ALBUM REVIEWS: A SELECTION OF RECENT RELEASES, WINTER 2004-2005:

• Brigitte Bardot, Initiales B.B.
• Chris Farlowe, Handbags and Gladrags: The Immediate Collection
• Neil Innes, Taking Off/The Innes Book of Records
• Jefferson Airplane, Fly Jefferson Airplane [DVD]
• Kenny Lynch, Nothing But the Real Thing
• Bob Marley & the Wailers, Fy-ah, Fy-ah
• The Move/The Small Faces, Colour Me Pop [DVD bootleg]
• The Pilgrims, Telling Youth...The Truth
• The Rascals, Come On Up [DVD bootleg]
• The Staple Singers, The Ultimate Staple Singers: A Family Affair
• Charlie Tweddle, Fantastic Greatest Hits
• The Velvelettes, The Motown Anthology
• Various Artists, Cambodian Cassette Archives: Khmer Folk and Pop Music Vol. 1
• Various Artists, Gene Vincent Cut Our Songs: Primitive Texas Rockabilly & Honky Tonk
• Various Artists, The Story of Treasure Isle
• Various Artists, Unearthed Merseybeat Vol. 2
• Various Artists, Where Will You Be Christmas Day?
• The Mayor of the Sunset Strip [DVD]
• Wattstax [DVD]

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          CLICK HERE FOR SUMMER 2004 ALBUM REVIEWS
          CLICK HERE FOR SPRING 2004 ALBUM REVIEWS
          CLICK HERE FOR WINTER 2003-2004 ALBUM REVIEWS

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Brigitte Bardot, Initiales B.B. (Philips). This three-CD, 55-song box set has almost everything Bardot recorded, virtually all of it from the 1960s and early 1970s. It's not quite everything: it's missing some later singles, as well as rarities like cuts from the soundtrack of Viva Maria, the English version of "Bonnie and Clyde," and the Bardot/Sacha Distel duet "La Bise Aux Hippies." It's true there was probably enough remaining room on the discs to include all of the absent material (for the record, a bunch of the missing rare singles tracks from the late 1960s and early 1970s can be heard on a CD compilation titled simply Brigitte Bardot, on Universal/Mercury 981794). However, it's certainly enough, or even more than enough, for most Brigitte Bardot fans, with just about everything else from her various LPs, EPs, and 45s. It also has four previously unreleased tracks, those being inessential 1962 duets with Jean-Max Riviere and Olivier Despax; the 1963 outtake "La Belle Et Le Blues"; and "Sei Arrivato Amor Mio," an Italian version of her 1973 single "Vous Ma Lady."

Considering her meager (albeit appealing in their own way) vocal talents and the highly uneven quality of her releases, most such fans will be better off with an intelligently selected single-CD compilation, like The Best of Bardot, which focuses on her more pop-rock-oriented work and has all of her best interpretations of Serge Gainsbourg songs. The sporadic flashes of near-brilliance, mostly evident on the wilder late-'60s Gainsbourg collaborations -- particularly "Contact," "Harley Davidson," and "Bonnie and Clyde" -- make one wish that someone had possessed the vision to continue matching Bardot with such strong material. Yet there are some worthwhile, fun performances on here that don't always make the best-ofs, even if you have to swim through a bunch of her corny vaudevillian efforts (particularly in her early days) to get to them. Among those would be the sad, pretty ballads "Une Histoire de Plage" and "Un Jour Comme un Autre"; the faux mod go-go tune "Je Danse Donc Je Suis" (which translates to "I dance, therefore I am"); the breezy "Les Cheveux Dans Le Vent"; the almost sultry jazz-pop of "Les Hommes Endormis"; and the bouncy 1966 EP cut "Gang Gang," which has quite a few solid pop hooks that are almost reminiscent of the '66 Kinks, and would have a well-earned place on an average Bardot best-of comp. There's also the not-inconsiderable bonus of the 32-page booklet, even if you can't read the French notes, as it has a complete discography and is lushly illustrated with photos, many taken from rare picture sleeves.

Chris Farlowe, Handbags and Gladrags: The Immediate Collection (Castle). Zeroing in exclusively on his 1965-69 stint for Immediate Records, this is the best Farlowe anthology, with 27 songs and 77 minutes of music on a single CD. It was this era that saw Farlowe's only significant commercial success as a solo act, and the disc includes all half-dozen of his British chart singles (although only one of those, the chart-topping cover of the Rolling Stones' "Out of Time," was a truly big seller). It also has seven covers of Mick Jagger-Keith Richard songs (which were produced by Jagger as well), though all of these were done much better by the Rolling Stones themselves. To be harsh, as good value (and well-annotated) as this is, 27 songs might be too much for the more casual collector, some of the lesser tracks exposing Farlowe's weaknesses as a blustery blue-eyed soul singer. There are, however, some decent and overlooked cuts as well, like the original version of "Handbags and Gladrags" (though Rod Stewart's subsequent cover of the tune would become the definitive one), and the weirdly imaginative sitar-laden arrangement of the jazz standard "Moanin,'" which gave Farlowe a low-charting single. Too, some of the later efforts find Farlowe toning down his vocal excesses for some uncharacteristically gentle and effective numbers, like "Everyone Makes a Mistake" (which sounds quite a bit like early Rod Stewart), "Dawn," the folk-rockish "Paperman Fly in the Sky," and "The Last Goodbye" (penned by "Handbags and Gladrags" author Mike d'Abo). Odder items include "North South East West," co-written by Farlowe and Albert Lee, a one-time member of Farlowe's backing band; the soul ballad "Baby Make It Soon," co-written by Andrew Oldham and future Alan Parsons Project member Eric Woolfson; and a bizarre cover of Bob Dylan's "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue," arranged to sound like (of all things) the Four Tops' "I Can't Help Myself."

Neil Innes, Taking Off/The Innes Book of Records (Hux). It may be that Neil Innes will always be most acclaimed for his work within the Bonzo Dog Band and the Rutles, particularly in the United States, where nothing else he's done has even gotten the cult audiences that those two bands did. His 1977 solo album Taking Off and its 1979 follow-up Book of Records (here paired together on one CD) might not be his best or funniest work, but they're certainly respectable efforts, even if they do tilt the focus away from his most riotous spoofs and toward his more conventional singer-songwriter talents. On each album, his skill for gently ribbing pastiches of a wide range of pop and rock styles is in abundance, though Taking Off (with fellow Rutle John Halsey doing some of the drums) is more musically satisfying. Taking Off covers a lot of ground in its slightly wacky tunes, from hoe-down country ("Crystal Balls," which opens with the memorable line "I got my hand up the skirt of Mother Nature") and gospel-rock ("God Is Love") to a moving ballad to an inflatable doll ("Randy Raquel), a cheery murder mini-epic ("Drama on a Saturday Night"), and easy listening pop ("La Vie en Rose"), as well as "Shangri-La," which was eventually redone in the 1990s on the Rutles' second album. It doesn't all border on satire, however; much of it's pleasingly melodic, if wry, observational-oriented pop-rock that shows Innes to be a pretty able fellow traveler in the steps of fellow British icons Ray Davies and Paul McCartney. While The Innes Book of Records is similar to Taking Off, it suffers a little in comparison, mostly due to a more mainstream, occasionally AOR-ish dated late-'70s production feel. It still has enjoyably affectionate, if low-key, knock-ups of late-'60s John Lennon-penned Beatles songs ("Montana Cafe" will find favor with Rutles admirers), lightly discofied '70s British pop ("Here We Go Again"), actual disco ("Amoeba Boogie," one of the least effective tracks), the British music hall, reggae ("Human Race"), Tin Pan Alley ("Spontaneous"), and Latin-lite easy listening ("Etcetera"). And there's still room for some pretty funny lyrics, a la "you're so spontaneous, please don't ever change."

Jefferson Airplane, Fly Jefferson Airplane [DVD] (Eagle Vision). This is a refreshingly straightforward, no-nonsense historical overview of Jefferson Airplane that, while not quite a documentary, sticks (unlike so many similar projects) to what the fans really want to see: complete archive clips of the band at their peak in 1966-70 (as well as "Embryonic Journey" from their Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony in the 1990s), linked by interviews with band members. While some of this has circulated on other official and unofficial video releases, the dozen performances are first-rate. These include some rarely-seen items like a lip-synch of "It's No Secret" at the Fillmore Auditorium from August 1966 (with original woman singer Signe Anderson still in the lineup); a promo video-like collage of images to accompany "Martha," from a Perry Como television special; a New York City live rooftop blast through "House at Pooneil Corners," done for Jean-Luc Godard and D.A. Pennebaker's obscure film One P.M.; "Ballad of You & Me & Pooneil," done live at the Family Dog; and a promo film for "We Can Be Together." Strictly speaking some good footage doesn't make the cut, like "Today" from Monterey Pop and their segment from the 1970 Dutch festival documentary Stamping Ground. But what's here is fairly plentiful and plenty good, including versions of other of their most famous songs, like "Somebody to Love," "White Rabbit," "Crown of Creation," "Lather," and "Volunteers." The interviews -- conducted shortly before this 2004 release -- include comments by all six of the musicians in the Airplane's most famous lineup (Grace Slick, Paul Kantner, Marty Balin, Jack Casady, Spencer Dryden, and Jorma Kaukonen), as well as brief snippets from Dryden's replacement, drummer Joey Covington. Those interviews aren't just window dressing intros -- they're fairly informative and entertaining, with comments on both crucial moments in the band's history and some of the specific clips, well-edited so that extraneous material is avoided (and if you find the alternation of music and talking heads distracting, the DVD gives you the option of just watching the performances). The bonus interviews include worthwhile segments on Bill Graham and their performances at the Woodstock and Altamont festivals, as well as brief chats with their light show operator Glenn McKay and engineer Maurice Ieraci. Liner notes by Jefferson Airplane biographer Jeff Tamarkin also provide useful context for the visuals.

Kenny Lynch, Nothing But the Real Thing (RPM). A couple dozen songs from 1960-69, all (with one exception) taken from Lynch's singles, are on this well-done retrospective of the minor British soul-pop singer. All of his '60s UK chart hits are here -- "Up on the Roof," "You Can Never Stop Me Loving You," "Stand By Me," "What Am I to You," "Puff (Up in Smoke)," "Mountain of Love," and "I'll Stay By You." There's also his weedy early-1963 version of "Misery," the first cover of a Beatles song ever to hit the market. In a way, it's a mini-catalog of some of the poppier styles of the British '60s scene, including American-style soul ("My Own Two Feet"); a Righteous Brothers near-imitation ("Movin' Away"); songs with obvious debts to the Bacharach-David school of composition; an obscure Gerry Goffin-Carole King cover ("The World I Used to Know"); and, weirdest of all, a detour into blues-rock that sounds like the early Rolling Stones trying to rewrite Chuck Berry's "Little Queenie" (on the 1963 B-side "Harlem Library"). At other points, there are echoes of the early-'60s Drifters, Phil Spector, Neil Diamond, and corny orchestrated pre-Beatles British pop-rock. And on the later sides, there's a growing measure of sophisticated soul, even laying on a tiny bit of bee-buzzing freaky psychedelic guitar on "Sweet Situation." What's it missing? Well, in a more conceptual sense, a strong musical identity: Lynch's voice is more versatile than distinctive, and though some of the songs are reasonably strong, none of them are really killer. In a specific collector-oriented sense, it by no means picks up all of his '60s output; the only other Lynch CD compilation, the probably-unauthorized 31-track The Very Best of...Kenny Lynch, has 19 songs that don't appear on Nothing But the Real Thing. Still, Nothing But the Real Thing covers Lynch's 1965-69 releases much more extensively (and also includes "Harlem Library," which The Very Best of...Kenny Lynch lacks). With better sound quality and good historical liner notes to boot, it's likely to remain the best Lynch compilation.

