knowing You, Loving You." Frankly, though, the best thing here is the stomping Beatles-Zombies garage rock of one of the Soul Survivors singles ("Can't Stand to Be in Love With You").

The Sonics, Psycho-Sonic (Big Beat). Everyone would agree that the Sonics reached their peak on their 1964-65 recordings for Etiquette. This 29-track compilation has everything they recorded for the label, extended not just to everything from their singles and two albums, but also an alternate take of "The Witch" and live recordings of "Psycho" and "The Witch." Consequently it's the best Sonics release on the market, though you should be warned it's not wall-to-wall greatness. After the first half-dozen or so songs, you might well be ready to buy into their legend as one of the great (and certainly rawest) '60s garage bands, as those tracks include their toughest elementary riff-fueled pounders: "The Witch," "Psycho," "Boss Hoss," "He's Waitin'," and "Strychnine." But too much of the rest is filled out with covers of '50s and '60s rock and R&B standards, and the relentlessly frantic bang-it-out frat punk and throat-tearing vocals get blurry after a while, though at least they threw in a little-covered tune with their version of Adam Faith's "It's Alright." The 2003 CD edition of this anthology, incidentally, is substantially different from Big Beat's first release of the material, though it has identical tracks and the same title. It's taken from first-generation tapes, and also has a 20-page booklet of liner notes with extensive quotes from several band members (including lead singer Jerry Roslie) and others involved in the group's career.

Dusty Springfield, Reflections [DVD] (White Star). Reflections is a straightforward hour-long collection of Springfield television clips, all from the 1960s and/or early 1970s from the looks of things (no dates are given), with some linking commentary material by singers Petula Clark and B.J. Thomas. Although some of these cuts are most likely lip-synced, and none of them actually have a live band or orchestra in the frame with Dusty, it's still an enjoyable collection of performances from her prime. There are renditions of several of her biggest hits, including "Wishin' and Hopin'," "I Only Want to Be with You," "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me," "The Look of Love," "Son of a Preacher Man," and "I Close My Eyes and Count to Ten," most of them in color (the black-and-white ones most likely are the earliest, and most likely date from the mid-'60s). Perhaps most interesting to fanatics are the less celebrated songs, like Randy Newman's "I Think It's Going to Rain Today," and a few numbers she never put on record, those being covers of "Since I Fell for You," the Impressions' "People Get Ready," and "Ain't No Mountain High Enough," the last of those a duet with Engelbert Humperdinck. And as you'd count on, Dusty's seen in plenty of loud-colored '60s outfits, and about as many different wigs. The interviews with Clark and the less logically-selected Thomas aren't fascinating, but they praise appropriate aspects of Dusty's music and persona, and are both brief and smoothly integrated into the flow. What a pity, though, that there are no dates or sources given as to the original broadcasts of any of the 17 clips.

The Who, Tommy[Deluxe Edition] (Geffen). The two-CD deluxe edition of the Who's masterpiece -- a hybrid playable on both SACD and standard CD players -- is bigger, but not necessarily better. Audiophiles with the appropriate equipment will welcome the chance to hear it as remastered and remixed by Pete Townshend himself, in both stereo and (with the exception of five Townshend solo demos on disc two) 5.1 surround sound for SACD. And everyone, of course, gets the chance to hear not just the original album in all its glory on the 75-minute Disc One, but also 17 additional tracks (many, though not all, of them previously unreleased) on Disc Two. It's the additional material that's rather disappointing, for a few reasons. First, most of it really is marginal, even for the kind of fans that thrive on hearing outtakes and demos. A bunch of the cuts are merely vocal-less alternate backing tracks, similar to the ones on the official Tommy album but a little sloppier. As for the two songs previously unavailable in any form, "Trying to Get Through" is a not-terribly-melodic, repetitive hard rock move-the-plot-along number that Townshend and the Who were wise to cut from the final running order, while the 16-second "I Was" is lyric-less vocal cacophony whose purpose is unexplained by the liner notes (which, in fact, don't comment in detail on any of the bonus material). Alternate versions of "Sally Simpson" and "We're Not Gonna Take It" are welcome for aficionados, but not that radically different from the ones that made the final cut, except that they're less tightly organized. The mediocre outtake "Cousin Kevin Model Child" already appeared on the CD version of Odds and Sods, and while "version 1" of "Young Man Blues" and the instrumental "Dogs (Part 2)" (the non-LP B-side of "Pinball Wizard") are cool hard rock tunes, they don't have anything to do with the Tommy project. Finally, though it's nice to hear five Townshend demos of Tommy tunes, hardcore Who fans know that there are at least a couple of dozen such demos. It would have been great to hear all of them (particularly as the sound on the demos here is better than the fidelity in which they're presented on numerous bootlegs), but that probably would have meant a three-CD deluxe edition rather than a two-CD one, which might have been too much for the market to bear. This deluxe edition is still worthwhile for aficionados (though certainly the liner notes could have been more extensive), but the more general Who and rock fan probably won't be missing anything, and will be saving some money, by sticking with the album in its original unadorned version.

Various Artists, Byrds Won't Fly Today (Misty Lane). With the subtitle "18 desperate folk-punk laments from Byrds-a-like obscure U.S. garage groups circa 1965/1967," that slogan acts as truth in advertising for this unusual but worthwhile garage anthology. It's sometimes forgotten that though the Byrds' chart-topping success in 1965 and 1966 was relatively brief, they influenced hundreds if not thousands of bands. Here's some of the evidence, though just as more hard-edged garage rock records aped the most obvious and crudest elements of the British Invasion, so do these obscure non-hits emulate the most basic aspects of the Byrds' jangly guitars and angelic harmonies. Of course, it's nothing you'd compare to the 1965-66 Byrds themselves. For one thing, the lyrics are usually teenage heartbreak laments (though Rock Garden's "The Wind Is My Keeper" is a notable exception in that regard), rather than statements on the order of "Turn! Turn! Turn!" or "Eight Miles High." And there's not just often more of a pop influence than the Byrds had; there's also far less of a knowledgeable absorption of bluegrass, country, Indian, jazz, and psychedelic elements into the folk-rock framework than the Byrds used even on their early albums. But at the very least, these earnest Byrds derivations have a naive charm, though they lack tunes as memorable as the ones the Byrds recorded (even on the Empty Set's tear of a page from the Byrds' book by folk-rocking an obscure Bob Dylan song, "Tomorrow Is a Long Time"). And sometimes, the tracks are actually pretty worthwhile on their own terms. The Ragamuffins' "Four Days of Rain" comes about the closest to the actual Byrds sound, almost replicating to a T their mid-1960s harmonies, guitar chime, earnest lyricizing, and even Michael Clarke's whooshing "The Bells of Rhymney" cymbal patterns. Also worthy of praise is Dalton, James & Sutton's impressively polished, country-inflected "One Time Around," with a pretty convincing stab at Gene Clark's vocal style; the Ragamuffins' Byrdsy arrangement of the oft-covered "Let's Get Together," with a trembling son-of-Gene Clark lead vocal; and the two raw folk-rockers by the Hard Times, who are about the best-known band on this anthology, which gives you some idea of how deep the compilers dug for these relics.

Various Artists, Folk Rock and Faithfull: Dream Babes Vol. 5 (RPM). The word "folk-rock" seems to mean something different to everyone, and many fans might find this compilation of 22 woman-sung 1965-69 tracks to be more accurately pegged as "folk-rock-influenced pop-rock" than "folk-rock." Even it's more featherweight than the Byrds (or for that matter the Mamas & the Papas), it's a pretty interesting and fun collection of rarities, most of them sung by British femmes and produced in the UK (though a couple of Australians sneak in, as does Jackie DeShannon's "Don't Turn Your Back on Me," recorded by the Californian in England). There's nothing here by Marianne Faithfull, despite the sly use of her name in the title. But the wispier and folkier tracks here certainly bear her influence, including those by Nico (her London-recorded cover of Gordon Lightfoot's "I'm Not Saying"), Vashti (represented by her rare 1966 single "Train Song"/"Love Song"), Gay Singleton's "In My Time of Sorrow" (a DeShannon-Jimmy Page composition also recorded by Faithfull, though Singleton's version is good too), Greta Ann's melodramatic "Sadness Hides the Sun," Gillian Hills's "Tomorrow Is Another Day" (the actress's only English-language release), and Trisha's 1965 single "The Darkness of My Night" (a Donovan composition that Donovan apparently never recorded himself, though it's not so hot). Some of these records opt for a far more elaborately arranged approach, though, with the Caravelles' 1967 single "Hey Mama You've Been on My Mind" sounding rather like Eric Andersen as sung by a girl group and produced by Phil Spector, and Gemini's "Sunshine River" (from Australia) pouring on the Byrdsy electric guitars. While some of these cuts are dull, there are other cool items as well, like "Bring It to Me" by Vashti pals Jennifer Lewis and Angela Strange; Judi Smith's gorgeous "Leaves That Come Tumbling Down," another Jackie DeShannon-Jimmy Page co-write; Australian Maggie Hammond's strong cover of "High Flying Bird," even if she does change the key lyric "I'm rooted like a tree" to the less effective "I'm tired as can be"; and Caroline Carter's "The Ballad of Possibilities (Come Along)," another obscure Jackie DeShannon song. The more traditional face of folk music even surfaces with Leonore Drewery's "Rue," probably better known under the title Pentangle used for the same tune, "Let No Man Steal Your Thyme." The folk-rock concept gets stretched pretty far to include Angelina's "Wishing My Life Away," which seems more influenced by Buddy Holly and Joe Meek. But if that's what it takes to get worthwhile rarities like those issued, why not?

