Record Store Day is mostly known for limited edition releases on vinyl and, to a lesser extent, CDs. The 155-page hardback book Treasures Untold: A Modern 78 RPM Reader, however, was a spring 2025 Record Store Day release limited to a thousand copies, though it does include a CD of contemporary artists performing songs from the 78s era. The dozen chapters present memories, stories, and perspectives by (and occasionally interviews with) devoted collectors of 78s, some of whom are also musicians, dealers, archivists, reissue compilers/liner note writers, and/or record label owners. The authors aren’t celebrities on the order of, say, R. Crumb, although there’s a detailed story of an in-person encounter with him in one of the chapters. But some will be known to general music historians, like editor Josh Rosenthal, who runs the Tompkins Square label (and did some of the writing and interviewing), longtime collector/reissue writer/assembler Dick Spottswood, and record label executive David Katznelson, who’s also worn several hats. The focus is usually on blues, country, and folk 78s, though a few other genres like jazz, gospel, and early rock’n’roll are also discussed.

Collecting and even listening to 78s isn’t a terribly common pastime in 2025, and not even “coming back” to the extent that the consumption and manufacture of vinyl music releases are. But there are still people seeking 78s, and the book illuminates how and why the search continues, and probably always will. I spoke to Treasures Untold editor Josh Rosenthal, who wrote one of the chapters himself, shortly after the book came out in spring 2025. Copies of the book are still available on Bandcamp, at https://tompkinssquare.bandcamp.com/merch/treasures-untold-a-modern-78-rpm-reader.

Why did you assemble a book about 78s and collecting them, a niche that’s pretty small, if growing?

It’s a really small niche. I explain the impetus for the book in my chapter pretty extensively. But basically, I’ve been around 78s a lot over the past twenty years with the label. [Rosenthal runs Tompkins Square Records, which has put out many reissues of all sorts, in addition to some recently recorded works.] Especially in the first ten years of the label, I put out a lot of compilations that were derived from 78rpm records. Like the Charlie Poole [anthology The Complete Paramount and Brunswick Recordings 1929], the People Take Warning set [of Murder Ballads & Songs of Disaster 1913-1938]. Arizona Dranes, who is a gospel singer back in the ‘20s, very influential but not well known. So we did a book/CD on Arizona Dranes [He Is My Story: The Sanctified Soul of Arizona Dranes]; Michael Corcoran wrote the book, and there’s a CD in there. Early Cajun stuff. I did a three-CD set of stuff in the Ottoman empire [To What Strange Place: The Music of the Ottoman-American Diaspora, 1916=1929] that’s produced by Ian Nagoski. Just a whole host of different releases and compilations and stuff that were derived from 78s.

So that’s been in my whole world. But I didn’t start collecting [78s] until June of 2023. I started because a friend of mine up in Napa was opening a record store, and she was like, “How would you like to try to find some records for me?” I was like, that sounds fun. I’ve never done anything like that. It was a lot easier then to find good quality collections than it is now, even two years later. It’s like so competitive for vinyl.

But I saw this listing on Craigslist, and it listed all these cool artists, like Muddy Waters and Lightnin’ Hopkins and all these people, for 78s. I was like, I’ll go out there. Why not? It’s in Berkeley [in the San Francisco Bay Area where Rosenthal’s based], I’ll go check it out. So I went, and there was like one other person in this garage. It was some guy who was moving to France, and he wanted to just get rid of everything super-cheap. So I wound up just buying a couple crates’ worth of 78s, and I started listening to them. 

I didn’t even have the proper equipment yet. I didn’t have the right three-millimeter stylus. I had a one-millimeter stylus, which is basically what everybody uses for vinyl. So then I got myself a real stylus, and I started listening. I was just taken aback by how moved I was by the sound of so many of these records. Then I got a couple more collections in quick succession; I got these three big collections probably within the space of like eight weeks. They were all super-cheap, and they were all really, really good. That was the basis of the collection. 

At that point, I was like, I wonder if I can get myself a Washington Phillips 78. So I put the search in eBay, [for] Washington Phillips [a gospel/blues singer who recorded in the late 1920s]. One showed up, and I bought a Washington Phillips 78 for 75 bucks. I was like, okay, check that box. I don’t have to have every Washington Phillips 78, ‘cause that would probably never happen, and it would be so expensive to try to track down good quality copies of that stuff. 

At that point, I was just looking for representation from some of my favorite artists. Then that’s when the learning exploded. That’s when I started just going so deep on things. Any day that I want to dedicate time to learning about 78s, researching 78s, I will invariably find something new, or learn something new, or discover some new string band, or some weird blues guy. Or make a connection.

One of the most wonderful things about this is if you’re a true music fan, is there’s so many touch points of rock’n’roll that revert back. Like, I got this 78 by Jay McShann, called “Confessin’ the Blues” [released in 1941].

Yeah, the Rolling Stones did that song on their second British EP (and second US LP) in 1964.

Yeah! I forgot the name of the tune, but I’m listening to this 78. I’m like, holy shit, this is that Rolling Stones song. Then I learned that they learned it from someone else who covered it, but the Jay McShann version is actually the original version. [The Stones could have first heard the 1958 version by blues harmonica great Little Walter, or the 1960 one by Chuck Berry.] That record’s in my collection. That’s so cool.

Another example of that on the jazz side is, I got this Coleman Hawkins 78. Coleman Hawkins is one of those guys who never recorded a single bad thing, and a lot of his records are very cheap. You can get them for ten dollars or less, for some reason. I don’t know why he gets a pass, and his records are so cheap. But I got this Coleman Hawkins record, and in the small type on the label, it said “Thelonious Monk, piano.” So I looked up this 78, and lo and behold, Thelonious Monk’s first appearance on a record is on the Coleman Hawkins 78 that I own. And I probably got it for five bucks, or I didn’t pay any money for it. 

Then I learned that Thelonious Monk returned the favor to Coleman Hawkins by inviting him on the very famous legendary Thelonious Monk-John Coltrane collaboration, their only album that they made together. Coleman Hawkins guests on that record. So it’s just like you’re making these connections. And it happens all the time, over and over again.

So that experience, that first feeling, kind of led me to just being compelled to create a book about it. But I also wanted to learn. I wanted to have the most knowledgeable people, and ask them to write the chapters, so that I could learn.

What are the most important qualities you get on a 78 that you don’t get with other formats?

The main thing is feel. I also address this in my chapter. You can listen to like a cleaned-up, remastered digital version of a 78, and sometimes you’ll hear more nuance, you’ll hear more detail. Obviously you won’t have surface noise as much, so it’ll be pretty clean to listen to. But one of the reasons I started really getting into 78s is, there’s something missing in that equation. In the digital transfers, there’s something lost.

It’s hard to describe it. But it’s definitely something that you can feel, like, in your body when you listen. And it has a lot to do with, I guess, the analog chain and the ways that something that was recorded, and the actual physical aspect of a 78 connecting with a three-millimeter needle and what that does in a physical sense. I’m not an engineer, so I can’t really articulate that part. 

But I can say that it’s definitely something that you can hear. And it’s definitely something you can feel. It’s just a closeness to the music. When you listen to a digital format, or even an LP that’s remastered, I don’t think it’s bad. I think it’s different. So it’s a different experience; it’s not better, or worse. It’s different.

I would also say that it’s possible that the artist – you never know how much of a say they had, especially in the ‘20s. Like, how much control did Blind Willie Johnson have over his content? Probably none, right? But I think maybe later, if you think about some of the jazz artists who recorded, or OKeh Records—let’s say in the ‘40s, or something like that—they probably had a certain amount of control over what was heard. Whether it’s a test pressing or a playback of some sort. So you’re getting pretty close to what the artist actually intended something to sound like. Whereas today, you don’t have as much assurance that what their intent was sonically is what’s coming through.

I think today, if there’s a lead artist—if their name is on a record—I think they probably have a lot of say and a lot of control. But the extent to which they actually care, is like another question. If a few people come in and they have names and work with other major artists, and they slap some stuff on somebody’s track and the artist thinks it sounds good, that’s an example of them not really controlling things, but someone else controlling their song. I don’t know how it works, ‘cause I’m not in that world. I have no idea how hit records are made these days. No clue.

Is there a lot of worthwhile material that was only on 78 records that’s never been reissued?

There’s so many things that have been uploaded on youtube that are not reissued. There’s a few areas where a lot of 78s are being uploaded and being digitized. The main ones are youtube, where someone may have the only copy, or just a super-super-rare record, and the only way you can hear it is on youtube, because a collector uploaded it. Then you have the Internet Archive, The Great 78 Project. That’s ongoing, and they’ve been going for years now, uploading content to The Great 78 Project on Internet Archive. Then there’s also DAHR, which is Discography of American Historical Recordings. That’s through UC Santa Barbara. They have a tremendous amount of stuff that’s either streamable or downloadable on their website.

To me, those are the main ones. If you take all three of those, you’re probably going to be able to find what you’re looking for, if you need to listen to something. But there’s still tons of stuff that hasn’t been digitized.

This Tony Russell discography [shows me the book Country Music Records: A Discography, 1921-1942], there’s very little writing. There’s a foreword by him where he discusses his methodology, but it’s all this [shows a few pages of small-print listings]. It’s 1200 pages. This is every country music record [from 1921-42], and a lot of different genres kind of bleed into that. If you want to listen to any of these songs, I would say maybe 90 to 95 percent of all the songs that are in this book, you can hear somehow online. That just gives you an idea.

But have I been stumped? Yes. There have been times when I’ve been like, I can’t hear this thing. But most of it’s up, most of it’s available. I guess that’s good.

Are there certain important artists whose 78s have never been reissued, although the material really should be heard in other, possibly more widely available formats? For me personally, my top example is when Dust-to-Digital put John Fahey’s earliest and rarest records into the Your Past Comes Back to Haunt You: The Fonotone Years (1958-1965)  box set in 2011. [Recorded between 1958-1965, much of the material on this five-CD box came out until 1970 as cut-on-demand 78s on the Fonotone label; after 1970 and until 1985, these would still be cut-on-demand, but issued in the 45rpm format.] I’d never seen the original discs on this set, and didn’t even a way of hearing them.

I think there’s probably tons. But I’d have to really think about who. There’s a lot of artists who, even though their music is “available,” like I said—you can hear it if you want to—there’s so many artists that deserve to be anthologized that have not been. It just depends on how much effort somebody wants to put into that. In the early 2000s, Dust-to-Digital did the Goodbye Babylon set [of rare vintage sacred music], that was important. In the early 2000s, you saw a lot of that stuff. There were a bunch of labels out there, including mine, that were doing that sort of reissue stuff.

I don’t know why labels have stopped basically putting out reissues of stuff from 78s, other than a few notables, like the King Oliver set that won a Grammy. [Centennial: King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band won a Grammy for Best Historical Album in 2025.] There’s just not a lot of activity in that space. I don’t know if they feel like a lot of the consumers for that sort of stuff are dead, have died, or maybe they’re spooked by the lawsuits on Internet Archive from the major labels. Or maybe they feel like things have been exhausted.

Are there notable 78s that are known to have been released, or possibly released, that have never been found? I think the two most well known examples are a couple of singles from 1930 by bluesman Willie Brown.

It’s funny, because somebody just sent me a graphic of the Willie Brown 78 on the side of a milk carton. That was just sent to me, like, two days ago. I’m not qualified to say what’s supposedly out there but not discovered. There are people who can answer that question, though. [Collector and dealer] John Tefteller can definitely answer that question, and a multitude of other 78 collectors who are super-deep into it could answer that question.

I do know that someone [recently] discovered an unknown Big Bill Broonzy record. [“Station Blues”/”How You Want It Done,” a 1931 78 on the Paramount label, was discovered in 2023.] In this Tony Russell book, there’s tons of records that say “unissued.” So the recording data is there, but the record isn’t. So that definitely happens, and it’s rare. I’m not expert on it, I don’t know a lot about that.

There are a couple different approaches to preserving 78s, and rare music discs in general, that people give pro and con arguments for and against. One is to arrange for them to be given to an institutional archive, like at a university or museum. Another feels it’s more appropriate for the material to circulate in private collections. Do you have any views on this?

I think it depends on a bunch of different things. I think it depends on whose collection it is and where it’s going. So those are the two variables. Whose collection is it, who’s the recipient of the collection, and what are they going to do with it? Without knowing those two factors, I wouldn’t be able to say.

But I will say this. I went to the Dylan Center in Tulsa, and the guy who runs it was nice enough to take me into a non-public area where there was some stuff. He said hey, by the way, that’s [top folklorist] Harry Smith’s record collection and book collection. And there it was. I took pictures of all the spines, and it blew my mind. 

So when someone prominent dumps their collection, or sells their collection piecemeal, obviously it’s going to be up to the heirs what they want to do, or maybe to the individual when he writes his will. But to have all Harry Smith’s records in front of you – that tells you a lot about Harry Smith. That informs you about his taste and his interests. And it’s fucking fascinating. If all his books were just sort of like sold and splintered out and sent this way and that way, you wouldn’t have that. Yes, it would be nice for people to own one of Harry Smith’s books, that’s cool. But taken together, they tell you a story about the person.

If it’s a prominent person, I’d like to see that collection go someplace where it can stay intact. If it’s a random collector—and it could be a prominent collector. It could be someone like Joe Bussard [who had a large and legendary collection of rare 78s], right? I spent time with him, worked with him on different projects. His family decided, and I’m sure they discussed it before he died, to just sell it off piecemeal. I think that’s fine. I think people should enjoy Joe’s collection.

But for somebody like [producer] Hal Willner, it could be really cool if people could just see his collection. [Legendary British radio presenter] John Peel’s a good example of somebody whose collection’s intact, people can go and see it. I don’t know if publicly, but there’s videos of Damon Albarn hanging out in John Peel’s record collection and pulling records, playing records. That is very cool. In fact, you could go on a website—you could actually go record by record in John Peel’s record collection. You could scroll over a record, and it would give you all of this discographical information. [Some of the material from Peel’s collection can be accessed in this fashion at johnpeelarchive.com.] Maybe you could even hear it. That was so cool.

So I guess my answer is, I think it’s good for records to circulate. If it’s just a random person like myself, then those records should just go out into the world. If it’s a prominent name who’s contributed hugely to culture, even like a David Lynch or something…wouldn’t you like to see David Lynch’s record collection? That would be again up to the family, and up to David Lynch if he had a will. But I think for something like that, it’s cool to have it intact and accessible in some way.

Some collectors and historians champion the 78 as the best sonic format for recorded music. In an update to his book The Sound of the City, perhaps the first first-rate history of rock music (originally published in early 1970s), British journalist and radio presenter Charlie Gillett wrote: “The deep wide grooves of 78 singles generated a big, warm sound which progressively disappeared with each successive format—45 rpm singles, 33 rpm albums, and digitally mastered CDs all tended to favor higher frequencies, at the expense of the ‘bottom end.’ Played through the huge speakers of jukeboxes, 78s delivered a massive sound which can only be vaguely approximated by CDs on a domestic hi-fi or portable system. Owners of Elvis’s 78 rpm singles on Sun justifiably believe that no other format has come close to reproducing their impact. It may help to turn up the bass on your amp, but you’ll never quite get there.” Do you think the difference in quality is that great?

I said in my chapter that condition is subjective, just like music is subjective. I would also add that format is subjective, just like music is subjective. It’s about taste. So somebody could listen to an Elvis 78 and then they’d listen to the CD. Depending on their point of view, or what they’re used to, or what their brain is wired for, they might think that the CD sounds better. I’ve noticed my ear is becoming more and more attuned to 78s, to analog, almost to the point where I just prefer it so much more now to listening to CDs, for example, that I just can’t think about even going back.

So I think that taste is a big part of it, and he’s expressing his opinion about what he enjoys. A lot of that has to do with what frequencies he enjoys, or speaks to him. If you talk to an engineer, they could explain it better.

[When] 78s were manufactured, the players were manufactured to match sonic quality of the 78. So a lot of purists, and a lot of 78 collectors that I know, want to listen to the 78s on period equipment. Somebody will want to listen to their Billie Holiday or Charlie Parker 78 from the ‘40s on ‘40s-era equipment. To say that it’s better or more bass or this or that, I don’t know that it’s about anything other than subjective taste when it comes to playback.

Again, I’m not engineer, but the two things that folks point to is, [on 78s] there’s more space between the grooves. If you’re using a three-millimeter needle, you’re picking up more information. Also the 78 speed allows you…that’s why people go nuts for a Miles Davis that’s on 45rpm. Somebody who’s an engineer could explain this to you, but the speed has a factor as well. 

I’m not an audiofile, so I don’t care beyond feel. And I have a very basic setup with, like, a Marantz from the ‘70s and decent bookshelfy type of speakers, and a modern Audio-Technica turntable. So I’m probably not a great person to talk to about this stuff. Because beyond sort of almost like a superficial enjoyment of how 78s sound, I’m not an audiofile, and I’m not an expert, and I’m not an engineer. I just know what sounds good.

Some of the prices for the really rare desirable 78s are really high. Some of the stories in the book discuss discs being sold for sky-high sums. Is this a hobby that’s affordable for people with average/modest incomes?

Yeah, I talk about it in the chapter. I think you can amass a really respectable 78 collection without losing your shirt, selling the farm so to speak. If you want to spend $100-200 a month or something like that on 78s, you can get some really nice 78s. There’s a lot of major artists whose records are not expensive. Just as a few examples, you mentioned Little Walter. Most of his records on Checker, you can pay $20 or $30 for those records, and they’re unbelievable. They sound amazing. They’re classic recordings. People tend to not realize that the MGM Hank Williams records are 75 years old now. And you can get one for ten bucks. Like I said, you can get pretty much any Coleman Hawkins record. You can get Duke Ellington records very inexpensively.

So it just depends what you want to do. If you want to start getting into the nosebleed territory, it’s crazy. What people are paying for 78s never ceases to astound me. There’s two songs that come with the CD on Treasures Untold by Wilmer Watts, who’s a country figure from the ‘20s. Two of his 78s went for $4400 and $5700 respectively on eBay last week. So $5000 for Wilmer Watts, [on] Paramount. Paramount records don’t sound very good, traditionally. So just think about it. $5000. I had no idea what they were worth or how high they could go. I was just watching it on eBay, just for fun. That’s astounding. 

I’m never gonna be that guy. I wrote that in the chapter too. It’s not that I can’t buy a $5000 Wilmer Watts. It’s just I never would, and I don’t want to. I just don’t wanna be that guy. I’ll buy a Washington Phillips 78 for $75 in so-so condition. I’ll buy a Blind Willie Johnson record for $100 if I can find a beater, like a VG [i.e. in “very good” condition, which for 78s often means considerable surface noise, though still very listenable]. I have numerous Blind Lemon Jefferson records that I got for about $100 each, some a little less.

There’s really good attainable records for a couple hundred bucks. If that’s your thing, and you feel like having a treasure, and treating yourself and spending a couple hundred bucks, then I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that as long as it’s within your budget.

There’s a couple of really good auction sites that I don’t want to name, other than eBay, ‘cause I don’t need the competition. I love going on there and it’s kind of like a closed system, because there’s only a certain amount of people who know about it. Every month they’re on there looking for stuff. I buy things from them, and maybe I’ll spend a couple of hundred bucks a month on those sites, and I’ll get some really great stuff. It doesn’t impact my lifestyle, so it’s fine, and I’m happy. I’m happy with my records, I’m happy spending the money, I’m happy supporting the people who are selling the records, and what they do.

So I guess the answer is, it depends on your means, your goals in terms of collecting, and what’s important to you.

Many people don’t realize that in the early years of rock’n’roll, many records were still being made as both 78s and 45s. There are Fats Domino 78s, for instance, that have the reputation of sounding good.

Fats Domino is a great example that I should have named of someone of whom you can amass their records for super-cheap. All [his] Imperial records, you can get pretty much for under twenty dollars. They sound fantastic, the Imperial pressings are great. I bought a “Blueberry Hill” for eight dollars because basically the 78 version is different than the version that’s been on every fucking CD reissue ever. I bought that one because there was some kind of edit, or fix, or something that he had to sing over, or something like that. So that the 78 is minutely different from all successive versions of it. I’m not a forensic scientist when it comes to music, but that was really interesting.

There are a lot of interesting stories, some of which are in Treasures Untold, of collectors actually knocking on doors in neighborhoods in the South in the 1950s and 1960s where it was thought likely for some of those desirable 78s to have been bought when they were released. The collectors would ask the residents if they had any records to sell, and got some of their 78 collections that way. Is that possible to do these days, 50-70 years later, and find some rare 78s?

I guess it’s possible. It’s interesting, because I had this conversation with Wade Falcon, who’s a descendant of Joseph Falcon, who is one of the first recorded Cajun artists. I was like, do you think that any of the Cajun records are still out there in people’s homes, in attics and basements and garages? He said, definitely. He said, if you went to some of these parishes in Louisiana, like in some of these obscure towns and stuff, you would probably find some records. But you can’t just knock on people’s doors down there. They won’t take too kindly to that. 

So yeah, I think it’s possible. But it’s probably not as fruitful. Because when Joe [Bussard] and Richard Nevins and all those people were going around doing that, they were only like one generation away from when those people first collected those records. Now we’re fifty or sixty years past that, and a lot of things happen. A lot of people throw stuff out, or they junk stuff, or they sell stuff. So there’s that.

But also, Malcolm [Vidrine] at Venerable [Music, an auction site for 78s] told me that back in the ‘90s, let’s say, like twenty or thirty years ago, you could still raid all the antique shops in the south and find amazing shit. And that is over. So are there records out there? Yeah. It’s much harder to find stuff. I don’t care if it’s from a private collector person who’s a hoarder or…people know the value of records in a way that they never did all the way back then.

Those guys [collecting 78s many years ago] totally took advantage of that, I think, ‘cause they wanted the music. Joe [Bussard] didn’t go around to houses ‘cause he thought he would make a mint off the records. I don’t think that’s why he did it. He just loved the music, he knew this stuff was rare, and he wanted to get out the rare good stuff. It wasn’t about oh, I can get this record, and in twenty or thirty or forty years later I could sell it on eBay for a thousand bucks. That’s not how he operated, and I’m sure it’s not how those other guys did either. 

Was it profitable in the end? Yes, very. But that’s sort of almost besides the point when you look at the contributions of those people. They didn’t just hoard the records and keep them for themselves. Joe Bussard found all those records, and then he made mountains of cassettes that he sold to people, compilations. He had a radio show. He used to loan his records out to the people who do compilations. He shared his stuff. And that’s what it’s about. It’s not just about knocking on a door, getting records from some poor soul who doesn’t know what they have, and exploiting that person. You can make up your mind whether or not that’s exploitation or not. But these guys, they definitely did good things with the records they got.

Bussard also helped John Fahey a lot by actually recording Fahey on 78s for Bussard’s Fonotone label [which were finally reissued on Dust-to-Digital’s 2011 Your Past Comes Back to Haunt You Fahey box].

I’ve never heard this or read it anywhere or anything, but I really think that Fahey’s impetus for starting Takoma [Records, which released LPs by Fahey, Robbie Basho, Leo Kottke, and Bukka White in the 1960s] – he looked at Joe. He was like, well, Joe’s got his own label. Why can’t I have my own label? Why can’t I record myself and other people who’ve put out records? I’m sure that’s where he got the idea.

Because in 1959, when Fahey first put out his self-produced, self-released first album, there was no one doing that. It was unheard of, to put out your own record. I think he got all the ideas and probably a lot of the tactical side of it, like learning how to do it, from Joe.

Going back to one of your main reasons for doing the book, what were the most interesting things you learned in the process of assembling it?

The most important takeaway for me in this entire project is that I learned how deep the well is, in a way that I did not anticipate. Because you think you know something, but you don’t really know. once you start to explore, you realize that you have so much more to learn. And the past just keeps giving these gifts. On any given day if I want to, if I feel like just hunkering down and like researching, going down rabbit holes, learning about different artists, I can do it, and I’ll learn something new every single time I do that. 

The other takeaway is, I have such a clear understanding of the timeline of music now that I’m collecting 78s. Because you see how genres impacted. You see the overlapping, or the melting pot or whatever, of all these different genres and how things progressed from the ‘20s. I start in the ‘20s, because I’m not as interested in music pre-1920, 1923. Like when Fiddlin’ John Carson [did] the earliest earliest country records, that’s kind of where I start. I’m not interested in music from the 1890s through like 1915 or something. I don’t care about marching bands, I don’t like opera, I don’t like military music. Some of the stuff from like the early 1900s, the Spanish records are very nice, some of the ethnic stuff in the 1910s. But I’m sort of ignorant about it, so it’s not even worth commenting, ‘cause I just don’t know. It’s not really my taste. I just don’t care about that stuff.

But you start learning about how the artist found songs. For instance, the Carter Family. They had this African-American person who used to take A.P. Carter around black churches, where he wouldn’t have been welcome necessarily. He was like A.P. Carter’s muse for finding songs that the Carter Family would record. That’s an amazing revelation. And it ties into today, because you have, like, Beyoncé going out there with her Cowboy Carter [album] and being so controversial. Like, what is country music? Where did it start? How did it start?

Jimmie Rodgers learned from black musicians. Carter Family picked up a lot of their songs…it says A.P. Carter on the record as the person who wrote the song. But a lot of those songs came from traditional black churches. So you start putting this stuff together, and it’s totally fascinating. Then you just see how the music moved through the 20^th century. Like the early country stuff, some of the sort of hybrid pop-country kind of stuff, like Vernon Dalhart. Then the ‘30s, things really changed because of the Depression and people weren’t buying records. So you have a totally different kind of sound, almost, in that era.

Then moving into the ‘40s, which is kind of like an iffy decade, you have like Andrews Sisters and all this kind of stuff. You get into the jump blues, rhythm and blues, and all that. You just have this different perspective based on records that you see on a regular basis, stuff that you’re seeing, stuff that you’re listening to that is different that you’ve never heard before. Maybe you don’t like it, but it’s still part of that process.

You also learn a tremendous amount about what you don’t want. Like, I don’t want any [early jazzman] Jimmie Lunceford records. And there’s a very good reason for that. Not to be a snob, but there’s a multitude of artists that I probably never had any awareness of before that I have an over-awareness of because they’re in like every collection that you see. 

It’s totally fascinating to listen to something like Billie Holiday. Listening to how timeless it is. You’re like, why isn’t this dated? There’s so much music from this era that’s so dated. It sounds like something you just don’t want to hear. And then you have this timelessness that comes through these artists. That’s the other thing you start to realize. You realize there’s a reason why everyone remembers Bessie Smith, and they don’t remember like dozens of her contemporaries. It’s because she was great. You hear the records, and you’re like, well, there’s all these other contemporaries that were basically plying the same trade. But they’re not as good. They don’t hit you the same way.

I think it’s true of Bessie. I think it’s true of Billie Holiday. She just completely wiped the competition. That’s how you remember certain artists, and certain artists go by the wayside. But there’s also pockets of collectors who really are interested in some of these more obscure ancillary characters from those eras.

There have long been rumors or stories that some hardcore collectors actually destroyed some of their extra copies of prime rare 78s so their own copies would be more valuable, and copies in general would be scarcer. Is there any substance to those?

I’ve heard that same thing, but it doesn’t make sense. If there’s only five copies known in the world, why would you break one? Why wouldn’t you sell it? I mean, rare is rare, whether it’s one copy or five copies or even thirty copies, or more. These records are rare. So breaking a record just doesn’t improve your position. It’s crazy. I don’t know who did that. I don’t know if it was done. It’s more like a rumor or something. Until I find out something solid on that, it’s just fake news or something. I don’t know what it is.

There’s some haggling and negotiation for getting rare 78s that can seem like gamesmanship. Harvey Pekar wrote about some of this kind of negotiation with collectors like R. Crumb in a pretty lighthearted way in his comic American Splendor, but sometimes it can seem to get pretty heavy, and get into back-and-forth and high prices that some people outside of this world will find mystifying.

It’s all fair game, right? It’s just like any other commodity. It’s like something’s really rare, and it’s worth what someone’s willing to pay for it. Is a Wilmer Watts record worth $5000? It certainly isn’t to me. I love Wilmer Watts, I think he’s amazing. I’d love to own a Wilmer Watts record. But not for five grand. Who is this person who paid $5000? I don’t know. But it’s madness. I’m not saying it’s not worth $5000. I’m just saying, it’s madness to pay that much money for a record. It just doesn’t really make a lot of sense to me. But I guess I feel that way about Wilmer because I don’t look at Wilmer the same way I look at Robert Johnson, or Charley Patton.

Like, if you’re gonna spend $5000, why not buy a Charley Patton record? You know you’re gonna get that value, if value is your thing. Maybe you just wanna live with it the rest of your life, and that’s it. But if you’re really thinking on a monetary level with this stuff, which can get really convoluted and crazy…

I would just buy something that I would know would appreciate in value. If I’m at that level, I have to know that I’m getting value. Maybe the person who bought Wilmer Watts is just such an uberfan that he has to own it, and that’s okay. That’s great. Just like anybody who wants to buy a Maserati, like, you can have a Subaru, but you want a Maserati. To me, it’s crazy. I would never spend $200,000 on a car. That’s insane, even if I could go out and buy a $200,000 car.

So it’s kind of a similar thing. There’s a lot of stuff that’s done not online, but between collectors. There’s collectors hitting up other collectors and making deals and stuff like that, which is fine.

Do you think the book will raise enough awareness of 78 collecting that it might actually make it harder to find and collect 78s?

I don’t think I wield that kind of power. I wish! I don’t think Tompkins Square does. Will it turn on some people to collecting? I certainly hope so. Because I want people to feel the joy that I have felt in this revelation over the past couple years. So I encourage that.

There’ve been these certain flashpoints for 78s over the years. Ghost World, or the Jack White PBS special, or old music coming back through Ken Burns’s Jazz [PBS series], or Brother Where Art Thou. And also Goodbye Babylon when that came out, and the Charley Patton box set, and maybe some of the stuff that I did. So there’ve been moments when 78s have come to the fore culturally a little bit. 

So who knows at one point people got on the train? But I do feel like, just judging from some of the sites that I frequent, some of these, it’s very closed. It doesn’t seem like it’s growing exponentially. I don’t know that it will, and it’s fine if it does. I mean, either way.

Some people in the world of music criticism see what you’re doing with your book and label, and what I and plenty of other music historians of past eras are doing, as irrelevant nostalgia, when listeners should only be paying attention to what’s happening now. But I, many others, and probably you feel like it’s not just worth doing because it’s great music and fascinating history, but also because, in our particular times, cultural and ethnic diversity is often under attack. Many people in power would like to negate or erase this history, as part of their agenda of making culture and artistic expression narrower, attacking certain social and ethnic classes they feel threatening to their power structure, or even eliminating the benefits and riches of cultural diversity and history altogether. 78s, and what you’re doing with your book and label, are preserving vital history that not only reflects their times, but has something to say about our times, and always will entertain and inspire people.

I think it’s a great point. I have thought about that. I wish I had thought about it more, but it wasn’t in the main when I was writing in 2023. It’s more prevalent now, obviously, with what’s going on. Look at what’s happening. Like defunding this and that, going after cultural things. The National Endowment for the Humanties, they slashed that. Somebody at DAHR said that they lost their funding at UC Santa Barbara. I guess they were using some of that NEH funding to do transfer work on 78s that they can no longer do. So there is a connection, however tenuous, to this work and what’s going on.

I think anything that’s historical, that tells a story…that’s the other thing about the timeline. You’re seeing how culture and music like were impacted by events in the world. There’s a lot of historical recordings based on events. This is preserving our history, our culture. Again, how people from different cultures came together. It’s almost like the best of America, right? It’s like the ideal of America. It’s all these people, immigrants basically from different countries, from Africa, from France when you look at the French Cajun stuff, the Celtic music that informed so much early country and folk stuff, Mexico, Hawaii. I mean, the influence of Hawaiian guitar on Jimmie Rodgers, on like so many blues and country musicians. So you’re talking about native cultures that impacted American music.

It’s all this stuff. Obviously, it seems like they’re trying to chip away at the values that inform projects like this. Today you heard about PBS and NPR getting defunded. These are our values. These are the things that we hold dear. These are the things that we value. Like, you have a bookshelf there with a bunch of stuff that the administration would like to burn, all your books. They’re not interested in this stuff. They don’t want this stuff to be propagated. So your point is very relevant.

Although the book was, unusually for the occasion, a Record Store Day release, copies are still available post-Record Store Day?

The book, post-Record Store Day, is now available on Bandcamp. I don’t know how long the product will be there, but I have some copies that I held back for my fans on Bandcamp and friends and etc.

Copies of Treasures Untold are still available on Bandcamp, at https://tompkinssquare.bandcamp.com/merch/treasures-untold-a-modern-78-rpm-reader.

Loraine Burgon was Alvin Lee’s partner for about a decade from the early 1960s through the early 1970s, and while they didn’t marry, she was there for his rise from Nottingham cover bands to stardom with Ten Years After. Unlike many a rock partner/associate memoir, this is pretty detailed and well written, and—in a less common virtue—often attentive to the music, with plenty of accounts of concerts, recordings, and Lee’s evolution as a guitarist, songwriter, and singer. Although the pair separated in 1973, her love for Lee and his music is clear, though they weren’t ultimately suited for the long haul.

Considering how tight they were for a pretty long period, their relationship unraveled fairly quickly over the course of about a year when they moved to a large home (actually their second large home) outside of London. Both were caught up in extramarital affairs and Lee’s attention getting distracted by some drugs and interlopers. One of those interlopers was George Harrison, whose delights in earthly pleasures contrasted with his holier image as a devout follower of Indian religion. After leaving Lee, Burgon was involved with Traffic’s Jim Capaldi for a couple years, and then caught up in a zealous bust of Ronnie Wood’s home with Wood’s then-wife (both were found innocent after a couple trials). That’s where the story ends, and while those post-Lee adventures are covered in satisfactory depth, most of the book’s given to her journey with Lee, also documenting their pot and LSD use with unusual positivity for a rock memoir.

As Lee didn’t write a memoir, this might be as close as a book comes to an inside view of the guitarist and Ten Years After’s prime, particularly of their half-dozen or so years of peak popularity between 1967 and 1973. I spoke to Burgon about her book in March 2025, not long after its publication on Spenwood Books.

What was the main spark for writing a book about your years with Alvin?

Somebody had to do it. That was the conversation I would have with Alvin when we talked on the phone, or when we would email. We were still in contact. There was a constant conversation went on that said, what amazing times we lived through, and somebody should write that story. ‘Cause he was completely blown away with how it had been, and so was I. I would constantly say to Alvin, you go and write it. But he wouldn’t. So I thought right, I’m gonna do it.