Bob Marley & the Wailers, Fy-ah, Fy-ah (JAD/Universal). Despite being encased in a handsome box set featuring a 16-page booklet decorated with nice graphics, the rambling liner notes and other documentation don't give a totally clear idea of when the 68 tracks on this three-CD package were recorded, or (less forgivably) a totally clear context of how they fit into Bob Marley & the Wailers' career. It's more important to enjoy vintage reggae than to get upset about the historical details, however, and all you really need to know is that this material was cut circa 1967-70, mostly for JAD (though there are a half-dozen sides identified as "Wail'n'Soul'm" versions, presumably indicating recordings done for their own Wail'n'Soul'm label). Most important of all, this is really first-rate early reggae music, from a juncture in the group's career that's been too ill-documented, despite having yielded much fine work. While relatively few of these songs will be familiar to many Marley/Wailers fans (an early version of "Stir It Up" and "Soul Rebel" being exceptions), it could be argued that at no other time did the band strike such an even balance between early reggae, lingering American soul influences, tender love songs, and stirring social consciousness. The production is for the most part pretty clear, and always lighter and more basic than the somewhat slicker recordings through which Marley and the Wailers would rise to international stardom in the 1970s. Sometimes there's even a mild pop touch, particularly as non-Jamaican musicians (including guitarist Eric Gale, drummer Bernard Purdie, and jazzman Hugh Masekela) play on some of the cuts. Too, there's a real sense of these singers being a true group, even if Marley wrote the lion's share of the tunes, as there's so much effective give-and-take vocal harmonies among the Wailers (with Rita Marley's voice frequently heard in the mix). There are too many quality songs to specifically cite in one or two paragraphs, but "How Many Times," "Gonna Get You," "Freedom Time," "Fire Fire," "Rocking Steady," "Hypocrites," "Can't You See," and "Mr. Chatterbox" are all among the outstanding ones. As for less expected covers, you have the Archies' "Sugar Sugar," the traditional spiritual "This Train," and pretty nice American pop-influenced tunes written by JAD's Jimmy Norman and his collaborators, while emerging Rastafarianism can be heard in "Selassie Is the Chapel." Eight "versions," less essential than the fully vocalized renditions but nice for collectors to have, fill out the CDs, the last of which ends with a demo of "One Love, True Love" and a "Dub Plate special" of "How Many Times."

The Move/The Small Faces, Colour Me Pop [DVD bootleg] (Silvertone). This probably unauthorized DVD is divided into two segments taken from late-'60s broadcasts on the British TV program Colour Me Pop, one devoted to the Small Faces, the other to the Move. Not a whole lot of Move footage has been seen since the group disbanded (particularly in the United States, where the band never had commercial success), so the availability of this disc is to be welcomed by Move fans, despite its imperfections. The only major flaw in the Move portion is the less-than-stellar image quality, though it's quite watchable and not a major distraction. Apparently taken from a single episode (as the group appears in the same clothes throughout), a guess would place this in early 1969, as one of the songs they play is their big British hit "Blackberry Way" (which made its splash around that time), and as the lineup is the quartet of Carl Wayne, Roy Wood, Bev Bevan, and Trevor Burton, original member Ace Kefford having departed. The stage presentation is straightforward, and not as flashy as some might expect; some earlier Move clips that have surfaced are more kinetic and colorful. But as compensation, the set is live, not lip-synced, allowing us to focus on the band proving themselves as a very capable concert unit. There are some mild surprises that wouldn't be evident from just being familiar with their records: their considerable skill at doing sophisticated three-part harmonies live, the occasional burst of lead vocals from unheralded bassist Burton, and the full sound they achieve with just Wood's guitar, Burton's bass, and Bevan's drums (though Wayne does play guitar on "The Christian Life"). The songs include some of their biggest hits ("Blackberry Way," "I Can Hear the Grass Grow," "Flowers in the Rain," "Fire Brigade") and better non-hits ("Beautiful Daughter" and a very Byrds-y cover of Tom Paxton's "The Last Thing on My Mind"), though "Blackberry Way" audibly suffers from the loss of the mellotron in the recorded version. Probably of most interest to the committed Move fan are a couple of songs they didn't put on their official releases, those being covers of "The Christian Life" and "Goin' Back," almost certainly based on the arrangements the Byrds used when they covered those numbers themselves on late-'60s albums. As for the Small Faces' part of the DVD, incidentally, while the content (the band playing much of their Ogden's Nut Gone Flake album live on Colour Me Pop in June 1968, complete with narration by Stan Unwin}) is enticing, both the image and sound are lamentably rather poor -- far more so than they are for the Move's performance on the same DVD.

The Pilgrims, Telling Youth...The Truth (LRL). Here's a real curiosity of the British Invasion: a band who sound much like hundreds if not thousands of third-string groups in England from the mid-1960s, with one crucial difference -- all the lyrics are of a devout Christian religious nature. Christian-themed rock groups of subsequent eras would often be musically mild and mainstream in stance, but that's not the case with the Pilgrims, who play in a pretty raw, R&B-influenced style on most of these 21 tracks. Recorded between 1962 and 1967 (in fairly primitive circumstances judging from the demo nature of the fidelity), they hover somewhere between amateurism and professionalism, though they're closer to professionalism. Most often they favor the early Rolling Stones-Pretty Things-ish styled of heavily blues-R&B-influenced British Invasion rock with a naive flavor, in the mold of countless obscure English bands of the time, though some of the material has a strong Merseybeat feel, and what sound like the very earliest recordings have a pre-Beatles Joe Meek-ish vibe. It's actually not at all bad -- and not as derivative (though it is pretty derivative) as some archival releases from UK bands with similar influences, as all the material's original. It's not all that great or remarkable either, and while the lyrics -- usually urging putting one's life in the hands of God and Jesus -- are certainly different for this particular thing, they're just as repetitive (and in some respects clumsy) as the basic love-centered lyrics by the standard struggling garage band of the era. Indeed, one's so much more accustomed to hearing lyrics about girls and young love by these kind of bands that the incessant use of words about the Christian faith is kind of jarring.

The Rascals, Come On Up [DVD bootleg] (Silvertone). Footage of the Rascals isn't too easy to come by except in bits and pieces. So this probably-not-above-board compilation of 1965-69 television clips is nice to see, even if the image quality and transfer aren't always up to accepted minimal industry standards. The 20 performances include (sometimes in multiple versions) some of their biggest hits, like "Good Lovin'," "People Got to Be Free," "Groovin'," "I've Been Lonely Too Long," and "A Girl Like You." There are also less celebrated tunes like "I Ain't Gonna Eat My Heart Out Anymore" (the earliest clip, from Hullabaloo in 1965), "Come On Up," "Heaven," "Love Is a Beautiful Thing," and covers of "Since I Fell for You" and "Slow Down." Visually, you get to see them change from the uniformed knickers-wearing, just-off-the-New York club-circuit combo to a far more hirsute psychedelic image, though the music always remains soulful. It's a mixture of mimed and more exciting genuinely live performances, making plain some aspects of the group that aren't immediately evident just from hearing their records, like Dino Danelli's muscular drumming, Eddie Brigati and Gene Cornish's excellent vocal harmonies, and (in some brief interview segments) their heavy New York spoken accents. Unfortunately the image quality is erratic: the Hullabaloo segments, for instance, are excellent, while others are somewhat marred by shakiness and garish color transfer. It's all watchable, however, the audio coming through better than the video.

The Staple Singers, The Ultimate Staple Singers: A Family Affair (Kent). Considering what a long, popular, and respected career the Staple Singers had, it's surprising that there was no comprehensive compilation prior to this 2004 release that spanned their gospel and soul eras, from the 1950s to the 1980s. You can count on the Ace group of labels to do these things right, however, and this two-CD, 44-song set is a very good summary of their career highlights, even if it inevitably can't include all of their outstanding performances. All of their big soul hits are here, naturally, but what makes this especially available is the presence of much material predating their hookup with Stax in the late 1960s. The earliest recording goes all the way back to 1953, and the first half or so of disc one is all pre-Stax, with gospel sides from the mid-1950s through the mid-1960s for various labels, including "This May Be the Last Time" (which famously helped inspire the Rolling Stones' "The Last Time"), "Uncloudy Day," and their cover of Bob Dylan's "A Hard Rain's a Gonna Fall." Their transition from gospel to soul on Epic in the mid-1960s is also represented by a handful of sides, including Pop Staples' "Why (Am I Treated So Bad)" and their low-charting cover of Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth." And while their Stax era is understandably covered with far greater depth than any other, some relatively little-known worthy efforts from that period are here alongside the hits. There are, for instance, socially conscious "message songs" such as "The Ghetto," "Long Walk to DC," "When Will We Be Paid for the Work We Did," and "Who Took the Merry Out of Christmas"; unreleased solo sides by Pop Staples and Mavis Staples; and a remix of their "Oh La De Da" single that removes the fake audience noise. A few post-Stax tracks with slicker production are here too (among them their huge 1975 hit "Let's Do It Again"), and while it could be argued that a few more pre-Stax numbers would have been more artistically satisfying, it does round off the documentation of this major group's work, augmented by a detailed history in the 28-page booklet.

Charlie Tweddle, Fantastic Greatest Hits (Companion). Recorded in 1971 and originally released in 1974 in a small pressing of 500 copies (and credited to "Eilrahc Elddewt," i.e. Charlie Tweddle spelled backwards), this mighty eccentric acid folk rarity was reissued on CD thirty years later, complete with a half-dozen previously unreleased bonus tracks cut between 1971 and 1973. Coming perilously close to the "outsider" or at least "incredibly strange music" categories, it's a little like a combination of Wild Man Fischer, busking Bob Dylan imitators, the Legendary Stardust Cowboy, and the Holy Modal Rounders. Even that doesn't quite do it justice, as it's pocked with the idiosyncrasy (and low fidelity) of many a vanity pressing. Tweddle comes across as a hippiefied country-folk yokel, not as talentless as the worst such singers you'll come across strumming to themselves and passerby in public parks, but not one possessed of conventionally pleasing songwriting or singing abilities either. At times it's like hearing an unwitting self-satire of burnt-out '60s counterculture folk minstrelsy, the eight tracks from the original LP (all are untitled) not so much songs as scraps without beginnings and ends. To the somewhat dissonant clamor are added almost random but in-their-way-goofily-inspired sound effects, whether of pinging sliding guitar notes, animal noises, crickets, ocean waves, and way-too-long pauses between tracks. There are some (not many) bursts of amusing wordplay, though, particularly in the fifth track (it's untitled, remember), where Tweddle declares, "I love Lucy, she's so fat and juicy, like a hog in the mud," pig-like snorts added for emphasis. It's but a warm-up for the weirdness of the 22-minute (untitled, need we remind you) track that originally took up all of side two, starting off with an atom-bomb like explosion and consisting mostly of chirping crickets, with occasional snatches of acid-folk song and other oddments. In its own manner it's an interesting soundtrack to the more acid-fried underbelly remnants of the psychedelic community, though it's leaner on genuine talent and inspiration than period ambience. If weirdness is what you want, though, the six bonus tracks -- some, but not all, also untitled! -- offer more of it, the drawling country-folk continuing to fall between naivete and ineptitude, dressed up by more effects like crow calls, thunderstorms, and muted heartbeats.

The Velvelettes, The Motown Anthology (Motown). For a group that only released a handful of singles (and no albums) during their time with Motown, and never had a truly big hit, the Velvelettes sure recorded a lot of material if you count all the unreleased tracks they laid down for the label. This two-CD set is the proof, presenting not just most of their scant body of previously released Motown sides (some of which didn't see the light of day for decades), but also no less than 32 cuts that make their first appearance here (although half a dozen of these are just alternate versions, alternate mixes, or stereo versions). Does the availability of all this stuff redefine their legacy? Nope -- it, like prior Velvelettes compilations, solidifies their standing as a decent but second-string Motown group, although it's a goldmine of discovery for the serious Motown collector. Though the Velvelettes really weren't much different than the Supremes or the Marvelettes in the caliber of their talents, and they recorded songs by several of the best Motown songwriters, they just didn't get those special classic tunes that would have vaulted them over the hump.