Various Artists, 94 Baker Street: The Pop-Psych Sounds of the Apple Era 1967-1969 (RPM). A slight cautionary note here: although all of the artists on this compilation had affiliations with the Beatles' Apple company in the late 1960s, just one (the Iveys, who later became Badfinger) actually recorded for Apple Records. The others -- Focal Point, Grapefruit, Paintbox, Ways and Means, and John Fitch -- wrote songs for Apple's publishing company, without actually releasing material on the Apple label. That clarification noted, this is a decent anthology of obscure late-'60s British rock (ten of the 18 tracks previously unreleased) that's pretty far toward the "pop" side of "pop-psychedelia," as well as bearing a tangential connection to one of the most interesting pop enterprises of the time, Apple. By far the most famous of the performers were the Iveys, and Badfinger fans will be excited by the appearance of five previously unissued Iveys demos here, only one of which ("Maybe Tomorrow") would be re-recorded for official release. Though these aren't as hook-ridden as the best of Badfinger, the promise is there, with a couple of songs boasting a late-'60s mod rock Whoish sound that wouldn't be typical of Badfinger's eventual style. Serious Beatles fans will probably also be familiar with Grapefruit, the band built around songwriter George Alexander (older brother of the Easybeats' George Young). This CD has their minor British hit single "Dear Delilah," the B-side "Ain't It Good," and alternate unorchestrated versions of two songs from their first LP ("Lullaby" and "Another Game"); perhaps unsurprisingly, they sound like a combination of the Easybeats and the Beatles' feyer pop-psych excursions. Also in the Easybeats mold are a couple George Alexander songs given to other artists, Paintbox's "Getting Ready for Love" (on which Easybeats George Young and Harry Vanda actually play) and Ways and Means' "Breaking Up a Dream." Rounding out the collection are a single and three previously unreleased tracks by Focal Point, who do perhaps the most precious and fairytale-like pop-psychedelia here, and the less enjoyable heavy soul-rock of John Fitch and Associates. It's an interesting little-known chapter in Apple/Beatles lore, then, but the presentation could have been better. The liner notes are excellent, but a couple of the Focal Point songs play in an order different than the track listing, and the three numbers by the Misunderstood (all available elsewhere) that appear in the track listing somehow weren't included on the actual CD at all.

ALBUM REVIEWS: A SELECTION OF RECENT RELEASES, FALL 2003:

• The Beatles, Liverpool 63 + Washington 64
• Big Brother & the Holding Company, Summertime Blues
• The Collins Kids, At Town Hall Party  [DVD]
• The Count Five, Psychotic Revelation: The Ultimate Count Five
• Miki Dallon, That's Alright
• Kim Fowley, Impossible But True: The Kim Fowley Story
• Alex Harvey, Teenage a Go Go
• Denny Laine, Birmingham Boy
• New Creation, Troubled
• The Temptations, Psychedelic Soul
• Pete Townshend, The Genuine Scoop
• Gay & Terry Woods, Lake Songs from Red Waters: The Best of Gay & Terry Woods
• Michael Yonkers Band, Microminiature Love
• Various Artists, Eleanor Rigby: Noch Mehr Beatles Songs Auf Deutsch
• Various Artists, The Harder They Come [Deluxe Edition]
• Various Artists, Let's Copp a Groove! Lost UK Soul 1968-72
• Various Artists, Ooh Ooh Ahh: Moments of Musical Ecstacy
• Various Artists, The Rare Bacharach 1: 53 Elusive Songs & Versions 1956-1978
• Various Artists, Syde Trips Seven
• Various Artists, Unearthed Merseybeat

The Beatles, Liverpool 63 + Washington 64 (No label, bootleg). There's no label on this bootleg of early live Beatles shows, which even by bootleg standards isn't too easy to find, though it does have a catalog number and not-bad artwork. It combines a couple of notable concerts onto one CD, the first of those being their performance at the Empire Theater in Liverpool on December 7, 1963, the other their show at Washington Coliseum on February 11, 1964 -- their first American concert, although they had performed on The Ed Sullivan Show in New York just prior to going to Washington, DC. You can't fault the performances here -- they might be slightly raw (understandable given the primitive stage conditions and audience pandemonium), but the Beatles are in great energetic form, doing much of their best pre-1964 material. What you can fault this on is the sound quality, which isn't very good, and often overwhelmed by screaming kids. What's worse, when Ringo Starr sings "Boys" in the Liverpool set, his mike seems to be off and you can barely hear him at all; you can hardly hear him any better when he sings "I Wanna Be Your Man" in Washington. All that said, you can make out the music, pretty much, and were this the only audio document of early Beatlemania, the group's in-concert majesty would be evident. It's far from the only audio document of that live period, alas, and far inferior to, naming just a few examples, the live Stockholm October 1963 show that's been booted; the live material from late '63-early '64 that surfaced legitimately on Anthology 1; and the bootlegs of the Ed Sullivan shows. It's nonetheless not a bad document for the hardcore Beatlemaniac, and there are more than a few such fanatics out there. The set list for each show, incidentally, is nearly identical, though "Twist and Shout" and "Long Tall Sally" had replaced "Boys" and "Money" by the time of the Washington gig. Incidentally, there's a strange instrumental reprise of "From Me to You" closing the Liverpool portion in which the group vamps on the main riff over and over, while there's only a partial version of "Twist and Shout" on the Washington half, though otherwise that show is fully represented.

Big Brother & the Holding Company, Summertime Blues (Deep Six, bootleg). The release of the official Big Brother CD Live at Winterland '68, as well as the ready availability of good-quality 1967 footage of the band in the video Ball and Chain and Monterey Pop, means that the existence of this bootleg of material from two shows in 1968 isn't nearly as exciting as it might have been if much higher-fidelity live documents of the band weren't so accessible. That's especially true given that the sound quality of these seven tracks from May 18, 1968 (at the Santa Clara County Fair Grounds in San Jose) and five songs from August 23, 1968 (at the Singer Bowl in Flushing, NY) isn't anywhere near the level of the aforementioned official releases. For a bootleg of late-1960s concerts, however, it's not bad, the voices and instruments coming through fairly well, if rather harshly and tinnily (the San Jose excerpt, according to the back cover, was recorded on "Jorma K.'s reel onstage," presumably referring to Jorma Kaukonen). And for all its inessential value to all but fervent fans, it's actually fairly enjoyable, and not just a completist souvenir. The performances are quite good, rough'n'ready, and non-identical to the most familiar versions, with a generous 68 minutes of music in total. The songs include most of their best tunes, among them two versions each of "Summertime," "Combination of the Two," and "Peace of My Heart," as well as one version apiece of "Cuckoo" and "Ball and Chain." And to top it off there are two charges through the raunchy blues-rocker "Comin' Home," a song which doesn't seem to have made it onto any Big Brother release.