As you and Alvin were in contact as you started writing the book, did he have much input into it?

We did have a lot of emails back and forth, and I got some picture of what he thought about it from some of those things. But I think you can’t try and write with too many angles going on in your head. You can’t try and think, well, I wonder what he would have thought and this is what I think. It says it’s a memoir, and that’s what it is. It’s not meant to be an Alvin Lee biography. Because if I’d written a biography, it would have been a quite different thing. 

And I didn’t think when I started writing it that Alvin was gonna die. That was the furthest thing from my mind. ‘Cause he was still quite young, 68 [when he passed away in 2013]. So it never occurred to me that that was gonna happen.

You first met Alvin in Nottingham when he was playing in the Jaybirds in 1963, under his birth name, Graham Barnes. You spent a lot of time with his family, and his parents were very unusual for the time in sharing their love of blues and jazz with him and his friends. Van Morrison’s parents were also big blues and jazz fans who played a lot of their records for him, but that sort of musical kinship with parents was pretty unusual for young rock musicians growing up in the British Isles at that time. 

It was always astonishing to me that [Alvin’s father] Sam Barnes was really into the blues, and work songs. Kind of chain songs, as we would call them, when people in the penitentiaries were out in the fields. I wish to god I’d asked him why. But I was young, I was a teenager. I just thought it was amazing, and I remember listening to so much of it at Alvin’s home.

That was his music, [for] Sam Barnes. And he could sing along. I wish we’d recorded him! He had the most amazing bass voice, and he would sing along with all of this. So he really kind of had a blues soul. I have no idea where it came from. I know there were tours of these musicians, and they would go to Nottingham. So he did go and hear a lot of them. And [Alvin’s mother] Doris too, the pair of them. They were really into the blues.

There was also a jazz influence from his parents. Was that more his mother?

It wasn’t necessarily more from Doris. Les Paul and Mary Ford, this is something that Doris would play. I remember that being Doris. Also, Alvin had this brother-in-law who played jazz clarinet, George. So the first instrument Alvin played was the clarinet. When we went around to their place at Christmas, his sister’s, with her husband George, she’d be playing the piano, and she sang. I think they even performed locally, and George would play the clarinet, and Alvin would play guitar. So there was always a lot of music around for him in the family. It was a musical family.

Sam and Doris were really unusual. And they really heartened me; after my parents, who were incredibly uptight, to be around Sam and Doris was absolutely bliss. All his friends, [Ten Years After bassist]  Leo [Lyons], all those people, they would come to his house to hear the music. Because what they were hearing was more interesting to them than what they would be hearing, say, on the radio.

Peter Green was a big influence on Alvin when he moved to London and the Jaybirds made the transition to Ten Years After. How was he inspired by Green?

It was just the fact that it was the blues. We hadn’t heard the blues being played live by anyone at gigs in London. It was the Marquee, and we’d only just got to London, and we’d only just gone to the Marquee. The Marquee was an incredible venue, especially at that time. He was playing with the John Mayall band. Mayall was extraordinary for having all these guitarists. He was like a training school for guitarists, wasn’t he?

He had a great intensity, Peter Green. I think it was his intensity and intention when he played that really probably struck Alvin. ‘Cause there was a lot of that when he played.

Green developed some amazing guitar sustain during his time with the Bluesbreakers, especially on the instrumental on the only LP he did with them, A Hard Road. Was Alvin influenced by his use of that technique?

I could imagine, but I can’t really say. I mean, [Alvin] experimented with the guitar so much. The thing that impressed me was it was only him plugged into the amp, and these speakers. He never had any effect pedals, or anything like that. He would sometimes play around with effects in the studio when they were recording things, some of those happened later on. But it was purely him to the amp through the speakers, and what he could get with that setup.

So he would be exploring all of those things. He really liked sustain, and he really liked feedback. That was very exciting to Alvin, yeah.

The whole group went through a big transition when they moved to London, changed their name from the Jaybirds to Ten Years After, and became more blues-grounded. What do you think the other members’ key contributions were as they became Ten Years After?

I do think that Leo and Alvin was really the heart of the band. I think it could have been other drummers. It could have even been other keyboard players. Or even without a keyboard player. But it couldn’t have been without Leo. There’s absolutely no way. That’s not to say I don’t think Ric [Lee, drummer; no relation to Alvin] and Chick [Churchill, keyboards] are excellent players. But just to say that, there’s something about the chemistry that Leo had with Alvin that was very powerful. 

They were the two that started playing together when they were in their early teens. They had played together since 1960. There was certainly a musical dialogue between them that they never had to think about, it was such a strong connection. Although in bands it’s more typical for the bass and drum to have the strong connection that makes the rhythmic foundation, therefore leaving the more melodic instruments—guitar, voice and keyboards—to interact.

With TYA the foundation was Leo and Alvin. Some of that was the length of time and the experiences they had together before Ric or Chick played with them. They’d already been the Jaybirds, and the Jaybirds didn’t have Ric as the drummer. I saw the Jaybirds as a trio with Dave Quickmire, they were amazing. Dave Quickmire was an incredible drummer. That was a very powerful trio.

Dave Quickmire didn’t want to leave Nottingham. I only discovered from Leo in recent years, it was actually because he had a girlfriend and was engaged, and wanted to stay in Nottingham with her. Dave Quickmire didn’t come down to London. When they came down and did the play [as the band in a West End production of] Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, he didn’t want to. So that was when Ric came down and joined the band. 

Then Chick had already been roadying for them. So it was a natural thing to bring Chick in and play keyboard. That was officially what he was doing to start off with. He was the only one who actually could read music. Not that that was ever useful with the band, ‘cause they never did play from music.

Leo was a really mobile bass player, bobbing up and down with nonstop frenetic energy. 

It wasn’t that you just watched Alvin. You did watch Leo as well.

He was like the opposite of John Entwistle, as far as his stage presence.

Oh, absolutely (laughs). Unbelievable. So when [Leo and Alvin] would meet head to head…especially in “[Good Morning Little] Schoolgirl,” which became in a way, you could say, a set piece. The solo was set, but going head to head at that point. It was so powerful to see how they would play into each other like that. I think Leo’s amazing.

I recently read online that he’s decided this year to write his own memoir, which I’m really pleased about. ‘Cause he can write about Alvin before I knew him.

You saw Alvin’s creative process up-close more than anyone. You wrote that “he would learn new songs to cover and practice singing them at home, and sometimes he’d give me the lyrics so I could correct him or prompt when he forgot.”

We were definitely a team. But I wouldn’t be credited, no no no. All the lyrics were absolutely his. The thing that Alvin, I would say, was proud of, was the fact that his material was original to him. ‘Cause I remember in later emails, sending him things where people online had said, “Oh, Led Zeppelin, they took this riff from this old blues song.” Led Zeppelin are quite known for having taken things from earlier music. I would send Alvin that to him to amuse him, to go, this is interesting, isn’t it?

He would never have done anything like that. There was no question that he wouldn’t have. Yes, there were the songs like “I Can’t Keep From Crying Sometimes” [adapted from a number by gospel-blues singer Blind Willie Johnson] which came off of that one compilation album [What’s Shakin’, a 1966 LP featuring tracks by the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, the Lovin’ Spoonful, Al Kooper, and a studio-only group with Eric Clapton, Stevie Winwood, Jack Bruce, and Paul Jones; Ten Years After learned several of the album’s songs to use in their early repertoire].’That was credited to Al Kooper, which is very interesting, ‘cause Al Kooper didn’t actually write the original. Alvin told me once that he met Al Kooper, and Al Kooper thanked him for having bought him a house! (laughs) Which I thought was great.

But Alvin had a lot of integrity. His songs came out of him; he really wanted to do them well, and do them better and better. And sometimes it would be like, there was this song [originally recorded by others] that was very popular that they were performing. So he would want to try and write something that might replace that. But some of the more popular songs that they always did, they could never replace. Like “Help Me” [originally by Sonny Boy Williamson] and “From Crying,” “Schoolgirl” [Williamson’s “Good Morning Little Schoolgirl”], they became so much standard to them that everything else had to fit around that.

You also contributed a lot to their fan club magazine, The Palantir, under the name Vicky Page.

It sounded more like a writer, I don’t know, Vicky Page. So I did that starting in Warwick Square [where she and Lee lived in London in the late 1960s]. I got contributions from the rest of the band. I would nag them to give me contributions. There’s some really funny stuff. Alvin had it put on his website. the whole thing. There were maybe six editions. You could have seen them all on there. Unfortunately, his widow took them down not long after he died.

It was interesting to hear your memories of some of your favorite records when you were living at Warwick Square, since some of them weren’t too similar to Ten Years After and weren’t too popular at the time. Especially the Velvet Underground’s first album, and Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks. How did you find out about the Velvet Underground’s first album (The Velvet Underground and Nico, aka “The Banana Album” in honor of the Andy Warhol-designed cover)? Not many people in the UK knew about it then.

How did we come to hear the Velvet Underground? I think to some extent, once Alvin went to America, he was exposed to Tower Records [the huge store on Sunset Strip]. As I write in the book, they’d let them run in Tower and pick up as many albums as they like. So they’d pick albums from what the sleeve looked like. So it might have been one like that. The other possibility is Simon Stable, wonderful Count Simon. He had his own record shop on Portobello Road [to this day one of the prime London shopping areas for offbeat merchandise]. He found all kinds of alternative music. He would bring Alvin stuff that was not mainstream music. So a lot of stuff came from him. There were various friends who bought music as well, who had their own little music interests, who would bring things in that way.

Would Alvin have been interested in that because it was so different from most other rock music of the time?

I think it was, because it was very unusual. I think it was because it was a very different kind of a record. It was the novelty of it. Well, not novelty, but the newness of it. He loved to hear music that would stretch his own musical imagination. And that’s what the Velvet Underground did. Things that weren’t predictable, Alvin wanted to listen to.

We never listened to kind of contemporary bands, really. We never listened to Led Zeppelin. Because if it was a guitarist especially, he just understood completely what they were doing, where they coming from, what their influences were, and everything.

Of course, that wasn’t the case with Hendrix. Hendrix was the only guitarist he ever listened to, really. Early on he listened to Eric Clapton a bit, and Peter Green, when we’d gone to see him live, that was such an influence on him. Jeff Beck a little bit, because we knew Ronnie Wood, so we listened to Beck-Ola a bit, that was quite a good album that we liked. He had pretty eclectic taste, in a way. The Small Faces’ Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake, that was a good album, we enjoyed that. 

This Spanish guitarist called Juan Serrano, we loved listening to him. The photo on the cover of the album looks like he’s got six hands. We used to joke that he’d got six hands, because that was kind of how the music sounded. And then—I wrote about it in the book—we had that amazing experience. We were in San Francisco walking down the street, and we see a bar. And the guy’s performing live there! We went and saw him perform. It was so fantastic! There was nobody much in there. Twenty people. He used to, for some reason, do a fortnight there every year.

There were a lot of blues-rock bands in Britain when Ten Years After started out—John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, Fleetwood Mac, Chicken Shack, and Savoy Brown were just a few of the more well known. I think something that set aside Ten Years After from most of them was they had more of a jazz influence, especially in their earliest albums.

He listened to a lot of jazz when we were first in London. He listened to George Benson a lot before George Benson was singing. Those albums of Benson when he wasn’t singing, he listened to a lot. He used to like to listen to jazz guitarists. But he could also see that if you got too jazzy, if you got too just jazz, that wouldn’t be a good direction to go in either.

I know he never felt like a frustrated jazz guitarist. What he absolutely loved was rock and roll. He did love to be doing that full-on rock and roll, and I don’t think there was a better rock and roll guitarist. When he would do Chuck Berry numbers, or Bo Diddley numbers, I’ve never heard anybody else except them do it any better. ‘Cause he just had such a feel for rock and roll. He never would have wanted to limit himself to jazz.

I liked the story in the book of how they played Woody Herman’s “Woodchopper’s Ball” to help get them a residency at the Marquee, because Marquee manager John Gee was a jazz fan. Playing the Marquee regularly was a big help in developing their following in London.

When he started to extemporize “I Can’t Keep From Crying Sometimes,” it started off ten minutes or something, ended up being twenty-odd minutes. But where he gets into this tuning down the bass string, the E string, and then bringing it back up again, that just happened at the Marquee. He started to do that one night and that’s not the sort of thing you sit at home and practice on an acoustic. It has to be on an electric guitar. And the Marquee was like his rehearsal room where he would do those things, ‘cause he was so comfortable there, and they were playing there every two weeks. 

When you listen to one of the good live recordings of “I Can’t Keep From Crying Sometimes,” some of the really long ones—there’s a great one on an album from the Isle of Wight that’s incredible—I absolutely think that is constructed almost like a piece of classical music. I don’t think there’s another piece of rock music from that era that has anything like the structure and dynamics of that one track of theirs. The dynamic of it is to bring it right down, taking you to nowhere, bringing it back up, taking it higher, higher, higher. It’s structured like classical music.

It’s very long, so you never hear it on the radio. But I think it’s phenomenal. I think he just kind of tuned in to some place that isn’t on this planet to bring that through, that whole formation of that. It was extraordinary to watch him, and watch how it developed over that time.

I think Alvin was ahead of everybody. I think he actually was producing some music that still hasn’t been fully understood. I don’t think people have really got it, and really see what it is. ‘Cause you have to sit, like you would in a concert hall for a piece of classical music, and hear it all the way through, and take it in like that, like a concerto. 

That thing of lowering it and lowering it, he was doing that in Nottingham with the Jaybirds when they were doing covers. He and Leo were already doing that. They were doing it with the Ray Charles numbers.

Like “What’d I Say”?

Yeah. He would take that down and then bring it up louder again. It was definitely a couple of Ray Charles numbers where they used that dynamic. That was the first thing I saw of them doing that dynamic, before they ever went to London and were Ten Years After.

Something the book clears up is the origin of the name Ten Years After. In the U.S. at least, the usual story is that it referred to the group starting ten years after Elvis Presley became big. The actual idea came from something completely different.

There’s a lot of mythology about it was ten years after Elvis, or ten years after this. No, it was just a headline, Ten Years After Suez. It was the Radio Times, which is the paper that tells you what’s gonna be on the TV. They were hunting around for names, and writing up a list of various names. Leo came up with Ten Years After and Alvin loved it, ‘cause he said, it’s abstract. It’s going to be something that people scratch their heads about. But it’s not going to tie them down to one genre of music. That’s what he didn’t want. He didn’t want to put blues in the name of the band. He didn’t want to make it anything that would be specific to a type of music. And Ten Years After isn’t. Ten Years After what?

That was one of the albums, Watt [sic; their sixth LP, from 1970]. I didn’t even know this, but donkeys’ years later on email, he told me, I never intended it to be Watt. It was supposed to be What, but in a way I’m glad it was, because that would have been too obvious.

When Ten Years After did their first album in 1967, it had covers and a few songs Alvin wrote that, as far as you know, were his first compositions. Did Alvin feel like he had to write quickly to fill material on the first LP (self-titled Ten Years After), or under pressure?

They had been in covers bands in Nottingham. He hadn’t been writing in Nottingham. But it was definitely the case that once he was given the opportunity, yeah, I’ll have a go, I’ll see what I can do. I remember him starting to write at Warwick Square, just with his acoustic guitar there. He would just sit down and think about words and write them down, and then he would play and find chords. Actually, they were quite short songs.

When they came to release that ridiculous single, “Portable People” (from 1968, which had an uncharacteristic psychedelic pop feel), there was no reason that they couldn’t have taken the shorter tracks off of the Ten Years After album. Some of those would have made singles. But then, Alvin never wanted singles. He really didn’t. He was definitely not interested in hit singles. Of course, the rest of the band would have gone along and had hit singles. And his management would, and the record company would. So that was a quite a big chain of energy coming towards him about it. But he resisted it pretty well, really.

There’s footage of them performing “Portable People” on French TV in 1968, and they don’t seem as engaged in the material as usual.

It was a joke. Everything about it, it’s very obvious it’s a joke. 

The first Ten Years After albums were done amazingly quickly, at a speed that’s unimaginable today. There were just five days spent on their first LP.

I think it was the way they were used to doing records at that time. Most bands, initially, they all expected to. They would rehearse before they ever got there

I think it’s very interesting, this word studio. ‘Cause artists, visual artists studios, is somewhere where you go and experiment. Well, music studios didn’t tend to be in those days somewhere you went to experiment. It was somewhere where you pretty much know what you were gonna do when you got there. Because the expense of those studios, which all came out of the artist’s royalties of course, was very big. It was a very high hourly rate. So yeah, they wanted to get on with it and come out. So I don’t think they minded initially.

At first they were produced by Mike Vernon, who produced a lot of notable records in the British ‘60s blues-rock scene. He was most famous for producing the Bluesbreakers albums with Eric Clapton and Peter Green, but he also produced Fleetwood Mac’s early work, and David Bowie’s first LP, though that wasn’t blues-rock. You were at some of those early sessions. What’s your impression of Vernon’s role?

I think Ten Years After were really finding their way. Alvin was finding his way in the studio and how it all worked. I would say it was sympathetic, but it was more business-like. It was more, let’s get on with it, and do the job. Until a band had proved itself, until it had got a product out, and they were having good sales; then you got more leeway. Then the people who were producing were more willing to let them get high in the studio and just take their time, and not be too concerned about it all. Once they got away from Mike Vernon, and got away from using Decca’s studio, then there was more time taken. Because obviously there was money being generated by then, so it was possible to do that.

The great thing was that once they got away from Mike Vernon and Decca, it was a great sense of freedom that they got from being able to be in a studio and experiment with what was going on and have somebody who was more experimental with them. Gus Dudgeon [Decca engineer most famous for producing Elton John’s hit singles and albums in the first half of the 1970s], he was a really nice man. Andy Johns was really a major part of their recording as well. He was working with Gus, and then he also engineered for them.

Gus also co-wrote a song with Alvin for the first album, “Losing the Dogs.” 

The thing about him was that he didn’t try to interfere with the process of what they were doing. He just wanted to support what they were doing. That’s the ideal producer, isn’t it? 

Once they got to Olympic — well, Olympic was like the golden studio in London. It was how it was seen. It was an amazing environment.

There’s a lot in the book about their manager Chris Wright, who did a lot to help establish the band in both the UK and US. But also he did some business deals that might not have favored the band as equitably as they could have. Do you think the good outweighed the band in what he did for Ten Years After?

I think the good outweighed the bad. I know that Alvin, right up to his death, felt good about Chris. He never felt bad about him. Some of the others in the band, we all kind of knew they’d reached the point where, well, there was money issues that really ought to be looked into and all of that. And Alvin was like, well, you go and do what you want. But I’m not interested in that. He always had a good feeling towards Chris.

He and Chris got along. Chemistry is just something you can’t define how it comes about. Some people connect very well, and he connected very well with Chris. He just was the right fit for the band at that time. They’re all the same age; Chris Wright isn’t older than the rest of the band, although he always looked like he was about twenty years older. So they felt on a level with one another. It wasn’t like a Peter Grant. That would have been a manager and a half, literally and figuratively. 

The fact of the matter was that they were all starting out together. So they had the same manager going in the same direction. Chris had grown up in the next county to Nottingham, so there was a lot of understanding of how their upbringings were similar. He’d gone on to university. Alvin, Leo, none of them went to university. Alvin wouldn’t have done it for all the tea in China, he couldn’t wait to get out of school, he was like me.

They had so many similarities, and he’d started his career in the north of England. When Ten Years After was first starting to get attention, they didn’t even have a presence in London. He realized that they had to have an agency in London because he had a hot property now. So they came down and started [with Terry Ellis] the Ellis-Wright agency before it was Chrysalis [which became one of the world’s most successful record labels of the 1970s and 1980s]. He just absolutely was the right person.

And yes, there may well have been things, like [shortly afterward with their US manager] Dee Anthony, that were a problem. Alvin was never that concerned about if he’d been overtly ripped off. It wasn’t a big thing for him, the money of it all. It was never the big thing for him. He never felt like that was his motivation. He always felt much more that the music was his motivation, and we wanted the managers to manage, and he wanted to hand all that over. He handed over all the household bills to me, do you know what I mean? He really didn’t want to be bothered with any of that. Right up until the end of his life, I’m sure that was the same. 

It was interesting to read there was unreleased material from a live in the studio session in March 1968. You wrote about it positively in the fan magazine, but negatively in the book.

It must exist somewhere. I think it would have been horrendous. I don’t think there’s anything about it that’s worth retrieving. It was obvious, after a time, that how they played live with an audience created an atmosphere that, if you could capture that in the studio, might be really good. So they had their session there and invited friends into the studio to…but no. It was never going to be…I don’t remember it standing out.

I was surprised. I’d written about it in The Palantir saying how good it was and all of that. But I think that was just because people knew it was gonna happen, or knew that it had happened, and wanted to have some feedback on it. But I don’t remember it as outstanding. I don’t think there’s anything on there that would have been material for an album. I think that was very obvious.

There are some BBC radio sessions from the late 1960s that are kind of live in the studio, that circulate unofficially. They’re good to hear, there’s something a little looser about them on those recordings.

They were also looser live than they were…It’s difficult to get that loose in the studios. I think that’s why I love their live albums best of all. It amazed me the Fillmore East album [recorded in February 1970] didn’t come out until the 2000s. That was the one that Eddie Kramer [engineer/producer most famous for his work with Jimi Hendrix] recorded. It amazed me that they hadn’t released it at the time, and I can’t really work out why when I listen to it. But there was some reason why they decided not to release it at the time.

You note in the book that Undead, their live album recorded at the Klooks Kleek club in London in May 1968, was initially supposed to be a US-only release. That seems to indicate that the record label and management might have felt that the US market should be specially targeted, although their albums would chart higher in the UK than the US until the early ‘70s.

There was this kind of hardcore underground of blues fans in England. But it very much was kind of on an underground level. In a way the American market seemed much more like…first of all, it’s vast. But also, places like the Fillmore, that was really lifting them to a whole other level. They did universities around America too, that was their kind of early setting. ‘Cause they’d done universities around England. 

Alvin was just thrilled that there was this audience out there that really listened to the music, that was the initial thing. The Fillmores were mindblowing to play at. Because (laughs), you know, people were high. It was a bit like I was saying, the idea would be a concert hall; people would just sit and listen. The Fillmores were the closest that that ever happened. The Fillmore East especially, ‘cause it was a completely seated auditorium. That was a brilliant auditorium.

Some of the best concerts I ever saw them do, they did at Fillmore East. Because the audience would have got high. I’m only talking about having a smoke. But the audiences would have had a smoke, so they were really focused. And Alvin would have had a smoke. So there was a real simpatico between them all. They would have really connected with one another. That’s pretty magical, to have venues that are like that.

Once they started to be more popular in England, then the venues were kind of assembly halls and concert halls. But they weren’t conducive to anything like that at all. The Marquee was a place where the ceiling was low, it was very atmospheric. But they couldn’t get more than a thousand people or something in, if it would be even that. Once you got to the Albert Hall, c’mon. It was built as a concert hall. It was never built for rock and roll. 

It was amazing that they played both the Fillmores on the very first tour they went out on. Everything became different from that point of view. 

So did their label (Deram in the UK, London in the US) and management want to concentrate on the US, where the sales potential was bigger and there was much more airplay for bands like Ten Years After on FM radio than they could get on British radio? 

It might have been the case for the record company, and for Chris. It wasn’t the case for Alvin. For him, it was that the audiences were so exciting, and the venues. There were some venues with light shows in England, but not really anything on that scale. There was the Roundhouse and places like that, but once you got outside of London, no.

When he went to America they realized, this is gonna work. They really did come back from going to America, and being involved with the Fillmores and all of that, knowing that yes, there’s an audience for them out there. 

I really think that at that point, [Alvin] was so pleased to come back to England, where he could go down the street and nobody really knew who he was. He didn’t want to lose that.

Things were a lot different touring and managing overseas back then. You write that Chris Wright was actually writing letters to his business partner Terry Ellis during the first US tour, because they thought it was too expensive to make Transatlantic phone calls.

They were writing letters to one another! I’m talking to you 6000 miles away, and I can see you. There was nothing like that. When Alvin went off for that first tour and they were gone for three months, I think I got like two or three postcards from him. That was it. It was very difficult for me, and it was difficult for them too. Yes, they had fun. But it was far from ideal. Alvin didn’t really like touring on his own.

When Ten Years After took off in the US, Dee Anthony handled their management in this country. He was involved in the management of a lot of top acts, like Peter Frampton and Joe Cocker. He’s a controversial figure, as some have felt he didn’t handle their careers and finances as fairly as he could have. For Ten Years After, do you think the good outweighed the band?

Oh, way way, way outweighed the bad. Alvin still really liked Dee, right up to the end of his life. He took people for who they were as people. What they were doing with his money…well, he was very lucky with that whole house deal [when a home he bought in the early 1970s sold for a lot of money]. That was a very lucky thing. ‘Cause he had so much money come into his life, like winning the football pools, as it was in those days. That gave him all kinds of options about what he could do, which he wouldn’t have had otherwise. Also, it just meant that he never had to concern himself about money at all, from when the band first started to take off right to the end of his life. It was never an issue for him.

That wasn’t true for the other guys in the band, which is why I think they would have got more upset about the money that went missing. But it wasn’t the case for Alvin.

So Dee and Chris were people that he liked. Dee was very smart. Dee got high with Alvin. Alvin kind of trusted anybody who got high with him. He started to learn that they weren’t all good guys. But he loved to be together and get silly with one another, and have a good laugh. When he wasn’t on the stage he wanted things to be light. That was who he was. He was a joker, he was a lighthearted person.

One of the things that I find disturbing about him, his legacy, now how he’s seen…He’s in all these endless pictures of him on stage with his guitar, the thrusting guitarist. He seems to become so two-dimensional to me. That was one of the other things that I wanted the book to show, was that there was a whole person here. There was a lot more to him than just that. Of course that’s the bit that people were excited by, and enjoyed, and I completely appreciate that. But it wasn’t who he was in total. When he was offstage, he wanted to be off.

You wrote that after their early work, “Alvin was now the one steering their musical direction while the others were not that clued up about what Ten Years After were actually about.” 

That’s definitely true, but I don’t think Alvin actually had a plan. He didn’t see where it was gonna go. He was just following where his musicianship and his instincts and his talent were leading him, and [the others] were not suggesting another direction. They were not bringing anything else to the table. They didn’t bring other music to the table. So by default, he was the one in charge.

Were the others more content to keep on doing what had made them successful?

Yes, I think that’s true. I think there was a lot more kind of an approach of, well, we know what we’re doing now, so let’s just keep doing it. Alvin was definitely…he was getting…we’re becoming a musical jukebox, was the phrase he used to use a lot. We’re like a musical jukebox. He understood that was what Ten Years After fans wanted. But he didn’t want to carry on doing that for the rest of his life. But he wasn’t clear enough in his head to be able to say, well, this is the different direction that I want to go into. 

Somebody like Sting with the Police—he absolutely knew that he wanted to be more of a jazz player, from when he was young. So when they got to the craziness of their heights, he said right, I’m out of here. I want to go and play jazz. Well, Alvin didn’t have anything like that going on, anything that defined. But he just knew that he didn’t want to carry on going on these tours, making albums, endlessly…it was like being on a treadmill, really, to some extent. He definitely wanted to be able to and explore other things. I don’t know if he could have shifted the others. I think they’d just traveled their journey.

Although there was more money coming in, I don’t know that it would have really enabled him to be able to not carry on with Ten Years After. That big house [Hook End] was a massive shift of everything, it was crazy. We’d bought Robin Hood Barn [their first country home] for £24,5000; there was not the room in the attic big enough to build a studio. We sold it two years later for £210,00, nearly a tenfold increase, tax free. We bought Hook End Manor for £250,000. It had many outbuildings, including a barn. In that barn Alvin, Harold (my brother), Sam Barnes, and Andy Jaworski built a recording studio. On the Road to Freedom [Lee’s album with Myron LeFevre] was recorded whilst I was still there with Alvin, in 1973.

If we hadn’t sold that house, first of all, he couldn’t have built a recording studio. Coincidentally, more money had also started to come into Alvin from royalties in late 1973 /1974. So he didn’t need to tour with Ten Years After.

It could have been more lucrative for Alvin and Ten Years After, since as you write, there seemed like a conflict of interest when Chrysalis wanted to control his management, recordings, and publishing. Looking back, do you think it might have been good for you or someone outside of the band to point out these conflicts and help structure their affairs differently?

I do write briefly in the book about that one episode where we were in Chris’s office and him with a new contract to sign, and me saying can we take it to a lawyer. And Chris telling me, well, I’m not asking you to sign anything. He said to Alvin, “Don’t you trust me? Don’t you trust me, Alvin?” It was like, “Of course I do. Where do you want me to sign?” I was dealing with enough in looking after Alvin, in being there for him all the while. For me to try to do anything else wouldn’t have worked at all. And there was really nobody else.

One of the reasons that I was concerned about…well, it just seemed all the eggs were going in one basket. And all of their percentages were going out in one direction as well. It just did seem like a very obvious conflict of interest to me at the time. But of course, the rest of the band didn’t really know that all of that was taking place. It was when Chris took me and Alvin out to dinner—he didn’t take the others—and said to him, this is what Terry and I want to do. And offered what Alvin thought was a ridiculously stupid small percentage [0.5%, of Chrysalis] (laughs), which of course it wasn’t at all. It would have been fantastic to have had that percentage. But Alvin was disgusted by it.

So that was how much he knew about finances, or was concerned about them. Despite all of that, Chris he was still fond of toward the end of his days, and Dee as well. He just had great memories of them both.

You write about how badly Led Zeppelin, or at least some of them, behaved when they shared a bill with Ten Years After in the US in July 1969, throwing juice cartons at them while they were on stage. Why would they have acted like that? They were well on their way to being a huge act, and it seemed like there was no reason to feel threatened by or harass Ten Years After.

I think Jimmy Page really was impressed with Alvin, and that pissed the others off. I don’t know why. I have no idea. They didn’t need to be pissed off. They’d got a big career ahead of them. I don’t think there was any reason at all for them to feel like that.

This whole story about Alvin and the orange juice, I think is hilarious. You can just look at the reviews from that show to see that that didn’t happen. He didn’t get orange juice all over the neck of the guitar. That was kind of a strange myth. And various people have said, I did that, oh I did that, no I did that. It’s like, really? How many of you did actually do that?

I think Led Zeppelin came along and there was already Keith Moon in the Who, and there was already this idea that you behaved appallingly. You could do what the hell you liked, get to America and behave like the worst kid on the block. There was something about that that was going on for them. I think Keith Moon was a big influence on all of the bands to think that, oh, it’s carte blanche! We can behave like the naughtiest school boys we’ve ever imagined being. Alvin wasn’t like that, and Ten Years After were not like that. But yes, those other bands would behave in those outrageous ways. 

If you listen to what Robert Plant said in later years, he always feels like it was the others, that he was just kind of pulled along with it on some level. He was a much more sensitive person. Jimmy Page, I don’t know. I know that he did really admire Alvin’s playing.

They were extremely competitive with one another in England. Not consciously. I don’t think it was a conscious thing, but Ten Years After did have this wanting to blow other bands off the stage attitude. That was definitely one of their go-to ways, especially to start off with. When they played somewhere like the Windsor Jazz Festival in the afternoon, they really wanted to leave an impression that would make it hard for the rest of them to follow. Once you’re a headliner, you don’t have that kind of…’cause you’re the headliner. Then you’re looking at other people who come before you. But they definitely wanted to, when they were still playing to other people being headliners, at these early festivals.

As you wrote, Jimmy Page did apologize to you for his behavior a few years later.

He was alright, Jimmy Page. I liked him. But yes, it was John Bonham, and [Led Zeppelin road manager] Richard Cole. Have you read his book? It’s the only book I’ve ever got through like a quarter of it or a third of it and thought, I don’t want to read any more. 

Alcohol was never the best drug in the world, as far as I was concerned. It definitely didn’t improve anybody’s behavior. Alvin was not a drinker. Later on he was for a while, but he wasn’t when he was with me, because I was never a drinker. I was never a successful drinker, because I’m allergic to alcohol. Those that got drunk definitely were the bands that caused the biggest problems.

As a side note, there’s a funny line in the book about seeing Soft Machine supporting Jimi Hendrix at the Albert Hall in 1969, that “they seemed like good musicians who were determined not to play anything together.” I like their very early work, but I would more or less agree with that as they became more of a jazz fusion band.

That’s exactly what they sounded like at the time, it’s quite hilarious. They were playing amazingly, but not playing together (laughs). Yeah, that’s a line I was pleased with.

There’s an amazing statistic in the book, that Ten Years After toured the US 28 times in four years.

That’s what I’ve read.

An interesting point you make is that, contrary to the stereotype of women on tour causing problems, you and Ric Lee’s wife Ruthann actually stabilized the group’s behavior.

Well, it is true. It’s obvious, really. If you’ve got a woman there, it’s like coeducational schools. If you’ve got schools that are all boys, or schools that are all girls, it’s a very different energy than if you go to a school where they’re mates. The girls tended to be the more moderating force, controlling the behavior without doing it intentionally. But just because that’s kind of the way it would work.

Most guys, after the initial run of having a tour where they just jumped on every female that wanted them to, how long do you want to do that for, really? It’s not conducive to how you want to live as a human being. I wouldn’t have thought it would be. That’s what I got from Alvin. He lost his enjoyment for that very early on.

One interesting passage from the book is your account of their concert in St. Louis, right before Woodstock, where they played for a mostly African-American audience. It took a bit, but you remember Ten Years After won them over.

I just think that there isn’t any color in musicians. At that time, musicians were not aware of color. At Woodstock – you’re seeing Sly Stone, you’re seeing Santana – there was never any question that people would have found, oh this is too mixed, or anything like that. It wasn’t like that. The audiences were relatively mixed, or were more mixed. They weren’t so segregated. Just overall, it was, musicians are musicians.

I was briefly with Jim Capaldi, with Traffic. Rebop Kwaku Baah, who was their conga player, was amazing. He was African, he was incredible. And the bass guitarist, Rosko Gee, fantastic musician. They were a mixed group. I didn’t think at the time, oh, this is good, here’s a band with…it didn’t matter. It was the musicianship that was what was important.

The controversy about these things has perhaps come later. At the time, I don’t think there was any controversy about them playing the blues. I think a lot of the blues musicians were very grateful when there were covers of their music, because the royalties did go to them. It brought them fame. I think everybody lifted everybody up.