Nevertheless some of those unreleased tracks penned by the likes of Mickey Stevenson, Norman Whitfield, Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier, Eddie Holland, Clarence Paul, and Barrett Strong are fun to hear, particularly the earlier ones from the 1963-64 era, which are good if slightly cookie-cutter slices of the classic early Motown sound as it found its feet. The recordings, whether released at the time or not, did get a little more generic as time went on -- perhaps the label's hopes for the group were flagging in the absence of a breakthrough smash. Padding out the anthology are some peripheral but interesting oddities, including five previously unissued live songs from a February 1964 concert that (in common with some other early live Motown relics) have a rawer, grittier edge than most of what the label cut in the studio. Yet more offbeat are four French-language numbers (including translations of Holland-Dozier-Holland's "You Lost the Sweetest Boy" and Smokey Robinson's "As Long As I Know He's Mine") that likewise find their first release here.

Note, however, that as comprehensive as this double CD is, it doesn't quite round up everything the Velvelettes ever released, as two of their best singles, "He Was Really Sayin' Somethin'" and "Lonely Lonely Girl Am I," are represented only by previously unavailable alternate versions, rather than the ones that appeared on the original 45s. Of course the fanatic collectors will welcome these, but as "He Was Really Sayin' Somethin'" is one of the only two Velvelettes songs the non-Motown specialist is likely to be familiar with (the other being the small hit "Needle in a Haystack"), it seems odd to include the alternate. Why not put on the official standard versions of those two songs as well? It's all the more reason to stick with a basic single-CD Velvelettes anthology, such as 1999's The Very Best of the Velvelettes, unless you're a serious devotee of the Motown sound.

Various Artists, Cambodian Cassette Archives: Khmer Folk and Pop Music Vol. 1 (Sublime Frequencies). Pol Pot's horrific regime in Cambodia wreaked destruction in multiple directions, including irreparable damage to the country's culture and musical heritage, as well as the loss of so many lives. It's sadly appropriate, then, that this compilation of Cambodian pop music, spanning the 1960s through the 1990s, had to be pieced together from more than 150 cassettes (described as "ravaged" in the liner notes) found in the Asian branch of the Oakland, CA public library. Though some of this was recorded in Cambodia before Pol Pot's ascension, much of it was likely done from the 1970s onward by expatriates in the United States and other countries (the presence of synthesizers on some cuts makes it pretty certain that they don't predate the '70s). Here is one case where you really can excuse the lack of documentation in a historical archive release: artists are known for only two of the twenty tracks, and even more than half of the song titles are unknown. Despite the mystery surrounding who made this music where (and the inescapably subpar, erratic sound quality), it's an interesting and, to an admittedly variable degree, fun anthology that captures different admixtures of Western pop-rock with more indigenous Cambodian influences. For Western listeners, much of the interest lies in the sheer novelty of hearing unfamiliar collisions, with melodramatic Cambodian vocals, melodies, and operatic orchestration charged by raw psychedelic guitar, cheesy organ, and fusion-like horns. Some of the later-sounding recordings suffer a little from mechanical synths and percussion, though even then there are some intriguing combinations, like "Sat Tee Touy (Look at the Owl)," which sounds a little like Fairport Convention gone disco. It gets even more unpredictable than that, with one sadly untitled, uncredited number (it's track #11 on the CD) fusing girl-group-inflected singing, British Invasion-type melodic drive, hi-life horns, and upper-register nasal vocal tone in quite invigorating fashion. Though we can probably never come close to documenting late-twentieth century Cambodian pop with any reasonable thoroughness, this unusual reissue captures at least a slice of it, performing a valuable artistic and musical service.

Various Artists, Gene Vincent Cut Our Songs: Primitive Texas Rockabilly & Honky Tonk (Ace). In the small East Texas town of Mineola in the 1950s, songwriter Jack Rhodes -- most known for writing material that Gene Vincent covered on his early recordings, as well as penning the country/pop standards "A Satisfied Mind" and "Silver Threads and Golden Needles" -- operated a demo studio in the hotel he ran. Specialized even by rockabilly collecting standards, this CD assembles 30 such recordings Rhodes made circa the mid-to-late 1950s, only four of which actually found release on singles at the time; all of the others came out for the first time on this disc. Yes, it's crude (and pretty crudely recorded, for the most part) and, to a point, generic rockabilly, some of the songs straddling that awkward bridge between honky-tonk and rockabilly itself. Yet it's also more interesting than the average obscure rockabilly anthology, for several reasons. First off, those two singles that actually did get released in the '50s include two highly sought-after, highly regarded items: Elroy Dietzel's "Rock-n-Bones" (covered in a more frenetic version by rockabilly great Ronnie Dawson, and then much later by the Cramps) and Jimmy Johnson's yet rarer original version of "Woman Love," which became the flipside of Gene Vincent's "Be-Bop-a-Lula" a few months later. Second, the unreleased stuff includes demos (all by really uncelebrated singers) of a few other songs that Vincent and Dawson later recorded, among them "Bi-Bickey-Bi, Bo-Bo-Boo" (redone by Vincent as "Bi-I-Bickey-Bi, Bo-Bo Go"); "Git It," "Five Days, Five Days," and "Red Blue Jeans and a Pony Tail," also cut by Vincent; and "Action Packed," which became one of Dawson's greatest songs. Third, the tracks themselves have a raw homespun quality, often with the tentative clumsiness of country musicians who aren't quite able to adapt to the rockabilly trend.

Though some of these tunes were picked up by Vincent, and others sound rather like the kind of thing that Vincent recorded in his early sessions, it's easy enough to tell why none of these singers became Gene Vincent: they lacked the youthful ebullience and recklessness via which Vincent, Dawson, and other similar talents transformed hillbilly into rock'n'roll. Play Jimmy Johnson's "Woman Love" and Don Carter's "Bi-Bickey-Bi, Bo-Bo-Boo" back-to-back with Vincent's far wilder versions, and it's like hearing the grandfather on the porch throw away his cane and get magically rejuvenated by the fountain of youth. That doesn't mean that these recordings don't have their own rustic country-blues-honky tonk charm, even if it's rather like hearing guys who can see the promised land but aren't quite up to storming its gates to demand entrance. Plus, not all of the demos lack pure rockabilly energy: Johnny Fallin in particular has genuine fire, and recorded with a band including a couple of latter-day members of Gene Vincent's Bluecaps. Add on Rob Finnis' quite absorbing liner notes, and it's like getting a fly-on-the-wall glimpse into the kind of backroom to the music business to which few outsiders ever gain access.

Various Artists, The Story of Treasure Isle (Metro). The story of the Treasure Isle company, which was crucial to the early days of reggae in Jamaica, is so extensive that it can't be comprehensively told in two CDs. Barring a multi-volume retrospective series, however, this double-CD -- with 52 tracks from the 1960s and 1970s, and about two hours and twenty minutes of music -- is a pretty good way to sample highlights of its extensive catalog, even if there might be room for argument on what tracks were selected. Several big names of the ska, rock steady, and early reggae era are here, including Alton Ellis, Phyllis Dillon, U Roy, the Skatalites, Justin Hinds & the Dominoes, and the Paragons (one of whose five tracks is the original version of "The Tide Is High," famously covered by Blondie). There are a lot of less renowned artists too, but there's little if any gap in quality between their offerings and those of their more famous labelmates. Whatever's playing, it's generally superior early reggae/ska/ rocksteady of varying stripes, spreading its wings from early ska instrumentals to rocksteady ballads with lovely soul-influenced harmonies and eccentric reggae covers of rock and pop hits like Stephen Stills' "Love the One You're With," the Beatles' "Blackbird" (here retitled "Blackbirds Singing" by the Paragons), and "Angel of the Morning." The program's large enough that singling out highlights depends very much on personal taste. But solid candidates for nuggets that haven't gotten the audience they deserve might include the Paragons' haunting "On the Beach"; Phyllis Dillon's "Woman of the Ghetto," where you can hear the social conscience that would help define modern reggae start to creep in; the risque soul of the same singer's "Don't Touch Me Tomato"; Errol Dunkley's sweetly despondent "Where Must I Go"; and Alton Ellis' self-explanatory "Rocksteady."

Various Artists, Unearthed Merseybeat Vol. 2 (Viper). Like its predecessor, this second volume of "unearthed Merseybeat" is truly archeological in its excavation of 1961-66 Liverpool-area rock. It's not just obscure; it's wholly unreleased, all twenty of the tracks seeing the official light of day for the first time here. Despite the presence of a few name bands (Gerry & the Pacemakers, the Swinging Blue Jeans, the Merseybeats), it should be emphasized that this really is for serious collectors: the sound quality is sometimes rough, there are an abundance of cover versions of early American rock'n'roll songs, and nothing here is on the level of the best Merseybeat music, whether by the Beatles, Searchers, or lesser lights. Too, it's not even quite as good as volume one of the series, in part because of the presence of a number of so-so cover versions, in part because volume one likely creamed off the very best unreleased Merseybeat there is to be found.

Nevertheless, it's a reasonably fun listen, and serious historians will relish the chance to hear those early recordings by Gerry & the Pacemakers, the Swinging Blue Jeans, and the Merseybeats in particular, as all of those tracks predate anything these bands released. Gerry Marsden and his boys are represented by a brace of 1961 cuts, those being a cover of "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" and the Marsden original "Why Oh Why," both recorded at a church hall; the Swinging Blue Jeans by live 1961 covers of Duane Eddy's "40 Miles of Bad Road" and the Ventures' "Walk Don't Run"; and the Merseybeats by home-recorded 1962 Everly Brothers tunes. The only other group most British Invasion fans might be likely to recognize are Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, Ringo Starr's pre-Beatles band, though Ringo was long gone by the time they did the 1965 version of Carl Perkins' "Lend Me Your Comb" here. While most of the rest serves as evidence of the naive energy '60s Merseybeat outfits brought to rock'n'roll, what's missing, for the most part, is the outstanding original material that made the early recordings by the Beatles and some others from the region so significant. The welcome exceptions are the two mid-1960s numbers by the Kirkbys, which show them to be solid followers of the harmony-laden sounds of the Searchers and early Beatles.

Various Artists, Where Will You Be Christmas Day? (Dust-to-Digital). A holiday compilation with a difference, this assembles a couple dozen Christmas-themed recordings from 1917-1959 that represent roots music of all stripes -- blues, gospel, early jazz, early country, Appalachian folk, and even some ethnic sounds of Trinidad, Puerto Rico, Italy, and Ukraine. There are some pretty famous names here, like Leadbelly, Bessie Smith, and Lightnin' Hopkins, as well as some not-as-famous but still pretty renowned artists like Rev. J.M. Gates, Buell Kazee, and the Maddox Brothers and Rose. Yet as was the case on the Dust-to-Digital label's extraordinary six-CD box set of 1902-60 spirituals, Goodbye Babylon, there are a host of names here that will be known almost exclusively to serious old-time music collectors. That in itself makes this a pretty interesting and offbeat Christmas anthology. But even if you care nothing for rare record values, it's certainly rawer, more heartfelt, and just more musically interesting than the vast majority of what you'll find in the holiday bin. It's also a reminder of a time when Christmas discs could be relatively joyful and sincere expressions of religion and merrymaking, rather than just excuses to make a quick buck by cashing in on the time of the season. It makes for superior roots music listening whether you're in the holiday spirit or not, but some of the better tracks to keep an ear out for include the Cotton Top Mountain Sanctified Singers' jovial Dixieland jazz-style "Christ Was Born on Christmas Morn," with its thrilling high female background vocal swoops; Leadbelly's highly rhythmic, infectiously joyous "Christmas Is a-Coming"; the exuberant early calypso of Lord Executor's "Christmas Is a Joyful Day"; the shuffling flamenco-like verve of Los Jibaros' "Decimas de Nacimiento"; and the electric blues of Lightnin' Hopkins' "Happy New Year," which verges on rock'n'roll. Being a single-CD compilation, the packaging isn't as elaborate as other Dust-to-Digital productions like Goodbye Babylon, but it's typically thoughtful, with a Christmas card-sized booklet of liner notes, coaster, and postcard. Note, also, how the tracks are sequenced almost like a chronological celebration of holiday themes, starting with Vera Hall Ward's "The Last Month of the Year," moving on through Leadbelly's "Christmas Is a-Coming" and Kansas City Kitty's "Christmas Morning Blues," and wrapping up with Hopkins' "Happy New Year." The four-star rating given this album is for its general musical value; judged by the standards of Christmas/holiday releases, it easily rates the full five stars.