The Collins Kids, At Town Hall Party  [DVD] (Bear Family). It's amazing enough that footage of the Collins Kids performing two dozen songs even exists, considering they never had a hit record. It's yet more amazing to have all of it easily available on this package of kinescopes from the Town Hall Party TV show, taken from six different broadcasts in late 1958. The capper is, however, that these performances are truly amazing, even if (as is the case for all of Bear Family's Town Hall Party DVDs) the image and sound quality isn't perfect due to the technical limitations of the source material. Lorrie Collins sings with an earthy maturity far beyond her teenage years, and her 14-year-old brother Larry (who looked 12 at most at the time) was simply a fireball of energy, whirling and dancing with his double-neck guitar like a windup doll whose string has just been pulled. Their vocal harmonies are excellent, as is Larry's guitar work, even if it seems like he never does actually play the top neck of the guitar. The only real drawbacks of this DVD are the absence of many of their best songs, and -- probably because the shows were all done close to each other, between October and December of 1958 -- many songs are played more than once (it's three times, as a matter of fact, for "Great Balls of Fire," and four times for "Chantilly Lace"). On the other hand, there are plenty of covers here that the Collins Kids didn't put on their records, among them "Great Balls of Fire" and "Chantilly Lace," but also "Shake, Rattle and Roll," Elvis Presley's "I Got Stung," the Everly Brothers' "Bird Dog" and "Problems," Jerry Lee Lewis's "High School Confidential," and Faye Adams's "Shake a Hand." And there is at least a live version of one of their finest Epic recordings, "(Let's Have a) Party." This isn't just for fans of the Collins Kids, necessarily -- this is some of the best live rockabilly footage of the 1950s.

The Count Five, Psychotic Revelation: The Ultimate Count Five (Big Beat). Though Collectables's Psychotic Reaction: The Complete Psychotic Reaction did include every one of the band's 18 officially released tracks, Big Beat's Psychotic Revelation: The Ultimate Count Five does indeed replace it as the ultimate Count Five compilation. It's not just because it includes every one of those 18 tracks and then some, with half a dozen unreleased outtakes, demos, and unedited versions. It's also because there's a great 24-page booklet on the history of the band by Alec Palao that clears up much of the mystery surrounding the Count Five, with quotes from most of the members. While the additional material is neither that revelatory or voluminous, it does include some nice bonuses. Prominent among them is the original unedited version of "Psychotic Reaction," with a previously unheard tag and key change at the end, though Double Shot Records was wise to release the reassembled version that became the big hit. Also on hand is an unedited version of "They're Gonna Get You" from the group's sole LP, as well as a demo of their non-LP single "Contrast" and some fair unreleased originals by John "Sean" Byrne. The excellent packaging doesn't disguise the failure of any of the band's other material to come close to matching the garage-psychedelic classic "Psychotic Reaction," or how derivative much of it was of British Invasion bands (particularly the Yardbirds). Still, they did conjure some above-average tracks like "Double Decker Bus," the psychedelic-tinged "Peace of Mind," and the poppier psychedelia of "Merry-Go-Round," making this ultimately worthwhile for the committed '60s garage fan.

Miki Dallon, That's Alright (RPM). As an artist, producer, and songwriter, Miki Dallon was an interesting secondary figure of the British Invasion, albeit one whose work rarely troubled the charts ("Take a Heart," a fair-sized UK hit for the Sorrows, being his most successful tune). As a singer he was only adequate, if exuberant, but as a composer he had a knack for combining some hard-edged R&B riffs with British Invasion pop-soul. That's Alright is an unwieldy but worthwhile compilation of 23 tracks from the 1960s in which he was involved, usually as an artist, though sometimes only as a songwriter. Mixing both rare singles and unreleased material, the cuts on which Dallon sings are mixed with covers of his songs by the Sessions, Boys Blue, the Crusaders, the Renegades, the Caretakers, Neil Christian, and Mickey Most -- none of them exactly household names, except Most (who was more known as a producer than a singer). Yes, it's one for the British Invasion obsessives, but if you're in that crowd there are some really good tracks here, particularly the ones that go for a poppy R&B raver kind of sound. Those include Boys Blue's "You Got What I Want" and the Sessions' "Let Me In," both of them also done by the Sorrows; unfortunately the Sorrows' own versions of Dallon's songs (they did several) are missing, and the rendition of "Take a Heart" here, by the Renegades, is far inferior to the tremendously exciting Sorrows interpretation. It's also unfortunate that Dallon's best performance as a singer, the stomping "I'll Give You Love," has the first few words cut off in an apparent inexcusable production error on the reissue, though luckily it's been reissued elsewhere. Fierce and excellent as well are Most's "That's Alright" and Christian's "I Like It," both with guitar by Jimmy Page, though much of the rest of the disc is tame and ordinary in comparison. Ending the CD are four "bonus tracks" of 1964 demos by Dallon with Chas Hodges, which have tinny lo-fi sound and Joe Meek-like arrangements.

Kim Fowley, Impossible But True: The Kim Fowley Story (Ace). Kim Fowley's output as a recording artist, producer, songwriter, and all-around record industry gadfly in the 1960s was so erratic, prolific, and downright zany that encapsulating it in a mere 32-track CD is akin to catching lightning in a bottle. It's about as difficult to summarize the contents of this disc in a mere paragraph (or even the accompanying small-print 36-page booklet), but it does a good job of assembling many of his best and/or at least more interesting, quirkier endeavors from that decade into one place. You do get the big early-'60s hits in which he was involved -- the Hollywood Argyles' "Alley-Oop," B. Bumble & the Stingers' "Nut Rocker," the Murmaids' "Popsicles & Icicles," and the Rivingtons' "Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow." More interesting to collectors, though not necessarily better as music, are the numerous rarities and one-offs spanning 1959 to 1969. It's a crazy ride, the aural equivalent of running across a swimming pool on top of floating logs, taking in fleeting associations with numerous notables. As for just a few highlights, they include the Soft Machine's great 1967 psychedelic B-side "Feelin' Reelin' Squealin'"; the Hellions' 1964 single "Daydreaming of You," co-written by Jackie DeShannon and featuring two future members of Traffic, Dave Mason and Jim Capaldi; Paul Revere & the Raiders' 1961 instrumental single "Like Long Hair"; a couple manic British R&B-meets-psychedelia cuts by the Belfast Gypsies, formed from the remnants of Them; the "Fallin' Off the Edge of My Mind" single by the Seeds; the fierce 1966 garage rock single by the Bush, which has steel guitar by the Misunderstood's Glenn Campbell; "Security" by the 'N Betweens, who would later evolve into Slade; the Lancasters' wicked instrumental "Satan's Holiday," with lead guitar by a young Ritchie Blackmore; "Rainbow at Midnight," from Gene Vincent's late-'60s comeback album; Elfstone's "Louisiana Teardrops," co-written by a pre-Crazy Horse Danny Whitten; the early Cat Stevens B-side "Portobello Road"; and the Alpines' surf-fake British Imitation hybrid "Shush-Boomer," co-written by a pre-Three Dog Night Danny Hutton. Sprinkled throughout are bizarro odds and ends credited to Fowley himself, like his fairly famous psychedelic rant "The Trip." And there are those sides where no one famous was involved but the unmistakable imprint of Kim Fowley's madness was evident, Spider's "The Comedown Song" being the best of those. For all of its eclecticism, in the end it must be said that with occasional exceptions, Fowley really didn't write or produce high-quality tunes (and certainly couldn't sing well when he took the mike himself), though a frenetic energy was usually present. Ultimately it's not as interesting for the music as it is for its adrenaline rush through the underside of the '60s record business, the legacy of a man who tried to throw almost anything against the wall in the hopes that it might stick.

Alex Harvey, Teenage a Go Go (Pilot). Although the documentation on this collection of early Alex Harvey rarities is substandard, it's a valuable assortment of odds and ends that fills in the gaps of much of his evolution in the 1960s, a period during which he didn't record too much. Well, it probably fills in gaps from the 1960s, because few of these 19 tracks are given precise dates, though there's a note that they cover "his earlier work from his 'Soulband' days up to 1968." To be fair to the compilers, the material was taken from largely undated acetates that fell into the possession of his one-time manager David Firmstone, and eventually located and purchased by a collector long after the death of both Harvey and Firmstone. So it'll probably never be known where, when, and why much of this was done. But it's evident from listening that it does cover, roughly speaking, the period 1964-68, years in which Harvey evolved from an energetic but derivative, second-division British R&B-rock singer to the start of something more original.

It's mid-'60s R&B that's heard on the first half-dozen cuts, and though it is derivative, in fact it's pretty gritty and enjoyable, whether in a rustic folk-blues mode (a different version of "The Blind Man" than the one he put on his first LP, and the protest folk-like "The Ballad of John F. Kennedy"), '50s-styled rock'n'roll, or hard-edged full-band British R&B ("Marie Bailey"). Then things start to get pretty weird and psychedelic-influenced, with the instrumental "Please Be Reasonable" mixing jazz flute and piano, blues-rock guitar, and some unidentifiably eerie middle-eastern-like instrument. Other tracks, while more avowedly blues/folk/soul-influenced than the '70s Sensational Alex Harvey Band records (including the Bob Dylan cover "The Wicked Messenger"), are clearly adding theatrical and satirical elements, like "Big Louis" (which would be re-recorded on the first SAHB album as "There's No Lights on the Christmas Mother, They're Burning Big Louie Tonight"). On "Electric Blues #2," in fact, he sounds like he's getting fed up enough with being an unheralded British bluesman that he's decided to take the piss out of the whole movement. Weirdest of all, however, are two psychedelic-classical hymns recorded with the Brighton Festival Chorus that are a little silly, perhaps, but also undeniably otherworldly and fascinating.