Especially after the Woodstock film, where Alvin was spotlighted in their performance of “I’m Going Home,” it seemed like he overshadowed the rest of the band, though that wasn’t his intention. Considering he was the focus not only as the lead guitarist and singer, but also because of his visual flamboyance, do you think that could have been avoided?

I don’t think there was any way that could have been avoided. It was inevitable. Alvin didn’t want it. It was the way it happened. He was very, very charismatic. He was an effortless singer. His guitar playing was the focus of what most people saw, but he sang effortlessly. He didn’t do vocal exercises or anything like that, or have any singing lessons. He just sang very expressively. He sang from his heart, in the same way that he played his guitar from his heart.

You and Alvin are briefly interviewed in the 1970 movie Groupies, which included footage of some British acts and women who were following them around. It probably wasn’t the impression the filmmakers were aiming for, but those women’s lives come off as pretty sad. You write that you thought the film was going to be called Rock 70 and about English bands on tour in the US, though it ended up being quite different.

As I said in the book, I used to tell people I was a groupie, I’d only met him the night before, when they asked me questions. But that was a joke, obviously. I just thought, how would you talk about groupies, what would you say about them? They were very pushy when I was first out there. Then they got used to seeing me out there with Alvin, the ones who were around all the time. So that was no problem. 

Probably they were looking for someone who’d stay with them, but not able to understand how to do that. But that film was very weird. Because nobody knew that that’s what they were filming about. I think Groupies was an exploitation film. [It does include concert footage of Ten Years performing “Good Morning Little Schoolgirl.”]

When you and Alvin moved in 1973 to Hook End, your second home in the English countryside, a number of people were regular visitors, one of them George Harrison. As some regard George as a sort of holy figure for his humanitarian and musical accomplishments, it might take some fans aback to read you describe how “the gap between his spiritual beliefs and his fondness for sex, drugs and rock’n’roll was confusing to say the least.”

I think people were surprised by what I wrote. But he’s not two-dimensional. He wasn’t a saint, and this was more about him and who he actually was. I thought it was admirable that despite the fact that he obviously was a very sexual being, he still had this fantastic relationship with his spirituality. I think that improves on him, myself. The fact that he was actually a full human being, a full man…he really was a person of all of his sensations. He wasn’t someone who was only going in one direction. I think that’s admirable.

I mean, he grew up in Liverpool. They were northerners. That was kind of par for the course, to be…[his first wife] Pattie wrote about it anyway in her book. She writes quite a lot about all the different things that he was doing with different women. That’s exactly what was taking place.

For some reason, that year, there was a lot of turbulence going on around relationships, and around the people that we knew. And that pans out into other people. It’s kind of a rippling effect that took place. But I would say that’s definitely the case. I think their marriage was already in trouble. Well, I’m sure it was already in trouble. ‘Cause he would come and stay for days, and he was only living ten, eleven miles away. So there’s no reason for him to be staying overnight, there’s no need for that. That was his choice.

Considering how close you’d been for about ten years, both romantically and in other ways, your relationship with Alvin unraveled pretty quickly in 1973, over the period of about half a year. It seems like it was a combination of how disruptive it was to unexpectedly need to move into a different home; enforced celibacy when Alvin was diagnosed with catching an STD on tour, although there’s suspicion the doctor treating him was letting that diagnosis linger; more and more musicians coming into the home, sometimes to use the studio or stay over, like the US musician Lee collaborated with for a while, Mylon LeFevre; and Alvin starting to use cocaine, though you were unaware of this at the time. Is that an accurate assessment?

Yeah. It was like a perfect storm of everything being not very good, for me personally. I felt like I was quite crazy at that point. I think that was kind of where I’d reached. Alvin, I couldn’t connect with him. We’d lost our connection. I think the cocaine was a lot to do with why we lost our connection, because cocaine is a very cold drug. I didn’t know that. I only knew that it wasn’t gonna be a good drug for Alvin, for sure. Because he was speedy enough. The last thing he needed was to have some substance enter his life that was gonna wind him up.

But I don’t think there was any avoiding the cocaine, because it was just so prevalent in the music culture at that time. Which is a real shame. There was some record producer, and I’ve never been able to find the quote again, otherwise it would have been in the book, who said that he felt when cocaine arrived with the musicians in the studio, that the music went out the door. He really thought it was not good for music, and I don’t think it was good for music. It certainly was never any good for singers. It didn’t improve singers at all.

So that was the big aspect to it. Then you can flip out, and do something as dumb as I did, at that point, when you’re under a lot of pressure. Then you do it in such a way that there’s no way back. That’s just how it is. It was a perfect storm of all those things. It was very sad, because it wasn’t long after that Mylon went home, and they didn’t really continue with what they doing, although I think what they were doing had some value in it.

The big thing that we’d forgotten with Hook End was the very thing that had taken us out of London. Which was, we wanted to be somewhere in the country, which was a contrast to everything else that was going on. Well, once you build a recording studio that people come to, and you have a house attached that’s big enough for musicians to stay in, you’ve actually brought the city back out. Because those musicians don’t want to drive back into London every night. There’s no way that was gonna happen. So you’ve recreated what you ran away from. 

In one of the book’s final sections, you write about how you and Ronnie Wood’s wife of the time, your good friend Krissie, had to suffer through two court trials after police made a drug raid of Ronnie’s home in 1975. You write that Mick Jagger and Keith Richards wanted you to plead guilty to get it over with, which you didn’t; you were both found innocent after a lengthy ordeal through the legal system. Jagger and Richards, one would think, would know the consequences of pleading guilty, having been harassed themselves on various frivolous drug-related charges that could have prevented them from touring the US.

I thought it was pretty appalling. It didn’t improve my view of them at all. It did me a lot of good ‘cause it woke me up. It wasn’t nearly so good for Krissie. I don’t know that she ever really recovered from it.

You also observe how Ronnie Wood seldom got songwriting credits with the Rolling Stones, though his contributions might have merited more.

Absolutely. I think he deserved it, because I think he had a lot of talent. Those two solo albums that he did, before he joined the Stones were really good albums. You can hear on those albums the basis of what he contributed to the Stones. It’s already there on his albums. He wasn’t so interested in the money. He was a bit like Alvin in that sense.

Unlike many couples, not just in the music business, you and Alvin did stay in contact and maintain friendship after you separated.

We just always had that connection. The connection didn’t separate with that. It did for a year or so after I’d left, although we still had phone calls. There still were times when we spoke to one another during that time. I went back to the house once during that time, or a couple of times, ‘cause my brother was still working for him.

It wasn’t only the death of our own relationship. It was also the times that we’d lived through. Because when you’re young like that and you live through extraordinary times like the ‘60s were, well, you’re never gonna be able to have anything like that experience with anyone else. It’ll never happen that you’ll have those level of experiences with another human being. So the bond you have formed at that time is so strong, it’s so powerful.

There had been a lot of connections between us. I’d gone and seen him in Spain when he was with [his partner] Evi three or four times in the early 2000s, and met up with him a few times. When I rang the doorbell, and he opened the door, he just held me and held me and held me. Because that was how it always was when we would see one another again. The love between us was always there. You know, love doesn’t die. It can change, and you’re no longer the people that you were. Well no, you are the people that you were. That’s the point of really, isn’t it. That in your core, you’re still the same people.

I always think, how can you say you really love that person, and then say, I hate that person? And cut all that off. You can’t cut it off. The love is still real, ‘cause love is always real. That’s how it is.

Something that sets your memoir aside from many memoirs by partners and associates of star musicians is that there’s a lot of description of the music. There are deep details about the gigs, the songwriting, the recording sessions, the equipment, and more. In many such memoirs, there’s the impression the author didn’t pay much attention to the subject’s music, or sometimes was even indifferent to it.

I love the music. I just loved it. I felt really blessed that I was on the road with Alvin and able to hear them every night. It was never boring to me. I was always at the side of the stage. I never went off to the bar. I didn’t drink! I didn’t want to watch the first number, and then go and talk to somebody else and come back. It didn’t occur to me. I was there for the music, I loved his guitar playing and his singing. It was completely that I loved his music. I know that not everybody who was involved with the band loved the music. But I did 100%, so I didn’t want to miss a note. I didn’t want to miss any of it at all.

I suppose that’s one of the reasons we were so close, because I did love the music so much. I mean, I was astonished in Pattie’s book that when they did the concert for Bangladesh, she only went in the evening. She didn’t go in the afternoon, when they played the afternoon concert. I was incredulous. I’m like, what?! Why would you want to do anything else when [George Harrison] was doing that? ‘Cause it wasn’t like he was playing endless gigs. I just didn’t understand her, why that would be the case. So no, for me the music was so important.

When they were the Jaybirds in Nottingham when I met him, I loved to go and see the band play then. I loved to travel in the van and go and be at their gigs. I loved being at gigs. That’s why it was so difficult for me at those early gigs when we couldn’t afford for the “old ladies to go out,” that I wasn’t able to go. It was really very difficult for me, ‘cause I really wanted to see those gigs. I wanted to see all of it.

I shouldn’t say it, because it makes it sound like the only thing that made music any good. But because I’d had a smoke, I was focused. Because I loved to dance, that’s what I was doing. I would dance all the way through a gig. I would get as hot and sweaty as Alvin did. But I would be somewhere at the side of the stage, hidden away from the audience. Except for Fillmore East. Fillmore East, they’d have seats up in the balcony I would go and sit in. That was good. But mostly, I was at the side of the stage hidden away from the audience. I didn’t want to be seen dancing, it wasn’t like I wanted to get on stage and dance. But I wanted to be able to dance. I was dancing before I met Alvin.

Do you have any thoughts on Alvin Lee and Ten Years After’s legacy, and how your book might help preserve it?

That was one of the things I hoped, that it would bring Alvin back into people’s consciousness and Ten Years After back into their consciousness. That was really one of my side wishes. But my impetus for writing was really more that I knew this story had to be written. I think they’re not as well known as they should be. On the other hand, their music is…well, if you have tracks that are twenty minutes long, fifteen minutes long, twelve minutes long, it’s very difficult. The radio’s not gonna play ‘em. So it’s kind of limited how they can be heard, which is really a shame.

I do believe there are universities in America that play a lot of their stuff. I have heard that. But not in England. It’s very rare to hear Ten Years After on the English radio. I know “I’d Love to Change the World” has been re-recorded by quite a number of people. In recent times, some other people have recorded it. It’s in coffee shops now in San Francisco, I hear it. But that’s ‘cause it’s been in a couple of movies.

A song that “I’d Love to Change the World” is much different than the bluesier sound Ten Years After started with. Do you have any thoughts on how things might have been different had he been able to pursue more of those different directions?

He went on, and he recorded a lot of other albums afterwards. But I saw him the middle of the ‘80s, and when he came offstage, he said, god, I’ve just realized, I’m still playing all the same old numbers. I said yeah, but they’re great old numbers. Of course you should still be playing them. Part of that was, we talked about this—he went to see Jerry Lee Lewis when he was in his country and western phase, and was playing country and western music. And Alvin wanted to see him play rock and roll when he saw him in London. He came out from that concert thinking, I should keep playing my music. ‘Cause that’s what people want to come and see, and I can add other things to it. But I should play the core of what Ten Years After played when I perform.

So that was always something that stuck with him, right up to the end of his life. He would still play “I’m Going Home” at the end and all of that. Because he felt, well, people come and see Alvin Lee to see those things, like he’d gone to see Jerry Lee Lewis. Which is a very considerate way to look at it. He did always bring in new songs. If he was recording something new, he brought it in. 

Some of that live music of Ten Years After, if you’re gonna be a listener, you should treat it like it’s a classical concert, and just give it your full attention. This isn’t music to put on in the background. This isn’t music to have as a backing track while you’ve got friends there and having dinner and a drink or two. Because that’s what we did in the ‘60s, so much more. We would get together with friends, have a smoke, listen to an album from beginning to end. That’s what we did with the Beatles’ White Album. It was fantastic. That’s how you treated music. You wanted to listen to the whole thing. Astral Weeks, that was a whole album you wanted to listen to. You didn’t want to just have it going on in the background, and wander around and carry on doing what you’re doing.

Richard Morton Jack’s new book Pressing News: British Music As It Happened 1962-1972, as detailed in my previous post, is built around reproductions of more than a hundred press releases for British rock artists between the early 1960s and early 1970s. Usually the releases are tied to specific records, from the most famous (Sgt. Pepper) to some by very obscure acts (Fresh Maggots, Jerusalem, and the Pete Best Four, to name just a few examples). These are accompanied by quite a few reprints of reviews, and sometimes full stories, that appeared about these records and acts at the time, not years later, when critical views about the performers and their importance often shifted. There are also reproductions of some ads from the period, and each entry has a substantial paragraph from the author explaining the context of the material and the performers’ career at the time.

I described a few of the entries in my previous post. This month I took the opportunity to ask the author about how the book was assembled, and what the press releases can tell us about British rock of the period. The book can be ordered through https://lansdownebooks.com.

I think they’re interesting and worthwhile and deserve to be proliferated. Having collected a large number, it seemed obvious to me to share them in book form. Not all of them contain revelations, but a lot of hard information about often obscure artists or much-loved classics can be gleaned from them, and – if you read between the lines – they contain fascinating insights into the way music was marketed in that period. They’re period pieces, for sure, and often use language that is quaint or even absurd to modern sensibilities, but I think that makes them of sociological as well as musical interest.

Music press releases aren’t the easiest things to collect, since I would guess almost all of them are quickly discarded after they’re received. A few journalists and the like saved some, and some collectors have been lucky enough to find them in the original LPs. But how did you go about accumulating such a large collection of them, and what were the biggest challenges in doing so?

You’re right – by definition, press releases are scarcer than the records they relate to, and most were instantly tossed. In fact, I’m unaware of any record company that maintained an archive of them. I discussed this with Chris Blackwell, and he expressed regret at Island’s cavalier (in hindsight) attitude towards its marketing materials, which were frequently gathered and thrown away. I acquired mine piecemeal, often on eBay, but also through generous-spirited fellow collectors who know I value them. I also had the good fortune to acquire a large number from the estate of the music journalist historian Fred Dellar. The biggest challenge in collecting press releases, and all promo materials, is the fact that no one knows what existed in the first place until it happens to pop up. There are no catalogues or lists, or specialist dealers in such things. It makes it a fun but frustrating area.

What were the biggest surprises you found in the press releases, both in terms of their general approach during this decade, and specific examples of things you didn’t know or that you found surprising were being promoted?

It’s constantly striking that in many cases the people writing them had no idea how the record in question was going to fare – there’s a freshness to reading about artists that are now regarded as ‘legendary’ when they were just embarking on their careers. I mean, when Decca released Tintern Abbey’s sole 45 in November 1967, they didn’t have a clue whether it would be another “Whiter Shade Of Pale,” which had shot to number one from nowhere that May. The major labels followed the same formula in many of their press releases, with a short descriptive page followed by a questionnaire. Some of the questions and answers are ludicrous in one sense – who needs to know that Ringo Starr disliked Donald Duck? –  yet it’s important to remember that these press releases were serving a wide range of publications, many of which catered for children, so they had to cover different bases. It’s also intriguing to see how many major stars were already hard at work well before they found success: Joe Cocker, Rod Stewart, David Bowie, Jimmy Page, Robert Plant and so on. In their cases clearly it was just a matter of time.

Although press releases are the core of the book, a lot of space is also given to reprints of articles about the acts spotlighted in them, as well as vintage advertisements and reviews. You’ve used excerpts of many reviews in your huge and comprehensive reference guides to UK and North American records of the 1960s and early 1970s, but these reprint the reviews in their entirety. What’s the value of reading these vintage reviews?

Record reviews were typically written by people who had – I assume – only just glanced over the relevant press releases, so marrying up the two seemed logical. I wanted to demonstrate how the press releases might have influenced what was written – or not. It’s important to remember that record reviews were almost always written at great speed, without serious engagement with what the artist was trying to convey. One prominent music journalist of that period told me that, on the publication he worked for, LPs with voluminous notes on the back cover were the most sought-after for review, because you didn’t have to listen to the music in order to bash out some copy. So, in short, I wouldn’t say that all old reviews necessarily contain worthwhile insights, but if interpreted in the right spirit they offer another fascinating window into the way pop was marketed and promoted. As the book’s subtitle indicates, I wanted to put the reader in the moment as far as possible. Towards the end of the decade, of course, reviewing albums became a more serious affair, and certain critics, such as Mark Williams of International Times, wrote with considerable intelligence and insight.

Records now esteemed as classics were sometimes dismissed or ignored when they came out, and some very popular ones are now disdained or seldom discussed. What are some of the most striking examples of how differently a record/act is perceived now than then?

I agree, many of the most popular groups of the 1960s are barely listened to today. I wonder how many people can identify more than a handful of songs by Herman’s Hermits, the Dave Clark Five, the Love Affair and so on, yet the music press was jammed with coverage of them in those days. Conversely, artists that barely made a ripple in those days are now widely admired, even if their audience remains small: COB, Fuchsia, Nick Drake and so on. Time Of The Last Persecution by Bill Fay, a deeply personal and heartfelt record set to adventurous rock arrangements, was scorned by critics upon release, yet resonates powerfully with many people down the decades. Conversely, an awful (to my ears) album called Ark II by Flaming Youth was garlanded with praise upon release and has no critical standing today, and the well-known journalist Charles Shaar Murray championed a dreadful (to my ears) group called Gnidrolog. Inevitably, tastes change over time and cream can be slow to rise.

Sometimes received wisdom about an act – not just their musical quality, but basic facts about their career – are called into question or disproved by artifacts like press releases and reviews. As Nick Drake’s biographer, you found this when you uncovered numerous complimentary reviews demonstrating he wasn’t ignored or dismissed in his lifetime, as some other historians have conveniently claimed. The same holds true for the Velvet Underground, and there are other instances. Is this something you often discover, and are there a few particularly interesting examples you’d like to cite, whether Drake or others?

I am constantly uncovering intriguing information from vintage sources that disprove received wisdom. We’re talking about an era in which there were numerous weekly newspapers devoted to current popular music, as well as various monthly magazines, yet depressingly few writers and researchers use them. It always surprises me how many famous albums’ release dates are constantly cited inaccurately. Only yesterday I was ridiculed online by [a writer] for pointing out that he had the release date of Neil Young’s debut album wrong by three months. Upon request, the sources he cited were its Wikipedia and Allmusic pages. So I hope the book will help to correct a few dating errors, at least.

Some artists who are typically portrayed as unfathomably overlooked did, in fact, receive a good deal of coverage. Vashti Bunyan springs to mind – her album was widely and warmly reviewed at its time of release, and she received feature coverage in both the music and the national press (not that it influenced the record-buying public!). As anyone who has ever worked in the record business will tell you, trying to break a record by an artist with no live / public visibility is a fool’s errand, and that often explains why such acts failed to connect, rather than their going unmentioned in the press.

On a related note, very few albums received absolutely no coverage at all. One example – as far as I am aware – is Beginnings by Ambrose Slade, which came out on Philips’s Fontana imprint in May 1969. Of course, what’s especially interesting about that is that they went on to [as Slade] become one of the biggest British groups of the 1970s.

As one of the leading collectors of the UK music press at the time, you know how important it is to preserve and research issues of the weeklies and monthlies that had vital information. Even some of the weeklies with big circulations, like Record Mirror and Disc, often aren’t easy to find, even in libraries with big collections of vintage papers. The value of their reviews/interviews/stories is obvious, but of the four most popular ones (NME, Melody Maker, Record Mirror, and Disc), do you find notable differences in their quality and approach, having read more of them than virtually anyone?

In the period covered by Pressing News, the simple answer is that Melody Maker wasn’t predominantly chart-focused. The others, whilst covering of a wide variety of artists, were fundamentally geared towards those who were having hits. (This shifted in the 1970s, to some extent.) As such, Melody Maker tends to contain the most detailed, thorough and wide-ranging coverage, but all of them are valid and contain interesting and thoughtful journalism – as do Combo, Music Echo, Top Pops, Music Now, Record Retailer, Music Business Weekly and so on.  

A significant attribute of Pressing News’s sections for reviews and stories is that you also reprint material from much more obscure music publications that are very hard to find vintage issues of now. There’s Beat Instrumental, which paid more serious attention to musicianship than other publications, and ZigZag, which was the first widely distributed underground-oriented UK music magazine of note. But there are also ones that are yet far more obscure, like Music Now and Top Pops, as well as some business-oriented publications that few have paid attention to. What are the biggest challenges in finding those back issues, and what are some particular values some of the more obscure papers provide?

The biggest challenge in collecting the more obscure music publications is obvious: far fewer copies were printed and sold, so far fewer survive. It is virtually impossible to assemble complete runs of some of them, and the British Library’s collection is far from complete. There are gaps in my collection that I may never fill, and in one or two cases I wonder if the missing issues even exist anywhere. Certainly no person or institution I’m aware of has them. In terms of their content, as a rule of thumb, the more obscure a paper is, the less likelihood it had of bagging interviews with major stars, so papers such as Music Now often feature acts that received scant attention elsewhere. The same applies to photographs and adverts.

Pressing News also spotlights music coverage from general interest papers, rather than music or even entertainment ones. There are stories from the newspapers of cities around the UK, some of them sizable cities, some of them quite modest in circulation. For instance, there’s even a review of the Beatles’ first single, “Love Me Do,” in the Newtown & Earlestown Guardian. You’ve unearthed many such items, which is a source of great satisfaction to researchers unaware of such material. Yet there must also be frustration knowing there must be many more such items in publications that are difficult to find in any form, and extremely time consuming to peruse for the rock-oriented coverage that happened to pop up. What are the biggest rewards and challenges of trying to find such material? 

The joy of looking through such papers is not knowing what may lurk over the page. It’s time-consuming, but always a thrill to discover an unfamiliar review or article relating to an artist I consider worthwhile. In recent weeks I have found pieces that include a photograph of Syd Barrett performing a solo show in 1970, and of Jimmy Page performing with a group under a pseudonym in late 1963, neither of which have ever been circulated, to the best of my knowledge. In writing my Nick Drake book, I attempted to pin down every piece of press that he received during his lifetime, but I am aware that there must be more. Received wisdom had it that he only ever gave one interview, but I came across another, and am wide open to the possibility that others might exist. 

Records were sent out widely for review, and I have been told that local newspapers often wielded more influence over young record buyers than the music press, hence their pop writers were carefully cultivated by record companies. However, their writing was often lazy. I was delighted to find a long piece about Egg from the summer of 1969, then realized it was a word-for-word reprint of Decca’s press release for their debut 45. They’re not the only act I had to omit for a lack of supporting material in the music or general press. Bulldog Breed come to mind, too, and there are a few others.

It’s odd that a Move album was reported to be on the way in late 1966, yet didn’t appear until early 1968. Odder to me is a report on April 24, 1967 that their manager announced tapes had been stolen from their agent’s car in Denmark Street, a factor in delaying an album release for quite some time. Do you think this might have been planted? 

In short, the answer is yes – their manager, Tony Secunda, was a great believer in publicity at any cost (and the cost ended up being pretty high when the Prime Minister sued them), so he fed a steady diet of bullshit to anyone willing to consume it. I’m sure they’d have been successful without his gimmicks, but either way, the saga of the Move’s first album / early recording career is long and vexed, and it’s a shame they didn’t have an album out in late 1966.

For the Who’s My Generation album, there are a couple press reprints of great value, from papers that aren’t easy to access. In the July 1965 Beat Instrumental, there’s an advance report of sorts on what was initially supposed to be the Who’s first LP, describing eight tracks (although the story refers to an acetate with nine, only eight are detailed). All but one of the songs were covers, and they, quite unusually considering there must have been pressure to get an album out quickly to capitalize on their first two hit singles, decided to pretty much start the album over, only keeping four of the eight tracks for the final My Generation LP. Then in the December 4, 1965 Record Mirror, Pete Townshend gave a detailed track-by-track rundown of the album, and a very forthright one, heavily criticizing some songs and insinuating some criticism of Roger Daltrey and producer Shel Talmy. I’m devoting a full future blogpost to these items, but would you agree it was both very unusual to have such an advance report of an album in the making in 1965, and very unusual to have such a track-by-track rundown from the main songwriter/leader, though such rundowns would become more common in future years?

Yes, I would agree. From the start Townshend was unusually outspoken and forthright, both to the press and as regards what he wanted the group’s recordings to consist of. It’s intriguing that the scrapped first version of My Generation got so far as to be reported in detail. Asking artists to comment on each track on an album wasn’t unheard of, though – off the top of my head, I can recall the Beatles, Scott Walker, Roy Wood and others doing so too. But to insult your own work in such plain terms is clearly peculiar, and typical of Townsend’s self-critical candour.

Getting back to press releases, one of the relative surprises of Pressing News is that many obscure acts who sold very few records were granted substantial press releases: Vashti Bunyan, Jackson C. Frank, the Virgin Sleep, Blossom Toes, Cressida, the Human Beast, Fresh Maggots, and Mellow Candle, among many others. Was it just considered pro forma by labels and publicists to churn out press releases regardless of commercial prospects, or sometimes indicative that they were considered to have had greater prospects than many realized? Or kind of a combination of those approaches?

Review copies of virtually every new record were accompanied by some form of publicity material, not least because record companies had precious little idea what would or would not connect and had to cover each base. Black Sabbath were treated with near contempt by Philips in the run-up to their first album’s release. (Almost unbelievably, none of the members had heard the finished LP or seen the cover before it was in the shops. Luckily, they were delighted with both.) Review copies of that album simply came with the usual bland Vertigo single typed sheet, yet it became a huge success right away. So I don’t think any record’s success can be attributed to whatever the publicity department said or did, though in some cases they made journalists’ lives easier by including obvious material to parrot. The Beatles’ “Love Me Do” press release even included a readymade review by Tony Barrow for reprinting! As time went on, more elaborate promotional materials started to be generated, often indicating a level of excitement about an act. For example, the first Yes album was promoted with a bespoke promo folder containing info on headed paper, photos and a poster. That said, such things were often funded by management or other interested parties, rather than the record company.

As many press releases as there are in Pressing News, obviously many more exist that could have been considered, particularly for big acts like the Beatles and Rolling Stones (for whom not every album is represented), but also for more obscure acts who aren’t represented at all. Were there criteria you applied in how you had to be selective, and any you regretted omitting?

One criterion was my own taste, hence the absence of disposable pop, mainstream ballad singers, novelty acts and so on. Another limitation was my memory: I recently found the press release for Reality by Second Hand inside the cover of my copy when I played it. I would have included it in the book if I’d remembered I had it. The same goes for But That Is Meby Mandy More. Another is the fact that I simply don’t have certain press releases – for example, I have the ones for Nick Drake’s Five Leaves Left and Pink Moon, but have never seen one for Bryter Layter. It seems unlikely that Island didn’t generate one, so I’ll just have to wait until a copy surfaces. The same goes for The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn and various others. Finally, I didn’t want to include too many by one artist, so I had to be selective about what to include relating to, say, the Beatles, the Stones and David Bowie.

Would you consider publishing another volume or volumes?

Yes, albeit with a certain hesitancy, because it was a fiendish book to lay out. Pressing News only covers Britain, and I have many American press releases that I would like to put into book form one day. Off the top my head, it would include rare and unseen material relating to Love, Captain Beefheart, Silver Apples, Big Star, the Monks, Fifty Foot Hose, Karen Dalton, Jefferson Airplane, Leonard Cohen, the Stooges and many others. To a lesser extent, I have press releases relating to artists from non-English speaking countries (Can, Culpeper’s Orchard, Pan, Oriental Sunshine etc), but those would obviously be more problematic to make into a book with any semblance of commercial viability!

Do you find notable differences between how US and UK acts were promoted, in press releases specifically, but also in how they gained press coverage?

American press releases weren’t much different to British ones – a mixture of hyperbole, quaint idioms and information of varying degrees of usefulness. The big difference between the territories is that, despite being a much larger market, America had a bafflingly limited music press compared to Britain (trade magazines aside). There were a few great publications – Hit Parader springs to mind – but no weekly music press until Go started publication in April 1966 (but that was a flimsy publication distributed via radio stations). Most pop coverage was in magazines aimed at youngsters, such as Flip and Sixteen, which – whilst occasionally pretty cool – tended to be flippant and superficial. A few regional papers appeared circa 1966, like New England Teen Scene and Mojo Navigator, and magazines like TeenSet, Hullabalooand Crawdaddy! took up some slack, but it wasn’t really until the end of the 60s that America had a really solid national music press, with Rolling Stone, Fusion, Circus, Changes, Rock and others appearing regularly. There were useful articles about interesting musicians in the national press, but these were often syndicated and consisted of rehashed press releases rather than original material. So, in general, serious American pop fans weren’t as well served by the press as British ones. As a sidenote, of course the American record industry was so enormous that no weekly consumer publication could have compassed it all.

Pressing News hasn’t been out for long, but has it resulted in any readers contacting you with copies of press releases you haven’t seen, and if so, have any been of special interest?

Alas, not! But press releases are very rare, and I didn’t publish the book in the expectation that it would result in a flurry of them resurfacing. But there are many wonderful records whose press releases I have yet to see, and I would be delighted if anyone were to share items of interest… For me, locating such things is all about sharing, not hoarding.

Pressing News can be ordered through https://lansdownebooks.com.

Richard Morton Jack’s new book Pressing News: British Music As It Happened 1962-1972 is the kind of book whose interest is pretty limited to intense historians/collectors/fanatics, and that you use for reference rather than reading all at once, or even in its entirety. That doesn’t mean it isn’t valuable, of course, built around reproductions of more than a hundred press releases for British rock artists between the early 1960s and early 1970s. Usually the releases are tied to specific records, from the most famous (Sgt. Pepper) to some by very obscure acts (Fresh Maggots, Jerusalem, and the Pete Best Four, to name just a few examples). These are accompanied by quite a few reprints of reviews, and sometimes full stories, that appeared about these records and acts at the time, not years later, when critical views about the performers and their importance often shifted. There are also reproductions of some ads from the period, and each entry has a substantial paragraph from the author explaining the context of the material and the performers’ career at the time.

A little disappointingly—and this has nothing to do with the talent of the author and the usual fine design he brings to his specialized books—the releases themselves (and the reviews) are often bland and basic, if reflective of how the industry promoted rock at the time. There aren’t a ton of genuine surprises, though it’s a great service to have reviews from UK music papers reprinted, as (except for Melody Maker, and to extent NME) accessing the ones from British weeklies is difficult, even for the major Disc and Record Mirror publications.

Morton Jack also dug up quite a few items from general interest/regional newspapers and magazines that have seldom been seen since their publications, going back to a few (such as a review in the Newtown & Earlestown Guardian) for the book’s first entry, on the Beatles’ “Love Me Do” single. Almost all of the reviews and stories, incidentally, are sourced from UK publications, though a very few from the US are present. While it’s unlikely every reader wants to go through the clippings and releases for all of the selections depending on their taste (especially the more esoteric ones from the late 1960s and early 1970s), there’s something for every fan of British rock of the period here, from the superstars to worthy cult acts like Blossom Toes.

There are some surprising nuggets here and there for British rock obsessives. I’m detailing some of the ones of most interest to me in particular in this post. I interviewed the author in my next post:

** The Yardbirds are justly hailed for pioneering blues-rock and psychedelic guitar work, often with volume, especially with the guitar, that was loud for the time. Yet in a press release for their first single (“A Certain Girl”/ “I Wish You Would,” May 1964), lead singer Keith Relf revealed, “Actually, up until last year I was a real purist, wouldn’t have anything to do with electricity.”

** The Zombies were most highly esteemed for their wealth of fine original material, usually written by either keyboardist Rod Argent or bassist Chris White, though singer Colin Blunstone wrote a bit. They are not highly regarded for their occasional R&B/soul covers, though they did a few good ones, some of which (like “The Look of Love”) were only done for the BBC rather than for their official releases. 

So it’s a little surprising, in a press release for their first LP (UK version), to see road manager Terry Arnold cite a cover as the most interesting song. “Probably the most interesting track is ‘Sticks and Stones’—it’s a slowed-down version of the oldie that Ray Charles made famous,” he states. “The boys give it a really earthy feel.”

** Vashti isn’t a name known to the average rock fan, but she’s pretty well known to the kind of people who read these blogs, if mostly for her cult 1970 folk album. Five years earlier, she had a brief career as a more Marianne Faithfull-like folk-pop singer, including the single “Some Things Just Stick in Your Mind,” written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, and produced by Rolling Stones producer/manager Andrew Oldham. According to a press release for that 1970 LP (which misspells the title as “Somethings Just Stick in Your Mind”), “Although the disc sold as many as were pressed, for some unknown reason, Decca stopped production.”

It seems it would be highly unusual for a record label to stop pressing a single that had sold out. Could this not have been accurate—misstatements and outright untruths, as shocking as it sounds, not being unknown in press releases then and until the present? This is supported by Vashti Bunyan’s memoir Wayward, in which she writes, “the single went nowhere,” and doesn’t refer to it selling as many as were pressed and production getting stopped. Maybe, say, only fifty were pressed and they all sold, but that seems highly unlikely.

** Welsh singer-songwriter Mike Stevens is another name not known to the average rock fan. Like Vashti, however, he’s pretty well known to the kind of people who read these blogs, but under a different name: Meic Stevens. But he was billed as Mike Stevens when his first single came out in 1965. All very footnotish, but in the “Lifelines” section of a press release for that June 1965 single, Robert Johnson is listed as one of his favorite singers. Johnson is today extremely famous, but in 1965 he was known only to a pretty small cult of folk/blues enthusiasts. It wouldn’t surprise me if Stevens was the first to list him on a “Lifelines” or similar list.

It also might seem unusual Stevens even found any Johnson records in the UK, though the first Johnson LP compilation had come out in 1961. But was it as unusual as we might think? Eric Clapton made his debut as a lead singer on a cover of Johnson’s “Ramblin’ On My Mind” on the famous 1966 Blues Breakers: John Mayall with Eric Clapton album. I’m guessing that’s the first Johnson cover by a rock act (though the Bluesbreakers might have preferred to think of themselves as a blues band), predating Cream’s cover of “Four Until Late” on their first album in late 1966.

So Clapton found something by Robert Johnson in the UK, but was it as rare for young British musicians to find obscure (or at least then-obscure) American blues as we might think? Some such LPs were available at specialty shops like Dobell’s on Charing Cross Road in London. It’s been reported that Syd Barrett named Pink Floyd after coming across the names of Pink Anderson and Floyd Council in the liner notes to Blind Boy Fuller’s Country Blues 1935-1940 LP. It’s unclear how much he and the other members actually heard Anderson and Council, if they heard anything by them at all, or if or how much they heard Fuller for that matter. 