The Mayor of the Sunset Strip [DVD] (First Look Entertainment). As a theatrical release, The Mayor of the Sunset Strip was a fine and creative documentary of Los Angeles radio personality and omnipresent rock'n'roll scenester Rodney Bingenheimer. The DVD version takes full advantage of the extras that can be loaded onto documentary films in this format, with two commentary tracks (each of which has two commentators) and around two hours of outtakes. Like many such DVDs, however, it can be fairly stated that you'll need to be really into the film (or, perhaps, a serious student of the documentary process itself) to enjoy all of the bonus material, though of course it's laudable that it's all there to partake of at one's discretion. One of the commentary tracks features director George Hickenlooper and editor/co-producer Julie Janata, and some viewers might be disappointed that it seldom actually discusses the on-screen action over which their voices are talking. It does have a great deal of information, accessibly given, as to how the documentary was conceived and filmed, and as to how the director views his subject; it just might have been easier to appreciate as a printed Q&A interview than as an audio track over the film itself, that's all. More entertaining, though perhaps not more insightful, is the track with commentary by one of the movie's producers, Chris Carter, and Bingenheimer himself. This has far more direct observations about individual scenes, and while some of their notes can be trivial, overall their repartee is fun to experience, even if Bingenheimer doesn't seem fully cognizant of the ironies in his life that the film reflects. The outtake footage mixes unused interviews (usually with celebrity friends of Bingenheimer's, not with Rodney himself) and cinema verite shots of Bingenheimer going about his business. While there are occasional moments on par with the main film -- like Lance Loud remembering how he pestered Andy Warhol with letters until the great man responded by anonymously divulging his phone number -- actually it emphasizes, whether inadvertently or not, how astute the filmmakers were in the editing and selection of material to use. Much of the interview banter in the outtakes is extraneous (though some of the more serious discussions, like the one with Alice Cooper, are more worthwhile), and the shots of Bingenheimer wandering around concerts backstage and hobnobbing in group photos are sometimes downright dull to sit through. None of this should diminish the considerable value of the main feature, which is not only vastly entertaining to rabid rock'n'roll fans for its mixture of Bingenheimer coverage and rare vintage star footage. It's also a wry, multi-level portrait of celebrity; how a man can rise to celebrity by surrounding himself with celebrity; and how the life of such a man can remain unfulfilled and impenetrable in many respects, no matter how many photo ops he's taken with stars over several generations.

Wattstax [DVD] (Warner Brothers). Sub-billed as a "30th Anniversary Special Edition," the 2004 DVD release of Wattstax restored to circulation the film based around the 1972 Wattstax concert, mixing musical footage with scenes from the African-American Watts community and Richard Pryor comic routines. The DVD version is a notable improvement on previous prints on several scores. The soundtrack has been remastered into Dolby 5.1 digital, but of greater importance, the original director's cut has been used. Actually this doesn't change the movie much, but there's one crucial difference. Legal reasons prevented the use of Isaac Hayes' concert sequence, including "Theme from 'Shaft'" and "Soulsville," in the original release, where a different song ("Rolling Down the Mountain") filmed on a soundstage to mimic the Wattstax environment had to be substituted. Now "Theme from 'Shaft'" is back where it belongs (complete with an introduction by Jesse Jackson), as well as "Soulsville"; the "Rolling Down the Mountain" is still present, too, though only as one of the supplementary extras.

The main bonus features are the two commentary tracks, one featuring Chuck D of Public Enemy and soul historian Rob Bowman, the other quite a multitude of voices, among them Isaac Hayes; Stax executive Al Bell; director Mel Stuart; cameramen; Little Milton; and members of the Bar-Kays, Soul Children, and Temprees. The commentaries are worthwhile and informative, but might occasionally frustrate some viewers in that there's actually not too much direct observation of the on-screen action. The Bowman-Chuck D track focuses on the musical and social significance of the event, with some rather long pauses at times. The other track is more centered on first-hand memories of Stax and the Wattstax concert, with the use of so many commentators necessitating a pseudo-narrator that briefly identifies each voice prior to most of the observations; it's a necessary device, perhaps, but doesn't lend itself to the smoothest of flows. Other, less interesting extras include a longer clip of Albert King's song from the film, "I'll Play the Blues for You" (though this version still doesn't seem absolutely complete), and trailers for both the original 1973 release and the 2003 special edition theatrical re-release. Altogether it's still a rich viewing experience, both for the opportunity to see some '70s soul performers in their prime, and for the film's presentation of a slice of African-American urban life of the era. -- Richie Unterberger

ALBUM REVIEWS: A SELECTION OF RECENT RELEASES, FALL 2004:

• Ars Nova, Ars Nova
• Brigitte Bardot, The Best of Bardot
• Colosseum, Those Who Are About to Die Salute You [Deluxe Expanded Edition]
• Colosseum, Valentyne Suite [Deluxe Expanded Edition]
• Cream, Disraeli Gears [Deluxe Edition]
• Jan Davis, Boss Guitar! The Best of Jan Davis
• Bob Dylan, World Tour 1966: The Home Movies Through the Camera of Bob Dylan's Drummer Mickey Jones [DVD]
• Family, BBC Radio Vol. 1 1968-69
• Mable John, My Name Is Mable
• John Mayall, The Godfather of British Blues/The Turning Point [DVD]
• The Mothers of Invention, Pixel Dust [DVD]
• The Nice, The Nice [DVD]
• Procol Harum, Procol Harum [DVD]
• Red Krayola, Singles
• The Valentinos, Do It Right
• The Ventures, Live 1966 [DVD]
• Neil Young, Acoustic Young [bootleg]
• Various Artists, Gather in the Mushrooms: The British Acid Folk Underground 1968-1974
• Various Artists, Soul to Soul [DVD]
• Various Artists, Teen Dance Music from China and Malaysia

Ars Nova, Ars Nova (Sundazed). Ars Nova's sole release was intermittently intriguing eclectic psychedelic rock with a slight classical influence, as well as some unusual instrumentation in the bass trombone of lead singer Jon Pierson and the trumpet and string bass of Bill Folwell. The songs --often linked by brief interludes -- are a mixed bag, though, that seem to indicate a confusion over direction, or a bit of a psychedelic throw-in-everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach. There are haunting tunes with a folk-rock base and a faint Renaissance ballad melodic influence; jaunty narratives with a vaudevillian air that bear the mark of then-recent albums such as Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band; and harder-rocking period psychedelic tracks with a bent for unpredictable bittersweet progressions and vocal harmonies. It's unusual, and in some senses attractive. But to be less charitable, there's a sense of listening to a generic psychedelic band that sounds better than many such acts mostly by virtue of benefiting from Elektra's high-class production, here handled by Paul Rothchild of Doors fame. Put another way, the songs themselves aren't as good as their arrangements. "Fields of People," about the best of those songs, might be the most famous one here due to getting covered in an elongated treatment by the Move, who did a better job with it than Ars Nova. The 2004 CD reissue on Sundazed adds historical liner notes by Jon Pierson.

Brigitte Bardot, The Best of Bardot (Mercury). Was Brigitte Bardot a "good" singer, in the conventional sense? No. Was the material she sang in the 1960s especially deep or brilliant? No. But is this 20-track compilation of the cream of her 1963-70 recordings a fun listen? Yes indeed. Although not the owner of conventional high-level vocal skills, Bardot invested her frivolous songs with a contagious sense of playful fun, and a refusal to take the music or herself too seriously. Certainly some of the tunes -- and their breathy delivery -- capitalize on her iconic sex kitten persona. But the guileless joy she projects is reminiscent of some of the early work by France Gall (one of the finest '60s French pop singers), though Bardot's voice is less girlish and more adult in tone. Like the better French pop of the 1960s, the tracks on this disc -- an "extremely selective compilation," the liner notes inform us, of a sixties discography that strung together "fine pearls and cheap imitations, scintillating gems and tawdry kitsch" -- have a likable giddiness that borrows from early '60s girl-group and twist rock'n'roll on the earlier sides, and bears a slight psychedelic influence on some of the later ones. It's a pretty versatile bunch, though, also venturing on occasion into melodic sentimental Continental ballads and (less successfully) theatrical chanson and vaudevillian territory. Some of the standouts, naturally, are found in the seven Serge Gainsbourg compositions, including the eerie Eastern-influenced "Contact" (arguably her most interesting recording), and "Harley Davidson," but also the famous Bardot-Gainsbourg vocal duets "Comic Strip," "Bonnie and Clyde," and "Je T'Aime...Moi Non Plus." (The last of these, unreleased at the time it was recorded in 1968 due to nervousness over its sexually explicit nature, of course became a big international hit when Gainsbourg re-recorded it using Jane Birkin as his duet partner.) The numerous tracks to which composers Jean-Max Riviere and Gerard Bourgeois contributed, however, have their share of highlights too, even if they lack the strange edge of Gainsbourg's songs.

Colosseum, Those Who Are About to Die Salute You [Deluxe Expanded Edition] (Sanctuary Midline). Colosseum's 1969 debut album was a notably pioneering endeavor in its combination of British blues-rock with British jazz-rock, even if the writing and singing weren't as impressive as the confident playing. Graham Bond and some of the horn-augmented late-'60s work by John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers had explored similar directions, but Colosseum did so with more confidence and a more comfortable blend of the differing styles, adding a nose for well-executed improvisation. The extra material on the 2004 expanded CD edition on Sanctuary Midline is not extraneous, adding six bonus tracks and informative, lengthy historical liner notes. All but one of those bonus cuts are taken from late-'60s BBC radio broadcasts (actually one of the two BBC versions of "Walking in the Park" is undated, but it seems almost certain that it, like the others, was broadcast in 1969). The oddest, and from a collector standpoint perhaps most interesting, of the BBC tracks is "A White Spade from Mayall," a song not included on Those Who Are About to Die Salute You. As the humorous title suggests, it borrows some of its melody from "A White Shade of Pale," also briefly quoting from the Rolling Stones' "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction"; perhaps it was felt to be too much of a goof-off to merit consideration for placement on the LP. This and the rest of the BBC material boasts excellent sound, with a few performances of songs that did make it onto the album -- Graham Bond's "Walking in the Park" (perhaps the finest item in the band's repertoire), "Beware the Ides of March," and "Plenty Hard Luck." Rounding off the dig through the archives is the studio outtake "I Can't Live Without You," an acceptable but unthrilling James Litherland song that has a little more of a standard blues-rock feel than much of the early Colosseum discography.

Colosseum, Valentyne Suite [Deluxe Expanded Edition] (Sanctuary Midline). There has been understandable confusion for decades about the overlap and differences between Colosseum's second UK album and their second US album. Their second UK LP was titled Valentyne Suite; their second US album, however, was not only given a different title, The Grass Is Greener, but featured a substantially different track listing, with only four of the eight tracks overlapping with Valentyne Suite (although the version of "The Grass Is Greener" on the US release has a guitar overdub by Clem Clempson, the original part by James Litherland getting lost in the process). The variance can partially be traced back to the US version of Colosseum's debut Those Who Are About to Die Salute You, which included three tracks yet to be issued in the UK, including the first two (but not the third) of the sections comprising "The Valentyne Suite." It's enough of a mess to instigate a booming headache among those trying to assemble Colosseum's complete early output. This deluxe expanded edition of Valentyne Suite, thankfully, completely sorts out this hassle for the CD era. With the sort of logic too uncommon in the record industry, it places the whole of the UK Valentyne Suite album on disc one, and the whole of the US The Grass Is Greener album on disc two, as well as adding a couple of tracks recorded for BBC radio in November 1969. That does mean that four of the tracks are heard twice, and that only the third part of "The Valentyne Suite" ("The Grass Is Greener") is heard on The Grass Is Greener, since the first two parts had already been issued in the US as part of the altered version of Those Who Are About to Die Salute You. But the redundancy is forgivable, considering this finally allows listener to hear all of the band's studio material from this era in the same place, with lengthy liner notes that explain the discographical tangle as well as possible.