The bonus tracks -- it's not explained why these are "bonus tracks," incidentally (perhaps some were not on the acetates found in Firmstone's possession?) -- include the decidedly sillier "Grandfathers Clock Medley," taken from a children's record setting nursery rhymes to rock music. Also among the bonus tracks is the near-lounge pop of "Take Me Love Me," which the liner notes admit might not be Harvey. Which brings us to another point -- although details are given for many of the songs, they're sketchy and given little context, so that those fans not familiar with the ins and outs of Harvey's early, ill-documented career are going to feel lost and confused as to what might have been done when. What's more, the final cut, the acoustic "I'm Going to Stand By You," fades out after a mere 20 seconds; the liner notes don't say why, and in fact say nothing at all about the track. The liner notes do make a point of devoting a page to "why you should buy and not copy this CD," but if they'd just put a little more care into the packaging, the compilers would have earned enough respect to make that warning unnecessary.

Denny Laine, Birmingham Boy (Hyacinth, bootleg). A Denny Laine bootleg? You better believe it, even if it's hard to find even by bootleg standards, and even harder to imagine many people seeking it, other than the most hardcore collectors of British Invasion obscurities and Beatles-associated product. That's a shame as Laine did have something to offer back in the 1960s, but even the small bands of the faithful will be disappointed with this collection of rarities, on both musical and packaging grounds. By far the most interesting of these 23 tracks are the first seven, all taken from his short-lived stint as the leader of Denny Laine's Electric String Band, which only eked out two singles in the late 1960s. Laine was singing interesting, arty British orchestrated pop at this point, in a unique and magnificent high voice, as heard on the two singles included here, "Say You Don't Mind" and "Catherine's Wheel." Unfortunately their value on a bootleg is questionable, since they're not sourced from the master tapes (and the very end of "Say You Don't Mind" gets chopped off), and the songs have previously appeared on some legitimate various-artists compilations. What's even more galling is that the much rarer flipsides of those two singles, "Ask the People" and "Too Much in Love," aren't included. We do get five Laine/ Electric String Band BBC cuts in muffled but listenable quality, including BBC versions of "Ask the People" and "Catherine's Wheel," as well as three decent songs the group never released officially: "Why Did You Come," "Guilty Minds," and a cover of Tim Hardin's "Reason to Believe." Three of these appeared on the bootleg various-artists compilation Hard Up Heroes II, but "Reason to Believe" and "Guilty Minds" did not. After this the CD goes downhill, though a few early-'70s cuts are offered with Ginger Baker's Air Force's cover of "Man of Constant Sorrow"( with Laine on lead vocals) and the three scarce tracks by Balls, Denny's band with Trevor Burton and Viv Prince (including their sole UK single and an even rarer German B-side). The Balls cuts are undistinguished early hard rock, but there's worse to come, with most of the rest of the disc devoted to Laine's inessential mid-'70s solo album of Buddy Holly covers, Holly Daze, complete with plenty of distracting vinyl noise from the LP copy from which it was mastered. An "acetate version" of one of the Holly Daze tracks and a lone BBC Laine-era Moody Blues recording (of "Go Now") polish it off. The mastering of tracks from old records -- for most of these actually were released officially -- is substandard throughout this disc, as are the track listings, which credit some tracks to "Denny Laine's Incredible String Band" and inaccurately date the BBC version of "Go Now" to 1963. There's room for a good retrospective of early Laine rarities that counteract the unfair public image of him as a Paul McCartney stooge. But not only is this not quite it, it's also the kind of sloppy, careless presentation that gives bootlegs a worse name than they deserve.

New Creation, Troubled (Companion). "Must be heard to be believed" is a cliche that's attached to too many records that turn out not to be as strange or entertaining as their reputations might lead you to think. Troubled really is something that has to be heard to be believed, though, in its combination of fervent Christian lyrics and sloppy, untutored garage-folk-psychedelic rock. Never was it stranger than in the opening "Countdown to Revolution!," where gunfire and bomb explosions back heavily reverbed random soundbites of worship and very 1970-era despair and hip lingo. In a way everything's a comedown after that, but the very basic guitar-drum-miscellaneous percussion arrangements of the other tunes are eerie enough in their own right. Lay some wholly unself-conscious, awkwardly metered lyrics about the power of God to transform and heal over that, and you have the kind of stuff barely heard in any music, Christian, rock, or otherwise. The instruments and voices are about as out of time as anything committed to vinyl, and the naive punk artlessness of the performers almost makes it sound as if they're unwittingly satirizing themselves. For this isn't quite feel-good stuff; dirge-like melodies abound, and ballads like "Wind" and "All Is Well" (where all is not well, and the despairing singer wishes he could call the Lord on his telephone) make salvation sound as ominous as a trip to the Devil's waiting room. As for even the lighter tunes, it must be said that few songs hailing Jesus have done so in language hailing his bucking the status quo, in almost those exact words ("The Status Quo Song"), and that there may be no other calypso-rock inspirational Christian tune told as a first-person narrative of a woman busted on a narcotics charge ("Yet Still Time"). The CD reissue makes the experience complete with thorough liner notes detailing the group's history, as well as their rediscovery at the hands of dedicated collectors.

The Temptations, Psychedelic Soul(Motown). In the late 1960s and the early 1970s, the Temptations entered a drastically different phase, as producer Norman Whitfield (who also often figured in the writing of their material) helped steer them toward a funkier, more experimental/psychedelic sound and socially conscious lyrics. This two-CD set of 1968-73 tracks, with a whopping two-and-a-half hours of music, isn't exactly a best-of covering those years. It emphasizes the harder-hitting "psychedelic soul" of the title, and doesn't include the lighter and more romantic stuff they were continuing to record to some degree, like the chart-topping "Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me)." Still, it does have most of their other hits of the era, including such innovative tracks as "Cloud Nine," "Running Child Running Wild," "I Can't Get Next to You," "Psychedelic Shack," "Ball of Confusion (That's What the World Is Today)," "Papa Was a Rolling Stone," and "Masterpiece." More importantly, it does hang together as in in-depth retrospective of the Temptations' most daring (and often darkest) work. For one thing, there are quite a few good album tracks that even fans might have never or seldom heard, like their versions of "War" and "Smiling Faces Sometimes" (which slightly predate the hit ones by Edwin Starr and the Undisputed Truth). Also, the long versions of cuts are used, and in some cases, they're really long versions, with "Papa Was a Rollin' Stone" running to 12 minutes; "Masterpiece" to almost 14 minutes; and "Runaway Child Running Wild" to nine minutes. (There's also a previously unreleased six-minute "long version" of "Psychedelic Shack.") In some respects, it's as notable for the fiercely funky musical tracks as it is for the group's vocals. Regardless of the weight of the separate contributions, it adds up to some of the most provoking and sonically creative soul music ever laid down.

Pete Townshend, The Genuine Scoop (Hiwatt, bootleg). The apparent idea behind this five-CD, 101-song bootleg was a sound one: to gather all of the Pete Townshend best solo demos from the Who's prime era (mid-1960s to late 1970s) in one place. As Who/Townshend fans know, his demos were usually very interesting, and while not as good as the full-on band versions done by the Who, they often boasted a personal, primitive tenderness not present in the final product. But while there's much fine, and some great, music on here (and certainly there are a lot of great songs), this really isn't the major event it might have been. First and most importantly, a lot of this stuff actually came out on the very-above-board Scoop and Another Scoop compilations, often in better sound. Sure, those double LPs might be a little hard to come by these days, but are they really harder to come by than five-CD bootlegs such as this one? Second, on some tracks (particularly the earlier ones), the very beginnings or very ends have been cut -- a small misgiving, but versions on Scoop, Another Scoop, and various bootlegs prove that the utmost complete takes have certainly circulated. Some background noise, much like a tape that's been badly recorded over, mars a couple of the more interesting early demos ("Kill My Appetite" and "Do the Strip"), which again appear sans distractions on other bootlegs. And there's not a shred of annotation as to when the tracks were done, although they're sequenced in roughly chronological order. Granted, collectors aren't entitled to expect such basic courtesies from bootleggers, but there are plenty of other boots with similar material that do provide such niceties.