** It’s well known, among serious Who fans at any rate, that they finished or almost finished a debut LP dominated by R&B/soul covers before abandoning it and making a better one dominated by Pete Townshend originals. It’s not so well known, though this was likely the source for historical writing on the issue, that Beat Instrumental had a comprehensive July 1965 story on the first version, which they reported “has been completed.” Producer Shel Talmy played reporter John Emery an acetate with nine tracks, and Emery—with unusually acute observation by the standards of the mid-‘60s pop press—was hit “slap in the face just looking at the titles [by] the lack of originality in choice of material.” Eight of the nine tracks were cover versions, and although some were used on the My Generation LP and all the others named in the piece have come out on archival releases, this would indeed have made for an underachieving core of a debut Who longplayer.

To list the precise tracks cited: James Brown’s “I Don’t Mind” and “Please Please Please” (both of which did make the My Generation LP), Bo Diddley’s “I’m a Man” (which also made the LP, although only the UK version), Martha & the Vandellas’ “Heat Wave” (re-recorded for the Who’s second LP, although only the UK version), “Motoring” (the flipside of Martha & the Vandellas’ hit “Nowhere to Run”), “Leaving Here” (first done on Motown by Eddie Holland), “Lubie” (the most obscure item, first done by Paul Revere & the Raiders), and  “You’re Going to Know Me,” the sole Pete Townshend original. The description (“is opened with guitar strumming and bursts into an uptempo raver. There is some feedback used here”), makes it obvious this was an early title for “Out in the Street,” which did lead off the My Generation LP.

If you’ve noticed the math doesn’t add up, you’re right. That’s seven cover versions and one original, though the acetate had nine tracks. The identity of the ninth one is unknown. Whatever the case, the Who were certainly right to redo the album for the most part. The Who did some good R&B/rock covers in 1965 (especially the B-sides “Daddy Rolling Stone” and “Shout and Shimmy”), but that wasn’t their forte, and the outtake covers aren’t that hot. They’re rather dull, actually, which isn’t something you’d say about anything on the final My Generation LP.

** Speaking of My Generation, Marc Bolan—then barely known, and barely recorded—had this strange comment on the album in the February 19, 1966 issue of London Life: “The song ‘My Generation’ really swings but for me this is a bad LP. Nevertheless, for the track ‘My Generation’—the LP is very much worth buying.” It would have been quite an investment for the average young British rock’n’roll fan to buy an album for just one track—one that would still have been easily available as a much cheaper hit 45.

** In a Record Mirror interview published on August 13, 1966, just after Cream formed, Eric Clapton was asked what he thought of the Yardbirds’ new self-titled album (since often called Roger the Engineer). He was most uncharitable about the band he’d left in early 1965, to be replaced by Jeff Beck. “I just don’t want to know, he said after what the paper reported as “a short snort.” “One of those numbers I gave to them two years ago and arranged it and everything.” It would be interesting to know which one that was—maybe “Lost Woman,” basically a rewrite of Snooky Pryor’s “Someone to Love Me,” which the Yardbirds did play with Clapton, as it’s on an archival release of a July 1964 concert.

Sadly, Clapton wasn’t done dumping on his old band and others. In the same feature, he went on to carp about the Yardbirds, “They do this thing about Keith Relf collapsing five minutes before they go on stage, then they pull the whole band out. Everyone’s waiting for the big split”—which wouldn’t happen for a couple years, but after a couple major lineup changes. Asked to rate fellow guitarists, he had good if brief words for Jeff Beck and Peter Green, but added, “If I was sure that everything George Harrison played was his own ideas, I’d say he was good, but I’ve got this feeling it’s Paul McCartney telling him what to do.” That was considered colorful enough to be rephrased for the article’s headline, though if George read the piece, he apparently didn’t hold grudges, he and Clapton famously becoming close friends within a couple of years.

Finally, Clapton stated “there are only about four groups in the country who are developing their own directions—the Beatles and the Kinks, and the Small Faces and the Who I suppose.” The Yardbirds were conspicuous by their absence.

** John’s Children are a group known more for their overhype than their music, though actually some of their records were pretty good. They never did make it over to the US, though there was more than one report of them coming over to capitalize on the success of their “Smashed Blocked” single in some Californian markets. One such report is in a February 1967 press release, which claims “there’s the chance of an American tour in March.” An easy claim to back out of when the chance didn’t come through, but it goes on to read, “and a Monkees-style TV programme for them while they’re over there.” Who knows if there was anything to that or just a flight of fancy to gain them attention, but there’s barely even any surviving film footage of the group, let alone a full TV program.

** As the Move had their first UK hit single in January 1967 and three big ones in the country that year (though they’d never make it in the US), it’s odd their first LP didn’t appear until more than a year later. This is how Morton Jack summarizes it in his text: “The Move’s debut LP was promised for November 1966, with publicity-hungry manager Tony Secunda bragging: ‘Our aim is to outdo Revolver with new musical innovations.’ The date came and went, but in the spring of 1967 Rave magazine reported ‘The Move’s first album, called Move Mass and due out soon, contains some really weird tracks…There’ll be one called ‘Kilroy Was Here’ and another provisionally titled ‘Roy Wood’s Toytown Band,’ which features the group playing toy instruments.’ On April 24, however, Secunda announced that the tapes had been stolen from their agent’s car in Denmark Street. Work on it stalled thereafter, as they gigged relentlessly, moved from Decca to EMI, lost a libel action brought by the Prime Minister and weathered bassist Ace Kefford’s mental difficulties. Late December was promised, but the LP didn’t appear until March 1968.”

That’s a really long period of gestation, and I have to wonder if the story about the tapes getting stolen—not something that often happened to an act with hits and a high profile—was planted to stall for more time if progress on the LP was laborious. (And what was the agent doing with the tapes anyway, and why would it have been the only copy?) “Kilroy Was Here” was indeed a song, and a good one, that was featured on their debut album, though it’s unclear whether it was re-recorded if tapes were actually stolen. No track titled “Roy Wood’s Toytown Band” appeared on a Move release, and going from the description, that might be a blessing. Incidentally, the album title reported back in spring 1967, Move Mass, wasn’t used, the debut LP bearing the most unimaginative title The Move.

** Speaking of overhype, the Idle Race were a good-but-not great group most known for including Jeff Lynne before he joined the Move, let alone co-founded Electric Light Orchestra. A Liberty Records ad from October 1968 is headlined, “First album from the group second only to the Beatles!” At least John’s Children’s overhype was making some outrageous and dubious claims as to their burgeoning success, and not anything along the lines of “second only to the Who,” though they did support the Who on a rambunctious German tour. The Idle Race did have some elements of the Beatles at their lightest, though they were considerably closer in sound—though again, in a notably lighter fashion—to fellow Birmingham group the Move. And they never did get a hit, let alone challenge the Beatles in sales or innovation, though they have their cult following.

** In the November 23, 1968 issue of Melody Maker, Long John Baldry—a much bigger name in the UK than in the US, where he made virtually no impression in the 1960s—commented on Fleetwood Mac’s new “Albatross” single, and not very positively. “It’s a bit Roy Rogers and Trigger riding into the sunset,” he surmised, before really digging the knife in: “I don’t see the point of this record by any standards—pop, blues or jazz. I don’t see what it’s got to do with anything.” He also predicted “it won’t get into the pop market because it doesn’t mean anything”—most inaccurately, at least for the UK, where it got to #1.

** In the June 7, 1969 issue of the now-forgotten UK magazine Top Pops, a sidebar to a feature on the emerging group King Crimson—who had yet to issue a record—listed four favorite pieces of music by each member. The original King Crimson, and the one album they recorded, are rightfully thought of as cutting-edge hip. Their lists, however, remind us that not everything cited as cool and influential at the time by cool and influential musicians is what we’d expect, or what has been with codified as unhip and uninfluential. Folky material figured surprisingly strongly, Robert Fripp listing Judy Collins’s “First Boy I Loved” (her version, not the original one by the Incredible String Band); Greg Lake listing Collins’s “Michael from Mountains” (her version, not the one by the writer of the song, Joni Mitchell); Michael Giles listing Simon and Garfunkel’s “Old Friends”; and Greg Lake listing Donovan’s “Deed I Do” (Donovan’s “Get Thy Bearings” was covered by King Crimson in concert in 1969, as heard on archival releases).

As far as unhip, Ian MacDonald lists Vanilla Fudge’s “Break Song.” Lake lists the Moody Blues’ “Never Comes the Day,” and although the Moodies aren’t rated as high as King Crimson by many rock historians, there were more similarities between the bands than many are willing to acknowledge. Of course they both used Mellotron heavily at the time, but also Moody Blues producer Tony Clarke worked on King Crimson’s first album before the band took the production reins themselves.

** Syd Barrett’s solo work might not be as highly regarded as the godhead stuff he did as Pink Floyd’s leader on their first album and handful of singles, but it’s generally felt to be at least interesting, and by some to be charmingly whimsical. Not so the Newcastle Sunday Sun, which gave his first album a pretty harsh rundown on January 25, 1970. “Judging by the sleeve of…The Madcap Laughs, Syd sings to a naked lady these days,” it reads. “Either the stool she is perching on is a trifle chilly or she finds Syd’s serenading troublesome.

“Syd’s all right doing his own thing as long as everyone concerned helps him along. They seem to impress on each other how good and groovy it all is really. In the end, they seem to persuade themselves, and reach a point at which they cannot distinguish between junk and genius.”

** Scott Walker briefly reverted to his birth name, Scott Engel, when he went in his most serious singer-songwriting direction on his fourth LP. Although that was his best and most artistic record, it wasn’t a commercial success, and he subsequently become Scott Walker again, never again reaching the heights of his simply titled 4 album. While he was still Scott Engel, however, he gave an interview to the now-forgotten paper Music Now for its December 5, 1970 issue. Here he disclosed a surprising and interesting ambition: “I am interested in Russian music. I have got great sympathy for the people over there. I would like to do a ‘political’ album, for want of a better word. It would be about life there and the lives of the people.” Elsewhere in the story he claimed, “I think I probably have the largest collection of Russian classical music in London.”

That record never did come out, and perhaps would not have been welcome in a Western world unsympathetic to Russia, as it often has been to the present day. Although Walker was noted for crediting non-rock influences like Frank Sinatra, Jacques Brel, and Russian classical music, and incorporating them into his work, in this story he does compliment a couple rock stars, Neil Young and the Band. More surprisingly, he adds that “Johnny Winter is another person I respect. I have played with a lot of good guitarists and I’ve seen a lot too, but he beats so many of them. He plays real shit-kicking music”—though most would fail to hear even an echo of Winter in Walker.

** Trader Horne, the duo of ex-Fairport Convention singer Judy Dyble and ex-Them keyboardist Jackie McAuley, lasted for just one 1970 album. Apparently more ambitious plans were afoot, as Dyble said in a June 1970 story in Beat Instrumental they were going to the US in August. They never made it over, as Dyble left in May, around the time the Beat Instrumental story would have appeared.

** The transition of the Move into Electric Light Orchestra remains a puzzling and odd period, as it seems these acts were envisioned as having overlapping careers, although in fact the Move ended only very shortly after Electric Light Orchestra began (and ELO only included the Move’s Roy Wood for a short time). A press release from December 1971 seems to indicate plans were different, Wood “clarifying,” “We can still expect to hear new records from the Move for another three years or so, but live appearances will be rare.” Actually the last Move release, the single “Do Ya,” would come out only half a year later, in June 1972.

Information about Pressing News and how to order a copy is at https://lansdownebooks.com/products/pressing-news.

There was no problem filling up a list of 25 or so reissues, or at least issues of previously unreleased material, this year. Maybe to the disappointment of those who hope there will be a never-ending vault of “discoveries” or “rediscoveries” of work by obscure artists who are largely or wholly unknown even to devout collectors, the list is almost wholly comprised of pretty big names. True, these are mostly box sets (some containing much previously unissued or even uncirculated material); batches of tracks that were mostly or wholly unavailable; previously unreleased live recordings; more or less straight reissues of records that have been hard to get, or at least hard to get for many years; and themed compilations that mix long-easily available items with some rarities.

It’s not the like days of, say, 1983, when you could go to a top record store (themselves much thinner on the ground now than back then) and pick up LP reissues of acts that you’d never heard anything of in one go. If you brought a lot of cash, you could theoretically get interesting recent such albums (most though not all of them totally above-board in terms of kosher licensing) by the Misunderstood, the New Colony Six, the Other Half, the Merseybeats, the Creation, We the People, the Sheppards, and the Action in one day. If all those names sound kind of old hat to seasoned collectors/historians these days, I hadn’t heard a single track by any of them when I got the records 41-42 years ago (and only a song or two by Wanda Jackson, one of many such artists I could add to the list). 

So we have a list populated by extremely familiar greats like the Yardbirds, the Doors, and David Bowie, and few unfamiliar acts. The Mystic Tide are one, gaining the #2 spot, but even their material was made available on reissues from the 1980s and 1990s, if not in as good a package. And there are not-terribly-famous names like Robbie Basho, the Idle Race, and Dadawah, though they have their sizable cult followings, as well as genuine obscurities on some of the various-artists compilations. But as the cliché might go, there’s still much to enjoy even with the preponderance of big names, whether unreleased/rare tracks or intelligent/completist compilations.

1. The Yardbirds, The Ultimate Live at the BBC (Repertoire). Is this four-CD set the ultimate collection of the Yardbirds’ BBC performances? The way the reissue business works, you shouldn’t bet on this being the last one. True too there have already been several collections featuring their BBC material (and going back more than 45 years, some bootlegs with BBC tracks). And if you’ve kept up with as much of that material as you could, as I have, you’ll already have about three-fourths of this compilation. That’s a conundrum about being a completist – the more complete the upgrade is, the greater the chance you’ll already have spent a lot of money on much of it in previous iterations, though those (presumably younger people) just getting into the group won’t have such a serious issue.

Still, the two dozen or so previously unreleased tracks include some highlights and even surprises. Chief among those are June 1965 versions of “Respectable” and “Pretty Girl,” both of which were on their debut album Five Live Yardbirds, recorded in 1964. But these BBC versions are with Jeff Beck, not Eric Clapton, who was on the live LP. Note how Keith Relf changes the lyric of “Respectable” from “she’s the kind of girl for me” to “she’s the kind of woman for me” at one point. The last verse of “Pretty Girl” suddenly lowers in key and is a bit slower. Was that deliberate, in which case that’s pretty avant-garde for an R&B cover?

Other previously unissued items of note include “Someone to Love Me,” recorded in studio versions but not issued until after they broke up; a March 1965 “Jeff’s Boogie” when it was still known as “Berry’s Boogie”; the Impressions cover “I’ve Been Trying” (one of two versions, the other having been previously available); and an unissued “Too Much Monkey Business” with Beck on lead instead of Clapton (again one of two versions, the other having been previously available). “Steeled Blues” might have been a relatively trivial part of the Yardbirds’ catalog as the instrumental B-side to “Heart Full of Soul,” but they did it three times on the BBC, and two of the versions here are previously unissued. And there’s “Rack My Mind,” a rewrite of Slim Harpo’s “Scratch My Back” (which is also here), though it’s on the lo-fi side. Then there are previously unissued versions of “I’m Not Talking” and “I Ain’t Done Wrong,” again accompanied by different versions that have already been released.

It’s true that some of these unissued versions that are multiples aren’t too interesting, like a “Happenings Ten Years Time Ago” that is actually the track from the 45 with a different vocal. As great as “Heart Full of Soul” was, five versions is a lot, even if two of them are unreleased. In common with most 1960s BBC cuts by British rockers, it’s rare that the songs also found on their studio releases were done better or with much variation on the radio sessions.

But there are some performances of special caliber, like a “Smokestack Lightning” (again: with Beck not Clapton!) with some improvisation not hear on the Five Live Yardbirds version. The two unreleased versions of “Evil Hearted You” closing disc two are perhaps their best BBC versions of any of their hit singles, with some incredibly quick licks from Beck. And for the many tracks that have been around the block before (sometimes several times), the sound is often notably improved.

There aren’t any tracks here with Clapton as no BBC sessions with him survive, but BBC recordings from 1967-68 when Jimmy Page was sole guitarist comprise all of disc four. Just one of these was previously unreleased, and it’s not one most fans are dying to hear, as it’s a second version of one of their unimpressive Mickie Most-produced pop singles, “Goodnight Sweet Josephine.” On the whole this disc isn’t up to the standard of the three Beck CDs (which include a few tracks when both he and Page were in the group), but there are some highlights. Those are two versions of their final B-side, “Think About It”; Page’s acoustic guitar showcase “White Summer”; and a pre-Led Zeppelin “Dazed and Confused.” Too bad they didn’t do “Glimpses,” the psychedelic workout from their Little Games LP, or the outtake “Knowing That I’m Losing You,” later reworked by Led Zeppelin into “Tangerine.”

The set’s dotted with interviews that are mostly brief and pretty uninformative, though there’s an interesting bit when, asked who the leaders are in the creative side of (presumably the pop business; the BBC interviewer mumbles), Paul Samwell-Smith quickly names Pete Townshend – and no one else. The annotation is very thorough, including details of sessions that don’t survive, and memories from drummer Jim McCarty and bassist-producer Samwell-Smith. The notes also clarify that “Love Me Like I Love You,” the mysterious bouncy soul-pop number heard twice, is a cover of an obscure American soul disc by the Wallace Brothers, though it’s been previously credited as a group composition. (The January 2025 issue of the UK monthly magazine Record Collector has my 14-page story on the Yardbirds, focusing on this compilation. It draws from extensive recent interviews with drummer Jim McCarty and bassist/producer Paul Samwell-Smith, as well as one with Graham Gouldman, who wrote several of the Yardbirds’ hits. Info on this issue, though not the story itself, is at https://recordcollectormag.com/cover-story/the-yarbirds-the-sound-of-the-future-still.)

2. The Mystic Tide, Frustration (Numero Group). The Mystic Tide were one of the best garage-psychedelic groups of the mid-1960s, and of those acts in that elite category, one of the most obscure. The Long Island group issued just five singles on tiny labels in 1966 and 1967, never making a commercial impact even on the small local level. A CD compilation of their work (plus some far more recent tracks recorded by guitarist and songwriter Joe Docko) appeared thirty years ago, but this LP-only anthology has better sound and far more comprehensive liner notes, including a few quotes from my own interview with Docko in the late 1990s. If raw compared to most bigger acts in both its production and performance, the best of these tracks mix tremendous ‘60s punk energy with intriguing, almost experimental raga-tinged psychedelia.

The title track, “Frustration,” is the best of these, using the still-novel approach of two simultaneously sung lead vocals with both different lyrics and different melodies. But the two-part instrumental “Psychedelic Journey” is up there in the raga-rock sweepstakes; “Mystery Ship” a supremely haunting psychedelic ballad not far from the aura of the Doors’ earliest excursions; “Mystic Eyes” (an entirely different song than the Them classic) a more basic eerie effort in the same vein; “I Search for a New Love” an enticing psych-popper with swirling harmonies and tempo shifts reminiscent of the Soft Machine’s 1967 demos; and “You Won’t Look Back” another of the moodily ethereal tunes that was among the Mystic Tide’s strengths. Docko was a skilled and adventurous Indian-tinged psychedelic guitarist who could play both furiously and delicately. The earliest Mystic Tide singles are more basic British Invasion-inspired outings, but still enjoyable and not run-of-the-mill for primitive teen efforts. Also here is the sole unreleased track of theirs that has been unearthed (previously issued on 1994’s Solid Ground compilation), which like the early singles isn’t as good as their peak work, but is worth hearing. 

3. Big Brother & the Holding Company, Live at the Grande Ballroom Detroit, Michigan: March 2, 1968 (Columbia/Legacy). Before this release, there was already a fair amount of live 1968 Big Brother available, most notably a full CD of Winterland tapes from mid-1968, and another full CD of the group at the Carousel Ballroom in San Francisco in June of that year. Two of the tracks here (“Catch Me Daddy” and “Magic of Love”) are on the expanded Cheap Thrills. So I picked up this Record Store Day special as a completist, but it really is good and worthwhile. The band plays with fire, Janis Joplin sings with her habitual fire, and it includes some of their most popular tunes—“Piece of My Heart,” “Combination of the Two,” “Down on Me,” and “Ball of Chain.” And some of their better lesser known items, like “Coo Coo,” “All Is Loneliness,” and those two songs that didn’t make their two LPs with Joplin, “Catch Me Daddy” and “Magic of Love.” The sound is very good, and despite some comments that have been made by the MC5 claiming they killed Big Brother as their opening act, the audience seems quite appreciative.

4. Various Artists, Why Don’t You Smile Now: Lou Reed at Pickwick Records 1964-65 (Light in the Attic). To qualify the high ranking of this compilation, I need to disclose that I wrote the 10,000-word essay in the liner notes. This is also a case where the historical interest of the material, and my particular interest in it, vaults it to a higher position than some releases where the skills of the performers (other than Lou Reed), like the Doors and David Bowie to take a couple examples, are obviously superior. This gathers 25 songs Reed co-wrote, or quite possibly co-wrote, during his strange stint as a staff songwriter at the budget Pickwick label from about fall 1964 through mid-1965. He did sing lead vocals on four of these tracks, and likely played guitar on these and some others. On the majority, however, he shares songwriter credits (usually with Pickwick staffers Terry Philips, Jimmie Sims, and Jerry Vance) on obscure mid-‘60s songs sung by other artists. All of the cuts showed up on either rare flop singles and exploitation budget compilations, and one, the Beachnuts’ “Sad, Lonely Orphan Boy,” was previously unreleased.

I’d heard all of these except “Sad, Lonely Orphan Boy” before, and the ones on which Reed sings have shown up on bootlegs for about half a century. Still, it’s good to have the best of Reed’s Pickwick efforts (some of the worst aren’t here) assembled in one place on a legitimate release, with good packaging complete with a Lenny Kaye foreword and illustrations (including a previously unpublished color one of Lou with Pickwick staff on the cover). Reed’s raw talents are readily apparent on the four songs he sings – the Primitives single “The Ostrich”/ “Sneaky Pete,” the Roughnecks’ “You’re Driving Me Insane,” and the Beachnuts’ marginally more conventional “Cycle Annie.” Otherwise he and the Pickwick writers were obviously trying to emulate trends of the day like surf music, the Four Seasons, Motown, and New York girl groups. Compared to the Velvet Underground, or even the Primitives/Roughnecks tracks, they’re surprisingly poppy, and sometimes lightweight and formulaic.

What’s most pleasantly surprising about this comp, however, is that with the selection and sequencing, it’s a pretty enjoyable listen even aside from its value to Reed historians. Some of the tracks are good rarities by any standards, especially Robertha Williams’s Shangri-Las soundalike “Tell Mamma Not to Cry.” If some of the other tunes are almost ironic in their offhand derivativeness, they’re often executed in a fun fashion that don’t take themselves too seriously, sometimes deftly using their audible influences, like the daughter-of-Martha & the Vandellas backup vocals on Beverley Ann’s “We Got Trouble.” On a more serious note, the odd guitar tuning on “The Ostrich” was instrumental in firing John Cale’s interest in what Reed was doing at Pickwick and joining him in the touring version of the Primitives, as well as co-writing one of the better songs here with Reed and others, the All Night Workers’ “Why Don’t You Smile.” There’s much more I could say about these tracks, but for that, you’ll have to read my actual liner notes to this anthology.

5. The Doors, Live at Konserthuset, Stockholm September 20, 1968 (Rhino). As if to validate the “Jim’s not dead” chant heard from the audience at some screenings of Doors films, it seems like there’s a “new” Doors album every year, much as there’s a “new” Jimi Hendrix album every year. Of course, these new releases were recorded more than fifty years ago, as the estates trawl ever more deeply in the vaults. Such is the case with this double CD of the Doors live in Stockholm, a Record Store Day release (also issued on vinyl) that wasn’t too hard to get if you didn’t actually go to a record store that day, though it’s already getting harder – The Doors’ Official Online Store had sold out of the CD version by early May. While this isn’t the absolute best live Doors of the many concert recordings by the band now available, it’s one of the relatively few of those in good sound that was made before 1969. And while it has some numbers that show up in many, maybe too many, versions on other releases—“Five to One,” “Back Door Man,” and “When the Music’s Over,” for instance—there are also a few that are on hardly any or even none others. 

Among them, and thus among the highlights, are “Love Street,” “You’re Lost Little Girl,” and “Wild Child.” It’s evident, maybe inadvertently, that the Doors weren’t used to doing these in concert—Jim Morrison seems to skip and stumble over a few lines in “Love Street,” and Robbie Krieger doesn’t execute the guitar solo in “You’re Lost Little Girl” very well. Also, there seemed to be a mike failure for the early show’s rendition of “When the Music’s Over,” where the vocal can barely be heard for a good chunk of the track. That’s not such a big deal considering how many other versions of this song are available—in fact, there’s another one on this CD, from the late show. As for some other tunes that don’t show up too often on live Doors recordings, there’s “Love Me Two Times” and “The Unknown Soldier,” both played without mishaps, and “Money,” though these kinds of rock’n’roll/soul/blues oldies covers were never the group’s forte.

Standbys like “Light My Fire” (twice) and “The End” are also here. Although Morrison was sometimes not in good shape during this 1968 European tour—and wasn’t even present with the other Doors at one as he was too wasted to perform—he seems fully sober and in top form here. As do the band as a whole, making this one of the best live Doors releases. And while the crowd seems kind of subdued—not such a bad thing, as it helps the music come through entirely clearly—it goes wild at the end of the first show, with a couple minutes of clapping/stamping/whistling.

6. David Bowie, Rock’n’Roll Star! (Parlophone). It’s not so obvious from the title, but this is basically a superdeluxe edition of Bowie’s most famous album, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. You’ll need a Blu-Ray player to actually hear the original album on the Blu-ray disc, but the real attraction is the rest of the set, comprised of five CDs of material not on the album. That includes numerous demos, rehearsals, and outtakes, along with a bunch of 1972 BBC radio, TV, and live recordings. There are also the early-‘70s singles credited to Arnold Corns that were more or less Bowie under a different name, and the kind of less essential alternate/new mixes which pepper these deluxe productions, by Bowie and others. Twenty-nine of the tracks are previously unreleased, which isn’t a huge percentage from such a big package, especially considering some of the unreleased items are mix variations. Still, there’s something to be said for having most/all of the extra-LP stuff from shortly before/during/shortly after its recording in one place, even if the $100+ price tag isn’t cheap.

There isn’t much in the way of previously unheard songs, especially considering that some of these evolved into more familiar tunes, like the San Francisco hotel recording of “So Long 60s,” part of which evolved into “Moonage Daydream.” The chief interest is hearing how much honing and refining went into the songwriting and arrangements over the course of a year, with even the basic demos forming much of disc one making it obvious the compositions held great promise. All of this is enjoyable no matter what the circumstances or recording quality (which is mostly very good), and by the time you get to actual or close-to Ziggy Stardust tracks, they can seem kind of slick, in part because of their over-familiarity. 

There are some songs that aren’t from the final Ziggy running order, including live/radio/TV performances of Hunky Dory material, “Space Oddity,” and the Velvet Underground’s “White Light/White Heat” and “I’m Waiting for the Man.” There are also the non-LP 45 tracks “John, I’m Only Dancing,” a big UK hit, and the B-side cover of Chuck Berry’s “Round and Round.” Bigger surprises are the almost country-influenced, acoustic-flavored outtake “It’s Gonna Rain Again,” and a pre-Pin Ups version of “I Can’t Explain.” As with other Bowie superdeluxe productions to date, there’s a big (112-page) hardback book with lots of info and pictures, helping to offset the cost if you already have much of the music.

7. The Rascals, It’s Wonderful: The Complete Atlantic Studio Recordings (Now Sounds). It’s not every year I write 10,000-word liner notes for more than one reissue, and need to make “full disclosures” when I include them on my year-end list. Here’s another case, though, as I wrote notes of that length featured in the 60-page booklet of this box set. The seven-CD box does indeed include everything the Rascals released while they were with Atlantic between 1965 and 1971. That means all seven of their albums (the first four in both their mono and stereo versions) and a few non-LP singles, and while there was a limited edition Rascals-Atlantic box, this adds fourteen previously unreleased tracks. Some of those are alternates, but they include some notable items like a 1966 recording of their version of the Knight Brothers’ “Temptation’s Bout to Get Me” (which they’d remake in 1969 for official release); the nice 1966 outtake “Marryin’ Kind of Love,” co-written by Doc Pomus; and the nice folky demo “Let Freedom Ring,” written by Rascals singer Eddie Brigati.

Much has been written in praise of the Rascals’ mix of rock and soul, and again for more of mine, you’ll need to read my extensive liner notes. It’s true many of their highlights were on singles, but they had some fine B-sides and album tracks. And while their first two to three years saw their best recordings, their later and less popular releases weren’t devoid of worthwhile efforts. They’re all on this collection, which also includes some detailed track notes by compiler Alec Palao. 

8. Brian Auger’s Oblivion Express, ’70 Super Pop Montreux (Repertoire). Although he remains most known for his stint with Julie Driscoll and the Trinity, organ virtuoso Brian Auger’s time in that band was relatively brief, and by the 1970s he’d launched a different group. This 56-minute disc has the Oblivion Express’s set from the Casino Kursaal in Montreux, Switzerland on October 17, 1970. Purely from a historical perspective, it’s valuable as these are the only known Oblivion Express recordings with original drummer Keith Bailey. They also predate the band’s Oblivion Express debut album by about half a year.

More than documenting the group in its earliest stage, however, this is a pretty dynamic set that shows them fairly successful in their intention to bridge rock with R&B and jazz. The sound quality’s just a tad below what might have been expected on an official concert release at the time, and the largely instrumental material mixes Auger originals with covers of compositions by Herbie Hancock, John McLaughlin, Sly Stone, and Eddie Harris.

Auger’s not such a hot singer when he takes vocals, but as the focus is on his thick and forceful organ, as well as the fairly hot guitar-bass-drums backup, that’s not such a big deal. With a couple longer exceptions, the songs hover around the five-minute mark, largely avoiding the tedium of extended prog-rock workouts.

The highlight of the show—and maybe the highlight of Auger’s non-Driscoll-affiliated career—is the riveting, joyous “Pavane.” You might never guess it’s an adaptation of a classical piece by Gabriel Fauré, as it’s jammed with compelling riffs and dramatic, suspenseful melodic turns. Some other British organists, especially Keith Emerson and Rick Wakeman, got attention for rocking up the classics, but Auger certainly proved capable of doing so here, and doing so well. Drilling down deep, this might not be quite as good as the killer frenetic rendition he managed with the Trinity at the Bilzen Festival in Belgium 1969 (as seen in footage of that performance), but it comes close.

The release bolsters Auger’s credentials as one of the more innovative British keyboardists of the period, and perhaps the most jazz-influenced one who just about fell into the rock category. Repertoire put out another CD at the same time of Auger with Driscoll and the Trinity at the same venue on June 14, 1968, which is reviewed separately. (This review will also appear in a future issue of Ugly Things.)

9. Nina Simone, Blackbird: The Colpix Recordings (1959-1963) (SoulMusic). Even at the beginning of her career, Nina Simone was an artist as prolific as she was eclectic. In her four years on Colpix she issued eight albums and some non-LP singles, as well as making a good number of recordings not released at the time. All of those albums, in sleeves reproducing the original artwork and liner notes, are on this eight-CD minibox. It adds 29 bonus tracks she cut during these years, some of which didn’t come out until decades later.

Colpix wasn’t Simone’s first label, as she done a prior LP for Bethlehem with her hit “I Loves You Porgy” (the version on this box is a later remake). Arguably she might have overextended herself with her sheer volume of Colpix material, adding up to 107 tracks. These included four live albums, a Duke Ellington tribute LP, and Folksy Nina, “entirely composed of folk ballads and blues” as the original liner note declared, although it sounds about as typically Simone as most of her other Colpix longplayers.

You’d have to be an intense collector to already have the bonus cuts, some of which only came out on 1966’s With Strings (recorded during the Colpix years), UK expanded CD editions, and rare non-LP 45s. This compilation does completists quite a service by rounding all of those up, adding a few to each disc as extra tracks. Some of them are prime Nina, like the ten-minute live version of “Work Song”; the “Hit the Road Jack” answer single “Come on Back Jack”; the haunting, almost Mediterranean “Golden Earrings”; and the spare, spooky 1963 non-LP B-side “Blackbird,” which gives this anthology its name.

While Simone would cast her net even wider in the decade after leaving Colpix, it’s no exaggeration to state that even at this early stage, she was as stylistically eclectic as any performer. There was straight jazz, orchestrated pop ballads, a stab at pseudo-soul with “Come on Back Jack,” gutsy blues-jazz, movie themes, a bit of gospel and children’s music, traditional folk songs (including “House of the Rising Sun”), and what would later be called “world music” with songs in Hebrew and “Theme from Sayonara.” There wasn’t rock’n’roll, but there was almost everything else, especially when you consider the shades of classical music heard in her piano playing, she originally having aspired to be a classical pianist.

Range isn’t synonymous with quality, of course, and her vast repertoire almost ensured that not every fan would like everything, or at least not like everything about as much. There’s too much quaint’n’dainty balladry and Tin Pan Alley, especially when there’s orchestration and choral backup voices. She wrote hardly any of the material, though she did get a co-writing credit for “Blackbird.” The Ellington tribute wasn’t the best showcase for her originality, though even there, she excels on piano on the swinging instrumental “Satin Doll.”

For those like myself that favor her less standard approaches, these sides are best when she goes afield from pop-jazz into bluesier stuff and, at times, pieces that were pretty out there for a singer more apt to be filed under the pop or jazz sections than anywhere else. Highlights in that regard include Oscar Brown, Jr.’s “Rags and Old Iron,” “Trouble in Mind,” the folk-bluesy “Little Liza Jane,” “Black Is the Color of My True Love’s Hair,” “Gin House Blues,” and “Sinner Man.” The Hebrew songs aren’t novelty items; they’re among the most exotic and passionate pieces, particularly “Eretz Zavat Chalav U’dvash.” And some of the ballads are among her peak Colpix efforts, particularly “Wild Is the Wind” (perhaps the Simone interpretation that inspired David Bowie to record it on Station to Station, though she also did a version on the 1966 album Wild Is the Wind) and “Willow Weep for Me.”