Not to be overlooked, of course, should be the music, which in both albums found the band expanding their rock-blues-jazz format in interesting directions that encompassed more improvisation and a richer range of melodic colors, though the songs sometimes could have used some editing. Especially satisfying was the deft insertion of some classical influences from time to time, particularly in parts of the 17-minute "The Valentyne Suite." "The Kettle" was as close as the band got to catchy blues-rock-pop, and the jazzier "Elegy" (in which the vocals almost sound like a foreshadowing of Sting) was also one of their best songs. Both "The Kettle" and "Elegy" were placed on both Valentyne Suite and The Grass Is Greener, but the songs unique to the The Grass Is Greener (all recorded, unlike the rest of the studio material here, with new guitarist Clem Clempson replacing James Litherland) aren't filler. Of these, "Jumping Off the Sun" in particular got Colosseum more in the swing of hard-charging psychedelic-pop-influenced rock than anything else they did, while "Rope Ladder to the Moon" was a cover of a quality song from Jack Bruce's debut solo album, and Ravel's "Bolero" gave them a chance to plunge further into classical material. Finally, disc one adds the aforementioned two November 1969 BBC tracks, including a version of "Lost Angeles" (from The Grass Is Greener) and the fusion instrumental "Arthur's Mustache," which didn't find a place on either of the two albums.

Cream, Disraeli Gears [Deluxe Edition] (Universal). Intense Cream fans and collectors might be disappointed in the two-CD deluxe edition of Disraeli Gears for offering little in the way of previously unreleased material. There is a lot of extra stuff here, however, mind you, which makes it a nice expansion of the group's best and most focused album. There's the original album in both stereo and mono; five demos, and two outtakes of "Lawdy Mama" (all of which previously appeared on the Those Were the Days box set); and nine 1967-68 BBC recordings from the Disraeli Gears era (all of which appear on the BBC Sessions compilation). The only wholly previously unavailable item is an alternate version of "Blue Condition" with Eric Clapton on lead vocal, in both stereo and mono, which actually qualifies as about the least interesting track on the set. And why, pray tell, is the BBC version of "Sunshine of Your Love" -- far and away the album's most popular song -- present on BBC Sessions, but not included here?

That minor complaint aside, this is a fine listen, the main album enduring as the peak of Cream's artistry, as the group blended their original blues-rock with psychedelic pop on well-written songs with a mystical tinge. Almost every song is excellent, and "Sunshine of Your Love," "Dance the Night Away," "Swalbr," "Strange Brew," and "We're Going Wrong" are all among the very best tracks the band laid down. While the extras can't match the album itself, they're all worth hearing for both historical appreciation and actual listening pleasure. The five demos are considerably rougher than the much more polished final record, but offer three songs ("Hey Now Princess," "Weird of Hermiston," and "The Clearout") that didn't make the ultimate cut. None of them really deserved to, but the vituperative "Hey Now Princess" and more whimsical "Weird of Hermiston" are interesting relics of the Jack Bruce-Pete Brown songwriting partnership, while "The Clearout" is a pretty hot instrumental that sounds like a backing track only in need of some good lyrics to make for a worthwhile album cut. Six of the nine BBC recordings are versions of songs from Disraeli Gears itself, while two ("Politician" and "Born Under a Bad Sign") would appear on their subsequent LP Wheels of Fire, and one (the instrumental "Steppin' Out") had been previously cut by Eric Clapton in his Bluesbreakers days. In the usual BBC tradition, these nine tracks aren't up to the level of their studio counterparts, but make for worthy contrast to the better-known versions, with a certain live edge.

Jan Davis, Boss Guitar! The Best of Jan Davis (Sundazed). As Jud Cost aptly points out in his liner notes, Jan Davis combined some of the best aspects of the dark, lean instrumental guitar rock of the Ventures and the Shadows. There were also edges of the more R&B-oriented work of Lonnie Mack, and the more futuristic surf-into-dementia of someone like Davie Allan. Unlike any of these acts, he never did latch onto a piece of obvious hit material, but this collection of rare 1961-66 singles (along with a couple of previously unissued tracks) has plenty of worthwhile moments. The twenty tracks -- most, though not all, instrumental -- vary from the mundane to the near-great, Davis trying his luck at many different approaches, some of them rather off-the-wall, to see what might fly in the marketplace. As for the near-great, the hot rod anthem "Boss Machine" rollicks along like the sleekest of shiny just-off-the-lot roadsters; as for the off-the-wall, "Snow Surfin' Matador" sounds like a female Mexican yodeler trapped in a twilight zone between surf and Tex-Mex border music. Several of the singles seem like themes to television shows about fugitives and lost-in-space travelers that never made it past the pilot stage, with their menacing riffs, goofy sci-fi sound effects and organ, bee-simulating guitar swirls, and cheesy horror-movie yells. A few of them are routine R&B-anchored instrumental workouts, but Davis could always be counted on to come up with something unpredictable, including a pretty cool take on Kai Winding's easy listening instrumental hit "More (Theme from Mondo Cane)" and the mating of guitar twang with light dancing orchestration on "Hop, Skip & Jump."

Bob Dylan, World Tour 1966: The Home Movies Through the Camera of Bob Dylan's Drummer Mickey Jones [DVD] (Studio Works). Upon its release, this 90-minute documentary of sorts sparked immediate outcry among some fans, who felt deceived by a DVD prominently mentioning "World Tour 1966" in the title, on top of a groovy cover picture of Dylan from the same tour. For this does not contain any actual sound footage of Dylan's concerts on that legendary jaunt, on which he was backed by the Hawks, who soon (with the exception of drummer Mickey Jones) became the Band. Instead, it's largely a collection of silent home movie film clips -- most of them indeed from that tour, and some (and certainly not all) including Dylan in the frame -- taken by Jones, who also provides a lot of on-screen and voiceover narration. Once you get past the realization that this isn't really a Bob Dylan concert DVD, however, this really isn't that bad, even if its appeal might be limited to Dylanophiles. It's more notable, frankly, for Jones' narration than the film clips (in color), which are as basic in both content and technique as you might expect from a tour drummer making home movies. For Jones is a pretty good, affable storyteller, and he has a lot to say without (usually) getting boring.

In detail, he recounts his entry into the rock world with Trini Lopez (a segment including some brief silent snippets of the Beatles playing in Paris in January 1964, where Lopez shared the bill while using Jones as drummer) and Johnny Rivers; his subsequent recruitment into Dylan's concert backing band (interestingly, he says he was first under the impression that Dylan wanted him as a drummer for recording sessions); and the highs, lows, and hijinx of the tour itself. Jones gets some of the chronology mixed up (at one point he says he was with Dylan for two years, which seems to be more than doubling the length of his stint), but he has a fair amount of reasonably interesting stories about why Dylan decided to separate his sets into acoustic and electric ones; the musicians' bemused and at times hurt reaction to the booing on the electric sets; how Dylan would make a point of looking over at him before starting "Ballad of a Thin Man" (which of course prominently refers to a "Mr. Jones" in the lyrics); why Dylan decided to hang an American flag over the stage for a French show; Dylan's plan to tour in Russia (?!) before getting sidelined by the famous motorcycle accident; and other trivia of interest to serious Dylan fanatics.

The image quality of the home movies is good considering their age and that they were never intended to be shown publicly. While the scenes from those clips are not too interesting in and of themselves (though they do include some onstage footage, sometimes shot not by Jones but by others with the entourage), they make a suitable backdrop for the drummers' tales. The movies do include a lot of incidental horsing around and travelogue/tourist bits that, along with Jones' descriptions of these less vital aspects of the journey, will likely be the parts that viewers will find most exasperating and least necessary. The DVD also uses some still tour photos to complement Jones' dialogue, which is sometimes prompted by a rather wooden off-screen interviewer. Incidentally, the Dylan songs heard in the background during some of the DVD are not actual Bob Dylan recordings (let alone recordings from Dylan's 1966 world tour), but facsimiles of Dylan songs by the Bob Dylan tribute band Highway 61 Revisited.

Family, BBC Radio Vol. 1 1968-69 (Hux). These 16 tracks are almost wholly composed of BBC versions of songs from Family's first three albums, though one ("Holding the Compass") didn't turn up until their fourth LP; another ("No Mule's Fool") was a 1969 single; and another, "I Sing 'Um the Way I Feel," was a J.B. Lenoir blues tune the band never put on their official records. Some of this material has come out on bootlegs, but the sound on this is notably superior -- it's quite good for a BBC archive release from any era, in fact. And while the arrangements don't differ too drastically from the studio versions, these performances are excellent. There's a bit of a loose live feel, but they demonstrate that the band -- unlike some others of the early progressive rock era -- were capable of re-creating their intricate, disciplined rock-blues-jazz-folk-miscellany interplay in a live setting, without sacrificing any of their gritty energy. Some of these renditions predate the release of the studio versions, sometimes by quite a bit; in the case of "Holding the Compass," in fact, the lyrics would change by the time it made it onto the Anyway album. Some might lament the absence of some particular favorites from their early days; there's no "Hey Mr. Policeman," for example. But really there's nothing to complain about considering the strong selection of songs here, which include such highlights of their early repertoire as "See Through Windows," "Drowned in Wine," the distressingly haunting folk-rockish "The Weaver's Answer," and the wistful "Observations from a Hill."

Mable John, My Name Is Mable (Universal). Mable John's stint with Motown was sufficiently obscure that even some of the relatively few soul fans who know of her work at all aren't aware that she started her career with the label. She did record a fair amount of material while there, and the accurately titled My Name Is Mable: The Complete Collection has all of it, containing all nine songs that showed up on 1960-63 singles (including both the stringless and with-strings versions of "No Love," and both the 1960 and 1963 versions of "Who Wouldn't Love a Man Like That") and ten previously unreleased outtakes. It's fine music, not just as quality early soul by one of the style's more underrated vocalists, but also as a document of Motown when it was at its bluesiest, and still looking to nail down the pop-soul groove that would eventually become its strongest suit. Several of the figures who would be key to Motown's success were involved with these sides, among them (as producers and songwriters) Berry Gordy, Mickey Stevenson, Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder, Clarence Paul, Brian Holland, and Lamont Dozier. Too, the then-hitless Supremes and Temptations supplied backup vocals. What, then, was missing, considering that John was a mature, passionately strong gospel-influenced singer? Not much, except perhaps truly great songs that would have been obvious hits. The songs are decent, and though they've been a bit lazily classified as blues by some, you can virtually always hear the classic Motown sound in embryo. "Who Wouldn't Love a Man Like That" doesn't sound much different from the early Miracles' material, for instance, and you could certainly hear other songs fitting into the early repertoire of fellow Motowners like Marvin Gaye and Mary Wells without a problem. Some fans might prefer the funkier stuff that John recorded later in the '60s for Stax (as heard on the Stay Out of My Kitchen compilation), but this anthology is strong enough to appeal to general fans of early soul music, not just specialist collectors.