All that said and done, if you're a devoted Who fan, there's much to enjoy here, some of which isn't easy to come by on legit releases, or impossible to come by legitimately. Examples would include the spooky demo of "I Can See for Miles"; the comic '60s tunes "Kill My Appetite" and "Do the Strip"; the prototypes of "It's Not True" and "Dogs"; a super-lengthy, operatic "Rael"; the wistful late-'60sish-sounding "That Motherland Feeling"; and loads of demos for Tommy, Who's Next, and Quadrophenia, as well as a good number for The Who By Numbers and Who Are You. Another catch, though, is that if you're the kind of wild-eyed Who fan who actually knows where all of this stuff came from, you probably already have all or most of it on bootleg yourself -- including all those Tommy, Who's Next, Quadrophenia, The Who By Numbers, and Who Are You demos, which have made their appearances on bootlegs of shorter length. If you're among those who only have the stuff from Scoop or Another Scoop, or don't even have those, this is certainly a treat to be savored. The frustration is that with just a little more effort in the production and packaging, this would be a downright important archival document of Townshend's creative process, as well as good-to-excellent music in its own right. But then, that's a criticism that could be levied against many such bootlegs, and not a shortfall that the hapless consumer has any opportunity to redress, in a court of law or otherwise.

Gay & Terry Woods, Lake Songs from Red Waters: The Best of Gay & Terry Woods (Hux). This 20-track survey of Gay & Terry Woods' mid-'70s output is drawn from three albums: Backwoods, The Time Is Right, and Renowned. You could be forgiven for judging it as something of a mild variation on the music Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span were making during the same period, albeit with somewhat less personality, particularly in the lead female vocal department. At least the Woods, however, came by those similarities honestly, having been in the first lineup of Steeleye Span with ex-Fairport Convention bassist Ashley Hutchings (Fairporters Dave Pegg and Dave Mattacks also played on both The Time Is Right and Renowned, with ex-Fotheringay bassist Pat Donaldson playing on The Time Is Right). And though it might not measure up to the best of what those other groups did, it's pretty solid '70s British Isles folk-rock, perhaps a little less inclined toward the trad side of that blend than their musical cousins were, and more inclined to use slide and pedal guitars than fiddles. It also has a little less of an edge than the Woods' previous work in the Woods Band, but Gay Woods still has quite a pleasant voice that suits the material well, with Terry Woods's much less frequent, grainier lead vocals providing occasional but effective contrast.

Michael Yonkers Band, Microminiature Love (Sub Pop). Recorded in Minneapolis in 1968, but not released until about 35 years later, Microminiature Love is both of its time and out of time. Certainly there's some late '60s power trio hard rock-psychedelia to the way Yonkers grinds out his creepy, unrelentingly minor-keyed songs of gloom. The bashing of the drums is as shaky in tempo as his voice is in timbre, wailing in a tormented tone that's something of somewhat less off-key, more powerful forefather of later auteurs like Jandek. There were few other rock songwriters of the era as plugged into such an incessantly downer mood, and when he sings "heaven's turning into hell, life is turning into death" on the title track, you believe it, or at least you believe it's happening to him. Perhaps the closest reference point might be the Stooges, but Microminiature Love is much rawer in some respects than the Stooges' first few albums, sounding as if it's the product of a basement rehearsal that was caught on tape unbeknownst to the band. (Indeed it's hard to believe that this was intended for release on Sire Records, in a deal that never came to pass.) Some of-the-time anti-establishment ethos are present in the anti-war protest of "Kill the Enemy," though rarely were they offered in as bluntly horrific and ugly a fashion as Yonkers did here. Though limited melodically, Yonkers also cooks up some impressive guitar pyrotechnics here and there, particularly on "Boy in the Sandbox," which climaxes with truly frightening bursts of machine gun guitar. All that said, this isn't a great record or lost masterpiece. It's far too monotonous for that, with most of the material sitting on a minor E chord as if it's trying to bludgeon it to death by repetition. The CD reissue adds six additional bonus cuts from 1969 demos cut in Yonkers's parents' basement that are quite similar in feel to the recordings that made it onto the projected LP.

Various Artists, Eleanor Rigby: Noch Mehr Beatles Songs Auf Deutsch (Bear Family). A faint sense of desperation leaks into the third volume of Bear Family's series of German-language covers (principally though not exclusively from the 1960s) of Beatles songs, following 1995's Das War Ein Harter Tag: Beatles Lieder Auf Deutsch and 1997's Sie Liebt Dich: Weitere Beatles Songs Auf Deutsch. You get the feeling the compilers were really scrambling to fill out the 26-track program this time around, including more songs from the 1970s (one from as late as 1978) and padding out the set with a higher quotient of Beatles tributes/novelties. There are, too, a few other songs that are not exactly Beatles covers, those being some early-'70s interpretations of early John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison solo efforts. And, finally, some of the selections are not so much Beatles covers as they are covers of songs the Beatles also covered, and not necessarily based on the Beatles' versions; Jan & Kjeld's "Ein Kuss Zum Abschied," for instance, is clearly modeled on Herb Alpert's "A Taste of Honey," not the 1963 interpretation of that same tune by the Beatles. A German-language 1969 cover of "Twist and Shout" by the very British Cliff Richard stretches the concept almost to its breaking point. It's silly to apply schoolmaster-like rules to anthologies like this, of course, which by their very nature are only out for a bit of silly fun. More problematically, however, there's not much fun to be had from the music, either on artistic or novelty/kitsch grounds. The covers are usually middle-of-the-road pop arrangements or unmemorably crude early Beatles-styled pseudo-British beat. There are also a couple really inept ones to supply a few cheap yuks, those being Die Beat-Oma's Mrs. Miller-like warble through "Ich Bin Die Beat-Oma" (to the tune of "A Hard Day's Night") and Die 3 Spitzbuben's "Michelle," played in the manner of a lounge accordion trio, apparently with liberal comedic translation judging from the uproarious audience laughter, though the humor will be entirely lost on non-German speakers. Speaking of getting lost in the translation, even the titles let you know that much liberties were taken for many of these German recordings, with, for instance, "My Sweet Lord" translated as "Wo Ist Er" ("where is he"), "What Is Life" as "Nimm Die Welt Wie Sie Ist" ("take the world as it is"), "Penny Lane" as "Reeperbahn" (!), and "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey" as "Von Calais nach Dover" (double !). Winding the CD down are a half-dozen Beatle tribute discs, some of them early Beatles cash-ins along the lines of "Baby Beatle Song" and "Crazy Beatle Boots," others drearier 1970s homages, like Marianne Rosenberg's "Mr. Paul McCartney." This will fill out the collection of fans obsessed with Beatles ephemera, but even more than its two predecessors, it's more something to collect than to enjoy.

Various Artists, The Harder They Come [Deluxe Edition] (Hip-O/Island). Some liberal interpretation of what can constitute the bonus material of a deluxe edition went into this two-CD edition of The Harder They Come, which in its original release was both a classic reggae album and a classic soundtrack. The additional material on the second disc is not outtakes from the soundtrack or some such intimately related work, but 18 high-grade vintage reggae tracks from the late 1960s and early 1970s. Admittedly some of the newly added songs are by artists who also contributed to the soundtrack, those being Jimmy Cliff, the Maytals, Desmond Dekker, and the Melodians. Then, however, there are a bunch of tunes by artists not involved in the soundtrack at all, like the Uniques, Dave & Ansel Collins, Johnny Nash, and Eric Donaldson. But -- and this is a big but -- the excellence of the additional cuts, along with how they fit well with the music on the original The Harder They Come soundtrack, makes such inconsistencies moot. The original The Harder They Come, comprising all of disc one, remains one of the great reggae albums, crossing over to a non-Jamaican audience more than almost any other reggae release of the era, perhaps because there was so much soul (both literally and figuratively) in the melodies and vocals. The 18 songs on disc two include some core reggae classics, among them some of the biggest reggae-pop crossovers of 1968-72, including Dekker's "Israelites," Johnny Nash's "I Can See Clearly Now" (yes, Nash was American, but this was recorded in Jamaica), Dave & Ansel Collins's zany instrumental "Double Barrel," and Cliff's "Wonderful World, Beautiful People." These are spiced with somewhat lesser-known delights like the Maytals' "Do the Reggay," Cliff's "Viet Nam" [sic], and Donaldson's "Cherry Oh Baby," famously covered by the Rolling Stones on their Black and Blue album. The additional disc, though strictly speaking not directly related to the soundtrack, does what the bonus material on deluxe editions should do, and doesn't always successfully pull off: it makes a classic album better. And for those who want at least a little extra content tied to the film itself, the liner notes include essays by director Perry Henzell, Island Records chief Chris Blackwell, the Clash's Paul Simonon, and reggae author David Katz.