As good, if erratic, as her Colpix output was, it’s missing some elements that would take her to a higher level when she moved to Philips for her next (and best) batch of albums in the mid-1960s. While never a straight “soul” singer per se, there was more soul in what she did at Philips, even as she kept encompassing the same styles as she had at Colpix and then some. Of course those included her magnificent civil rights (“Mississippi Goddam”) and feminist (“Four Women”) compositions, but also the original version of “Don’t Let Me Misunderstood,” covered to classic effect by the Animals. There was also “See-Line Woman,” covered by the Easybeats; her take on “I Put a Spell on You,” whose “I love you” refrain influenced the Beatles’ “Michelle”; and remakes of a few songs from her Colpix records, like “Work Song” and “Sinner Man.”

While her Philips stint also had its share of inconsistency, it showed a bolder evolving artist at her peak, as did some of her slicker work for RCA in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Those who don’t want or need to immerse themselves in the entire early Simone discography will be better off with compilations like Rhino’s double CD Anthology: The Colpix Years. For those who want more, though, this box is exemplary in its thoroughness. (This review previously appeared in Ugly Things.)

10. Melanie, Neighborhood Songs (Neighborhood/The Wintergarden). It’s hard to believe a collection of previously unreleased vintage Melanie could be more comprehensive than this six-CD set. There are demos, live performances, radio broadcasts, and studio outtakes spanning the mid-1960s to the late 1970s (a snippet of her as a child performer on TV in 1951 isn’t worth detailing). The three discs covering the mid-1960s to the early 1970s (most of those tracks spanning 1968-72) are the ones really worth hearing, as those were during her absolute prime. Usually they present her in a solo acoustic folky context, with just a few that have a full band backup or studio orchestration. It would have been nice to have more cuts with full arrangements; some of these, like the versions of “Ruby Tuesday” and “Beautiful People” from a July 1971 concert, are really nice and different from the standard ones. The plain accompaniment for much of the material does tend to feel somewhat monochromatic in bulk, and make the songs themselves seem less wide-ranging.

At the same time, these performances are extremely intense, in a good way, and invigorating to hear even if the songs don’t stand out as much (or as much from each other) in this context as they do on her studio releases. Some of them get almost frighteningly intense in their penetrating vocals and furious guitar strumming, especially a 1968 home demo of “Ruby Tuesday.” The liner notes could have been more helpful at pinpointing songs that didn’t appear in studio versions at the time, but there are some, along with versions (sometimes multiple versions) of her more celebrated compositions, like “Beautiful People,” “The Nickel Song,” “What Have They Done to My Song, Ma,” and “Peace Will Come.” There are four versions of “Ruby Tuesday,” and the October 1969 Hershey, Pennsylvania broadcast version of “Candles in the Rain” is quite different, and more somber, than the one on the hit single.

On the rest of the set, there’s an entire disc of 1975 studio recordings and another of 1975 concert tapes, with another CD of 1976-79 items. While these observations could be noted of many performers from the time who passed their peak and cultural moment, they’re too prone to mainstream production, too-long arrangements (especially the ill-advised drawn-out one of the Seekers’ “I’ll Find Another You”), and compositions that aren’t as impressive. Some of the mid-to-late 1970s material is certainly okay in a moderately pleasant way, but it’s the earlier stuff that’s more inspired and notable. It’s unfortunate this doesn’t include her rare pair of 1967-68 Columbia singles, which haven’t been reissued to my knowledge. And while the liner notes are extensive and perhaps overly appreciative, they could have been clearer as to the song’s histories and differences between what’s heard on the box and the more familiar versions. Overall, however, this helps give Melanie her due as an underrated performer who’s sometimes been unfairly scorned, even if the box, like much of even her best work, is uneven in quality.

11. Buffalo Springfield/The Byrds, Live at the Monterey International Pop Festival (Monterey International Pop Festival Foundation). This vinyl double LP Record Store Day release devotes one disc to Buffalo Springfield’s set at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, and the other disc to the Byrds’ set at the same event. Seven of the eight Byrds songs (all except “I Know You Rider”) came out in 1992 on a Monterey Pop box; the eight Buffalo Springfield songs haven’t come out anywhere, to my knowledge. As these are two of my favorite groups, and the Springfield material (and one of the Byrds tracks) were previously unreleased, why doesn’t this rank higher on this list? Neither of the groups played that well, though it carries a lot of historical interest. 

One reason Buffalo Springfield might not have been as good as many might have hoped is that Neil Young had left the band for a while at the time of the festival, with David Crosby sitting in. In common with the Byrds’ set, the Springfield’s sounds a little rushed and ragged, despite their reputation as having been a white-hot live outfit. Some of that could be due to Young’s absence, but the drumming in particular isn’t very impressive, and nor is the recording quality on either the Springfield or Byrds disc, though it’s okay.

Besides three of their most familiar songs (“For What It’s Worth,” “Rock and Roll Woman,” and “Bluebird”), Buffalo Springfield’s set is of particular note for including a Richie Furay composition (though with drummer Dewey Martin on vocals), done in a soul-rock arrangement with not-to-easy-to-understand lyrics, that didn’t make their albums, “Nobody’s Fool,” though it got onto Poco’s first LP. There’s just one Young song, “Nowadays Clancy Can’t Even Sing” (with Furay on lead vocals), though it’s interesting to hear versions of “A Child’s Claim to Fame” and “Hung Upside Down” that predate the release of their second album by about four months. Most valuable of all is a performance of “Pretty Girl Why,” which wouldn’t come out until their third and final album – both for its rarity and for a rendition that’s fairly good and among the better tracks on the Springfield disc, though no match for the studio version.

The Byrds’ set has been in circulation for quite a while, save for the cover of the folk standard “I Know You Rider,” which the Byrds did record in the studio, but only as an outtake. They sound less together than Buffalo Springfield, which is to say, not very together. Both acts, in fact, had pretty imperfect drumming. But the Byrds’ harmonies and general tightness are far from exemplary, though the song selection is interesting, with cuts from their first four albums (none hits except “So You Want to Be a Rock’n’Roll Star”) and, most unusually, the non-LP single “Lady Friend.” You also get Crosby’s annoyingly pompous comments about LSD and the JFK assassination. The Byrds, as great as their records were in the mid-1960s, did not have a reputation as a good live act, and this disc unfortunately bears this out.

This double LP also makes a case for why neither the Byrds nor Buffalo Springfield made the classic Monterey Pop documentary, though some footage of both made the expanded DVD version. There’s not much in the way of interesting text on this release, but it does reprint the official invitations to both groups; print some quotes about Monterey and the acts from band members and peers; and reproduce the tape boxes with the recordings.

12. Neil Young, Early Daze (Reprise). While quite a few artists—like the Doors, Jimi Hendrix, and Frank Zappa elsewhere on this list—are keeping a pretty active release schedule of vault material, Neil Young might be putting out more than any top-tier act. The one of most interest to me in 2024 was this compilation of 1969 tracks. Like some and maybe most of his other archive productions, it’s a bit frustrating no matter what level of fandom you maintain, mixing genuinely unreleased versions, different mixes, and some items that have appeared on previous records, though those are rare or low-profile. Crazy Horse backs him on all of these, and while some of the songs didn’t come out at the time in any form or only on Crazy Horse discs, by this time most or all of them are familiar to most people who keep up with Young’s catalog. Too, the better known tunes generally they don’t vary enormously from those familiar versions, though “Down By the River” has alternate vocals and “Helpless” is, as you’d expect, relatively harder rocking than CSNY’s arrangement. 

Still, as a listen and the kind of thing that used to show up on bootlegs but is now being made available in better sound and packaging, it’s nice to hear. Even if you know “Dance Dance Dance,” “Look at All the Things,” and “Come on Baby Let’s Go Downtown” were done by Crazy Horse on their 1971 self-titled album, it’s cool to hear Young’s versions. Completists will appreciate hearing the single mono mix of the most famous song (other than perhaps “Down By the River”), “Cinnamon Girl.” And “Winterlong,” another version of which appeared almost five decades ago on Decade, is represented by a previously unreleased version; “Wonderin’,” done with a much different arrangement more than a decade later, sounds better with a characteristically 1969 Young sound. While not exactly an alternate version of Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, it’s kind of a good supplement to how Neil sounded on that album. It’s marginal enough when judged against Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, though, that it doesn’t rank too high on this list, also considering a couple of the best songs (“Cinnamon Girl” and “Birds”) are represented by rare/alternate mixes rather than more significant variations.

13. Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger & the Trinity, Live at Montreux 1968 (Repertoire). A fair amount of live/BBC Driscoll/Auger/Trinity has circulated unofficially and on gray-area releases. But to my knowledge, this 65-minute document of their performance at the Montreux Jazz Festival on June 14, 1968 is the first totally above-board live document of the group. As with a simultaneous release on Repertoire of a 1970 concert by Brian Auger’s Oblivion Express at the same venue (reviewed separately), the sound quality’s very good, almost but not quite 100% of what might have been considered for an official concert LP back in the late 1960s.

This ensemble—just a quartet despite their unwieldy name—had just reached their peak in spring 1968 when their cover of Bob Dylan’s “This Wheel’s on Fire,” at that point not available on a Dylan release, reached the Top Five in the UK. Oddly, that song isn’t on this set, which is both rewarding for what it has, and frustrating for what it doesn’t. Most crucially, only half of the twelve tracks have Driscoll vocals. The Trinity often performed material without her on stage, but the songs on which she sang were the definite highlights.

This is too early to catch more adventurous/progressive parts of this eclectic soul-rock-jazz-psychedelic act’s repertoire, like the “Road to Cairo” single and their Streetnoise album. But this does feature a couple highlights of their more soul-rock-oriented sound with their distinctive take on “Season of the Witch,” here running eight and a half minutes, and a rousing cover of Aretha Franklin’s “Save Me,” on which David Ambrose’s driving bass really excels. Of particular interest to Driscoll fans, jazzman Johnny Griffin’s “Soft and Furry” (apparently based on singer Eddie Jefferson’s version) wasn’t on the Trinity’s official releases, though a good live cover of the tune kicks off their set. 

After a half dozen satisfying Driscoll-fronted cuts, organist Brian Auger takes the spotlight on instrumentals of varying if generally impressive quality (though he does sing Mose Allison’s “If You Live”). His speedy riffs are to the fore on Booker T. & the MG’s’ “Red Beans and Rice,” and he slows to a funkier pace on a quirky cover of “A Day in the Life.” The jazzy bopper “Along Came Zizi,” which he wrote for a sister-in-law, isn’t available in any other version; indeed, Auger had forgotten it even existed.

Yet the sole other Auger original, “Goodbye Jungle Telegraph,” outstays its welcome as the ten-minute piece gets into noisy experimental passages, complete with whooping pennywhistle-like swoops, that veer into self-indulgence. As that’s the last track on this CD, it’s easily enough avoided in favor of the tighter, more disciplined tracks that precede it. (This review will also appear in a future issue of Ugly Things.)

14. Jackie DeShannon, Nothing Can Stop Me: Liberty Records Rarities 1960-1962 (Ace). So much DeShannon has been reissued, much of it by Ace, that it’s hard to believe much could have remained in the vaults. There was some, however, and sixteen of these twenty-four tracks were previously unreleased, while the others aren’t exactly common fare. Even DeShannon fans, and I’m one, should nonetheless be aware that with a couple exceptions this doesn’t show her at her best, even if you’re just considering her pre-1963 work.

About half of these were recorded in 1961 for a Ray Charles cover album to be titled Hits of the Genius, which was canceled after getting scheduled for January 1962 release, at least in part because Bobby Darin put out a Sings Ray Charles album around the same time. It would be more interesting to hear DeShannon sing original material, and that’s not the only drawback. Although she digs into the Charles repertoire (much of it well known tunes like “I Got a Woman” and “What’d I Say,” with the lyrics sometimes changed to become more appropriate as sung by a woman) with gusto, she tends to over-sing these, or at least overemphasize the rougher side of her vocals, as good as those could be in the right context. A few of these tracks did come out, but most were unissued until this compilation.

The second half of this CD presents tracks that would not have been on Hits of the Genius, though a couple of these (“Nobody But You” and “Fool for You”) were actually Charles compositions. A couple did come out on rare singles, and there are a couple alternate takes of two other tunes that also did find release, but most of it’s previously unreleased. The standouts are the two songs, alas, that are the least rare, and have appeared on other compilations: the fetching “I Won’t Turn You Down,” which mixes teen idol and girl group sensibilities, and the rowdy “Baby (When Ya Kiss Me),” which at least is presented as an alternate take.

Although all of the songs save the Charles covers and “I Won’t Turn You Down” were written by DeShannon (sometimes with Sharon Sheeley), none of the others are of the same caliber, though they’re not bad early-‘60s pop-rock. Some are better than others, like the perky “I Don’t Think So Much of Myself Now” and the slightly bittersweet “Wishin’ Won’t Get It,” and “Stand Up and Testify” has a lot of gritty energy, if not too special a tune. With typically good Ace annotation, this is a reasonably interesting release for DeShannon completists, but not even among the best of the rarities that would be good to have on official releases, those being the numerous demos she recorded for her Metro Music publisher in the early-to-mid-1960s.

15. Jimi Hendrix, Electric Lady Studios: A Jimi Hendrix Vision (Experience Hendrix). This four-disc set wasn’t just released in conjunction with the film documentary of the same name. It actually includes the documentary, as one of the four discs has it on a Blu-ray. The other three discs are CDs of recordings, almost all of them previously unreleased, Hendrix did at Electric Lady in mid-1970, though a few of them built on early recordings done elsewhere as early as late 1969. Since the Electric Lady Studios film did play in some theaters, I’m giving it a separate review in this blog’s year-end roundup of music history films. This review will concentrate on the music on the three other discs.

Most of these songs are familiar from their appearances in different versions on other posthumous Hendrix releases going back to the early 1970s. In common with the more recent such releases, this is dominated by alternate versions/takes, and sometimes alternate mixes, of songs that have appeared elsewhere, sometimes numerous times, and sometimes dating back to shortly after Jimi’s death. It’s valuable for dedicated Hendrix fans and collectors, but might be hard to recommend to others, even others who like Hendrix a lot. Some of the differences between the versions they might already have  in their collection are slight, though Hendrix authority John McDermott’s liner notes make the differences clear. Even without knowledge of the other versions, this wouldn’t stand up as a whole with Hendrix’s best work, as a good number of the outings are jam-based meanderings, half-formed bluesy efforts, or just not in the league of his best compositions. The best (and usually) most famous songs are exceptions, including “Dolly Dagger,” the languid, pretty ballad “Drifting,” “Ezy Ryder,” and especially “Angel.”

The most notable track, at least if you’re on the lookout for what’s most unusual or least traveled, is the demo “Heaven Has No Sorrow.” With bassist Billy Cox supplying the only accompaniment, it’s lower-key and lower-volume than most of Hendrix’s repertoire, and has a nice reflective vibe and descending melodic lines. It’s a little unfortunate and mysterious it wasn’t developed more, since as Cox says in the liner notes, “It probably could have evolved into a pretty dynamic song, something along the lines of ‘Angel.’” Note that a couple of the more obscure songs, “Tune X/Just Came In” and “In from the Storm,” have some riffs similar to those used by Blind Faith in “Had to Cry Today.” The liner notes, besides having a lot of Electric Lady early history, feature some rare photos and memorabilia, including what seems like a proposed song list for a double LP drawn from this material, which has 26 songs.

16. Various Artists, Les Cousins: The Soundtrack of Soho’s Legendary Folk & Blues Club (Grapefruit). Les Cousins was the most famous British folk club from the mid-1960s through the early 1970s, hosting a huge number of performances in London’s Soho neighborhood. This triple-CD mini-box doesn’t have live performances recorded at the club; had any been made, some of those might have immense historical significance. But it does have 73 studio tracks from 1963-73 that ably reflect the wide range of performances and styles Les Cousins presented, also serving as a good overview of the British folk scene as a whole during its greatest decade, including a few US artists who played the club.

It would take a few paragraphs to list all the names of note heard on this anthology, from big stars (Donovan, Paul Simon, Cat Stevens) to major folk icons (Bert Jansch, Sandy Denny, John Renbourn) and vital acts who could venture well beyond the borders of standard folk forms (Nick Drake, Duffy Power, Davy Graham, Tim Hardin). Room’s made for artists who fall outside of what some might consider folk music, like Kevin Ayers, Third Ear Band, and the Picadilly Line, whose 1967 cut “At the Third Stroke” is more pop-rock than folk, even if Danny Thompson is on bass. It’s also one of the set’s highlights, and the liner notes’ description of their sound boasting a “strong flavor of psychedelic swinging London’s answer to Simon & Garfunkel” is fairly on-target.

For the most part, the bigger names—all represented by well-chosen and sometimes familiar cuts, like Hardin’s “If I Were a Carpenter,” Donovan’s “Sunny Goodge Street,” and Denny’s “You Never Wanted Me”—outshine the more obscure names by a sizable margin. Other than the Picadilly Line’s contribution, the choicest rarities include the biting pop-folk of “Get the One I Want To” by Beverley (aka Beverley Martyn), previously only available on a Record Store Day vinyl release; the Levee Breakers’ perky jugbandish “Babe I’m Leaving You,” a 1965 single featuring the same Beverley; Alex Campbell’s mournful “Been on the Road So Long,” from a 1965 single (and perhaps better known as done by Sandy Denny); and Sam Mitchell’s “Leaf Without a Tree,” one of the darker and bluesier selections, from a guy who’d later play on Rod Stewart’s Gasoline Alley and Every Picture Tells a Story.

Naturally not every Les Cousins performer of value could be included for space and licensing reasons, among them some mentioned in Ian A. Anderson’s lengthy liner notes, such as Van Morrison, Sandy Bull, and Stefan Grossman. If you’re looking for the kind of names not every big fan of UK ‘60s folk has in their collection, there are a fair number of those—it’s doubtful many people have music by Gerry Lockran, Andy Fernbach, Tom Yates, and Mudge & Clutterbuck in the same home. Even Steeleye Span fans might not know of “Adieu Sweet Lovely Nancy,” recorded by future members Tim Hart & Maddy Prior on a 1968 LP.

A good number of the tracks, especially by the more traditional-oriented artists, have a low-energy air that keeps this from being the most exciting listen. When something like Davy Graham’s middle eastern-tinged instrumental “Maajun” comes on, that does get the blood rushing faster, as do Paul Simon’s “I Am a Rock” (from his 1965 UK solo LP) and even more ordinary but relatively high-voltage items like Julie Felix’s “The Young Ones Move.” Among the several Cherry Red comps that focus on the UK folk and folk-rock of the era, however, this could be the most eclectic and all-encompassing, especially as it features other notables who couldn’t fit into the preceding paragraphs, from the Incredible String Band and Jackson C. Frank to the Strawbs and Roy Harper. (This review previously appeared in Ugly Things magazine.)

17. The Idle Race, Live on Air 1967-1969 (London Calling). Mostly known, if at all, for including Jeff Lynne before he joined the Move and then Electric Light Orchestra, the Idle Race played a very light brand of Beatlesque pop-rock in the late 1960s, sometimes with touches of psychedelia. In that regard they were similar to the Move, though not as good and considerably more lightweight. Never getting hits in the US or their native UK, the material from their two albums with Lynne hasn’t been too hard to get, in part because Lynne’s membership ensured there were reissues. This compilation has 27 songs from seven of their BBC radio sessions, mostly in decent sound, though some tracks fall a little below that and are incomplete. In common with many BBC sessions for acts huge or cult, the versions of the songs also found on their studio releases aren’t too much different as performed for the radio. Most of the songs were on their studio releases, and whether from their two albums or non-LP singles, the majority of them are represented by radio renditions here. 

That leaves just a few rarities, inasmuch as being tunes they didn’t release at the time. These include cover versions of Moby Grape’s “Hey Grandma,” the Doors’ “Love Me Two Times,” and “Born to Be Wild,” and while they testify to the band’s knowledge of period US music—much as the many covers by the Move did—they’re not very interesting. Far more obscurely, there’s a version of “Blueberry Blue,” by the Lemon Pipers of “Green Tambourine” fame that even those with some knowledge of the Lemon Pipers might not recognize right away. The same goes for the Sopwith Camel’s “Frantic Desolation.” There are pretty annoying radio jingles between some songs, but it doesn’t seriously affect the quality of a release that will please intense Idle Race fans and late-‘60s British rock collectors, though the liner notes are just reprints of 1967-69 press stories about the band. 

18. Dadawah, Peace & Love Wadadasow (Doctor Bird). In the late-‘70s book Rock Critics’ Choice: The Top 200 Albums, Lenny Kaye’s most intriguing pick (at number ten) was for Dadawah’s Peace & Love Wadadasow (with the title mistakenly given as Love and Peace), one of the most obscure of the many albums cited in the volume. So obscure was it that I, and I’m guessing many other teenage readers, were unable to hear it for decades, if they were able to hear it at all. I even wondered whether it might be a made-up record he slipped through as an inside joke, as if it was some imaginary lost classic by a hippie tribe for which collectors would fruitlessly scour want lists.

But it was a real 1974 reggae album, and one that’s not been widely reissued as far as I can tell. Nor was it even widely heard among reggae fanatics, in part because it wasn’t like much mid-‘70s reggae, owing more to the sounds of Jamaican Nyahbinghi music than most records in the style. Rooted in the sounds of traditional West African drumming, and some jazz and gospel, as well as the explosion of Jamaican reggae, Nyahbinghi was also strongly informed by Rastafarian spirituality. Count Ossie’s 1973 triple LP Grounation, itself not too easy to find for most of the years since its release, is the most esteemed record in the genre, and much easier to access since its 2022 reissue on Soul Jazz.

Dadawah’s album, featuring singer and longtime reggae icon Ras Michael, shares some of the same qualities, though it’s far more aligned with mid-‘70s reggae and dub sounds, and less with Nyahbinghi. It also has, unlike Grounation, state-of-the-art mid-‘70s Jamaican production with its crafty use of echo and space. Like some other rare records that are sought after because of one or two citations by legendary figures as all-time classics, Peace & Love Wadadasow isn’t as much of a knockout as its placement on a high-profile best-of list might lead many to expect. But it’s a very haunting endeavor, and not too typical of Jamaican reggae releases in featuring just four tracks, all of them lengthy, adding up to nearly forty minutes.

Its feel is as much, if not more, of an eerie chanted religious ritual as a popular music release, It’s heavy on minor-key melodies, booming bass, the odd keyboard tinkle (by Lloyd Charmers, who co-wrote much of the material with Ras Michael), spare guitar licks, and inventive African-influenced percussion. The lyrics aren’t so much phrases and sentences as incantational chants, soaked in Rastafari vibes. The production, as maybe the biggest enticement for many listeners, has a reverberant, slightly woozy glow that’s dub-informed but not all-out dub. The overall effect is much like hearing thoughts bouncing around the heads of a circle of Rastafari followers, vocals often call-responding and overlapping with each other in a semi-hypnotic state.

This CD reissue expands the record to two discs, the first of the pair featuring the original album. The bonus disc takes some liberties in its inflation of the running time, since just one of the 22 tracks, the 1974 instrumental “Burning Drums,” is by Dadawah. The unifying thread is the involvement of Lloyd Charmers on a host of 1973-76 recordings, occasionally as artist, and also as producer and arranger. All of these were B-side “versions,” as wholly or largely instrumental variations of more conventional tracks were often called, and include cuts credited to a couple big reggae names in Ken Boothe and Delroy Wilson.

These are reasonably interesting dub productions, but don’t have too strong a specific connection to the Dadawah album on the first disc, or nearly as strong a tie to the Nyahbinghi style. You can’t always tell by the song titles, but some of them are based on familiar American hits like the Stylistics’ “You Make Me Feel Brand New,” Clyde McPhatter’s “A Lover’s Question,” and the Everly Brothers’ “Devoted to You.” A bit of Santana-like guitar sneaks in for C.H.A.R.M.’s “After Midnight,” if you’re on the lookout for something a little different. (A shorter version of this review appeared inUgly Things.)

19. Various Artists, Having a Rave-Up! The British R&B Sounds of 1964 (Grapefruit). A three-CD, 91-track compilation with this theme could hardly have been more up my wheelhouse. This does cover almost all of the major and minor names working in this incredibly vibrant and influential scene in 1964, though it’s not a flawless overview, if such a thing could exist. It would rank higher on this list if I didn’t have almost all of the really good tracks, and if the obscurities were more on the level of such cuts.

Besides the Rolling Stones and Them—whose material couldn’t be licensed—this ticks off all of the big names: the Yardbirds, the Pretty Things, the Animals, Manfred Mann, John Mayall, Graham Bond, the Kinks, Georgie Fame, and the Spencer Davis Group. And all of the more cultish names: Downliners Sect, the Artwoods, the Birds, David John, the Fairies, and Duffy Power, for starters. And then the lower tiers that managed some good sides, some unreleased at the time: the Others, Bo Street Runners, the T-Bones, the Mike Cotton Sound, and the First Gear are just some. Some of the selections, as per the Grapefruit label’s modus operandi, are so obscure few other than compiler David Wells have probably heard them, which especially goes for the nine previously unreleased tracks.

You can’t argue with the cream of this crop—the Pretties’ “Rosalyn” and “Don’t Bring Me Down,” the Yardbirds’ “I Wish You Would” and “I Ain’t Got You,” the Manfreds’ “I’m Your Kingpin,” Downliners Sect’s “Sect Appeal,” the Artwoods’ “Sweet Mary,” Mayall’s “Crawling Up a Hill,” the Fairies’ “Anytime At All,” and the Birds’ “You’re on My Mind,” for instance. Refreshingly, there are R&B-inclined cuts by major acts who didn’t make those their main dish, like the Zombies’ “Woman,” Dave Berry’s snarling “Don’t Give Me No Lip Child,” and the Hollies’ “Memphis.”

There’s also the odd goodie by acts who never made another notable record, like the Plebs’ crunching reworking of the folk standard “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You” and Shel Naylor’s take on the Dave Davies-penned “One Fine Day,” which the Kinks didn’t put out in their own version. There are highlights by acts that really didn’t rise to them too often, like the Nashville Teens’ ominous, rumbling “T.N.T.” There’s Screaming Lord Sutch, not usually lumped in with this crowd, but deserving of membership with “Come Back Baby.” The Johnny Kidd-less Pirates do a terrific “Castin’ My Spell” with Mick Green on guitar. There’s even Rod Stewart, albeit on a slightly lo-fi live cut by the Hoochie Coochie Men; Steve Marriott, as part of his pre-Small Faces group the Moments; and the Who, albeit when they used the High Numbers billing for their uncharacteristic and rather unimpressive debut single, “I’m the Face.”

In all this makes a reasonable and representative starter comp for those just getting into ‘60s British R&B, though those who are probably already have a lot of the material. That doesn’t mean some of the selections by the better known artists couldn’t be questioned. Debates could fill up a few pages and yes, everyone has their particular favorites. But as one example, the Searchers’ “Ain’t That Just Like Me” rave-up certainly slays the relatively pedestrian cut heard here, “Gonna Send You Back to Georgia.”

There’s also a big gap between the quality of the rarities and the established, much-anthologized acts and tracks. There are too many covers of oft-done standards that not only don’t stand up to the US originals, but sometimes pale next to good UK versions of the same tunes. Most of the unreleased material is on the generic side, but the Tridents’ lengthy-for-the-time (five-and-a-half-minute) live workout on “Tiger in My Tank” is notable for featuring Jeff Beck on guitar, with the same kind of manically fleet riffs he’d use on Yardbirds songs like “Evil Hearted You.”  It all makes for an uneven if oft-exhilarating ride, but Wells’s 48-page liner notes are as usual a big bonus, packed with info and vintage photos/graphics. (This review previously appeared in Ugly Things.)

20. Robbie Basho, Snow Beneath the Belly of a White Swan: The Lost Live Recordings (Tompkins Square). He might have been a fairly obscure cult figure, but you wouldn’t guess it from the relative deluge of Basho product in recent years. There was a documentary, a five-CD box of unreleased material (Songs of the Avatars: The Lost Master Tapes), and yet another CD of unreleased early ‘70s sessions (Songs of the Great Mystery). In 2024, we have this five-CD set of yet more previously unissued recordings. Basho did release a lot of albums in his lifetime, but there’s much more to hear now than ever.

Basho wasn’t so great at documenting what was done when and where, however. Almost half of this set—all of discs one and three, and two of the six tracks on disc five—are noted as “date and location unknown.” Dates and locations of a few others are given educated estimates. It’s at least known that all of disc two was taped at Cowell College in Santa Cruz on May 13, 1967; much of disc four at Stanford University on October 19, 1969,;a couple tracks on disc five in April 1976; and some other cuts likely in 1970 and 1972. As Basho lived until 1986, theoretically the box could span his whole career. The recording quality is variable, but overall pretty good, ranging from excellent to easily listenable.

Dates aren’t as important as the music, which is pretty good and very characteristic of what you’d expect from Basho in concert: largely instrumental acoustic avant-folk guitar, with lots of shadings from non-Western forms like Indian and Native American music. He occasionally sings, and while it’s become a cliché to describe his vocals as an acquired taste, certainly his shaky and spooky delivery will strike many as bizarre, even for some who admire his instrumental skill. The melodies are minor-flavored and darkly haunting, and while there are similarities to his contemporary John Fahey, Basho is less accessible, and more unremittingly melancholy in tune.

Which makes this set eminently suitable for gray rainy days, though it’s a lot to take in at once; doesn’t have enormous variety; and isn’t at the top of what might be considered his best and most important recordings. Disc two might be the best place to start, both because its certain date and location provide at least some historical context, and there seems to be somewhat more of an Indian flavor to the material and execution. Thorough liner notes do the best they can to give some of that context given the mysterious provenance of much of what’s here, though there could have been clearer citations of what songs appeared on which of his other albums, given his complicated discography. The booklet does reproduce some rare posters, one of which is included as a full standalone foldout.

21. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young: Live at the Fillmore East, 1969 (Rhino). This September 20, 1969 concert was one of the earliest CSNY gave. Only a month after their second one at Woodstock, it predates the release of their first album with Young (Déja Vu) by about half a year, and the recording of their live 4 Way Street album by eight to nine months. Divided into an acoustic set and an electric set, with top-notch fidelity, it carries quite a bit of historical weight.

Besides including versions of most of the songs on 1969’s Crosby, Stills and Nash LP—acoustic ones of “Helplessly Hoping,” “Guinnevere,” Lady of the Island,” “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” “You Don’t Have to Cry”—there are previews of Dêja Vu’s “Our House” and “4+20,” as well as the 1970 non-LP B-side “Find the Cost of Freedom.” There’s more: a cover of the Beatles’ “Blackbird,” Neil Young’s Buffalo Springfield song “On the Way Home,” Young’s “Sea of Madness” (a different version than the one on the Woodstock soundtrack) and “Down By the River,” and a Young song, “I’ve Loved Her So Long,” from his self-titled debut album. Stills’s “Go Back Home,” which he performs as a solo acoustic piece, wouldn’t find official release until his 1970 self-titled debut album; “Bluebird Revisited” (done electrically), an entirely different song than Buffalo Springfield’s “Bluebird,” wouldn’t see official release until Stills’s second album.

4 Way Street, a huge hit record, was nonetheless sometimes criticized for performances that weren’t always as tight as expected. That’s not a problem on this considerably earlier set for the most part, though the harmonies fall apart at one point in “Helplessly Hoping.” But for all its imperfections, 4 Way Street has more energy and spontaneity, in the acoustic as well as the electric tracks. The material here, particularly on the acoustic half, is a little more sedate and tentative. If 4 Way Street is sometimes regarded as a bit peripheral to the main body of work CSNY produced in 1969 and 1970, this is yet more of a supplemental recording, though one worth hearing for dedicated fans.

22. Colosseum, Elegy: The Recordings 1968-1971 (Esoteric). Colosseum were a pretty popular recording act in their native Britain, with three of their albums making the UK Top Twenty. But not many would have anticipated such a flood of Colosseum product in recent years. There was a six-CD set of 1969-71 BBC recordings; five separate albums (one a double CD) of live concerts from the same era; and, around the same time as the set detailed in this review, a double CD (Upon Tomorrow) of yet more 1969-70 live recordings, along with studio outtakes of material being worked up for a possible album that could have been released in 1971. We also have this six-CD box set, Elegy, which has all five of their LPs from this period (one live and another that was US/Canada-only). Bonus tracks are added to a few of them, and there’s a sixth disc of “additional live recordings” from 1971. It’s the time of colossal Colosseum.

It’s also a lot to take in at once, even if you limit yourself to this mini-sized box, each CD except the sixth housed in sleeves replicating the original artwork. Colosseum specialized in brawny jazz-blues-rock that got more hard-rocking and blustery as time went on, especially when they changed vocalists. Featuring veterans of John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, a couple of whom had also done time in the Graham Bond Organisation, they’re best heard on their 1969 debut Those Who Are About to Die Salute You.

This is when their blend—quite an innovative one in the late 1960s—was at its most accessible, especially on a remake of one of Bond’s best songs, “Walking in the Park.” While there’s some meandering, there are also some solid blues-rock riffs, set apart from the usual such British fare by Dick Heckstall-Smith’s saxophone and Jon Hiseman’s pummeling drums. Three November 1968 bonus tracks on disc one include a demo of “Those About to Die” and two outtakes, Quincy Jones’s “In the Heat of the Night” and guitarist/singer James Litherland’s “I Can’t Live Without You,” indicating Colosseum had some ambitions to get just a bit poppier, though they could never quite effectively cross that line.

They got a bit proggier on their second effort, Valentyne Suite, with a three-part suite and generally more extended and ambitious arrangements. The material’s not as focused as the debut’s, though still with its share of just-about-catchy riffs and virtuosic interplay that doesn’t quite lose sight of a nominal if loose blues-rock base. The disc two bonus track “Tell Me Now” again indicates they made some tentative efforts at greater accessibility, without ever seeming like their hearts lay strongly in that direction.

To the perpetual confusion of collectors and discographers, 1970’s North American release The Grass Is Greener used some of the same tracks from Valentyne Suite, but with guitar and vocal overdubs by new member Clem Clempson, adding a few songs that hadn’t been on either of their first pair of UK albums. It’s pretty hard to keep what’s what straight even after reading liner notes several times, but the basic effect is about the same as Valentyne Suite, even if it’s not exactly a different version of that LP. As befits an act with ties to Mayall and Bond, one of the better tracks covers Jack Bruce’s “Rope Ladder to the Moon.”