John Mayall, The Godfather of British Blues/The Turning Point [DVD] (Eagle Eye). Two John Mayall documentaries are combined into one DVD with this release. The longer of them, The Godfather of British Blues, is an hour-long career-spanning overview produced by the BBC in conjunction with Mayall's seventieth birthday; the other is a 25-minute rockumentary from 1969, at the time he was working on the music that became the album The Turning Point. The Godfather of British Blues is a job well done: a straightforward documentary mixing interviews done at the time of the filming with old photos and some vintage footage, though unfortunately there are less old clips than some viewers might hope for. In addition to Mayall, a bunch of his numerous associates talk about their experiences with the bandleader, including Eric Clapton, Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, Mick Taylor, Hughie Flint, and producer Mike Vernon. It does seem that Mayall was rarely filmed in the old days, however, since the earliest live Bluesbreakers footage here comes from the 1969 Turning Point documentary, and there's actually not too much else. There are a lot of gaps here, but to be fair it would probably take about ten hours just to document the dozens of Bluesbreakers lineups, and frankly it was an appropriate decision to concentrate mostly on his pre-1970 work, which was much more interesting than what followed in the next few decades. Within the 60-minute format this does about as well as it can, integrating the pure documentary segments with briefer clips of his return visit to England to play a seventieth birthday gig, with Clapton doing a guest spot.

The Turning Point, filmed in black and white, is interesting primarily for glimpses of the band rehearsing and playing onstage circa mid-1969, when the drumless, acoustic-oriented lineup that would record The Turning Point itself started performing. It has also brief interview segments with other members of the band and then-recent Bluesbreakers, including, again, Clapton, Fleetwood, McVie, and Taylor. There also brief comments from Peter Green -- rather an event, considering how rare it is to view interview footage with him -- and Aynsley Dunbar. It's mostly for serious Bluesbreakers fans, since none of the performance segments or interviews are too lengthy, and those not well-versed in Mayall's 1960s career don't get enough context to really understand what's going on or how his music's evolved to this particular turning point. But it's a good archival extra to include on the DVD, and combines with the main feature to offer the best visual Mayall retrospective likely to be produced. There aren't any other extras, incidentally, except for a photo gallery of a few dozen photos of Mayall from throughout his career.

The Mothers of Invention, Pixel Dust [DVD] (Silvertone Films). Probably not wholly (or even semi-) authorized, this DVD collects about 50 minutes' worth of footage (mostly in color) of the Mothers of Invention in 1967-68. Actually there are only four sources for these clips, those being a 1967 promo film; a couple songs filmed at the Bitter End in New York in 1967; a brief snippet of the group performing on British TV in October 1968; and the band playing on the German TV program Beat Club on October 6, 1968. Overall the clips capture the band right after their move from song-based material to a more wholly instrumental-based fusion of rock, jazz, classical, avant-garde, horror movie soundtracks, and humorous novelty. There's little singing in any of the scenes, in fact, and what singing is here is sometimes wordless scatting (often in a sardonic high doo-wop influenced manner). The main criticism of what's on offer here is that most of the segments are too short. The promo film is just a montage of fuzzy black-and-white images of the band while part of the recording of "The Return of the Son of Monster Magnet" plays on the soundtrack; a running caption on the bottom explaining the early Mothers' history in the briefest of terms indicates that this was taken from a TV program broadcast long after the '60s, not from the "promo film" itself. Some of the group's loony humor is captured in the just-slightly-longer portion from the Bitter End, particularly when they seem to be deliberately messing up a mime to "Son of Suzy Creamcheese," though the visuals aren't quite as hilarious as the legend might lead some viewers to anticipate. The British TV clip is the shortest bit, with some shakiness to the image reproduction/transfer. It's the Beat Club performance (with sometimes distracting psychedelic color negative effects, interrupted by a brief Frank Zappa interview segment from 1970) which is most substantial, in fact taking up the majority of the DVD. At that point, the Mothers were well into their more improvisational and experimental late-'60s phase, playing on and on without discrete breaks between songs; even when they go into a snippet of "Let's Make the Water Turn Black" from We're Only in It for the Money, they do it sans vocals. On the whole this is a worthwhile collection for Zappa/Mothers fans, but you can't help feeling both that there's more video footage from this era, and that it could be transferred from better sources if it obtains a more above-board release.

The Nice, The Nice [DVD] (Anonymous Film Archive). This bootleg DVD has 45 minutes of Nice performances, most or all of them from British and German television (some of the sources are not specifically identified), all in black and white. In common with other such products, it's not up to the standards that would be required of an official release; there are varying degrees of blur and shake in the most-likely-several-generations-down copies, though all of it can be viewed without difficulty. Some slack can be cut, however, considered that it's really not easy to access vintage footage of the Nice. Additionally, the clips here -- most or all of them live, not mimed -- reveal the group to be a more visually exciting act than might be evident from only hearing their records. That particularly applies to the young Keith Emerson, who attacks his keyboards with knives during their showpiece cover of "America," plays the organ upside down, and generally acts the mischievous prodigal virtuoso. During part of one lengthy segment (date and location not given, though it's obviously from the band's early career as guitarist Davy O'List is still in the lineup), in fact, he wreaks so much havoc on his organ -- nearly tilting it over, climbing over it mid-song, messing with the circuitry -- that it's almost a keyboardist equivalent to the autodestruction Pete Townshend visited upon his guitar with the Who. The multiple versions of "America" dominate the proceedings, but there also renditions of some of their other most popular numbers, including "Rondo," "Ars Longa Vita Brevis," and (serving as evidence that not everything they did had to be frenetic pseudo-ceremonial rock) an extended cover of folk-rocker Tim Hardin's "Hang onto a Dream." It actually leaves you hungry for more when the screen goes blank, and certainly hoping for the day when this (and other such material, if it could be located) might find legitimate release from higher-grade sources.

Procol Harum, Procol Harum [DVD] (Anonymous Film Archive). Major Procol Harum fans will get enough out of this 75-minute DVD bootleg collection of archive footage to find it worth viewing, though it lacks the professional quality that it could boast if it was done right. The clips (none of the dates and sources identified) span the late 1960s to 1976, taking in footage both live and lip-synced of some of their most familiar songs ("Whiter Shade of Pale," "Conquistador," "Shine on Brightly") and some less heavily exposed numbers. In both color and black and white, the image quality is quite watchable, but obviously not taken from the best available sources; sometimes it's a bit like watching a television set with weak reception or an antenna that isn't doing 100% of what it should. Some fans might be disappointed to find that most of the clips don't feature Robin Trower, but the band does play well throughout, the focus usually being on singer/pianist Gary Brooker. As another problem that should have taken the compilers just a little more effort to fix, much of the footage comes from three lengthy clips, but instead of showing each excerpt start to finish, they're broken up and the sequencing zigzags back and forth between them (and other of the clips, for that matter). As a final insult, the disc comes to an abrupt end by breaking off in the middle of "Souvenir of London" in the 1976 segment. Hopefully someone else will run with the ball and do a documentary or video anthology of the band that gives the material the respect it deserves.

Red Krayola, Singles (Drag City). The very notion of Red Krayola putting out "singles" is a little surreal, since singles are by most definitions the most commercial face of the record industry. After all, if anything was consistent about Red Krayola throughout their career, it was their uncompromising underground uncommerciality. Yet the band actually put out a good number of singles in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, and 21 tracks from those releases -- some of them quite rare, and some them actually previously unissued -- are collected on this compilation. While it wouldn't be accurate to categorize this as a best-of, in its own way it reflects the band's evolution as well as almost any anthology could (though it doesn't have anything from their earliest, psychedelic-oriented recordings in the late 1960s), Mayo Thompson being the only constant throughout their ever-changing lineups.

Strictly speaking, not all of this is Red Krayola, as the CD begins with an unreleased 1970 solo Thompson non-LP B-side, and both sides of the very rare 1970 single by Saddlesore (who included both Thompson and another early Red Krayola member, Rick Barthelme). Those three tracks are rather fried Texas acid-country-folk, but by the time of the next Red Krayola seven-inch (the live, unreleased "Wives in Orbit"/"Yik Yak") in 1976, Thompson was already onto the sound that would largely characterize his next two decades or so of work: jerky-tempoed, irregularly-structured, at times jarring indie rock with oblique, discursive lyrics. The most satisfying tracks, perhaps, are those from the 1979-81 Rough Trade singles in which the band also included British punk-new wavers Gina Birch, Lora Logic, and Epic Soundtracks (and on a couple singles, Pere Ubu's Allen Ravenstine). This particularly brand of scratchy, at times even funky new wave will certainly appeal to fans of the Raincoats (Birch's principal band), though it's less accessible to pop ears, a highlight being "Born in Flames," described in the notes as "the Social-Democrats' Song from the eponymous film by Lizzie Borden." The final eight cuts come from 1993-99 singles, Thompson's deconstruct-and-reassemble-the-jigsaw-puzzle approach to rock music remaining in full force, though the jagged edges have slightly softened. Like everything here, these aren't for impatient listeners, but bear their fruits for those looking for intellectual avant-rock with some substance. The liner notes (sample excerpt: "The song title rather clings the existentialistic rejections of the Punk generation to the social norm, that was out of sight in that enthusive and nihilistic community for a short while") are about as obtuse and academic as you'll find on any rock compilation, though.

The Valentinos, Do It Right (Official). This 22-track anthology of Valentinos material is almost certainly unauthorized, though it's on the who-are-they-kidding-with-that-name Official label. While the packaging is substandard (with no discographical information whatsoever other than the song titles), as of 2004 it was really the best soul fans could do if they wanted to hear music by one of the finest 1960s soul vocal groups never to be properly honored with a compilation. That lack of discographical data makes it difficult to determine exactly how large a slice of the Valentinos' work this disc captures, and how much it leaves out. But most of it's first-rate early-to-mid-'60s soul, although the amount of stylistic territory they covered makes it difficult to pin an identifiable character on their sound. Sometimes it seems on the edge between doo wop and soul; at other times it sounds rather like the early Impressions; sometimes it's close in feel to their mentor Sam Cooke; and sometimes it's churchy Northern soul. The standouts, of course, are the original versions of two songs that eventually became more famous in subsequent renditions: "It's All Over Now" (covered by the Rolling Stones, though the Valentinos did it in a jauntier country-influenced manner) and "Lookin' for a Love" (which the group's Bobby Womack would revive for a Top Ten solo hit in 1974). Much of it has a satisfyingly rawer feel to both the vocals and guitar work than lots of comparable soul from the era, which is invaluable to making this more interesting than most comps of soul groups that never had a big hit. The sound quality is mostly pretty good, but some of the material is blighted by swish'n'hiss that wouldn't be acceptable in an above-board release. There are a variety of likely reasons that a sanctioned collection of Valentino sides hasn't appeared -- the difficulty in licensing from several different labels at once, the ownership of their SAR catalog by a company (ABKCO) that has declined to reissue much of its holdings, and the uncommerciality of a group without chart success. But it really is about time someone took on the task, so fans didn't have to settle for half-baked efforts such as these in order to be able to hear some of these rarities at all.

The Ventures, Live 1966 [DVD] (Anonymous Film Archive). With one not-so-notable extra, this is basically a bootleg DVD of the mid-1960s film Beloved Invaders, an 80-minute documentary of a Japanese Ventures tour. (Although this DVD is titled Live 1966, some sources give the date of the film as 1965.) While the film itself is an essential document for Ventures fans in some respects, in other features it's not so impressive. That holds true in ways particular to this specific DVD and to the actual movie, in whatever format it's viewed. As for the DVD, while the image transfer suffers no serious problems hindering watchability, it's obviously not taken from a high-grade source, though at least it's in widescreen format. Also, there are no English subtitles -- a real drawback for non-Japanese speakers, since the opening few minutes have Japanese narration over footage of Japanese life in which the Ventures don't appear. Finally, the non-performance segments of the movie show the Ventures roaming around Japanese streets, traveling the country by train, signing autographs for fans, etc., with considerable spoken dialogue among the band. What's the problem with that? Well, on this disc at least, the dialogue isn't in English, but in overdubbed (and, again, unsubtitled) Japanese voices.