Various Artists, Let's Copp a Groove! Lost UK Soul 1968-72 (RPM). Aside from one-offs by the Equals and the Foundations, British soul made little international impact in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Perhaps the 27 tracks on this compilation, all made on the UK's Beacon label, weren't anything to give Motown or Stax sleepless nights. But they're actually pretty good second-division soul, and not much different from decent second-line American soul of the period. There's some occasional reggae-West Indies influence in the rhythms and vocals, and maybe a touch more pop-rock to many of the arrangements, but otherwise this can hold its own among the many anthologies of the era's US indie-label soul. It's fairly varied as well, even if sometimes the nods to American influences -- such as the Motown and Stax stables -- are pretty overt. At times the ska-reggae influence gets pronounced enough to almost push it as close to a Jamaican direction as an American one, as on Black Velvet's "African Velvet," with its throbbing beats and pulverizing organ; more ultra-cool organ and very Jamaican-like goofball sound effects are heard on the Clangers' "Dance of the Clangers." But then the program turns to something that few would suspect to be anything but American, like Paula Parfitt's sweetly Motownish "Love Is Wonderful." (In fact one act here, the Showstoppers, actually came from Philadelphia, although the cut selected for this compilation is not their UK hit "Ain't Nothin' But a Houseparty.") The disc is recommended to the committed soul collector looking for, and adventurous enough to try, something a little different. Incidentally, Eddy Grant produced and wrote the 1972 single by Tony Morgan and the Mussel Power Band (both sides of which are compiled here, one of them a cover of the Equals' "Black Skinned Blue Eyed Boys"), and Black Velvet cover another of Grant's Equals tunes with "Peace & Love Is the Message" (done by the Equals under the title "Give Love a Try").

Various Artists, Ooh Ooh Ahh: Moments of Musical Ecstacy(Arf! Arf!). The title of this most unusual compilation only hints at what's really on this CD, so let's spell it out: it's the sounds of women (and, only occasionally, both women and men) having or at least emulating having sex, set to an extraordinary variety of musical backings. All of these 21 tracks were recorded in the 1960s (probably the late 1960s) and 1970s, but more details aren't on tap, due not only to the absence of all but the most perfunctory liner notes, but also to the total lack of artist credits for any of the selections (though song titles are given). An educated guess would surmise that some of this stuff was used in sexploitation movie soundtracks, and much of the rest in obscure exploitation albums that you could only buy in adult entertainment stores or the "other" section of conventional record shops.  So what you get is quite a range of sighs, gasps, moans, heaves, and climactic shrieks, backed by basic funk, easy listening, jungle rhythm, disco, soul-jazz, or dramatic soundtrack grooves (often obviously mastered from vinyl, surface noise and all). Is it as much of a turn-on as it's obviously meant to be? No -- for one thing, it's not as fun as doing the real thing yourself, and it could be even more exhausting to hear 21 simulations of the act right after each other than it would be to do the real thing 21 times in a row. Is it fun? Yeah, in part because of the sheer cheesy variety of the variations on this most universal theme. But also, some of the musical backings are neat in a quirky way, getting downright avant-garde on "Bang My Drum Slowly," which is sex as terror backed by nothing but undulating ominous percussion. Sometimes the vocal emissions are pretty ridiculous, particularly on the rare bestial male grunts; the overwhelming percentage of vocal utterances are female, which gives you a good idea that the primary audience is for this stuff is heterosexual guys looking for an aural outlet for their fantasies. That's not to say, though, that some of this might actually make good bedroom mood background depending on your taste, partner, and frame of mind, particularly when the vocals are especially fervent and convincing, as on "Us, We" and "God's Gift." The actually-sung lyrics of "Tawdry Audrey," incidentally, could be one of the most graphic portrayals of fellatio ever put to tape. It's unfortunate, though, that there's absolutely no indication of who these artists were, or where this stuff was originally released or recorded.

Various Artists, The Rare Bacharach 1: 53 Elusive Songs & Versions 1956-1978 (Raven). The three-CD box set The Look of Love: The Burt Bacharach Collection has virtually all of the best and most significant recordings of songs in which Bacharach was involved as composer. The two-CD The Rare Bacharach 1 (most of it composed by Bacharach and Hal David, though a few of the tunes paired Bacharach with other lyricists) is a good supplement to that box, though not without some minor flaws. To start with the more important positives, the breadth of this set is staggering, with recordings -- largely from the 1960s, and none of them major hits -- by stars including Tommy Sands, Paul Anka, Bobby Vee, Little Peggy March, Johnny Mathis, Perry Como, Bobby Vinton, Connie Francis, Del Shannon, Gene Pitney, the Shirelles, Maxine Brown, the Buckinghams, Herman's Hermits, Freddie & the Dreamers, the Hollies, B.J. Thomas, the Fifth Dimension, Tammi Terrell, Engelbert Humperdinck, Andy Williams, Jerry Butler, Frank Ifield, the New Christy Minstrels, and Sylvester. That's just a big portion of the pie: there are also efforts by little-knowns like Noeleen Batley, Julie Rogers, Jimmy Radcliffe, and Australian star Normie Rowe, as well as early-'60s covers from British teen idols Cliff Richard, Adam Faith, and Helen Shapiro.

While much of this is good listening, however, none of it can stand up to the best of Bacharach's work, though a few songs come fairly close, like Pitney's "Fool Killer" (the only track also found on The Look of Love), Marianne Faithfull's "If I Never Get to Love You," the Exciters' "It's Love That Really Counts," Jimmy Radcliffe's "Long After Tonight Is All Over," the Walker Brothers' "Another Tear Falls," and Jackie DeShannon's "Windows and Doors." There are a few really obscure songs that jump out as worthy of wider recognition, like Etta James's "Waiting for Charlie (To Come Home)," Maxine Brown's "I Cry Alone," Rogers's "The Love of a Boy," and (more surprisingly) Jay & the Americans' vibrant Latin-tinged "Look in My Eyes, Maria," but not that many. Too, some of these versions are not the originals, which sometimes leaves room for good or unusual little-heard covers (the Walker Brothers "Another Tear Falls," Faithfull's "If I Never Get to Love You," the Exciters' "It's Love That Really Counts," Mavis Staples's "A House Is Not a Home"), but also sometimes means that you're hearing an interpretation that's clearly inferior to a better-known one (as Rowe's "The Breaking Point" is to Chuck Jackson's, or Dan Johnson's "Mexican Divorce" is to the Drifters'). There's nothing by Bacharach's most renowned interpreter, Dionne Warwick. And a good minority of this is rather unremarkable middle-of-the-road pop without even tenuous links to a pop-rock aesthetic.

To continue the nitpicking, the liner notes are a disappointment, not only offering few specific details about the tracks on the set, but not even listing original release dates or labels (or chart positions, if any). Yes, that's nitpicking, but the very kinds of collectors most likely to pick up a compilation like this are the ones most likely to care about such things. That's not to say this release doesn't offer a lot of pleasure for both the Bacharach scholar and the more general '60s pop-rock fan. With just a little more care, though, it could have been significantly better.

Various Artists, Syde Trips Seven (Tenth Planet). The seventh volume of the collector-oriented Side Tryps series has a very limited audience inherent in its format, which is really, really obscure late-1960s British psychedelia, all but three of the 14 songs previously unreleased. Actually, however, this might have a wider listenership than many such enterprises, due to the close connection of five of these tracks to a big band, King Crimson. For those five 1967 recordings are by the Brain, who included the first King Crimson drummer, Michael Giles, as well as his brother Peter Giles, who later played with Michael and Robert Fripp in the pre-King Crimson trio Giles, Giles & Fripp. The Brain played eccentric, far more pop-oriented (and humorous) music than early King Crimson, though not without some of the ingenuity put to good use when King Crimson started. The five Brain songs here include an earlier version of one ("One in a Million") that would be re-recorded for Giles, Giles & Fripp's 1968 album, as well as another ("Murder") that also showed up, again in re-recorded form, on the Giles, Giles & Fripp demo collection The Brondesbury Tapes (1968). The remaining three Brain tracks aren't quite as memorable, including a
couple Michael Giles originals and an unlikely (though straightforward) cover of Bob Dylan's "Most Likely You Go Your Way and I'll Go Mine." That still leaves nine other tracks, and these are mostly okay, fitfully quirky, but fairly ordinary pop-psychedelia, sometimes of purely archival value. It's hard to imagine anyone getting excited about Fire's faithful recreation of Moby Grape's "Can't Be So Bad," for instance, other than the very small circle of collectors who are fans of Fire's other, almost equally obscure work. There are a couple of exceptions, however, one being "Penelope Breedlove" by the mysterious 6AX, a wonderfully deft minor-keyed slice of bittersweet harmony flower pop with lilting flute. The other is Cliff Ward's 1967 demo of "Path Through the Forest," later given a far heavier rock treatment by the Factory. Ward's original demo, by contrast, is far slower and spookier, the happy-mad lyrics, acoustic guitar chug, and haze of odd electronics and female giggles in the background not sounding too far off Syd Barrett's more low-key songs in early Pink Floyd.