From later in 1970, Daughter of Time marked a decisive change of direction for the still-young band, and not for the better. Most notably, Chris Farlowe came in as lead vocalist for the majority of material, including a cover of another Bruce staple, “Theme from an Imaginary Western.” Vocals had never been Colosseum’s strong suit, but replacing adequate yet serviceable singing with a better known figure with a far less suitable, overly dramatic style did not add up to a plus. The band as a whole were drifting toward a more pompous, freewheeling, and sometimes indulgent stance. Three bonus tracks on disc four include a demo of “Bring Out Your Dead” and a version of The Grass Is Greener’s “Jumping Off the Sun” with Farlowe on vocals.

Recorded in March 1971, Live largely offers reworkings of tracks from studio albums, including “Rope Ladder to the Moon” and “Walking in the Park,” with a few other items, including “Stormy Monday Blues,” with Farlowe as the chief singer. He also takes that role on the “Additional Live Recordings” disc, which has different versions of some tunes also on Live, but adds a few others, most notably “The Machine Demands a Sacrifice” and “The Valentyne Suite.” While the final disc is largely on the same level as Live, Colosseum in concert during this era could vary between the exciting and the challenging to endure, including when the admittedly terrifically talented Hiseman went into too-long drum soloing. The booklet’s lengthy liners go into detail on all of the recordings, which as noted are hardly the whole story of Colosseum on tape during this era, other releases including more than double the large amount of music on this package. (This review previously appeared in Ugly Things.)

23. Colosseum, Upon Tomorrow (Repertoire). As part of a deluge of recent archival Colosseum releases, one of the more modest is this two-CD compilation. The first disc presents the audio of a couple filmed performances in 1969 and 1970; the other has tracks that might have formed a foundation for a fourth UK studio album, though Colosseum broke up in late 1971 before such an LP could be issued. They’re not as essential as their best recordings, but have their interest for Colosseum completists, of which there must be a number considering how much product by the band from this era is available—about twenty CDs’ worth, in fact.

The first two tracks on disc one were taped, in decent sound, in March 1969 at the filming of Supershow, a production also featuring performances by Led Zeppelin and the Modern Jazz Quartet. Colosseum offer lively takes on a couple instrumentals from their debut album, “Debut” and “Those Who Are About to Die Salute You,” at a time when their fiery mixture of jazz, rock, and blues (and, on “Debut,” a bit of funk) was fresh both within the band and to the public.

These are followed by a couple longer live May 1970 pieces filmed for television, also in decent fidelity. “Downhill and Shadows,” which lasts a good twelve minutes, wouldn’t appear on their records until late 1970’s Daughters of Time, and reflects their move toward a more extended progressive rock, with a five-minute drum solo from Jon Hiseman. So does the nine-minute “The Valentyne Suite,” which had served as the finale to their second album in 1969. “Downhill and Shadows” does afford a chance to hear the number with guitarist Clem Clempson on vocals, rather than Chris Farlowe, who’d take over most of Colosseum’s singing by the time it was included on Daughters of Time.

Disc two is wholly devoted to demos and archive recordings that might have comprised and/or been reworked for a fourth UK album. (Note Colosseum already had four studio albums if you include 1970’s North American-only The Grass Is Greener, which had some previously released songs, but included some tracks unique to that LP.) Three cuts are demos from August 1971; another was done at a different studio later that month; and four aren’t dated, though presumably they’re from a similar era. 

Whether or not it’s a facsimile of a finished or nearly finished fourth album, this second disc is a peculiar assortment of pieces, certainly relative to Colosseum’s previous output. As audacious as their concept was, that material often had just-about-hummable riffs. Much of what was being worked on shortly before their split saw them venturing into yet longer, oft-winding excursions in line with the day’s most ambitious and at times impenetrable art rock.

Never was this more apparent than in the twelve-minute “The Pirate’s Dream,” heard in two versions. Like quite a bit of what they were working on, it have been hell for the musicians to memorize given its diffuse structure, and almost as difficult for audiences to follow. Sometimes the abandoned album doesn’t sound a million miles away from the likes of Kingdom Come, but without as appropriately eccentric a vocalist as Arthur Brown.

It’s questionable as to whether Colosseum could have maintained their fairly extensive British and European audience with such material. The first disc—when their jazzy elements, particularly Dick Heckstall-Smith’s saxophone and Hiseman’s explosive drumming, set them apart from most blues-rock acts—more effectively showcases their best assets, and the ones for which they’ll be principally remembered. (This review previously appeared in Ugly Things.)

24. Jorma Kaukonen, Reno Road (Fur Peace Productions). In summer 1960, then-college student Kaukonen recorded the material on this Record Store Day double LP, taped by his friend Jack Casady. While as easygoing blues-folk it’s decent but not special, it’s historically remarkable for a couple reasons. Even at this early stage, Kaukonen was a superb guitarist, and while his vocals are just adequate (and would, more so than his guitar work, get better), on the whole he doesn’t sound too much different than he did playing solo or in Hot Tuna ten or more years later. Also, his repertoire was already similar to early Hot Tuna’s. In fact, more than half dozen of the 23 songs here were either on Hot Tuna’s debut or on recordings from the gigs in late 1969 taped in consideration for that LP, some of which have come out on archival releases. It’s a little like hearing a Hot Tuna album without Casady. Had he not joined Jefferson Airplane, maybe this is how Kaukonen would be remembered—an above average white blues interpreter whose guitar was way above-average. Of course he went on to be much more than that, but this is where he started. The package reproduces the tape box and has a few photos of Kaukonen and Casady from the time, along with a brief liner note from Jorma.

25. The Mothers of Invention, Whisky A Go Go 1968 (Zappa/Universal). It’s a small matter, but although this is billed as a release by Frank Zappa & the Mothers of Invention, I’m crediting it just to the Mothers of Invention, as that’s how they were billed at the time. This three-CD set presents previously unreleased material, recorded live at the Whisky in L.A. on July 23, 1968, taped with the intention of gathering cuts for official release. Although the sound’s decent, it’s not great, and it’s not surprising it wasn’t issued at the time.

Sometimes I note that a selection on my lists makes it more for historical interest than for the excitement of the actual music itself. This fits that category more than any other record I’ve put on my year-end blog lists. As big a fan as I am of Freak Out and We’re Only In It for the Money, and to a significantly lesser degree of most of their other late-‘60s records, I’m astounded by how much less I enjoy the relatively few live recordings of the 1960s Mothers than their studio work. It’s almost as though they tried to be defiantly inaccessible in concert, seldom playing their most hummable, yet very complex and witty, tracks from those great Freak Out and We’re Only In It for the Money LPs. This isn’t unique to this Whisky set; I feel similarly about some other archive releases, like the one featuring 1967 live recordings in Sweden. 

There’s a bit of attention given to the most accessible songs from their early releases here, particularly “Hungry Freaks Daddy,” as well as the more overtly comic “Status Back Baby” and “Brown Shoes Don’t Make It.” Much of the playing, though, is jazzy or avant-garde improvisation, with jokey versions of a couple oldies (“My Boyfriend’s Back” and “Memories of El Monte”) along the way. I know theatrical visuals were big parts of the appeal of early Mothers performances, but that’s lost on an audio-only document. Not everyone agrees, but I also find much of the humor strained, which isn’t something I’d say of the still-clever satire on the early studio albums. It’s almost as though they’re holding back biting but catchy songs like “I’m Not Satisfied” and “I Ain’t Got No Heart,” not to mention disregarding the still-recent We’re Only In It for the Money, though live versions of the likes of “Who Needs the Peace Corps” and “Flower Punk” would be most welcome.

It’s frustrating, at least for my tastes, since “Hungry Freaks Daddy,” done with a different and jazzier lineup than the one that played it on Freak Out, proves they could do such early material in good arrangements that didn’t duplicate the studio ones. The experimental passages aren’t without their merit, even if I find them more interesting than engaging. Which means this record, while a document of note, isn’t something I’ll be playing much.

26. Paul McCartney & Wings, One Hand Clapping (Capitol). In late August 1974, McCartney and Wings were filmed playing in Abbey Road studios for a planned documentary. (Additional recording was done in October, with brass overdubs in January 1975.) The film didn’t come out, though some of the songs taped have shown up on archival CDs, as has footage. The documentary was only a little more than an hour long and included some non-music material, so this double CD, with about 83 minutes of music, has some stuff that wouldn’t have been heard in the film. (For what it’s worth, the film was also broadcast on UK TV in 2024, which I was unable to see.) There aren’t many records where I feel so much distance between the energy and quality of the leader’s performance (especially his vocals) and the quality of the actual songs. This coming from one of millions of self-anointed world’s biggest Beatle fans – as much as I love Paul’s work in the Beatles, I’m not a big fan of his solo efforts, even the early ones, though most of what’s here is okay.

Still, this does have many of his best and most popular early solo songs, sometimes done with orchestration, and with decent band backup, even if they can’t match the skills of the leader. Those tracks include “Jet,” “Maybe I’m Amazed,” “C Moon,” “My Love,” “Band on the Run,” “Live and Let Die,” “1985,” “Let Me Roll It,” “Junior’s Farm,” “Sally G,” and “Hi, Hi Hi.” They also include some forgettable early Wings filler and Denny Laine singing on the Moody Blues hit “Go Now,” and, and no one needed McCartney’s take on “Baby Face.” At this point he was reluctant to revisit his Beatles past, and the versions of “Let It Be,” “The Long and Winding Road,” and “Lady Madonna” are brief and noncommittal. Even discounting the absence of Beatles songs, certainly some of his better early-‘70s tunes are missing, particularly “Uncle Albert” and “Helen Wheels.” Hardcore McCartney fans might also lament the absence of relative obscurities like “Give Ireland Back to the Irish” and “The Mess.” But most of this is a well-chosen overview of his early solo repertoire and Wings as they reached their relative peak.

Of the three categories I prepare year-end best-of lists for, books have, at least in 2024, the greatest variety and diversity. Maybe it’s because it takes less money to write a book than to make a film or assemble a reissue, though it’s not so easy to find a publisher and distribution. So there’s an enormous range of artists covered, certainly in terms of their fame, from the Beach Boys to cult rockers for whom a full-length book would have been unimaginable during their lifetime, like Skip Spence.

But there’s also a big spectrum of approaches used. In this list, we have biographies, memoirs by musicians, a memoir by a wife of a star, a memoir by a rock journalist, very detailed reference books of reviews and discographies, oral histories, and rock photo books. Some volumes sort of combine different approaches, like the very good one by two members of a group that didn’t make any records or much of a commercial impact, the Liverbirds. Many of them, unfortunately, won’t gain a big audience because they’re not about stars, including the #1 pick, though the short-lived group it documents did have a #1 hit in the UK.

1. Hollywood Dream: The Thunderclap Newman Story, by Mark Wilkerson (Third Man). If they’re remembered at all today, Thunderclap Newman—a group, not a guy—are usually only known for their 1969 hit “Something in the Air,” a #1 single in the UK, and a Top Forty entry in the US. They did make an album and have a few non-LP sides, but that might seem like slim pickings for constructing a 400-page biography. That’s not the case, in part because all three of the principals who formed Thunderclap Newman—singer/songwriter Speedy Keen, teenage guitarist Jimmy McCulloch (most known for his 1970s stint in Wings), and pianist Andy “Thunderclap” Newman—had interesting, quirky stories. The point’s often been made elsewhere, but this was about the most unusual combination of talent assembled for a notable 1960s rock act. On top of this, Pete Townshend was almost a fourth member, producing their album and playing bass on it.

Considering all three main members are dead, Wilkerson did a remarkable job with his research. He found and interviewed numerous key associates, not least among them Townshend. He did interview Newman before the pianist’s death, and also had access to unpublished Keen memoirs, as well digging up many period quotes from everyone. The pre- and (less interestingly) post-Newman careers of all three are covered, including McCulloch’s stint as a young teenager in One in a Million, and later times in John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, Stone the Crows, and Wings, among other acts. So is Keen’s contribution of his composition “Armenia City in the Sky” to The Who Sell Out and his longtime friendship with Townshend (and skimpy solo career), along with how Newman made his first impression on the Who guitarist as an eccentric jazz pianist when Pete was still an art school student.

Besides discussing, naturally, “Something in the Air,” Wilkerson also thoroughly documents the protracted creation of their only album, Hollywood Dream. Part of the reason Thunderclap Newman were short-lived is that—in what must have seemed unfathomable at the time—there was a gap of about a year between the debut single “Something in the Air” and their next single, and more than a year between “Something in the Air” and their album. Also, they weren’t accomplished as a live act, failing to put together many effective appearances to promote themselves before disbanding. A related problem was that although they could combine their disparate talents with Townshend’s guidance, they were really too different personally and musically to be able to communicate well between themselves. Wilkerson deftly weaves together stories that are in some ways difficult to connect, and pays substantial attention to the odd and hard-to-categorize music they did manage to record, though the section on Andy Newman’s final decades might be longer than it merits.  

2. The Beach Boys By the Beach Boys, by the Beach Boys (Genesis). In the spirit of the Beatles’ Anthology book, and several others in which group members tell their story in a volume with an oral history format, quotes from the Beach Boys (and a few others) cover their history here. It’s not quite up to the level of the Beatles’ Anthology in depth, visuals, and candor, but it’s still pretty interesting, even if you know a lot about the group and some of the stories are inevitably familiar. Fortunately, it cuts off at 1980, eliminating the lengthy later period in which they only sporadically put out music, and usually had more headlines for in-fighting and sad/tragic incidents. There’s a lot of depth to the coverage going way back to their first records and even earlier, and while most of the quotes are by the six principal Beach Boys (Brian Wilson, Carl Wilson, Dennis Wilson, Mike Love, Al Jardine, and Bruce Johnston), there’s room for a few by guys who passed through the official lineup fairly briefly, those being David Marks, Blondie Chaplin, and Ricky Fataar. There are tons of pictures too, again running the gamut from familiar to rare, and some non-photo memorabilia, including Brian Wilson notebook lyrics to a song that’s titled “Surfer Girl” but seems entirely different from the hit of that name.

If you’re looking for weaknesses, these aren’t too significant, but a number of controversies are not mentioned or referred to only briefly. Those include their father Murry Wilson getting fired as manager, and selling their publishing for a sum far below what it was ultimately worth; full details of Brian’s nervous breakdown of sorts on tour in late 1964, which led to his near-withdrawal from live performance; Mike Love’s disputes with Van Dyke Parks over lyrics for Smile; and, not too surprisingly, Dennis’s involvement, which was more than fleeting, with the Manson Family. While opinions sharply differ on the quality of the group’s post-Smile music, from my viewpoint it went steadily downhill, and some of the sections on their 1970s work can be as tough going as it is to listen to their records from that period. And while most of the quotes are from the Beach Boys and a few of their peers, there are also some from much later acts that don’t add insights of note, like the Reid brothers from Jesus & Mary Chain and Rufus Wainwright. Some actual associates who could have added a few perspectives worth reading aren’t heard from, like Van Dyke Parks or session musician Carol Kaye.

Of course similar criticisms could be applied to other rock oral histories. The Beatles’ Anthology, for instance, didn’t include quotes from Pete Best, engineer Geoff Emerick, Allen Klein, or Yoko Ono. For those who want those other perspectives and coverage of the controversies, they’re detailed fairly extensively in some other books. This is still a good read – for the most part and mostly through the early ‘70s, anyway – and does focus on the music, the truly important foundation of the Beach Boys’ legacy.

3. Weighted Down: The Complicated Life of Skip Spence, by Cam Cobb (Omnibus Press). Singer-songwriter-guitarist (and sometime drummer) Spence was an important part of Moby Grape; drummer and occasional songwriter in early Jefferson Airplane; and auteur of one of the best and most haunting psychedelic folk albums, 1969’s Oar. That still might seem a slim resume to base a 375-page book on, but this is a good thoroughly researched biography that’s not unduly padded. The author interviewed quite a few people who worked with or knew Spence well, including several from Moby Grape; Jefferson Airplane guitarist Jorma Kaukonen; and several close family members, including Skip’s first wife. While much of Spence’s story has been told before, for those who are cult enthusiasts of his work—and I’m one—there’s a lot of new detail here, down to meticulous recaps of most of the known live shows he played, and some obscure acts he was part of before being whimsically recruited as the Airplane’s drummer. His ebullient personality and complex, eclectic songwriting (especially on Oar) is celebrated by his associates, and Oar’s mixture of rock, blues, country, folk, psychedelia, and goofball humor gets the most critical description. But his extensive mental problems are also delineated, though these didn’t seem to surface with a vengeance until the oft-told incident when he briefly took up with a mysterious woman when Moby Grape were recording in New York in mid-1968.

As to how Spence could descend into such a mentally and soon materially troubled life in his early twenties, that’s probably impossible to determine, especially as he’d seemed so musically together. And, if not exactly a paragon of stability, more personally together than his image might have you believe, having served in the Navy as a teenager without incident and then started, perhaps at too young an age, a family. His three decades or so in and out of hospitals, and on and off the streets, got generally worse as time went on. They’re not the main focus of the book (though much of it’s described in the last hundred or so pages), however, and though his sporadic attempts at post-‘60s music-making are also part of the story, they aren’t the dominant ones. Some stories that are part of the Spence legend are clarified along the way; he didn’t ride a motorcycle right from Bellevue hospital to Nashville to record Oar, for instance. The volume also includes an extensive gigography and sessionography.

4. Long Agos and Worlds Apart: The Definitive Small Faces Biography, by Sean Egan (Equinox). That’s not a typo in the title; it has the word “agos” in plural. Although this isn’t the only book on the Small Faces or their individual members, it is the most thorough one on the band’s career. Egan interviewed keyboardist Ian McLagan, drummer Kenney Jones, and even McLagan’s predecessor Jimmy Winston, who was in the group for their first couple singles; obviously he interviewed McLagan before McLagan’s death in 2014. Singer/guitarist Steve Marriott and bassist (and co-writer of much of their original material with Marriott) Ronnie Lane are extensively represented by archive quotes. Just as impressively, a good number of associates who aren’t always often heard from were also interviewed, including Pete Townshend, Marriott’s first wife, early manager Don Arden’s son David, Andrew Oldham, and Humble Pie drummer Jerry Shirley.

Of most importance, Egan tells their exciting, complex, and sometimes sad tale well, and not just through reflecting their complementary and at times clashing personalities. He describes all of their records in depth, including not only tracks from their hit singles and principal three LPs, but also B-sides and numerous cuts that only showed up on compilations. Although a big and enthusiastic fan for the most part, as in his other books, he doesn’t shy away from criticizing songs and production when merited. This isn’t at the expense of the core story, in which four very young musicians rose to fame very quickly, and went through wrenching management changes and financial shenanigans in a career that only lasted about four years. So is their somewhat mystifying failure to tour the US, attributable in part but not whole to a drug bust of McLagan, especially after “Itchycoo Park” had given them their sole US hit.

The impression’s given, by both the author and some of the band comments, that in retrospect the band should have stayed together longer, even though everyone went on to bigger global success with the Faces and Humble Pie. But maybe they weren’t destined to last considering widening differences between Marriott and Lane in particular, or patchy money matters that found them short of funds even after their 1968 album Ogdens Nut Gone Flake topped the UK charts. The group’s strange petering out in late 1968 and early 1969 with sessions backing French star Johnny Hallyday and anticlimactic commitment-filling gigs is covered, as is to some degree their subsequent careers (see Egan’s book on Rod Stewart’s early career for more on the Faces).

Those final sections inevitably lack the interest of the material on the 1960s, and Egan could have detailed the recent archive release of two fiery Belgian shows in early 1966 more extensively (though it’s mentioned). There might be more detail on the group’s financial mishaps and managerial conflicts than some might like, though these aren’t overdone. And there are other worthwhile details in the books Small Faces: The Young Mods’ Forgotten Story and the day-by-day The Small Faces Quite Naturally, as well as Jones’s memoir and the recent Marriott bio All or Nothing. However, this is the most complete and well-rounded volume on a band that’s proved more long-lasting, influential, and internationally beloved than anyone would have predicted when they disbanded, and considering their very limited ’60s success in the US. 

5. The Other Fab Four: The Remarkable True Story of the Liverbirds, Britain’s First Female Rock Band, by Mary McGlory and Sylvia Saunders (Grand Central). The co-authors were both in the Liverbirds, the all-women Liverpool quartet who played extensively for about four years in the mid-1960s. They weren’t too familiar to English-speaking audiences, as they played mostly in Germany, and there often at Hamburg’s Star-Club, for whose record label they made a couple LPs and some singles. McGlory and Saunders alternate the writing of different chapters, an approach that in other books can be awkward, but works pretty smoothly here. It’s an interesting tale that’s not like the usual memoir of rockers that didn’t make it big, in part but not only because they faced the unusual task (and sometimes obstacles) of being one of the few all-women bands who played their own instruments who were around in that era. They also had interactions, if sometimes fleeting, with many of the big names of the times, including the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Kinks, and Brian Epstein. There are also insight into the rewards and challenges of making a career in Germany, and behind-the-scenes stories of how the famed Hamburg rock scene worked, as well as life in the red light district where the acts played.

While their music and records are not neglected, these were not as interesting as their story, being dominated by cover versions and boasting an unpolished feel that put them more on the level of an average British group of the time than musical innovators. Opportunities to be managed by Epstein or Kinks manager Larry Page before they relocated to Hamburg weren’t followed up on, and they didn’t play in the UK much after that, and never made it to the US, where they’re still little known. Although the authors don’t have regrets about concentrating on the German market, it’s a little surprising that they don’t have many if any regrets about not making inroads elsewhere. While they take pride in the few original songs they recorded, all written by guitarist Pam Birch, there’s also not much of a sense of trying to forge a more original sound based on their own material. That almost certainly would have made them passé by the end of the 1960s had they not broken up before then due to marriages and other obligations, including guitarist Val Gell becoming a caretaker for a boyfriend who became disabled. They had to do a 1968 Japanese tour without Gell or drummer Saunders, which pretty much ended the group. While the authors went on to pretty stable lives dotted by periodic Liverbirds reunions, Birch and Gell weren’t as fortunate, and their spells with poverty and physical/substance issues are detailed in some of the final chapters.

6. MC5: An Oral Biography of Rock’s Most Revolutionary Band, by Brad Tolinski, Jaan Uhelszki, and Ben Edmonds (Hachette). Based on interviews done over a series of years by the late Ben Edmonds, this has quotes of varying length—sometimes very extensive—by all of the MC5 except Fred Smith, as well as close associates like manager John Sinclair, manager/producer Jon Landau, A&R man Danny Fields, promoter Russ Gibb, and a few wives/girlfriends of the band. Linking text by the two other authors sets the basic scene of the group’s origins, ascent, and downfall. This is pretty interesting throughout, in part because the band’s career was so unusual in their affiliation with political activists and incendiary performances, in addition to their pre-punk-metal-ish hard rock music. There’s far more attention paid to the Sinclair era, which encompassed their first and by far most famous album, than the few years (and two albums) after Sinclair was jailed and the band cut their ties with him, though the early ‘70s do get some space.

As expected if you come into this with a decent knowledge of the MC5’s history, there are often quite different accounts and perspectives on the same incidents. As just one example, guitarist Wayne Kramer expresses his displeasure with Kick Out the Jams at length, claiming “nobody liked it.” In the very next quote, Sinclair states, “You couldn’t have a more accurate representation of how the band sounded.” The band’s descent and dissolution, at least in retrospect and especially reading through these memories, was unsurprising given the tensions between their revolutionary zeal and hunger for national success; spontaneity and the professionalism required to make records that might sell and get on the radio; and Sinclair’s communal/political ethos and the musicians’ eventual desire for greater individual and economic freedom.

It’s a little surprising, for me anyway, to read a fair amount of criticism of singer Rob Tyner on various grounds – not moving around enough on stage, not being as committed as some of the others in some respects, and other matters that can seem a little picky, considering how vital he was to the group’s music. Note that while much of the MC5 story’s told here, Kramer and bassist Michael Davis’s memoirs, as well as Leni Sinclair’s Motor City Underground, are also worth reading for those who want more. Also note that while Elektra Records comes off badly for dropping the MC5 after they caused headaches at a violence-strewn Fillmore East concert and a major Detroit retailer stopped distributing Elektra product when the group took out a profane ad against the store, the book doesn’t give Elektra’s different side of the story. That’s in Elektra head Jac Holzman’s memoir Follow the Music, which also has comments, some quite negative, from Kick Out the Jams co-producer Bruce Botnick.

As one relatively minor point for me to pick on, a couple MC5ers and John Sinclair dump on Big Brother & the Holding Company, Tyner saying they “had no rhythm section. There was no drive,” and Sinclair claiming “we killed Big Brother & the Holding Company” when the MC5 opened for them. On a recent Record Store Day release of Big Brother at one of the shows the MC5 opened for them (on March 2, 1968) at Detroit’s Grande Ballroom, Big Brother sound very good. It’s impossible to verify whether they were killed by the MC5 without a tape of the MC5 set, but certainly the audience responds enthusiastically to Big Brother, if perhaps not with over-the-top wildness.

7. Just Backdated: Melody Maker: Seven Years in the Seventies, by Chris Charlesworth (Spenwood). From 1970 to 1977, Chris Charlesworth was a staff member of the British weekly pop music paper Melody Maker. For about half of that time, he was the magazine’s New York correspondent, actually living in the city as a base for interviewing musicians from both sides of the Atlantic and writing stories that might not have been too easy to get in the UK in pre-Internet days. Charlesworth wrote about, interviewed, and sometimes hung out with and befriended many musicians, from the ex-Beatles, the Who, and Led Zeppelin down to pre-stardom CBGB figures like Patti Smith and Blondie.

This is a good memoir of those years that balances purely musical memories with much of the colorful fun and games the acts got up to, on tour and otherwise (and in which Charlesworth not infrequently participated). There are numerous quotes from stories and concert/record reviews he wrote for Melody Maker, but not so many that they interfere with an overall storytelling flow. While some of the accounts are straightforwardly devoted to the musical side of things, sometimes they relay behind-the-scenes incidents that didn’t make it into print at the time and might embarrass some big names, or, in the case of John Bonham drunkenly assaulting a flight attendant, cause much worse than mere embarrassment. If few of the acts come across poorly and the author became chummy with some of them (especially Keith Moon), some of the stars he spoke with acted very disagreeably, especially Sly Stone (taking his wife-to-be into an adjoining room during an actual interview for a sex break) and a haughty Neil Diamond.

What’s most striking about Charlesworth’s experiences is how easier it was for a young, not-so-veteran rock critic to get access to big stars in those days, sometimes just by ringing up personal telephone numbers willingly volunteered to him by the acts themselves. Also surprising, at least at this distance, is how big a bill record companies and publicists footed for flying around journalists to write about their clients, and sometimes do more than just the writing. This might have crossed some ethical lines in how labels and PR staff probably expected good bulky coverage in return, something the author periodically acknowledges, though without too much anguish, especially considering how much fun he was having, whether at their expense or not. If stories about some of the aforementioned artists and other big names like David Bowie might be the biggest attractions, it’s also remarkable how much stylistic range a staff writer like Charlesworth had to document as part of his job. These weren’t just the big stars and hip underground names, but the ones that time has not respected, like Black Oak Arkansas, though he dutifully did his job and wrote what he was required to file.

8. Drums and Demons: The Tragic Journey of Jim Gordon, by Joel Selvin (Diversion). Jim Gordon was one of the top rock drummers of the 1960s and 1970s, though he’s about as well known for murdering his mother in the early 1980s. So this biography is in some ways a tough one to read, but it’s sensitively balanced between appreciation of his talents and documentation of his mental illness. Gordon might be most known to general rock fans as drummer in Derek and the Dominos, but he played on tons of hit records by many artists, as well as on many virtually unknown discs (and jingles and TV themes). Serving an on-the-road apprenticeship with the Everly Brothers as a teenager, he also played live with acts ranging from Paul Anka to Jackson Browne. Selvin details his contributions to hits like Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain” meticulously but readably, which involved not just top technique, but also imaginative use of many parts of his kit. There are also stories of how he worked in the Dominos, including his contribution as a songwriter to “Layla,” though one of his numerous girlfriends, singer Rita Coolidge, was also involved in constructing the long piano-led tag and didn’t get a credit.

Gordon didn’t show many obvious signs of mental illness for his first decade or so as a professional, with the vital exceptions of episodes in which he attacked Coolidge and his second wife. His descent into schizophrenia was painful, enhanced by substance abuse. He continued to play drums, though by the 1980s his reputation had lowered to the point where he was part of a bar band. By that time voices he was hearing in his head had gotten to the point where he repeatedly moved his gold records and drums back and forth to the dumpster where he lived. His subsequent lifetime prison stint isn’t detailed in much more than epilogue fashion, appropriately as what he did before of much greater interest and significance.

9. Shapes of Things: From the Yardbirds to Yusuf with Paul Samwell-Smith, interviews with David French (self-published). Since this book is pretty short, running about 100 pages, and almost all Q&A interviews with one person, its audience will be limited. That’s fine—if you’re a Yardbirds fan, it’s well worth reading, since these are the most extensive recollections their bassist ever gave. Samwell-Smith also produced the first Renaissance album (when they were led by ex-Yardbirds singer Keith Relf and ex-Yardbirds drummer Jim McCarty) and, more famously, Cat Stevens’s big albums and Carly Simon’s Anticipation. About half the book discusses his time in the Yardbirds (in which he often also acted as producer); the other half his early years as a producer, in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

There’s not much controversy here, unless you want to count his brief affair with Simon—just a lot of detail about records in which he was involved, as well as the Yardbirds’ performances and career. Samwell-Smith was more important than many fans realized to the Yardbirds as an innovative, propulsive bassist and producer (though he was sometimes credited as “musical director” rather than producer), and has a lot of interesting things to say about their discs and their dynamics, with both Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck. Maybe the sections on Stevens aka Yusuf and Simon are of less interest to Yardbirds fanatics, but they’re worthwhile for their perspectives on record production, which are clear and balanced, as are his perspectives on the Yardbirds.

The interviewer/author, David French, also did a good recent biography of Relf, Heart Full of Soul. Combined with McCarty’s good memoir from a few years before that, these add up to a decent biography of the Yardbirds, though spread across a few sources.

10. Phil Ochs On Track: Every Album, Every Song, by Opher Goodwin (Sonicbond). This is one of the more valuable volumes of Sonicband’s very extensive series going through the discography of notable artists. In part that’s because Ochs, unlike some of the other performers featured in the series, wasn’t a big star, and there’s no other book to my knowledge that goes into his catalog in depth. This follows the On Track format of detailed description, and some critical analysis, of all of Ochs’s material. More attention is paid to the lyrics than the music, but the music isn’t ignored, either in the melodies or the arrangements, which evolved considerably from the plain acoustic accompaniment of his early albums. Goodwin also gives a lot of context for the political and social events that inspired many of the songs. While this can be overdone or extraneous in many books, in Ochs’s case it’s both extremely relevant and pretty interesting, as his writing was more directly inspired by and about contemporary events and situations than perhaps any other significant performer of his time.

Although not every Ochs fan will share this view, one of the book’s primary assets is how it gives a lot of straight detail about his many releases that include tracks that weren’t featured on his primary LPs. There were a lot of these, including non-LP singles, items that only showed up on compilations, and numerous posthumous releases of live recordings, outtakes, and demos. It’s a pretty complicated discography for someone who didn’t have hit records, and I’ve long wished something of the sort would be compiled to make it clear what came out where. And this material is hardly of interest only to collectors; while overall not as strong or important as his full-length studio albums, they include some very fine songs and performances, and many compositions that weren’t released while he was alive. Justifiably, the songs on his Elektra and A&M albums get the most text, but enough info is given on the rest of his work to give you a good idea of what’s out there. That includes bootlegs, of which there were many more than I suspected. 

11. Jimi Hendrix: The Day I Was There, by Richard Houghton (Spenwood). Part of a series of collections of stories and memories by those who were there at the concerts of major performers, this assembles plenty of them from people who saw Hendrix between 1965 and 1970. That might sound like a marginal contribution to Hendrix literature, but at 476 pages, it’s hardly insubstantial. Too, those quoted range from the very most famous Hendrix fans, including Paul McCartney, to accounts collected by many just plain fans specifically for this volume. There are some contributions by relative insiders who actually worked with Hendrix at some capacity, if only for one specific concert. The majority, however, are concertgoers whose interactions with Jimi were just as members of the audience. Inevitably there’s much repetition of basic points as to how brilliant and life-changing he was, as well as some overly self-consciously poetic prose about his unearthly significance. But there are some pretty interesting stories and perspectives here too, as well as some unusual incidents that don’t get reported in the usual Hendrix biography. Sometimes onlookers at the same concert directly contradict each other as to what happened, as might be expected when trying to recall what took place about half a century later.

A few things that are striking when reading these in such bulk is how young Hendrix’s audience usually was – often teenaged or barely teenaged, and seldom as old as Jimi himself was. Also how much easier it was to get pretty close to the stage with superstars then, and not infrequently manage to get a word with Jimi or members of his band, or retrieve a piece of his equipment, or sometimes (though not too often) even party with Jimi and the Experience after the show. Famous concerts like the Monterey, Woodstock, and Isle of Wight festivals are documented, but most of the entries are for less celebrated venues as he built his following in the UK and then criss-crossed the US. Interwoven with descriptions of Hendrix are oft-amusing recollections of how much quirky planning it took to attend a concert if you were very young back then, with plenty of rides from parents, or lies to parents that were necessary to sneak out. Sometimes these dominate the accounts, but the music isn’t overlooked, with some vivid descriptions, when the participants have clear memories, of specific songs, guitar burnings, Mitch Mitchell drumming, and opening acts like the Soft Machine and Cat Mother. It also seems like Hendrix played “The Star Spangled Banner” at quite a few shows before his famous Woodstock version. 

12. Pressing News: British Music As It Happened 1962-1972, by Richard Morton Jack (Lansdowne). This is the kind of book whose interest is pretty limited to intense historians/collectors/fanatics, and that you use for reference rather than reading all at once, or even in its entirety. That doesn’t mean it isn’t valuable, of course, built around reproductions of more than a hundred press releases for British rock artists between the early 1960s and early 1970s. Usually the releases are tied to specific records, from the most famous (Sgt. Pepper) to some by very obscure acts (Fresh Maggots, Jerusalem, and the Pete Best Four, to name just a few examples). These are accompanied by quite a few reprints of reviews, and sometimes full stories, that appeared about these records and acts at the time, not years later, when critical views about the performers and their importance often shifted. There are also reproductions of some ads from the period, and each entry has a substantial paragraph from the author explaining the context of the material and the performers’ career at the time.