What is good about Beloved Invaders? It has quite a few genuinely live scenes from their concerts, in which they play with real ferocity that shows a harder edge than many of their records. Those clips are quite heavy on Venture-ized cover versions like "Wipe Out," "Pipeline," "Caravan," "The Cruel Sea," and "Apache," but also do include some originals, like their then-recent hit "Walk Don't Run '64." Their stage presence is almost laughably business-like, the band barely moving in their almost studious poses, but Nokie Edwards does at one point peel off a cool peculiarly amplified solo that sounds almost as if it's coming from a high-voltage transistor radio. Most English-speaking fans, frankly, wouldn't lose much if the film was edited down to include little else besides the concert scenes, though there are some cool glimpses of young Japanese bands in action in the opening section. What this really needs, though, is an official DVD release (with English subtitles, if needed) mastered from the best available source, and it's hard to imagine that one won't appear eventually. The one annoying "extra" on this disc is a 1980s-looking clip of the group, dressed in punkish regalia, miming "Wipe Out" while a scantily clad woman prances through various paces. Even more annoyingly, it's placed at the very beginning of the disc prior to Beloved Invaders, an appetizer that leaves a foul taste.

Neil Young, Acoustic Young (Oh Boy, bootleg). All 20 of these songs, according to this bootleg's subtitle, were recorded "live in the USA, autumn 1976." And all 20 of them, right in line with the CD title Acoustic Young, are unplugged -- usually with Young on acoustic guitar, although piano, harmonica, and banjo also occasionally figure into the instrumentation. This might not be the most extraordinary acoustic Young available, official or unofficial, and while the sound quality is decent enough to make this effortlessly enjoyable, it's below the standard demanded by legitimate releases. Nevertheless, it's a very worthwhile listen for serious Young fans, with a good cross-section of acoustic performances of tunes both well known or fairly well known ("After the Goldrush," "Harvest," "Mr. Soul," "The Needle and the Damage Done," "Love Is a Rose," "Sugar Mountain," "The Losing End," "The Old Laughing Lady," "Tell Me Why," "Human Highway") and not as celebrated ("Here We Are in the Years," "White Line," "Give Me Strength," "Too Far Gone"). It's also interesting to hear the inclusion of "Pocahontas," a good two-and-a-half years before its appearance on Rust Never Sleeps. This is the kind of collection that exemplifies why devoted fans want to hear bootlegs: it's not likely to be released because the sound quality's not good enough and there are too many other versions of some of the songs in circulation, but it's nevertheless good and unusual enough to be a pleasurable listen.

Various Artists, Gather in the Mushrooms: The British Acid Folk Underground 1968-1974 (Castle). These 18 tracks give a pretty good idea of the gentler and spacier side of British rock in the late 1960s and early 1970s, though it's perhaps not as "acid," "folk," or "underground" as the title might portend. It's more an overview of some of the better music from the UK scene to fall in the hazy ground twixt contemporary British folk and the milder side of British folk, with just a few heavy rock and psychedelic influences coming into play once in a while. Not all of the performers are "underground," actually, if underground is taken to mean not well known to commercial audiences: the Pentangle, Sandy Denny, and Bert Jansch all sold decent amounts of records to both folk and rock listeners, and while Sallyangie weren't too successful, half of that brother-sister duo (Mike Oldfield) went on to stardom. But certainly, while other artists are fairly well known to British folk-rock cultists (Trader Horne, with ex-Fairport Convention singer Judy Dyble; Forest; Vashti Bunyan; and Shelagh McDonald), names like Magnet, Mr. Brooks, and Fresh Maggots will challenge the memory of both those who were there and those who try to collect this genre retrospectively. Pentangle's "Lyke Wake Dirge" and Denny's "Milk and Honey" (the latter an early, pre-Fairport Convention recording) are more accomplished and powerful than anything else on the disc. But the rest does offer its share of other fine moments, like Lesley Duncan's self-penned "Love Song" (covered on an early album by Elton John); Bunyan's haunting "Winter Is Blue"; Shelagh McDonalds's "Liz's Song," though it's derivative of both Denny and Joni Mitchell; and Comus' disquieting "The Herald," which is about the most psychedelic-influenced track. Most everything else is at the least pleasant, making this a good introductory survey if you're gearing up for digging into the more obscure British folk-rock of the period.

Various Artists, Soul to Soul [DVD] (Rhino). In its original form, the early-'70s concert film Soul to Soul offered a worthy if uneven assortment of footage of Wilson Pickett, Santana, Ike & Tina Turner, the Staple Singers, Les McCann & Eddie Harris, Voices of East Harlem, and Roberta Flack performing in Ghana during their prime, interspersed with scenes of African musicians and Ghanaian life taken during their trip. The DVD release offers such a wealth of worthy extras that it takes literally days to absorb them all, starting with a detailed 22-page small-print booklet that gives a thorough history of this previously ill-documented event. That's just a prelude to the special features, which include no less than four separate commentary tracks, with voiceover recollections by Mavis Staples of the Staple Singers (the only figure to get a commentary track of her own); Les McCann and Kevin Griffin of Voices of East Harlem (who do their commentary track together); original producer Tom Mosk, accompanied by reissue producers David Peck and Jon Kanis; and Ike Turner, on a track that also includes some observations by Michael Shrieve of Santana, Ghanaian drummer Obo Addy, and (again) Griffin and McCann. After viewing the commentary tracks, you'll know more than you ever thought you'd ever know (or perhaps wanted to know) about the musicians' trip to Ghana in early 1971, along with plenty of info about the genesis and realization of the film (from Mosk, Peck, and Kanis) and incidental asides about soul music in general. The bonus studio footage of brief excerpts of the commentaries actually being recorded is extraneous, but the sole outtake from the film itself, of Ike & Tina Turner doing "I've Been Loving You Too Long," is not. It's one of the hotter songs in the package, actually (perhaps the overtly sexual innuendo was considered too hot to make the cut for the initial release), and even this brief clip has a separate Ike Turner commentary track. And there's yet more: disc two of this two-disc set is a CD-only offering presenting the original soundtrack, with the addition of a few songs (including Pickett's "In the Midnight Hour") not on the original version. (Note that the soundtrack CD is not identical to the music heard on the soundtrack of the DVD; Santana, for instance, is not on the soundtrack CD, while some songs heard on the CD are not in the movie.) The only small complaint is that the sequences from the original movie involving Roberta Flack have, unfortunately, been omitted from the DVD release at Flack's request.

Various Artists, Teen Dance Music from China and Malaysia (Thrift Score). If the brief liner notes on the back cover are to be trusted, this CD was assembled by cherry-picking cuts from a batch of late-'60s/early-'70s-looking Southasian pop LPs found at a thrift store. While the cover design's on par with professional releases, there are no details on the specific cuts and artists other than the track listings, and even five of the song titles are given as "Indecipherable." So a state-of-the-art historical document this isn't, with surface noise and even a few skips to indicate that the music's been taken from vinyl rather than better sources. But if you're looking for something novel in the strip-mined field of 1960s rock reissues, this delivers the goods, though no doubt it sounds more exotic to Western ears due to its sheer difference from most pop-rock from North America, Europe, and Australasia. It's an unpredictable, ever-morphing (and largely instrumental) hodgepodge of Ventures-Shadows-style guitar, spy and spaghetti western soundtracks, lounge exotica, cheesy Southasian pop, go-go dance rock, and cheapo organs with an otherworldly shimmer. It's silly and not terribly deep, the Man Chau Po Orchestra even stooping to doing a go-go version of the theme from "Bridge on the River Kwai." Yet on the other hand it's pretty enjoyable, with a spirited fun in spite of this material's possible (or even probable) origins as exploitative quickie easy listening/dance rock LPs. One does wonder if much or any of this teen dance music actually came from China, given that country's historical official resistance to rock, even rock of this sort; perhaps some of the tracks with Chinese-language original packaging actually originated in Hong Kong, Taiwan, or other non-Chinese territories.

ALBUM REVIEWS: A SELECTION OF RECENT RELEASES, SUMMER 2004:

• Davie Allan & the Arrows, Devil's Rumble: Anthology '64-'68
• Oscar Brown Jr., Kicks: The Best of Oscar Brown Jr.
• Cleaners from Venus, Living with Victoria Grey: The Very Best of Cleaners from Venus
• Donovan, Sixty Four
• Nick Drake, Made to Love Magic
• Exuma, Exuma
• Exuma, Exuma II
• Fleetwood Mac, Helsinki Carousel [bootleg]
• Fleetwood Mac, Dead Bust Blues [bootleg]
• The Kinks, Another Great Lost Kinks Album [bootleg]
• The Kinks, The Third (And Last) Great Lost Kinks Album [bootleg]
• Curtis Mayfield, Keep on Keepin' On [bootleg]
• The Misunderstood, The Lost Acetates 1965-1966
• Laura Nyro, Spread Your Wings and Fly: Live at the Fillmore East May 30, 1971
• The Rolling Stones, Reelin' and Rockin' [bootleg]
• The Searchers, BBC Sessions
• The Soft Machine, The Soft Machine/Robert Wyatt [DVD] [bootleg]
• Pete Townshend, Wild Action: Solo Live at London Roundhouse April 14, 1974 [bootleg]
• Various Artists, The Best of the Johnny Cash Show [DVD] [bootleg]
• Various Artists, Rocksteady Soul: The Original Cool Sound of Duke Reid's Treasure Isle

Davie Allan & the Arrows, Devil's Rumble: Anthology '64-'68 (Sundazed). Although Allan's semi-legendary for his '60s fuzz guitar instrumentals, prior to this release they hadn't been easy to hear on CD, with only the odd cut popping up on compilations. Nor had it been too easy to get a handle on his work even if you were willing to dig for the obscure original vinyl releases, as it had been scattered across so many albums and soundtracks, some of them quite obscure. This two-disc, 40-track set finally addressed that gap in as classy a manner as possible, the cuts carefully selected from his '64-'68 recordings for Tower and its Sidewalk subsidiary, drawing from the four actual Davie Allan & the Arrows LPs made during this time; no less than ten soundtrack albums to which they contributed; and a smattering of singles, including a couple of 45 versions of songs that showed up in different versions on the albums. The Top 100 chart hits ("Blue's Theme," "Apache '65," and "Cody's Theme") are all here, but most of it's far lesser known, though you might have heard some of it in the background to numerous biker-hippie exploitation flicks of the period. It reveals Allan as a master of combining surf, the twang of Duane Eddy, the distortions of Link Wray, and psychedelia into a distinctly mid-to-late-'60s instrumental rock sound, leaning hard on mind-melting fuzz guitar.

That's a good thing, but it should be said that even in a compilation as well-packaged as this one, it might be too much at once even for those who like the basic recipe. Allan lacked as much tonal variety, melodic imagination, and killer riffage as Link Wray, perhaps his closest counterpart, though each have their own distinct sound. The percentage of pedestrian tunes is high enough that it can blur together at times, and work against sustaining your interest for 40 songs of the stuff. And Allan leans on his patented fuzz guitar sound real hard, particularly the more time went on, which can grow a bit tiresome even if you're enamored of it. A single-disc compilation would certainly have been more killer, though it would have sacrificed some of this anthology's admirable breadth. Still, there's no shortage of cool'n'creepy cuts, starting with the surf-y update of "Apache" ("Apache '65") and the classic elemental fuzz damage of "Blue's Theme." More notably for those only familiar with those songs, it also takes in far lesser-exposed delights like "The Stompers and the Souls," with its ghostly upper-register squeals and scrapes; the epic surf reverb of "The Loser's Bar"; the far-out fuzz wah-wah of "Cycle-Delic"; the grand, James Bond-theme-quality "Another Cycle in Detroit"; "The Rebel (Without a Cause)," which sounds rather like a tougher version of Britain's Shadows; the sweet fuzz hum of the 45 version of "Devil's Angels"; and the cool update of the classic surf instrumental "Moondawg," titled "Moondawg '65" naturally. The liner notes do a lot to give Allan & the Arrows the place in history they deserve, even including a page of comments by producer Mike Curb.