Various Artists, Unearthed Merseybeat (Viper). By "unearthed Merseybeat," Viper Records doesn't just mean obscure Merseybeat, but unheard Merseybeat. Virtually all of these 20 tracks were previously unreleased, though one of them (Wimple Winch's "Rumble On Mersey Square South") has made it onto some mod-psychedelic reissue compilations. The rest is a real cross-quilt of stuff, including a few big or relatively big names (Gerry & the Pacemakers, the Merseybeats, the Merseys, and the Swinging Blue Jeans), but largely devoted to the sort of artists only known by those who read the very small print of record collecting magazine articles about the British Invasion. Given the arcane sources, the sound quality is understandably variable, from release-quality excellence to tracks seemingly taken from the dustiest of acetates and decaying reel-to-reel tapes. Even taking that into account, this is a worthy and occasionally fascinating dig into the Merseybeat remains, most of this dating from the early-to-mid-1960s, but stretching back as far as 1957 and as late as 1968. The best buried treasure is an alternate version of the Merseys' "Sorrow," minus the brass heard on the hit UK single, and in some ways preferable to the slicker, more familiar version. The Merseybeats' "The Things I Want to Hear (Pretty Words)" is a quite good 1964 outtake, just as good as most of their singles. Also in the classic bouncy, melodic Merseybeat style, and pretty good tunewise, are the Kirkbys' "Don't You Want Me No More" and the Eyes' "She," the personnel on the latter including Beatles associate Klaus Voormann and Lewis Collins of the Mojos. A good deal of this CD, however, is far more in the rawer R&B or instrumental rock vein, including a 1961 cover of "What'd I Say" by Gerry & the Pacemakers and a very good cover of Buddy Holly's "I'm Gonna Love You Too" by Denny Seyton & the Sabres. At the more modern end of the scale, the Swinging Blue Jeans' 1966 outtake "Keep Me Warm ('Til the Sun Shines)" is more interesting harmony mod-pop than much of what they were putting out on their official records at that point; the Kirkbys' "Dreaming" is a nice mid-'60s Beatlesish soundalike with flowery lyrics; Jason Eddie's "Mr. Busdriver" is fair late-'60s mod rock with a tinge of soul; and Wimple Winch's "Rumble on Mersey Square South" a superb slice of ominous storytelling mod rock. Though it's an archival compilation, in a way this reflects the actual range of Merseyside '60s rock better than anthologies concentrating on the well-known mid-'60s hits acts.

ALBUM REVIEWS: A SELECTION OF RECENT RELEASES, SUMMER 2003:

• The Aerovons, Resurrection
• The Beatles, A Long and Winding Road [DVD]
• Booker T. & the MGs, Soul Men
• Cream, BBC Sessions
• Bob Dylan, The Witmark Years
• The Easybeats, The Very Best of the Easybeats
• Fairport Convention, Fairport Convention
• Fairport Convention, What We Did on Our Holidays
• Fairport Convention, Unhalfbricking
• Nashville West, The Legendary Nashville West Album
• The Outsiders, Strange Things Are Happening
• The Velvet Underground, Volume One [DVD]
• The Velvet Underground, Volume Two [DVD]
• Clarence White, Tuff & Stringy: Sessions 1966-68
• Warren Zevon, The First Sessions
• Various Artists, Byrds Parts 2
• Various Artists, Go Girl: Dream Babes Vol. 4
• Various Artists, Pillows & Prayers: Cherry Red Records 1981-1984 [DVD]
• Various Artists, Studio One Story

The Aerovons, Resurrection (RPM). The dozen songs that would have been on the Aerovons' album had it come out (though a couple did come out on a 1969 single) form the core of this release, which also tacks on four bonus tracks. The Aerovons' unusual story -- a band from the American midwest recording in Abbey Road in 1969, led and produced by their 17-year-old singer-songwriter -- might be the main reason there was interest in excavating these sessions, but this CD's not a mere curio. It's quite respectable late-'60s Beatles-style pop-rock, if a little green around the edges and pretty derivative. In fact, in a couple of spots it's downright imitative, with "Say Georgia" taking licks from "Oh! Darling" and "Resurrection" itself from "Across the Universe." (Neither of those songs had yet been released by the Beatles at the time of the sessions, but the group heard them by virtue of working in Abbey Road.) Fortunately, those are the only blatant cops, though Beatles comparisons abound throughout, particularly in the Paul McCartneyesque piano-playing. Songs like "With Her" and "The Years" recall the acoustic outings of both John Lennon and Paul McCartney on The White Album, while "Bessie Goodheart" uses McCartney's more vaudevillian Sgt. Pepper-era outings as an obvious launching pad, and "Something of Yours" brings to mind "Michelle." To this list you could also add the very Lennonesque echo on the vocal of "The Children." The Aerovons leaned more toward wistful and sadness-tinged moods than the Beatles did, though. One of the best tracks, "World of You," brings out that quality very well, recalling the better late-'60s orchestrated Bee Gees opuses. The  bonus tracks include both sides of a non-LP 1969 single ("The Train," their poppiest number, echoes both the Hollies and the Bee Gees), the outtake "Here" (very much like McCartney's piano ballads), and a demo of "World of You."

The Beatles, A Long and Winding Road [DVD] (Passport Video). A most peculiar production, this five-DVD, seven-hour box set, which as the case emphasizes (in tiny print) "is neither endorsed nor authorized by the Beatles or Apple Corp." That's a big disadvantage when you're trying to do a comprehensive visual history of the Beatles, cutting off access not just to the surviving Beatles and their closest associates, but also to a lot of great key '60s footage and original Beatles music for the soundtrack. It's also bound to suffer unfavorable comparisons with Anthology, the massive authorized Beatles documentary that, while not perfect, was quite excellent, with extensive interviews with Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, George Harrison, and George Martin, as well as about all the fine clips a fan could wish for. So while it's unstated, basically this set is trying to pick up any available crumbs that Anthology didn't sweep up, coming up with not so much a Yellow Submarine as a Yellow Submarine Sandwich, to pinch a line from the Rutles. It's not so much an alternative Anthology as a supplement to Anthology that the hardcore Beatles fan might want to check out.

Within those limitations, the filmmakers did a good but not great job. The core of the production, and its best features, are the more than 40 people they interviewed. To be honest these are more peripheral figures than intimate associates, but still many of them did have a notable if secondary role to play in the group's intricate history. Among them are several members of the Quarrymen; Allan Williams, their quasi-manager in the early 1960s prior to Brian Epstein; Tony Sheridan, whom the Beatles backed on their first studio recordings; Alistair Taylor, longtime assistant to both Epstein and the Beatles; Billy Preston, who played keyboards on the Let It Be sessions; and John Lennon's half-sister, Julia Baird. Often, though, the figures have tenuous (or even no) direct connections with the Fab Four, including members of very obscure fellow Liverpool bands; Beatles chauffeur Alf Bicknell; Brian Epstein's secretary; or even members of the Bootleg Beatles tribute band.

That's not exactly the same as, for instance, interviewing Yoko Ono, Pete Best, Astrid Kirschherr, Allen Klein, Richard Lester, or Abbey Road engineers Geoff Emerick and Norman Smith, to name just a few interesting figures not heard from in Anthology. Still, since Anthology did not include any interviews from anyone other than McCartney, Harrison, Starr, Martin, road manager/assistant Neil Aspinall, and publicist Derek Taylor, the wealth of different perspectives does have some value. The interviews go over material that will be familiar to many Beatlemaniacs, but relatively fresh stories and perspectives do surface sometimes (Tony Sheridan reveals he hated the Beatles' image and material in the early days of Beatlemania),  and some figures, such as Williams, Sheridan, and Taylor, are entertaining storytellers. There are also some mundane interviews, and the one with Rod Murray (roommate of Stuart Sutcliffe and John Lennon in their art school days) suffers from atrocious sound quality, though otherwise the audio and camerawork is of a reasonably professional standard.