A little disappointingly—and this has nothing to do with the talent of the author and the usual fine design he brings to his specialized books—the releases themselves (and the reviews) are often bland and basic, if reflective of how the industry promoted rock at the time. There aren’t a ton of genuine surprises, though it’s a great service to have reviews from UK music papers reprinted, as (except for Melody Maker, and to extent NME) accessing the ones from British weeklies is difficult, even for the major Disc and Record Mirror publications. Morton Jack also dug up quite a few items from general interest/regional newspapers and magazines that have seldom been seen since their publications, going back to a few (such as a review in the Newtown & Earlestown Guardian) in the book’s first entry, on the Beatles’ “Love Me Do” single. Almost all of the reviews and stories, incidentally, are sourced from UK publications, though a very few from the US are present.

There are some surprising nuggets here and there for British rock obsessives. Not everyone cares about such things, but it was interesting to read, for instance, a quote from the Zombies’ road manager hailing their cover of “Sticks and Stones” as the best track on their debut LP; Marc Bolan quoted as calling the Who’s debut album “a bad LP”; or that the Move’s debut LP was originally intended for November 1966 (it didn’t appear until 1968) and was to be titled Move Mass. While it’s unlikely every reader wants to go through the clippings and releases for all of the selections depending on their taste (especially the more esoteric ones from the late 1960s and early 1970s), there’s something for every fan of British rock of the period here, from the superstars to worthy cult acts like Blossom Toes.

13. Gettin’ Kinda Itchie: The Groups That Made the Mamas & the Papas, by Richard Campbell (www.gettinkindaitchie.com). Before the Mamas & the Papas were formed, all four members did quite a bit of time, and (except for Michelle Phillips) made a good number of records, as parts of primarily folk-oriented groups, going back to the mid-1950s. These included, for John Phillips, the Smoothies, the Journeymen, and the New Journeymen; for Denny Doherty, the Halifax Three, the Mugwumps, and the New Journeymen; for Cass Elliot, the Big Three and the Mugwumps; and for Michelle Phillips, the New Journeymen. All of these roots, and routes to the Mamas & the Papas, are thoroughly explored and documented in this self-published volume. It’s well above the standards of the usual self-published book, both in its design, with many photos and reproductions of vintage ads and record sleeves, and the writing, by a Mamas & the Papas authority who’s written about them and their pre-Mamas & the Papas groups extensively for many years.

It’s true this part of the story, and the music that was made by these acts, isn’t as interesting as the Mamas & the Papas’ story (brief as their career was). It’s also true that for general Mamas & the Papas fans, the essentials might be satisfactorily covered in the recent (and best) Mamas & the Papas biography, Scott G. Shea’s All the Leaves Are Brown: How the Mamas & the Papas Came Together and Broke Apart. But the level of detail here is impressive, down to descriptions of the jingles and commercials — quite a few, actually — recorded for the likes of beer companies by the Journeymen and the Big Three. Much of the information was gleaned from first-hand interviews, not only of musicians in the groups, but also of many of their associates, including some with surprising resumes, like Journeyman-for-a-while Marshall Brickman, who went on to fame as a screenwriter (mostly famously for Annie Hall). There’s even an appendix laying out all of these group’s known concerts, TV/radio appearances, records, and recording sessions, which are more extensive than almost anyone would suspect.

14. King Mod: The Story of Peter Meaden, The Who, and the Birth of a British Subculture, by Steve Turner (Red Planet). Peter Meaden managed the Who for a while around mid-1964, though the nature of his management, how official it was, and how long it lasted has been reported in various ways. Steve Turner interviewed Meaden in 1975, a few years before Meaden died, and it was the most extensive interview he ever gave. That interview, parts of which were printed in a few outlets in the past, is reprinted in its entirety here, taking up almost a third of this 275-page book.

But more of the book’s devoted to a general biography of Meaden, who was most celebrated for his association with the Who, but also managed some other acts, was involved in other aspects of the music business, and did a lot to help establish the mod movement. There’s about as much attention paid to the fashion and lifestyle side of mod and Meaden as the music, since he was one of the pacesetters in setting mod trends in London. But there’s also, in addition to the expected coverage of how he was vital to injecting mod sensibilities into the Who, interesting text on his management of the British soul act Jimmy James and the Vagabonds; his brief work promoting, rather ineptly, Captain Beefheart’s first trip to the UK; his erratic collaboration with a young Andrew Oldham, who quickly outpaced Meaden as a mover and shaker in the British music business owing to his greater business savvy; and his brief resurrection of sorts working with Steve Gibbons in the mid-‘70s. 

Besides his interview with Meaden, Turner also draws upon comments from people who knew Peter. It’s a quicker read than you might expect, since there are a lot of full-page photos of Meaden and interesting people on the mod scene, including good ones of the 1964 Who. That’s okay, however, as the photos are themselves quite good and interesting, with informative captions.

The full-length Meaden interview isn’t as interesting as I hoped. It’s quite repetitious, and he seemed more intent on making general rather hyper observations on the hedonistic mod lifestyle as the music associated with it. The most interesting part, naturally, is when he does get around to discussing the Who, though he seems to view his contribution to their career primarily in influencing their clothes. He also talks about their “I’m the Face”/“Zoot Suit” debut single as the High Numbers, though more in terms of how zealously he promoted it (though it sold very few copies) than how it might have reflected the Who’s creativity. Which it didn’t, very well, in part because both sides were rewrites of American R&B songs with different lyrics (“I’m the Face” of Slim Harpo’s “Got Love If You Want It,” “Zoot Suit” of the Dynamics’ “Misery”). Meaden misremembered the Showmen’s “Country Fool” as the source for “Zoot Suit,” a mistake which got repeated numerous times in Who biographies and other rock history literature. He expresses no regret or acknowledgement about taking the songwriting credits for these blatant rewrites, which might not have been on the up-and-up.

Although a key part of the mod movement and (if only in passing) the Who’s early career, Meaden wasn’t organized or visionary enough to compete on the same level as managers like Oldham or the Who’s Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp, getting paid 500 pounds to relinquish his involvement with the band by the band’s new and more ambitious managers. A couple comments in the book reflect Meaden’s colorful inability to fully optimize his genuine enthusiasm for mod and music. The jacket he bought for Roger Daltrey, as seen in promotional material for the High Numbers single, “was the high point of my career, you might say,” he notes in his interview with Turner. In a report made by immigration officials when Captain Beefheart and his band were denied entry to the UK for lack of work permits, “Mr. Meaden then pleaded for clemency on the grounds of his own stupidity, a plea which was rejected.”

It’s not too important, but if you’re on the lookout for embarrassing mistakes, Roger Daltrey’s last name is misspelled as “Daltry” in one caption—a 1966-level goof that doesn’t belong in a 2024 book. It’s also odd it’s mentioned that Meaden and Oldham were involved with the Moments, Steve Marriott’s pre-Small Faces group, which is not mentioned in the most thorough Small Faces biography, Sean Egan’s recent Long Agos and Worlds Apart: The Definitive Small Faces Biography (also reviewed in this post).

15. The Dave Clark Five: Bits & Pieces! Every Song from Every Session, 1962-1973, by Peter Checksfield (www.peterchecksfield.com). Like Checksfield’s books for the Searchers, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Tremeloes, this lists and describes every release by the book’s featured act, the Dave Clark Five. Maybe some people feel they weren’t good or important enough to merit such intense documentation, but for all their success, no one’s done such a thing before. And for all the uneven quality of their output, they did make a good number of good records, not limited to the numerous hits that, to quote a title of two (!) entirely different hits of the same name they had, “Everybody Knows.” Everything from their dozen or so years is here, from their obscure (and mediocre) 1962 singles through their plethora of US-only albums, their little known early ‘70s releases (including those credited to Dave Clark & Friends), and even a good number of unreleased or download-only tracks. Checksfield’s assessment of these is, in keeping with his other volumes, pretty generous. But the sound of each them is described, and for all their fame, you’d be surprised how little pure description is given to the band’s catalog in rock literature, aside from their big hits.

While there weren’t a ton of oddities in the group’s large discography, some that even DC5 collectors might have missed are noted, like the full original version of “’Til the Right One Comes Along” (the piano solo is edited out of the version on the History of the Dave Clark Five CD compilation). There’s also a very comprehensive listing of their many TV (and occasional film) appearances, for which they seldom managed to actually play live instead of to the record; many picture sleeves of LPs and 45s, some of them rare non-US/UK releases; some sheet music repros; and some stills from their TV/film spots, although all of the illustrations are in black and white. It is striking, though not previously unknown, how many more DC5 records came out in the US than in their native UK; Epic Records really squeezed out what they could in the group’s 1964-67 prime. It’s also striking how the label went all-out for picture sleeves on their US 45s, all the way through the end of the ‘60s, though their last big American hit was in 1967.

Note that this book become unavailable as a print version shortly after its release in that format. The text, without the images in the print version, can be accessed at https://peterchecksfield.com/the-dave-clark-five-bits-pieces/.

16. Labyrinth: British Jazz on Record 1960-75, by Richard Morton Jack (Landsdowne). British jazz from this era is not a specialty of mine, and I daresay not a specialty of too many people, even in the UK, and less so elsewhere. However, this is an exceptionally well produced record guide to many—I would venture most—of the British jazz LPs made between 1960 and 1975. It’s not just a discography listing catalog numbers and dates; each of the several hundred albums gets a fully considered paragraph-long review by the author. Many of the entries also print excerpts from reviews of the albums actually printed around the time of their release, along with full-page reproductions of the front and back covers and inner labels. There’s also a very interesting and lengthy introduction by musician and producer Tony Reeves, who was part of and worked with several acts during this period, most famously Colosseum. There are also a few pages reproducing ads of the time for British jazz releases.

Even within the world of jazz enthusiasts and collectors, British jazz doesn’t get a ton of attention, and many of the names will be unfamiliar to readers as few made an international impact. The ones that did tended to be ones whose impact bled over to the rock audience, like Jack Bruce, John McLaughlin, Chris Spedding, Colosseum (though only their first LP is included), Harold McNair (via his work with Donovan), John Cameron (also as a Donovan associate), Hugh Hopper (with Soft Machine), Elton Dean (part of Soft Machine for a while), Henry Lowther (part of Manfred Mann and John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers for a while), and others. Morton Jack covered some British rock with a jazz influence in the massive British rock guide he edited and wrote many reviews for, Galactic Ramble, and rock albums by the many acts with players with jazz experience are usually detailed in there.

This is the place to learn about names known more to jazz aficionados, like Joe Harriott, Mike Westbrook, Norma Winstone, Michael Gibbs, and Nucleus, though one (Dudley Moore) is extremely famous, though not principally for his accomplished jazz piano. It also offers insight into some styles that were more prevalent in British jazz than elsewhere, like Indo-Jazz. This volume would rank higher on my list if I was more heavily interested in the subject; its modest ranking is not a reflection of the high quality of the writing and graphics. (My interview with the author of this book is at http://www.richieunterberger.com/wordpress/british-jazz-1960-1975-author-richard-morton-jack-talks-about-his-definitive-guide-labyrinth/.)

17. Magical Highs – Alvin Lee & Me: A Sixties Woodstock Memoir, by Loraine Burgon (Spenwood). The author was Alvin Lee’s partner for about a decade from the early 1960s through the early 1970s, and while they didn’t marry, she was there for his rise from Nottingham cover bands to stardom with Ten Years After. This is above average for a partner memoir, as it’s pretty detailed and well written, and—in a less common virtue—often attentive to the music, with plenty of accounts of concerts, recordings, and Lee’s evolution as a guitarist, songwriter, and singer. Sometimes there’s too much space given to non-musical aspects of their lives, like how their homes were set up and drug use. But although the pair separated in 1973, her love for Lee and his music is clear—indeed, she never did seem to stop loving him, though she might have realized they weren’t ultimately suited for the long haul.

Considering how tight they were for a pretty long period, their relationship unraveled fairly quickly over the course of about a year when they moved to large home (actually their second large home) outside of London, with both getting caught up in extramarital affairs and Lee’s attention getting distracted by some drugs and interlopers. This included a very brief fling between Burgon and George Harrison, whose delights in earthly pleasures contrast with his holier image as a devout follower of Indian religion, and doesn’t come off as well as he usually does in rock histories. After leaving Lee, Burgon was involved with Traffic’s Jim Capaldi for a couple years, and then caught up in a zealous bust of Ronnie Wood’s home with Wood’s then-wife (both were found innocent after a couple trials). That’s where the story ends and while those post-Lee adventures are covered in satisfactory depth, most of the book’s given to her journey with Lee, also documenting their pot and LSD use with unusual positivity for a rock memoir. As Lee himself didn’t write an autobiography, this is as close as we might come to a Ten Years After history, so close-up is the account.

18. Dreams: The Many Lives of Fleetwood Mac, by Mark Blake (Pegasus). This is unusually structured for a biography, or a sort of biography. Instead of going through the history of the band from beginning to end, the 400-page book is divided into a little more than 100 short chapters, each dwelling on a pretty particular aspect of the group and their career. These progress in roughly chronological order, but not strictly; the overview of Christine McVie’s life, for instance, is the last chapter. The chapter subjects range from profiles, if always brief, of each member (even the ones who passed through very briefly, like original bassist Bob Brunning) and appreciations of individual LPs and singles to very specific ones, like Peter Green’s guitar and their semi-rivalry with the Eagles. There’s a lot of white space at the end of chapters (and sometimes separating sections), so this is quicker to read than most 400-page rock bios.

I was a little skeptical of this approach, but it works pretty well here, since these are told with an eye for interesting and sometimes saucy anecdotes. There are also close-ups of incidents and aspects of Fleetwood Mac that aren’t discussed much, like supermodel Uschi Obermaier’s relationship with the band, or (less interestingly) their influence on early Status Quo. Of course it gets less interesting the more you go past the 1970s, and some of the chapters get into trivia not-so-interesting; it’s not necessary to give a song-by-song account of their 1997 reunion show, for instance. But even if you only read the parts pertaining to eras of Fleetwood Mac that interest you, there’s some interesting stuff here. It’s not satisfying as a comprehensive biography of the band, but it doesn’t intend to be, and you can fill in those details with the many other books about Fleetwood Mac and their individual members.

19. Under a Rock, by Chris Stein (St. Martin’s Press). The Blondie guitarist’s memoir is a rather raw affair in both its content and execution. Stein does cover much of the group’s heyday with some inside detail and droll humor, with even some pretty dramatic incidents discussed in a rather terse fashion, though with enough character and wit to avoid being purely matter-of-fact. Much of the CBGB scene during Blondie’s rise is also recounted. So are his years growing up in New York and his fairly drawn-out path from garage bands and general bohemian lifestyle to meeting Debbie Harry and being a key cog in Blondie’s formation. These are interspersed with a great many non-musical stories, from accounts of his cats to his take on Burning Man, to give just a couple examples. Some of those digressions are interesting and amusing; some of them are not only less so than his musical activities, but at times almost random in their appearance and purpose.

This becomes more apparent in the final sections after his breakup with Harry and Blondie’s split in the 1980, with the last few decades covered in a much more cursory fashion than his pre-1985 years. That’s not such a great loss as almost every reader will be far more interested in Blondie’s prime than their reunions, but the general erratic focus becomes yet less sharp in the last few chapters. A greater focus on the music—the big reason people are interested in Stein—instead of the memories that almost seem like conversational asides would have helped. Still, there are good stories about the composition of some of their most celebrated songs, their studio productions (particularly with producer Mike Chapman, but also their earlier ventures with Richard Gottehrer), their troubled business and management affairs, their success with reggae (including how Stein found the original version of “The Tide Is High”) and disco outings, and their overall unlikely evolution from struggling underground club band to international touring superstars. In combination with Harry’s memoir from a few years back, it fills in a lot of Blondie’s history, though neither book—nor both taken together—are as comprehensive as they could have been.

20. Triggers: A Life in Music, by Glen Matlock with Peter Stoneman (Weldonowen). There’s some material about Matlock’s personal upbringing and life here (if very little about his romantic relationships), but true to its title, this is mostly about his musical career. And an interesting one it is, most famous of course for his time in the Sex Pistols. His years leading up to and including his time as their bassist and frequent songwriter take up more than half the book, and as expected, his rather brief initial stint in the band’s mid-’70s lineup is the most interesting part. The other sections have their value, however, including his more pop-punkish late-’70s group, the Rich Kids; the Sex Pistols’ various reunions; a few solo projects; and tours with Iggy Pop, late-period (very late, quite recent) Blondie, and (briefly) a reunited Faces without Rod Stewart.

It’s an average rock memoir in a good way, meaning the emphasis is on stories of how Matlock met Malcolm McLaren working at McLaren’s King’s Road fashion shop; his time at a prestigious London art school before music became his focus; how the Pistols got together, including their ousting of original member Wally Nightingale, whose handling Matlock regrets; their rise to hit singles and notoriety, and Glen getting replaced by Sid Vicious in early 1977; and the many ups and downs, most work-related but some personal, in the many years since the late-’70s punk explosion. Unlike many such memoirs, however, the author does seem to understand what interests readers most. That means interesting detail about how he wrote or co-wrote songs, including the most famous of these, “Anarchy in the UK,” “God Save the Queen,” and “Pretty Vacant”; how the Sex Pistols worked out arrangements, and went through several studios, labels, and producers as they began recording; and the dynamic, sometimes fractious, between the band members, and between the band and manager McLaren. Matlock takes pains to give his side of the story of leaving the group, particularly that in his view, it wasn’t a commonly cited reason that he liked the Beatles.

It’s relayed in a straightforward likable fashion, not above poking fun at himself, others, and the odd serendipitous circumstances that got the Pistols together and noticed in the first place. Ever since, there were some interesting encounters with other figures like David Bowie, Mick Ronson, and the early Clash. In the more side-note category, he’s refreshingly no-holds-barred in his attack on Brexit and contemporary conservative politics. There is a bad mistake no one else might point out, if a very footnote-like one, when it’s stated Badfinger (whose manager the Pistols met in their early days) had broken up by the time Nilsson covered their song “Without You” for a huge hit in 1971; the most successful lineup of Badfinger in fact stayed together until the mid-’70s. And speaking of the footnotes sprinkled throughout the book, an intriguing one states that “Malcolm once told me that Jamie Reid, the artist who created the Sex Pistols sleeves, was briefl a member of the Moody Blues, but Malcolm said lots of things.”

21. Only You Know & I Know, by Dave Mason with Chris Epting (DTM Entertainment). Still perhaps known more for his stint in Traffic than anything else, Dave Mason subsequently made many solo records, some quite popular. He also made an album as half of a duo with Cass Elliot, was briefly part of Derek & the Dominos, played with Delaney & Bonnie, and was part of the least celebrated lineup (in the mid-1990s) of Fleetwood Mac. All of this is covered in his memoir, which feels a little skimpy, but does have some interesting stories and details. The numerous full pages given over to song lyrics, as well as some generous allocation of white space separating the chapters, means this is a fairly quick read, even at nearly 250 pages.

Even if his in-and-out time in early Traffic wasn’t too long, it and his up-and-down relationship with Stevie Winwood get a decent amount of commentary. Winwood doesn’t have such a controversial public image, so it’s surprising to read how Mason was fired from Traffic in the late 1960s when Stevie told him he didn’t like his songwriting, singing, or playing, though a good share of that is featured on Traffic’s first albums. It was odd at the time that Mason left Traffic after their first album (though he returned after a not-too-long break) and on the verge of their first US tour, and he still seems at something of a loss to fully explain why.

As his very brief time in the Dominos isn’t so well known, and neither is his influence on getting George Harrison interested in playing slide guitar when Harrison briefly toured with Delaney & Bonnie, those are among the more interesting accounts he has to offer. There are also stories of his cross-paths with the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, and Paul McCartney. The later the years, the more basic and at times cursory the detail, which isn’t a big deal, as it’s his 1960s-1970s prime that interest readers the most.

Like many rock stars, though Mason wasn’t exactly a superstar, he went through his share of drugs, women, marriages, and financial problems. These are all related in a somewhat more casual manner than the usual rock memoir does, though it’s not so off-putting, as he takes a lot of responsibility and blame for his various failures. A specific managerial/financial calamity in the early 1970s is covered so confusingly it seems like text is missing or was poorly edited, as he states “I was living in a near-constant state of vigilance in Canada. Later, too,” without offering more info on how/if/when he ended up in Canada and for how long. And while it doesn’t seem to bother most people as much as it does me, yes, there are some factual mistakes/incorrect chronological sequencing/misspellings that many who are knowledgeable about the 1960s/1970s in particular will catch.

22. Hurricanes of Color: Iconic Rock Photography from the Beatles to Woodstock and Beyond, by Mike Frankel (The Pennsylvania State University Press). As a teenager and young adult in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Mike Frankel took a lot of photos in the late psychedelic era at the Fillmore East, Woodstock, and other venues. As a young teenager, he also got the opportunity to take a lot of pictures at the Beatles’ 1964 concert in Philadelphia’s Conventional Hall, both at their press conference and their stage show. Those pictures are in black and white (and very good for a young photographer who wasn’t professional at that stage), but most of the book is devoted to color shots from a few years later, often using multiple exposures for swirling psychedelic effects. 

There are quite a few images of Jefferson Airplane in particular, as Frankel got to know and become quite friendly with them, with some of his shots getting used on covers for the first two Hot Tuna albums. Plenty of other artists are represented, however, including Pink Floyd, the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, Chuck Berry, B.B. King, Jeff Beck, and Santana, sometimes photographed quite well without psychedelic effects. While most of the pages are occupied by photos and captions, there’s also a considerable amount of text from Frankel describing how he developed his techniques, and his experiences as a youngster getting the kind of personal and professional access to top rock acts that it’s hard to imagine someone starting out getting today. (I was among the authors who gave blurbs about this book on its back cover.)

23. Teenage Wasteland: The Who at Winterland, 1968 and 1976, by Edoardo Genzolini (Schiffer). Like Genzolini’s other books (on Cream in San Francisco in 1968 and concert memories of the Who), this mixes text with plenty of photos. Here the focus is on the Who’s concerts at San Francisco’s famous Winterland venue, almost ten years apart. These didn’t represent the Who’s only concerts in the Bay Area; even only counting the Keith Moon era, there were numerous others in the late 1960s and early 1970s, including shows at the Fillmore and Cow Palace. As in the author’s other books, the photos range from top-of-the-line professional to blurry and amateurish, in both black and white and color. This shouldn’t be such a big deal to intense Who fans, for whom the main thing is probably the documentarian aspect, especially as many pictures don’t appear elsewhere. A few photos of fans and other musicians are mixed in, including Leslie West, whose pre-Mountain group the Vagrants opened for the Who in 1968, and (faintly) Paul Kantner and Spencer Dryden of Jefferson Airplane, who were onstage watching the Who in 1968 at a Los Angeles show.

The best parts of the text include some eyewitness accounts of the shows by fans, though these could have been edited a bit down to the essentials. There’s also a technically-oriented interview from 1976 with Buck Munger, national promotion director for Sunn amplifiers when the Who were using and endorsing them in 1968. The author’s writing pads out the volume with general history of the group and Pete Townshend’s relationship to Meher Baba during this decade or so, and is prone to over-long paragraphs. One of the best features isn’t directly related to the Who: a reprint of the detailed syllabus for Fillmore Seminars, given in summer 1969 by top San Francisco rock business guys (including Bill Graham, producer David Rubinson, and radio legend Tom Donahue) for young people interested in entering the field.

24. The Rolling Stones: The Brian Jones Years!, by Peter Checksfield (peterchecksfield.com). Among Checksfield’s numerous books, this might not be as immediately valuable as some others—like his similar volumes on the Searchers, the Dave Clark Five, and even the Tremeloes—simply because the Rolling Stones’ 1960s work has been much more heavily documented than much of which he’s featured. Still, many—indeed most—Stones overviews don’t give detailed description of the many non-famous tracks the group recorded while Jones was in the Stones between mid-1962 and mid-1969. This details every one—not merely with the kind of meticulous release and recording dates in some other reference books (though this has the essentials), but with an actual description of the songs and the tracks. That might seem like something that should be obvious to offer in a Stones reference book, but there are few that cover, for instance, most of the songs (most of which are very good) on their 1967 album Between the Buttons, or B-sides like “Sad Day,” in detail. There are also informed descriptions of their known unreleased tracks, from 1962-63 demos through late 1960s outtakes, including notes about ones known or rumored to exist that haven’t yet circulated.

Checksfield is a generous reviewer—only committed fans, after all, are going to self-publish specialized books like this—but does sometimes criticize what he sees as shortcomings. There are also details of the recordings that are seldom discussed, like Brian Jones’s early backing vocals, or Charlie Watts’s prominent drumming on “Complicated.” Checksfield is more of a fan of the mid-’60s material that went beyond a blues-rock base and made room for Jones’s contributions on numerous unexpected instruments, but that’s okay, since that was a very fertile time, and he doesn’t ignore their blues beginnings and return to bluesier roots in the late ‘60s. It’s pointed out that, contrary to the impression some biographies give, he did indeed participate, sometimes strongly, in about half the tracks on Beggars Banquet, though his position in the band was becoming more fragile. Note that few tracks from the Let It Bleed album and era are included, as Jones didn’t play on most of those.

25. Cliff Richard: The Shadows Years: Every Song from Every Session 1958-1968, by Peter Checksfield (peterchecksfield.com). This follows the same format as the other Checksfield books on this list: succinct but descriptive reviews of all of Richard’s releases (on most of which he was backed by the Shadows) during the first decade of his career, with lots of black-and-white reproductions of picture sleeves from throughout the world, sheet music, and posters. While this might seem like an idiosyncratic subject to US readers, it should be remembered that Richard was almost as big as Elvis Presley in the UK. And while his music wasn’t as great as Elvis at his best, or too consistent, he made some pretty good records, especially in the earliest of these years.

Checksfield is of the mindset that Richard made many great records, and while I don’t share that enthusiasm, it doesn’t get in the way of plenty of details about the discs, some of which he does criticize for shortcomings. There’s also some coverage of alternate versions (of which there are surprisingly many), foreign-language recordings, tracks that came out years later on archival releases, and even bootlegs—of which, as it might again come as a surprise to US readers, there are a fair number. There’s also a section listing his TV and film appearances. Of particular interest to US residents like me is that, though he had just a couple of Top 40 singles in the American charts (and then not that high in the Top 40) in the late 1950s and early 1960s, he did appear on the Ed Sullivan Show three times in 1962-63, before the Beatles were known in the US; he also appeared on American Bandstand in 1962, and on a Pat Boone-hosted program in 1960.

26. My Mama, Cass, by Owen Elliot-Kugell (Hachette). The author is the daughter (and only child) of Cass Elliot, and as Elliot died when Elliot-Kugell was just seven, it might seem like there would be a slim body of memories to build a book around. This is still a pretty decent read, and in the first half or so, the author does relate a fair history of Elliot’s career and the Mamas & the Papas, though other books (especially Scott G. Shea’s recent All the Leaves Are Brown: How the Mamas & the Papas Came Together and Broke Apart) cover this territory in more depth. She did get a few stories—over the years, not necessarily for this book—from other Mamas & Papas and some others who knew Elliot, including Cass’s sister Leah.

More material of particular value not found elsewhere is the half of the book of how Owen coped with her mother’s loss and how her famous mom’s legacy affected her as she grew up. She had a sometimes troubled adolescence and early adulthood, often in Los Angeles and sometimes elsewhere, getting raised by Leah and (until they separated) her husband, renowned drummer Russ Kunkel. Elliot-Kugell’s attempts to establish a singing career of her own didn’t get far, in part due to some record business politics that curtailed her best shot at making an album. She also sang with Brian Wilson’s daughters and Chynna Phillips, but that group cut down to a trio without her before they had their own hit records. While sometimes overly sentimental in recounting how she eventually paid tribute to her mother by arranging for a star in Cass’s honor on Hollywood Boulevard, the ups and downs of negotiating the Hollywood entertainment and social scene as daughter of a famous entertainer hold some interest.

The following books came out in 2023, but I didn’t read them until 2024.

1. My Greenwich Village: Dave, Bob and Me, by Terri Thal (McNidder & Grace). Terri Thal was married to Dave Van Ronk, whom she managed for much of the 1960s, and she also briefly managed Bob Dylan near the beginning of his career. Her memoir focuses on her experiences during (and a little after) the folk revival, spanning the late 1950s to the early 1960s. Not so much a linear account as anecdote-focused memories organized into thematic chapters, this is an interesting read with plenty of wit and candor. It doesn’t shy away from some of the more disturbing aspects of the era, including some sexism within the scene (not from Van Ronk, it’s emphasized), unreasonable record company business practices, and increasing drug use that led to some deterioration of the scene by the late ‘60s. But it also takes a lot of joy in the music and community special to that time and place, as well as how the left-wing politics in which she and Dave participated affected what was happening. 

While not every Van Ronk record is detailed, some are, and it’s especially interesting to read her frank reflections of how a 1964 LP he did for Mercury suffered because he and she (who took over supervising the recording) drank too much and didn’t let enough time pass before judging the results. The tapes sounded good to them the next day, but “later, when we heard the record, we were horrified; the music was sloppy. We never should have allowed it to be released.” This was the album with Van Ronk’s version of “House of the Rising Sun,” and the fairly famed incident in which Dylan took Dave’s arrangement for a track on his debut album before Van Ronk would record it—without Dave’s permission—is also detailed. So is Van Ronk’s venture into full-band rock with the Hudson Dusters, which Thal wasn’t enthused about, though she dutifully did as best she could managing a band instead of a solo performer.

Although “Bob” Dylan is part of the title, her professional relationship with Dylan, and her and Dave Van Ronk’s friendship with him and Dylan’s early girlfriend Suze Rotolo, is only central to one chapter, if occasionally referred to elsewhere. It’s still an interesting and important part of Thal’s story, and while Albert Grossman took over Dylan’s management early in the singer’s career, she and Dave remained good friends with him for a while. So there are stories of how difficult it was to book Bob at a time he was unknown and unknown solo folk singers in general had a hard time getting paying gigs. So are the stories of Dylan and Rotolo hanging out at her and Van Ronk’s apartment, and while not everything she remembers about Bob is flattering, generally her perspective is pretty positive. It’s poignant how, about five years Dylan’s stardom really took off in the mid-‘60s, he paid her a visit and “said he didn’t need money, but didn’t know what he could do other than perform.”

2. Oh, Didn’t They Ramble: Rounder Records and the Transformation of American Roots Music, by David Menconi (University of North Carolina Press, 2023). Rounder Records is one of the most noted independent labels of the last half century, specializing in all kinds of roots music, and occasionally even landing mainstream hits with George Thorogood and (much more heavily) Alison Krauss. While there’s a bit of a sweeping overview feel to some of this relatively compact volume (with about 180 pages of text), it’s an interesting story of how a company with modest resources succeeded, despite/because of sticking to the uncommercial music they cared about the most. There’s a lot of material drawn from extensive interviews with the three founders, along with others who worked with the company and several of its artists. Anyone interested in the independent side of the record business will find valuable accounts, particularly in how they scrapped together records and sales in their early days in the 1970s with little money, and with artists in entire genres (particularly but not limited to bluegrass) that had no hopes of doing much more than breaking even.

Perhaps understandably, the big successes with Krauss kind of overshadow coverage of the most recent few decades. There was room for a more substantial volume that might get into the stints of some of the more interesting artists who expanded Rounder’s original bluegrass/folk base, like Jonathan Richman, who’s merely mentioned. For that matter, there could have been more about their extensive licensing of vintage reggae material for the Heartbeat label, which seems likely to have had its share of colorful quirks. If you’re looking for quirks, there was a stipulation that when Iris DeMent’s contract was sold to Warner Brothers, Rounder got to reissue ten out-of-print records from the Warners catalog, which is how albums by John Hartford, Guy Clark, and the Charles River Valley Boys got on the label. If you’re looking for controversy, there’s not much, but it’s notable that although the founders had left-wing principles, they opposed the formation of an employee union in the late 1970s, hiring a Boston law firm that represented Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal.

3. Sonic Life: A Memoir, by Thurston Moore (Doubleday, 2023). I’m more interested in the underground rock milieu (particularly in New York) from which Sonic Youth sprang than their music, but I still found much of this account from their (usually) guitarist and co-founder of interest. I don’t have as mixed feelings about many rock autobios as this one, and not only because I’m not a fan of the band. There’s a lot of inside detail about his and the group’s roots in New York’s no wave scene of the late 1970s and early 1980s, as well as his immersion in underground noise rock and punk, which took him from Connecticut suburbia to the heart of Manhattan’s alternative downtown arts scene. Much of it’s relayed in an inviting personal manner with a fair amount of wit and thoughtful perspective on his and his peers’ strengths and flaws, without the overt condescension or snobbery that afflicts some memoirs by figures who operated far outside of the mainstream. Initially, at least; Sonic Youth didn’t become as big as some of the acts they influenced or toured with, particularly Nirvana. But they did sign to a major label for a long time, eventually sold their share of records and played on bills with stars and iconic figures like Neil Young and Yoko Ono, and got to play on network TV and major festivals.

Moore traces this unlikely ascendance, but the coverage gets less and less intense and thorough from the late l980s onward, almost as though the text is putting a foot on the accelerator and rushing through the years with greater haste in the later sections. There are also many testimonies to how great and groundbreaking acts he admired were, particularly in concert, which can get wearing if you’re not a big listener to some of those. Although he occasionally mentions some obscure records and acts he admires as a huge collector of music (and books and zines) that aren’t in the noise-punk vein, most of the ones he depicts are. There’s a pronounced tilt toward music and approaches that were transgressive—sometimes obnoxiously so, as he sometimes acknowledges. That could please devotees of Sonic Youth and others working similar territory, and Sonic Youth’s own records and internal dynamics are often analyzed at length. There’s no doubting his enthusiasm for the alternative rock genres he and others were crucial to instigating, but it can feel like a limited world after many tributes to the value of noise and hardcore acts, from the most famous to the virtually unknown.

4. Euphoric Recall, by Peter Jesperson (Minnesota Historical Society Press). Jesperson was an important figure in the Minneapolis alternative rock scene in the late twentieth century, particularly through his involvement with Twin/Tone Records and a stint managing the Replacements. His autobiography includes plenty of material on those jobs, but traces his journey through the music business from his time as a teenage clerk in the city’s most famous record store, Oak Folkjokeopus, to his move to Los Angeles, where he worked at the New West label in the early twenty-first century. Along the way he was tour manager for R.E.M., if rather briefly, in their very early career. The meticulous detail of his recollections might be too much for non-indie rock geeks, as he often notes almost every stop on some of the Replacements/Residents tours. So might his unabashed enthusiasm for many, many bands he interacted with or just admired—not just pretty well known ones like the Replacements and R.E.M., but acts that might not be automatically familiar even to those who try to keep track of everything going on, like 13 Engines, the Dashboard Saviors, and early Minneapolis new wave acts like Fingerprints. Then again, it could be argued that all-out music enthusiasts like Jesperson are precisely this book’s audience, and want to know as much as they can about Paul Westerberg’s songwriting and cult acts like Jack Logan, whose career Jesperson was vital to enabling.