Oscar Brown Jr., Kicks: The Best of Oscar Brown Jr. (BGP). With 23 tracks from all four of Brown's early-'60s albums for Columbia, this is the finest representation of the singer's work on record. It's true that it doesn't include some worthy post-Columbia material, particularly cuts from the 1964 live recording Mr. Oscar Brown Jr. Goes to Washington (such as "Brother Where Are You?"). It's also true that some fans might have minor quibbles with the songs selected for this best-of, which omits numbers like "Rags and Old Iron," "Brown Baby," and "Man, Ernest Boy" that could have made worthy inclusions. Yet it's hard to argue with what is here, including as it does standouts like the oft-covered "Work Song" (in two versions, actually); his vocal adaptations of Mongo Santamaria's "Afro Blue," Duke Pearson's "Jeanine," and Miles Davis' "All Blues"; "But I Was Cool," one of the most humorous jazz vocal pieces ever; and more serious numbers adapting the work of African-American poetry, "Elegy (Plain Black Boy)" and "When Malindy Sings." The four standards taken from In a New Mood are the least interesting numbers, but at least everything else on the CD is a Brown original, or an adaptation of a musical or literary work to which Brown added new words and/or music. Though he was perhaps a bit too theatrical in his singing and songwriting to get as hip a reputation as gutsier, moodier performers like Nina Simone (who covered several Brown songs in her early days), this remains some of the best music to fuse jazz, pop vocals, and African-American consciousness.

Cleaners from Venus, Living with Victoria Grey: The Very Best of Cleaners from Venus (Cherry Red). It's stretching things a little to call this a best-of (or certainly a "very best of"), since this draws from a fairly limited slice of Cleaners from Venus' prolific 1981-1990 output. It focuses on the late-1980s period when Giles Smith was primary CoV singer-songwriter Martin Newell's chief collaborator in the band, and when the group graduated from underground cassettes to more widely distributed LPs. Not that you'd necessarily be able to figure that out from the liner notes, which, while including a thorough discography, neglect to list original release details for any of the tracks on this anthology. It's not a trivial omission, particularly since, as the fairly small circle of Cleaners from Venus know, some of these 18 songs sounded better (and certainly less overproduced) in their original versions on those cassette-only releases. That's particularly true of the songs from their best cassette-only album, Living with Victoria Grey, several of which show up here in slicker, less effective arrangements. All those reservations out of the way, this is still a good, often charming selection of some of the group's more widely circulated tracks -- not that any of them were ever too widely heard. The melodies are infectious, the guitars ringing, the lyrics witty, and the sound indebted to '60s pop-rock without sounding revivalistic (a much rarer feat than it should be). It's one of the few best-ofs from a hitless '80s indie band that actually sounds like a collection of worthy hit singles, rather than songs that just wished they were hit singles, or were trying to be hit singles without the quality to justify such popularity. As a nice bonus, Giles Smith contributes a witty sleeve note, and on the CD's final four tracks, he reads four spoken extracts about his Cleaners from Venus experiences from his autobiographical book Lost in Music (which is well worth reading, by the way).

Donovan, Sixty Four (Donovan Discs). Recorded by Donovan in 1964 (the sleeve art implies it was in the summer of that year), these nine tracks predate the singer's first official releases on Pye Records, and represent the earliest studio recordings of his to have yet come to light. (Although two of the cuts, "London Town" and "Codine," did come out on the Troubadour box set in the early 1990s, the other seven were previously unreleased.) Donovan was at this point an acoustic folk musician, and these performances are pretty similar to the folk recordings he'd make for official release in 1965, though they're perhaps a bit more rooted in the traditional side of things. Though Brian Locking accompanies him on bass on "Crazy 'Bout a Woman," otherwise it's just Donovan and his acoustic guitar. And good it is too, his distinctive style of vocal phrasing and accomplished guitar work virtually fully formed, although the material isn't as striking as the songs that lifted him to stardom in the mid-1960s.

Donovan would in fact re-do a few of these numbers in the studio slightly later on, with Jesse Fuller's "Keep on Trucking" appearing on a 1965 release; "Isle of Sadness" getting remade with the title "Belated Forgiveness Plea," though otherwise the song and performance are quite similar to the later 1965 Pye Recording; and "The Darkness of My Night" getting retitled "Breezes of Patchulie" for his typically ornate mid-1960s folk-rock treatment a bit later on, though this version is purely acoustic, and considerably plainer. As for the best items that Donovan wouldn't release in any form on his early Pye Recordings, those include a good cover of Ewan McColl's classic "Dirty Old Town" and a decent gotta-travel-on-style troubadour folk original, "Freedom Road." The sole other original on the set, "Talkin' Pop Star Blues," would have given the Donovan's-a-Dylan-imitator crowd some additional ammunition had it come out at the time, sounding too close to some of Dylan's early talking blues for comfort. On the whole, though, Donovan has much of his original voice in place here, and this is worthy addition to his body of recordings, in fine official release-quality sound. (This CD is available via Donovan's own website, www.donovan.ie.)

Nick Drake, Made to Love Magic (Island). Hunger for "new" Nick Drake material had reached enough of a fever pitch by the twenty-first century for Island to try and dig up enough for this odd patchwork collection, combining outtakes with remixes of tracks that had been previously issued on the Time of No Reply album. The result is a curious disc that's not quite an anthology of wholly previously unreleased material, and thus of somewhat limited value to Drake collectors, though it contains much good music. The only song here previously unavailable in any form is the 1974 outtake "Tow the Line," a melancholic solo acoustic performance (as are most of the tracks on the CD) that's well up to the standards of Pink Moon and the 1974 tracks that previously surfaced on Time of No Reply. Also new to official release are spring 1968 solo acoustic versions of "River Man" (later to appear on Five Leaves Left with orchestration) and "Mayfair" (a later recording of which was used on Time of No Reply), as well as a March '69 version of "Three Hours" that's longer than the one later cut for Five Leaves Left. There's also a newly discovered take of "Hanging on a Star" (one of the 1974 outtakes used on Time of No Reply) with a different vocal. The differences between these and the familiar studio renditions aren't knock-your-socks-off different, but certainly good and well worth hearing by Drake cultists.

It's the rest of the material that might be the target of criticism from concerned consumers, whether for posthumous tampering or redundancy with previously available albums. Most controversially, two tracks from Time of No Reply -- "Time of No Reply" itself and "I Was Made to Love Magic" (the latter here, for some reason, retitled simply "Magic") -- have been altered to include Robert Kirby's original orchestral arrangements, recorded in 2003. Actually in both instances, the substituted orchestration is integrated very tastefully, but it can never be answered whether Drake himself would have approved or had it done the exact ame way. The remaining cuts are simply remixes or remasterings of six songs that appeared on Time of No Reply, the remixes of the 1974 songs "Black Eyed Dog," "Rider on the Wheel," and "Voices" (originally titled "Voice from the Mountain" when it first appeared on Time of No Reply) being done by the original recording engineer, John Wood. Though those remixes of the '74 tracks in particular are an improvement (the songs on the original release had been mixed onto a mono listening tape), again it's not the sort of thing that will generate revelations unless you're an audiophile. As everything Drake recorded was worth hearing, this CD too is quite worthy judged in isolation, and certainly full of the subdued mystery the singer-songwriter brought to his music. It's just not the goldmine of discoveries for which some might have hoped.

Exuma, Exuma (Repertoire ). Exuma's debut album was a real odd piece of work, even by the standards of the late 1960s and early 1970s, when major labels went further out on a limb to throw weird stuff at the public to see what would stick than they ever had before, or have since. Roughly speaking, it's kind of like a combination of the Bahamian folk of Joseph Spence with early Dr. John at his most voodooed-out, though even that nutshell doesn't really do justice to how unusual this record is. Often it seems more like eavesdropping on a tribal ritual than listening to songs. Some of the tracks, indeed, have little or less to do with conventional "songs" with tunes and lyrics; they're more akin to Mardi Grass street percussion jams, airlifted to the Caribbean islands. Exuma and his accompanists make quite a spooky clamor with their various bells, foot drums, chanting, gasps, sighs, shouts, and other percussive instruments, creating a mood both celebratory and scary. He's not totally averse to using more standard song forms, though, singing about "zombies walking in the broad daylight" in "Mama Loi, Papa Loi"; devising a simple, fairly singable soul melody for "You Don't Know What's Going On," his most famous song due to its inclusion in the movie Joe; and setting "The Vision" to an appealing, if again quite simple, folk melody. Exuma's rough, unschooled vocals cut off any prospect of mainstream accessibility, but they get the job done in getting both his uplifting and ominous spirituality over. It's a little surprising that this stuff hasn't undergone a sizable cult revival; many artists of lesser talent and idiosyncrasy have, and perhaps the 2003 CD reissue on Repertoire, with reasonably informed liner notes, will aid in its rediscovery.

Exuma, Exuma II (Repertoire). Exuma's second album is perhaps a little less strange, and a little more sedate, than his debut (also released in 1970) -- but only a little. It's another combination of folk music from the Bahamas with voodoo-esque ritual not far removed from some of the more extreme New Orleans music influenced by that practice. In places (like "Fire in the Hole," probably the most accessible cut) there's a spiritual lilt to the vocals that might remind some listeners, if only faintly, of some of the Rasta-fired reggae recorded by Bob Marley and others in the '70s. It's hardly just another day at the office for Mercury Records, though, when one of the first lyrics of an album blithely states, "you thought you married a woman, you married a big black bird." Too, "Paul Simon Nontooth" might even be further-out (and creepier) than anything on the first album, being more a zombie revival ritual than a conventional song. There are more tuneful items too, though, like "Baal," where Exuma's raw, scratchy vocals approximate an exotic soul-gospel feel. And even on the more laid-back tracks, there are all sorts of weird, spontaneous-sounding interjections of percussion, yells, and chanting voices, "We Got to Go" even sounding something like a nineteenth-century group trying to play like War, only lacking the modern technology to make the transition complete. Plenty of albums based in folk traditions, and plenty of albums that are very odd, have little variety from cut to cut. That, refreshingly, is something that most definitely can not be said of Exuma II, where you're never quite sure what's around the corner. Overall, however, it's similar enough to the first album that it sounds almost as if it could have been overspill from the same sessions. While it might not be quite as striking as his previous album, certainly anyone who likes that debut will like this as well (and vice versa), and its reissue on CD in 2003 made it more available than it had been for decades.

Fleetwood Mac, Helsinki Carousel [bootleg] (Hiwatt). Given that there are almost ten discs worth of officially released early live and BBC Fleetwood Mac when Peter Green was in the lineup, do you really need to seek out concert bootlegs of the group from the same era? Not unless you're a completist, but if  you are one, this two-CD set is at least not totally redundant with the live stuff that's made it onto legitimate releases. The first 18 songs -- all of disc one, and the first five tracks of disc two -- come from a show at the Carousel Ballroom in San Francisco in June 1968, hence documenting a slightly earlier period than the ones covered on most of the official live early Mac discs (which tend to come from 1969 and 1970). The sound on this portion is surprisingly good -- extremely clear, almost up to official release quality -- yet also curiously dead, as if it was recorded as the band was in rehearsal prior to a radio-only session (and in fact, the audience is virtually inaudible). Too, the vocals are fainter than they should be, though not buried or indecipherable. It all tends to make it sound less exciting than anticipated. Also, the song selection is a little too much on the conservative blues side, though it does have live versions of some of their better early tracks ("Got to Move," "I Loved Another Woman"), as well as some songs that didn't make it onto their early studio releases (like Freddie King's "Have You Ever Loved a Woman" and  a ten-minute instrumental "Jam" whose riff sounds much like Billy Boy Arnold's "I Wish You Would"). And as usual, there's a little too much of those early rock'n'roll oldies covers Fleetwood Mac were prone to throw into their live set, including "Willie and the Hand Jive" and three Little Richard numbers.

The final 13 songs on disc two are taken from a spring 1969 concert in Helsinki, and the band actually sound more much lively here. It also helps that by this time, they'd developed some better original material that was moving away from strict blues-rock limitations, playing "Man of the World," "Only You," "Oh Well," "Albatross," and "Coming Your Way,