The non-interview footage is far more disappointing, even considering the lack of access to the Beatles and Apple. There are bits of both silent and audio Beatles performance footage, but nothing too revealing (and often from sources that viewers will have already seen elsewhere). Actual Beatles music is heard only in very brief snippets during the footage, and for that matter is only heard very briefly, very faintly, and very occasionally as incidental background music. There are occasional brief clips of interest, such as a little of Pete Best in the mid-1960s as a guest on the TV show What's My Line?, and some good still photos. The use of cheesy pseudo-early-'60s style music for backgrounds and links detracts rather than adds to the viewing pleasure, emphasizing the absence of genuine Beatles recordings.

Most problematic of all, however, is the jagged structure of the discs, which would hardly serve as a workable history of the band for the few viewers who might not know the basic details of the Beatles' career. Far more attention is paid to their pre-recording days than their actual heyday, with three of the five discs devoted to their pre-1963 activities. There's little linkage supplied of basic information as to their records and key events in their rise to fame and artistic evolution. Ultimately it's for fanatics who know the story (and probably have Anthology), and want numerous bits and pieces of Beatles trivia, many of which admittedly are interesting. The only bonus footage is additional interview material with Julia Baird, Alf Bicknell, Alistair Taylor, Tony Sheridan, and Mersey Beat magazine founder Bill Harry, which is substantially less interesting than the excerpts used for the main feature, with Bicknell and Taylor in particular digressing into rather tedious and interminable stories.

Booker T. & the MGs, Soul Men (Stax). Although all of these 25 cover versions were recorded in the 1960s, none of them were released at the time. Unfortunately, info as to the exact dates of the individual tracks has been lost, though Stax scholar Rob Bowman's liner notes figure that most of it was cut between 1965-68, with some possibly dating from 1962-64. Putting all of them onto a single disc decades later might seem like a vault-cleaning exercise of secondary material. But this turns out to be a surprisingly good and vibrant collection of soul instrumental interpretations of rock, soul, and pop hits of the '60s, even if it's not up to the level of Booker T. & the MGs more famous hits and original numbers. Even though these were often laid down quickly before or after sessions on which the band were backing other artists, most of these don't sound like throwaways. They're characteristically disciplined and imaginative, and the scope is remarkably wide, taking in Beatles songs, blues ("Wang Dang Doodle" and "Baby Scratch My Back"), Motown, straight pop ("Downtown"), and even some songs on which Booker T. & the MGs actually played on the original recordings (Sam & Dave's "Soul Man" and "When Something Is Wrong with My Baby," Eddie Floyd's "On a Saturday Night"). Not all of the reworkings are top-notch; the Beatles' "You Can't Do That" is taken at a jazzy shuffle that doesn't suit the tune. But most of them are very good, and not straight copies of the original arrangements, the band effectively cooking up different tempos and simmering guitar-organ interplay.

Cream, BBC Sessions (Polydor). This compilation of 22 Cream BBC tracks from 1966-68 marked a major addition to the group's discography, particularly as they released relatively little product during their actual lifetime. All of but two of these cuts ("Lawdy Mama" and the 1968 version of "Steppin' Out," which had appeared on Eric Clapton's Crossroads box) were previously unreleased, and although many of these had made the round on bootlegs, the sound and presentation here is unsurprisingly preferable. As for actual surprises, there aren't many. It's a good cross-section of songs from their studio records, though a couple, "Steppin' Out" and "Traintime," only appeared on live releases, and some of these BBC takes actually predate the release and recording of the album versions, which makes them of historical interest for intense Cream fans. (There are also four brief interviews with Eric Clapton from the original broadcasts.) There's a mild surprise in the absence of a version of "White Room," but otherwise many of the group's better compositions and covers are here, including "I Feel Free," "N.S.U.," "Strange Brew," "Tales of Brave Ulysses," "Sunshine of Your Love," "Born Under a Bad Sign," "Outside Woman Blues," "Crossroads," "We're Going Wrong," "I'm So Glad," "SWLABR," and "Politician." Cream took better advantage of the live-in-the-studio BBC format than some groups of similar stature. There's a lean urgency to most of the performances that, while not necessarily superior to the more fully realized and polished studio renditions, do vary notably in ambience from the more familiar versions. The sound quality is good but not perfect, and variable; sometimes it's excellent, yet at other times there seem to be imperfections in the tapes sourced, with "Sunshine of Your Love" suffering from a (not grievously) hollow, muffled quality. If there's any other slight criticism of this set, it's that a handful of BBC tracks don't appear, including some that don't make it onto this CD in any version, like "Sleepy Time Time," "Toad," and "Sitting on Top of the World." Given Cream's tendency to over-improvise on their live concert recordings, however, the concise nature of these BBC tracks (none of which exceed five minutes) makes them preferable listening in some respects.

Bob Dylan, The Witmark Years (Capricorn). In 1962-64, Bob Dylan recorded several dozen publishing demos for Witmark Music in their New York office, featuring only his acoustic guitar or (on about half a dozen cuts) his piano as accompaniment. This chronologically sequenced two-CD set compiles all 41 of his known Witmark recordings (though two of them , "Eternal Circle" and "Percy's Song," are labeled "possible Witmark demos"). Dylan didn't release many of these songs in any form on his official pre-1965 albums, although there are different versions of some classics ("Blowin' in the Wind," "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall," "Girl from the North Country," "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright"), and three of these demos ("Walkin' Down the Line" and the "piano" versions of "The Times They Are A-Changin'" and "When the Ship Comes In")  appeared on Dylan's official The Bootleg Series Vol. 1-3 compilation. Despite their imperfections -- notably variable sound quality which is definitely below official release standard -- these recordings close a notable gap in his repertoire not covered by his commonly available early albums. Among them are versions of numerous obscurities that didn't make the cut for his early Columbia albums, some of them quite good, like "Seven Curses," "Baby, I'm in the Mood for You," "Tomorrow Is a Long Time," "Paths of Victory," "Mama, You Been on My Mind," and "Percy's Song." Especially interesting is a 1964 piano demo of "Mr. Tambourine Man" (not the same as the more famous studio outtake with Dylan on guitar and Ramblin' Jack Elliott on harmony vocals), as well as an early piano demo of "I'll Keep It with Mine" from the same June 1964 session. Not everything here is notable; some of the songs are clearly secondary or derivative throwaways (though even some of the throwaways, like "Walkin' Down the Line" and "Guess I'm Doing Fine," are pretty cool). Too, Dylan's performances, while in general good, usually aren't quite up to the level of his Columbia studio takes; on "Let Me Die in My Footsteps," amusingly, he cuts the song off after a minute and a half with the complaint, "You want to put this on? 'Cause it's awful long...it's a drag, I sang it so many times." Note that the rendition of "I Shall Be Free" here contains a verse not included on the official version on The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan.

The Easybeats, The Very Best of the Easybeats (Varese Sarabande). Several Easybeats best-of compilations prefaced the appearance of this one, including a mid-1980s Rhino anthology, Best of the Easybeats, which had a track lineup (and title) similar to this 2003 release. Like that Rhino compilation, although this overall does a decent job of gathering the best material by the band that was widely exposed to the US/UK markets, it's not an optimal survey of their work. Its main flaw is the near-total absence of pre-"Friday on My Mind" mid-'60s tracks recorded primarily for the Australian market -- tracks that included some of their best and most exciting singles, like "Wedding Ring," "Sad & Lonely & Blue," and "She's So Fine." The 18 tracks on this CD, however, are generally high-quality pop-rock with a big British Invasion influence, whether of the rowdy mid-'60s kind or of the slightly later pop-psychedelic sort. While "Friday on My Mind" might remain the only track here familiar to the average listener, it does include their smaller British hit "Hello, How Are You"; the big 1966 Aussie hits "Sorry" and "Make You Feel Alright (Women)"; good flops like "Gonna Have a Good Time (Good Times)"; and standout B-sides like "Pretty Girl" and "Land of Make Believe." As a small but praiseworthy perk, this also has the American versions of their cult singles "Falling Off the Edge of the World" (that one in mono), "Come In, You'll Get Pneumonia," and "Hello, How Are You," which are actually preferable to the more elaborate, heavily orchestrated different ones that circulate on other releases. Also on board is the "fast" European single versio