Although his tone is usually upbeat, almost excitedly so, the harder knocks of the music business aren’t ignored. He might have just been too much of a fan, and too nice a guy devoted to music more than the bottom line, to rise to the top echelons of the business, though he did pretty well. He was let go from R.E.M. as tour manager, he notes (if briefly), in part because the group wanted someone more hard-nosed. The Replacements fired him as manager after a few years in the kind of not-fully-explained fashion that’s pretty common in rock. That band’s legendary erratic shows and rowdy and sometimes downright repellent behavior, such as thoroughly trashing a touring van Jesperson had gone to pains to secure, is also not ignored, though perhaps not criticized as much as it could have been. Jesperson himself developed an alcohol problem so serious it threatened his life, though he’s now been sober for decades. While his extensive time at New West isn’t covered as much as his Minneapolis days, here too he raves about acts that didn’t catch on in a big way, like the Leatherwoods, and notes that he his focus on helping acts whose music he loved ultimately made it hard to survive in an increasingly profit-minded record business.

5. Crying in the Rain: The Perfect Harmony and Imperfect Lives of the Everly Brothers, by Mark Ribowsky (Backbeat). For all their monumental importance to rock history, the Everly Brothers haven’t been honored with many biographies. This is only the second one I’m aware of, and at this point it’s hard to do many first-hand interviews for such a project, with both Everlys gone, as well as most of the important people with whom they were associated. There doesn’t seem to have been much if any such research for this effort, although it ties together much of which is known, itself a service given the lack of books about the duo. This doesn’t just highlight the hits, discussing many of their albums, even some of their obscure ones, in depth and providing a lot of detail about both the hits and their many fine lesser-known tracks. Their sometimes troubled fraternal relationships and marriages are also covered, though friction between Don and Phil might be played up to some degree. There’s a little too much contextual detail about the popular music scenes in which they operated, and the text often throws lists of tracks and chart positions at the reader, though there’s much considered critical analysis as well.

Although it’s not too easy to find now, Roger White’s slimmer 1984 book The Everly Brothers: Walk Right Back is recommended as a supplement to this new one. It doesn’t have as much description of the tracks and specific albums and singles, but does have a good deal of first-hand interview material, along with a wealth of photos. Both volumes also document their touring activities, and Crying in the Rain has a lot of material on numerous TV appearances.

As every year starts, it doesn’t seem possible there will be enough new music history documentaries up my alley to fill out a Top Ten list, let alone a Top Twenty one. Yet this year, as in most recent years, there have been more than enough. And there aren’t less documentaries are being made about more distant times – pre-1980s ones, say – as time goes on. If anything, there seem to be more, especially if you count some restorations, like I do.

A note about whether all of ones I picked belong in a 2024 list: there seems to be more and more vagueness about what release year should be considered “official” as time goes on. Quite a few documentaries, including some listed here, “premiere” at a festival or some select screening, but don’t really become distributed or accessible to the public to a significant extent for a good year or two. At some screenings, including a couple I attended, it’s even announced that the film isn’t in its final version and/or in general distribution, even though the screenings charged admission to the audience. 

I’ve generally gone with including films that did not seem to become known to more than a select few until 2024. As always, I’ve also put a supplementary list of documentaries of note that definitely were available in 2023, but which I didn’t see until 2024.

1. Stax: Soulsville USA (HBO). Justly and widely acclaimed, this four-part, approximately four-hour series covers the history of Stax Records well. Well enough, in fact, that there’s not to much to say about the format or criticize. It largely goes for the straightforward mix of first-hand interviews and archive footage, wisely letting the story be told by the music, the performances, and people who were there, though Stax historian Rob Bowman is one of the talking heads. The range of interviews used in the film is impressive, including some with key figures who are no longer alive. They range from star musicians like Booker T. Jones and Steve Cropper of Booker T. & the MG’s, Isaac Hayes, and Sam Moore of Sam & Dave to executive Al Bell, important songwriters like David Porter, and Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton, the brother and sister who founded Stax.

Also heard from are lesser knowns from the engineering, songwriting, session musician, and promotional departments who have interesting stories to tell. If the performance clips tend to be brief, some are rare enough to, as the cliché goes in these kind of reviews, make you hope some will be used in full as bonus features in an expanded release. Stax’s role in helping bringing people of different races together is properly hailed, but so are some of the tensions in severely segregated Memphis that sometimes made it hard to the label to operate, and sometimes fueled tension within the company.

Even with four hours, for those with a deep knowledge of Stax’s history, this will seem like something of a highlight survey. Some interesting performers, and certainly a good number of notable records, are barely noted or not mentioned. While CBS and the Memphis Union Planters Bank are targeted in some depth as the key factors that drove Stax out of business in the mid-‘70s just a few years after the label was still at the pinnacle of its success, it should be noted that some books and other writing on Stax cover other elements that helped lead to its demise. For all of these details, there are other sources to fill in the picture, particularly Bowman’s book Soulsville USA and Robert Gordon’s Respect Yourself, as well as the two-hour 2007 documentary Respect Yourself. 

2. Let It Be (Disney+). The 1970 Beatles documentary (actually filmed in January 1969) Let It Be is renowned, even among many non-fanatics and non-collectors, for not having been available as a home video release for many years. In fact it was legitimately issued on VHS, if a long time ago, and it really hasn’t been too hard to see in non-authorized fashions in the decades it’s been officially unavailable. Still, its ready accessibility via streaming in 2024 is welcomed, and not just because it makes it easier to see, whether you’ve seen it many times and never seen it. This edition has been restored and looks significantly better than it did in its other iterations, including its 1970 theatrical release.

Unsurprisingly, some intense Beatles fans have voiced mixed feelings about the restoration, some feeling, for instance, that it’s not entirely faithful to how it was intended to originally look. The vast majority of viewers and fans, however, will probably find it considerably more enjoyable than it’s been in the past, even if you don’t care too much about restoration improvements. In part that’s because even the original release was grainy (partly a result of the original 16mm footage, intended for television, being blown up to 35mm for the theaters), and the sound imperfect, particularly the often mumbled or virtually inaudible spoken dialogue. Not everyone feels it’s proper to view such a sacrosanct item with subtitles, but they really do help you figure out many of the spoken exchanges, even if a good share of them are incidental or mundane.

As for the film itself, to repurpose the kind of cliché that sports broadcasters use when effusing over Shohei Ohtani, “What more can you say that hasn’t been said already?” It should be pointed out, however, that this is not a film that was made redundant by Peter Jackson’s justly hailed seven-hour Get Back docuseries a few years ago, which presented much more footage taken by director Michael Lindsay-Hogg than made the original Let It Be movie. There’s not much overlap between the two projects. Let It Be isn’t a day-by-day exposition of what the Beatles were doing this month; it’s more a survey of representative scenes from their rehearsals and recording sessions, capped by complete versions of future hit singles (“Let It Be” and “The Long and Winding Road”) in Apple’s studio, and then the legendary rooftop concert highlights.

It’s often been labeled as an inadvertent document of the Beatles’ breakup (although they would subsequently record Abbey Road and not break up with final certainty until April 1970),  and some historical revisionism, including by Lindsay-Hogg and Jackson, has contended the group were actually having a lot of fun this month. Certainly they were, and certainly at the rooftop concert. But it would be inaccurate to argue some serious tensions weren’t caught on film, including uncertainty about what they were doing — a concert, a documentary, an album, or some/all/none of the above —and George Harrison temporarily quitting (discussed in depth in Get Back, but not at all in Let It Be). My take, not shared by everyone, is that it kind of captures the Beatles in an in-between mode — sometimes as good as ever, sometimes clearly floundering. There are certainly enough good/interesting moments — like their joyously ragged version of “Besame Mucho” and working out “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” and (with just George and Ringo) “Octopus’s Garden” — to make the non-complete performance segments of the film worthwhile. There’s also the occasional hint at serious discord, like the famous brief sort-of-argument over how to play a guitar part between Paul McCartney and Harrison, or McCartney complaining about the group’s malaise to a pretty unresponsive John Lennon.

This would have contended for my #1 spot had this somehow only found its initial release this year, rather than having been around for many years and been seen by fans such as myself numerous times in inferior-looking versions. Note that there are some slight differences between the actual content of this version and previous ones. On the Disney Plus streaming, the film’s preceded by a brief (a little less than five minutes) discussion between Jackson and Lindsay-Hogg about the restoration. The end credits are different from the original ones, and are soundtracked by bits from the sessions that weren’t in the original film or released on record while the Beatles were active. The rooftop scene doesn’t stop with a freeze-frame of the Beatles as they finish their rooftop concert; they leave the scene in real time before the credits roll.

3. Revival69. While this is a documentary about the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival festival in September 1969, it should be clarified this is not a concert film, though there’s a fair amount of concert footage. Much footage from Little Richard and the Plastic Ono Band’s sets, and some from the sets by Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, and Jerry Lee Lewis, have come out on other home video releases. When I first saw a basic description of this 2024 release, I thought it might just repackage some or all of that. It’s an entirely different project, however, and a very interesting one. It’s a documentary about the festival itself, with as much or more attention paid to the seat-of-the-pants fashion in how it was organized as to the music at the event (which is also covered, not to worry).

While some of the participants are no longer alive, John Lennon being the most celebrated, an impressive number of others were interviewed, including promoter John Brower, musicians Robby Krieger, Alice Cooper, Klaus Voormann (bassist in the Plastic Ono Band), Alan White (drummer in the Plastic Ono Band), John and Yoko’s assistant Anthony Fawcett, concertgoers, the motorcycle gang head who put up some money for the festival, and even members of the film crew and Berry’s pickup band. The concert sequences are brief (if, in the case of Lewis and Berry especially, highly impressive), but effectively complement the storytelling, which uses some other footage taken around or related to the festival. There are even tapes of phone calls by the organizers as they tried to pull off the festival, and especially stunning is the use of tapes of phone calls actually made at the Beatles’ Apple organization.

Going by the accounts in the film, the festival, and Lennon’s appearance, hung by more of a thread than even the usual histories of the event have detailed. Had they not caught John and Yoko at Apple while journalist Ritchie Yorke happened to be there to vouch for their legitimacy, Lennon might not have gone; even as the rest of the band gathered at the airport to fly over, John and Yoko were begging off, a report that Eric Clapton (in the Plastic Ono Band for this appearance) was already at the airport apparently the key motivator in getting Lennon energized to make the flight. Had the organizers not been able to publicize Lennon’s appearance, the concert – also featuring the Doors and Gene Vincent — might have been canceled. Instead we had a key event in Lennon’s career, marking his first official concert outside of the Beatles, that was documented on film.

Lennon’s participation understandably gets a good deal of attention in this documentary, but the other acts on the bill are not neglected, even if, sadly, there’s no Doors footage; Krieger speculates Jim Morrison might have prevented them being filmed. It does make one wonder if more uncirculating concert footage might be available, and if it could be released at some point. As it is, this is a well-paced documentary that packs a lot of info and entertainment into its 80 minutes or so.

4. The Beach Boys (Disney+). There have been two previous documentaries on the Beach Boys, 1985’s The Beach Boys: An American Band and 2000’s Endless Harmony. This new, nearly two-hour one covers much of the same territory, as you’d expect, and doesn’t have factual discoveries that will surprise knowledgeable fans of the group. For those who are learning about the band, and for most who will be familiar with the story, it’s still pretty good, and more honest and forthright in its perspectives than the previous docs. Many of these are first-hand, benefiting from recent interviews with Mike Love, Al Jardine, and Bruce Johnston (though few from Brian Wilson), as well as archive interviews with Brian Wilson, Carl Wilson, and Dennis Wilson. Crucially, some other band members who weren’t with them for so long and are barely or not acknowledged in other histories are also heard from, those being early guitarist David Marks and early-‘70s addition Blondie Chaplin. Some key insiders are also interviewed either for the doc or in archive footage, including Brian’s first wife Marilyn Rovell, Wrecking Crew musicians Carol Kaye, Don Randi, and Hal Blaine, and lyricists Tony Asher and Van Dyke Parks.

There’s also quite a bit of performance footage, even if they’re pretty brief excerpts of songs, and some home movies, silent performance footage, and (again brief) 1960s studio footage, some of which is rare and perhaps not previously seen, at least by me. Most of the focus is properly on their first and best half dozen years, though some of the post-Smile era through their mid-‘70s comeback on the tails of Endless Summer is discussed. There’s too much commentary from a few artists and, particularly, one critic (Josh Kun) who didn’t play roles in the Beach Boys’ career. But fortunately, there’s not a great deal of such material, with most of the interviews reserved for the Beach Boys and associates.

As for the controversies and relatively dark sides of the story that are barely or untouched in previous documentaries (and some books), these include Dennis Wilson’s friendship with Charles Manson (with whom one meeting was enough for Love); Brian’s withdrawal from the group after they failed to complete Smile; and, most notably, the abusive behavior of the Wilson brothers’ father Murry, as well as his sale of their publishing for far less than it would ultimately be worth. Even this gets a fair hearing from different sides, Rovell opining a couple times that the Beach Boys would have never gotten to where they were without their father’s early efforts on their behalf. Some other relatively behind-the-scenes developments aren’t covered, like Carl’s protracted struggle to be granted conscientious objector status; the placement of Chuck Berry’s name on songwriting credits to “Surfin’ USA,” owing to that hit’s liberal borrowing from Berry’s “Sweet Little Sixteen”; and the strange management stint of the mysterious Jack Rieley in the early 1970s. This still gets most of the story down with a wider lens than the previous major documentaries, although their story’s interesting and involved enough to merit, if not the length of the Beatles’ Anthology, at least double the length of this feature.

5. Catching Fire: The Story of Anita Pallenberg. Pallenberg, as many Rolling Stones fans know, was about as influential on their figureheads’ lives as anyone who wasn’t in the group was in the 1960s and 1970s. She was Brian Jones’s girlfriend in the mid-1960s (and the most serious of his many girlfriends), then Keith Richards’s common-law wife from 1967 to the end of the 1970s (and mother of his first children), and also a co-star with Mick Jagger in the film Performance. This is a good documentary on a woman who, while figuring strongly in numerous biographies of the group, still retained some mystery as to her origins and professional/personal activities. Much though not all of this is filled in here with rare film clips of her (though mostly silent) from the mid-1960s onward, as well as interviews with the son and daughter she had with Richards and some interesting associates who aren’t usually heard from, like Volker Schlondorff (director of the 1967 movie in which she starred, A Degree of Murder); Sandy Lieberson, a producer of Performance; and Stash Klossowski, the aristocratic close friend of Brian Jones. Richards and Marianne Faithfull are represented by voiceover clips, and Anita herself by excerpts from her unpublished autobiography, voiced by Scarlett Johansson.

Pallenberg does not come off well in some Stones biographies, but is represented in a more positive light here, though not a sanitized one. Several insiders testify to her magnetism, intelligence, and skills (if curtailed by her concentration on family life and Richards’s reluctance for her to work) as an actress, as seen in a few clips of her films, some rare. Her problems with drugs and the responsibilities of motherhood are not overlooked, and nor is the incident in the late 1970s in which a young man killed himself in her home. Of note are details on her influence on a few Rolling Stones songs, including “Sister Morphine,” “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” and “You Got the Silver.” The voiced excerpts from her memoir are interesting and articulate, making one wonder if there’s any chance the book can be published, and why it hasn’t appeared.

6. Electric Lady Studios: A Jimi Hendrix Vision. New York’s Electric Lady Studios, still going today, was constructed specifically for Jimi Hendrix’s wishes and needs, though he only got to use it a little after its mid-1970 opening, and it was used by other artists from the start. This documentary is available as a Blu-ray disc in a four-disc box of the same title including three CDs of material Hendrix recorded at Electric Ladyland in mid-1970s (though some of it built upon slightly earlier tracks), most of it previously unreleased. As this movie did play in theaters, and is worth a detailed review of its own, I’m reviewing it within this video roundup. A review focusing on the music on the three CDs will be included in this blog’s roundup of the year’s notable reissue albums.

The film focuses on how Electric Lady was conceived and constructed, and what Hendrix managed to record and work on there before his September 1970 death. As Hendrix documentaries go, this is pretty specialized, and even more so than the recent documentary on Hendrix in Maui that was also directed by Hendrix author and authority John McDermott. But if you’re heavily into Hendrix, this is fairly interesting, with interviews (both recent and archival) with a wealth of figures, including most prominently engineer Eddie Kramer. Bassist Billy Cox and several early Electric Lady engineers, designers, and staff also participate, and there’s some (if not much) seldom seen vintage footage of Jimi and related subjects from the era, as well as many pictures of the studio under construction.

One of the best stories, from engineer (and ex-Amboy Dukes drummer) Dave Palmer, is how he lived right across the street from the studios, and was woken by a phone call from Kramer instructing him to get right over at a moment’s notice because Hendrix was recording with Stevie Winwood and a drummer was immediately needed. One of the most surprising side notes is that some of the first recordings done in the studio were for an album based around readings from the book The Joy of Sex. Kramer and Palmer isolate and highlight some aspects of the album Hendrix was finishing (which he never did, though many recordings from the sessions were posthumously issued) at Electric Lady in 1970. It’s also clearly illustrated how complicated it was to build and complete the studios, with constant shortages of cash forcing Hendrix to raise money on the road and borrow against royalties, and mistakes and misjudgements on where to build and what equipment to use costing time and money. This doesn’t go into the many artists recording albums in Electric Lady over the last half century, but does cover some early such sessions, particularly for Carly Simon and Stevie Wonder.

7. Save the Children: A Concert for the Ages (Netflix). Should this be considered a mere restoration of an obscure film, or an actual 2024 re-release? And a 2024 one, since it bills 2023 as the year of its restoration, but wasn’t readily accessible until it streamed on Netflix the following year? Since not many saw this documentary of performances at the 1972 Operation PUSH exposition in Chicago when it came out in 1973, and the restoration didn’t get a ton of publicity, I feel it’s appropriate to place this in the regular 2024 listings. Founded by Jesse Jackson (who appears in the documentary), PUSH stood for People United to Save Humanity. As part of its 1972 expo, many African-American entertainers performed, primarily soul acts, though there were others as well. Excerpts from their performances are the basis of this two-hour film.

The lineup is extraordinary, and as close to what was (not all that accurately) sometimes termed the “Black Woodstock” as the 1969 Harlem performances featured in the Summer of Soul documentary. It includes Marvin Gaye, the Temptations, Jerry Butler, the Jackson 5, Gladys Knight & the Pips, Curtis Mayfield, Bill Withers, the O’Jays, the Chi-Lites, and the Main Ingredient. On the jazzier side, there’s Cannonball Adderley, Roberta Flack, Nancy Wilson, Ramsey Lewis, and Sammy Davis Jr., whose introduction acknowledges (to some negative response from the audience) that his political views—he supported Richard Nixon for president—were not among the most welcome in such a crowd. Highlights include Gaye’s live version of “What’s Going On,” with legendary Motown session bassist James Jamerson in the band; the outrageously colorful space suit-like wardrobe of the O’Jays; Knight’s almost hyperfast arrangement of “I Heard It Through the Grapevine”; Mayfield’s guitar work with a live band as he approached his Superfly era; the Temptations’ vocal interplay on “Papa Was a Rolling Stone”; the Chi-Lites’ use of a melodica onstage; and the strong soul of one of the least known performers featured, Zulema.

This isn’t as strong a cinematic work as Summer of Soul or Wattstax. The concert excerpts are sometimes too short; there are frequent interspersions of footage of African-American urban life, sometimes cut to while the soundtrack of performances continues to play; and too-long scenes featuring gospel and Jackson’s speeches. But this certainly ranks among the top soul music concert documentaries of the era. While the publicity for it, like it was for Summer of Soul, trumpeted how it was virtually lost and rescued, in fact some performances have been used for DVD compilations of clips by the Temptations and Marvin Gaye.

8. Beatles ’64 (Disney +). When the Beatles first came to the US in February 1964, their trip was followed by filmmakers Albert and David Maysles for the TV documentary What’s Happening!: The Beatles in the U.S.A. This more extensive production is kind of like watching an expanded version with a lot of additional context that makes the action easier to follow. Besides a lot of footage from the Maysles’ movie, there are clips from their Ed Sullivan Show appearances and first US concert in Washington, DC; short clips from archival interviews with the Beatles and Carnegie Hall show promoter Sid Bernstein; and recent interviews done specifically for this documentary. Much of the footage from What’s Happening! and the Sullivan shows/DC concert will be familiar to many Beatles fans – not just intense Beatlemaniacs, but plenty who are more general dedicated admirers of the group, since it’s been available in several formats for years. 

So a little surprisingly, considering modern linking interviews are often the weakest part of such documentaries, those interviews are the most interesting segments for snobs like me who’ve seen it all before, or seen most of it. Besides memories from Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, there are brief but worthwhile observations about the Beatles’ relation to African-American music from Smokey Robinson and Ronald Isley. One of the fans seen screaming for the Beatles outside their New York hotel in the 1964 documentary was tracked down for her comments. So was Jack Douglas, who’d work with John Lennon as a producer, but as a mid-1960s teenager went with a friend to Liverpool to play music there with a friend. Even for viewers who might not find out much from this film, it’s an okay overview worth seeing, if those who haven’t seen the Maysles documentary will find it fresher and more exciting.

9. Daytime Revolution. In February 1972, John Lennon and Yoko Ono co-hosted Mike Douglas’s daytime talk show. Besides being interviewed by Douglas and performing some songs, they also brought on quite a few adventurous and eclectic guests. Although this documentary has quite a few clips from the shows, its main value isn’t in that footage, as the complete episodes were issued on home video quite a few years ago. The segments of highest interest are recent interviews with many of the participants, including an associate producer of the program and guests, including Ralph Nader, avant-garde musician David Rosenboom, a Japanese-American singer/activist, a macrobiotic chef, and a biofeedback researcher. Unfortunately Ono wasn’t interviewed, but besides discussion of the appearances of these figures on the show, there’s also commentary about some of the other colorful and famous guests, those being Chuck Berry, Bobby Seale, Jerry Rubin, and George Carlin. It’s hard to believe Lennon, Ono, and their friends were given so much airtime, but they generally made good use of it, with Douglas being a sympathetic and efficient interviewer, though he was of a different generation than the counterculture the couple and their guests represented. The film effectively alternates clips from the show with interviews done for the project, letting the footage and the interviews tell the story without undue embellishment or interference.

10. Eno. Even with all of the reviews I’ve done in my career, this is one unlike any other. As many already know, every screening of this Brian Eno documentary is different, as it’s generated by a software program. There are no less than 52 quintillion possible variations, which in layperson’s terms is literally a billion billion. So if everyone on the planet spent their whole lives generating and watching variations, they wouldn’t come close to seeing every one. It also means that every reviewer will have seen a different version, or different versions, even if they’re dedicated enough to go to ten or twenty screenings. Considering they draw from thirty hours of Eno interviews and 500 hours of footage from Eno’s archive, it would take a few months to get through all of that raw material even if you spent all of your working weeks doing nothing but watching that.

My review’s based on just one puny viewing of a 90-minute variation. As wary as I was about the enterprise given its unique format, my expectations were surpassed. Even being aware a lot of possibilities weren’t being shown, it covered a lot of material in a pretty engaging, if non-linear and non-super-in-depth way, from his art school roots and Roxy Music through his brief time as a solo glam (at least in image) rocker, his ambient music for airports, his first public lecture (a much more enjoyable segment than that might sound), and his collaborations with David Bowie, Talking Heads, Devo, and others. Whether in recent or archive interviews, Eno talks in an articulate but humorous, down-to-earth fashion, even when espousing some philosophical musings about the meaning of music and art. The transitions are sometimes a bit bumpy, but usually the segments, often separated by computer text, could stand on their own. So could the variation I saw, though many viewers and critics would have been wondering why some notable projects, like his My Life with the Bush of Ghosts collaboration with David Byrne and his production of the No New York no wave compilation, weren’t even mentioned.

Presumably those and quite a few other aspects of his career that were missing or glanced over are covered in other variations of the film. From a friend who has seen two screenings, I did hear that at least based on those, there’s more overlap between variations than you might expect given the publicity about the Carl Sagan-type numbers, though there were significant differences too. I’m not going to try to see 52 quintillion ones, or even 52, but I wouldn’t mind seeing a couple others down the line, especially if it goes into streaming, which is being worked on despite the technical challenges.

11. Billy Preston: That’s the Way God Planned It. Considering he had notable stints as a sideman with both the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, and that he had some huge hit records as a solo artist, Preston hasn’t gotten a great deal of historical attention. This documentary goes some way to making up for that, but isn’t as good as it could have been. On the good side, there’s a lot of archive footage, some of it rarely seen and amazing, like his appearance on the Soul! TV show; his appearance as a pre-teen on Nat King Cole’s variety show; clips of his mother playing and singing; and the more expected bits of him with the Beatles in January 1969 and at the Concert for Bangladesh. There are snippets of archive interviews with Preston, but quite a few recent ones, ranging from major figures like Eric Clapton and Ringo Starr to soul singers Gloria Jones and Merry Clayton, along with family, friends, and associates not known to the public.

While the essence of Preston’s considerable talents at blending soul, rock, and gospel come across, the first half is certainly better than the second, which charts his descent into drug abuse, health problems, prison, and a struggle to remain in the music business. Most of his career highlights are here, but sometimes presented in a fashion that makes it hard to track the sequence of events; his guest appearance on John Lennon’s “Instant Karma” pops up after later events in the first half of the 1970s. Not discussed are his release of “My Sweet Lord” and “All Things Pass” prior to George Harrison’s far more famous versions; his contributions to Starr’s Ringo album, including playing on “I’m the Greatest” with Starr, Harrison, and Lennon; or “Melody,” the song on which Preston made his most significant contribution to the Rolling Stones.

Maybe this is the griping of a music nerd who doesn’t care as much about his personal difficulties as his music, though those problems, including struggles with his sexual identity, have their place in a documentary. Those issues are drawn out longer than they should be in the film’s final sections. It’s interesting to learn, however, that a planned autobiography co-written with David Ritz didn’t happen owing to what Ritz describes as Preston’s reluctance to go deep into personal matters, and that his cover of the Beatles’ “Blackbird” was considered as the A-side to the single that became a massive hit, “Will It Go Round in Circles.”

12. One to One: John & Yoko. A few documentaries have covered and/or even focused on John Lennon and Yoko Ono in the early 1970s, including one, Daytime Revolution, that’s higher on this list. Here’s another one, and while there’s some overlap with other documentaries (though not much with Daytime Revolution), there are some differences in the content and approach. I hadn’t heard the term “mixtape” applied to movies as well as musical efforts, but this film was repeatedly referred to as one at the special screening where I saw it. From my understanding, this means a movie that not only addresses its principal subject, but also adds a lot of almost soundbite-style clips related to the era or subject, quickly switching back and forth between them. The director appeared at the screening I saw, and noted it was at least in part inspired by John and Yoko’s frequent television watching at the time, since the scenes are constantly changing and separated by the kind of fuzzy white noise frames you see when the television is between channels.

One to One: John & Yoko is named after the benefit concerts they gave on August 30, 1972 in New York for a nearby facility for intellectually impaired children. These were the only full-length shows Lennon gave after the Beatles split, but although there’s a fair amount of footage from them in this film, it’s not exactly the focus. Songs from the concert are interspersed throughout the movie, but the film doesn’t discuss how and why it was staged until relatively late in the proceedings. This is more a look at Lennon and Ono’s time in New York in 1971 and 1972, when they were at their most politically active, and when that activism was most specifically reflected in their music, though most critics and listeners (including this one) feel that their 1972 album Sometime in New York was a major disappointment, and a low point in Lennon’s catalog.

Although the concert footage is pretty good, the most interesting aspects of this documentary are the rarest or previously unheard/unseen components. These aren’t so much the home movies as excerpts from recently unearthed tapes of telephone conversations, including bits with well known figures like Allen Klein, May Pang, Jerry Rubin, and creepy Dylanologist A.J. Weberman. As my favorite example, Lennon explains to Klein he wants to do a concert tour where a quarter of the money goes toward bailing out prisoners; Klein doesn’t respond as a hard-boiled businessman, but matter-of-factly seems to be affirming and going along with John’s plan. Which didn’t come off; as the film later notes, Lennon called off the tour, in part because he was alienated from radicals like Rubin by plans for protesting the Republican convention that might have endangered people with violence, including children.

The many short clips that aren’t specifically related to John and Yoko range from Jerry Rubin on a talk show, the attempted assassination of George Wallace, and Shirley Chisholm’s presidential campaign to tacky period commercials and Attica prison riots. There’s too much of this contextual material, and while what Lennon and Ono were up to at this time is interesting regardless of the quality of the music they were making, there’s not a whole lot here that dedicated fans won’t know from books and other documentaries. Although Stevie Wonder’s briefly seen in this documentary at a rally for John Sinclair where John and Yoko also performed, it doesn’t mention that Roberta Flack also appeared. And quite a bit of footage from the actual One to One concert was made available on VHS back in 1986 on the John Lennon Live in New York City video. While this is worthwhile for Lennon/Ono fans and provides a lot of background to the era and their activism for viewers who might not know a lot of the history, it’s generally more hectic and variable that it needs to or should be. It might not be widely seen soon; I attended only the second US screening at a documentary series, and while the director hopes to have it picked up by a distributor in 2025, he said it might take longer than that. 

13. Return of the King: The Fall and Rise of Elvis Presley (Netflix). This is different from the usual Elvis Presley documentary in that much of the focus is on his fallow years—the decade or so between his induction into the army and his 1968 TV comeback special. Thus the title “the fall and rise,” without too much material on his initial rise. There’s more than most Elvis biographical projects have—quite a bit, encompassing most of the 1960s—on the years in which he didn’t perform live and was mostly occupied with poor and progressively worse movies. The presentation could be overcontextualized, with too many table-setting interviews with various figures—some famous, some who didn’t have any direct relation to Elvis—explaining why he was so talented and important. There are, however, some good inside comments from Priscilla Presley and Elvis’s friend Jerry Schilling, along with more general observations about Presley’s significance from the likes of Bruce Springsteen and Conan O’Brien.

While his comeback on a 1968 network TV special takes a lot of time in the film’s final sections, note that it’s examined in greater depth in the 2023 documentary Reinventing Elvis: The ’68 Comeback, which has interviews with some figures (notably director Steve Binder) not represented in Return of the King. Coverage of the TV special in Return of the King is notable for including some outtake footage indicating how nervous he initially was at the prospect of performing before a live audience for the first time in seven years, and how he flubbed some attempts at takes in skits in which he might have been nearly as engaged. There are a couple of uncommon perspectives about his comeback, one being that his 1967 gospel album How Great Thou Art—not usually regarded as a career highlight—is seen as a turning point in Presley returning to what inspired him most, though singles like “Guitar Man” and “U.S. Male” are more often cited as recordings indicating he was ready to rock out again. Also, and refreshingly, it’s pointed out that the skits in the comeback special aren’t that good and more representative of what manager Tom Parker would have wanted the program to present than the famous live sequences of him performing before a small audience.

14. The Road to Ruane. Except perhaps in Boston, Billy Ruane isn’t a name known to most rock fans. He promoted a lot of underground rock shows by both local and touring acts in Boston in the 1990s, and there’s footage of a lot of them in this film. That might not sound like the most exciting subject for a documentary, especially if you’re not particularly a fan of this scene—the numerous brief clips range from barely known names to the likes of Sonic Youth, the Pixies, Elliott Smith, and lesser knowns like the Volcano Suns, Buffalo Tom, and Mary Lou Lord, to give you an idea. But this is a pretty interesting and well made movie no matter what your musical taste and knowledge, as the primary focus—particularly after the first section, which does emphasize such footage—is not so much on the local music as the unusual life and character of Ruane himself.

Ruane was manic depressive, and though that might have fired his manic enthusiasm for music (not just underground rock, though that’s what he was most involved in as a professional), it probably made him hard to be around for most people. He’s often athletically dancing to shows (including those he promoted) in the archive footage, and while that’s fun to watch, it might not have always been such fun to experience when he got out of control, which wasn’t that rare. Like many such behind-the-scenes movers and shakers, he was also a manic collector. Unlike all such movers and shakers, he could be exceedingly generous, often paying acts way more than they were getting elsewhere, or far more than they expected. He also helped out musicians and friends quite a bit otherwise, often financially.

How could he do this? He was a rogue son of a very successful financial professional who had ties to Warren Buffett. That wasn’t as much of a benefit as it might sound, since he also had a troubled family life, which found his mother committing suicide when he was 18, and Ruane himself developing symptoms of instability and mental illness from a young age. That led to his premature decline and death in middle age, an uncomfortable period that is nonetheless covered though not overemphasized near the end of the film. The production includes an incredible wealth of interviews with musicians and associates for such a relatively non-famous figure, including some pretty well known ones (Peter Wolf, J. Mascis, Thurston Moore), but a wealth of unfamiliar names with something of interest to say or remember. The interviews and archive footage are blended well for this well made film, although it might be a bit longer than the topic merits.

15. Something in the Air: A Rock Radio Revolution. Although this has had a few screenings, it’s not in general release and is in fact still fundraising for completion to its final form. Nonetheless, I did see it in a San Francisco movie theater this year, and assuming it will be similar to what I saw if it gains wider release, I’m reviewing it here. This documentary covers the most famous San Francisco rock radio station, KSAN, as well as the brief early time much of its staff worked at KMPX before moving to KSAN after disputes with KMPX ownership. There were a few underground FM rock stations that originated throughout the US when KMPX adopted that format in 1967. But KMPX and then (after much of the staff jumped ship to a different frequency in 1968) KSAN might have been the most celebrated of those anywhere. That was due to both their freewheeling content and the big audience it had in the Bay Area, feeding off the heyday of the region’s psychedelic sound live and on record.

The film has interviews with many of the station’s DJs, newscasters, and other staff, some of whom have died since they were filmed for the project. Those interviewed include some of the most famous on-air personalities, including Raechel Donahue (widow of Tom Donahue, who did more than anyone to launch the format), DJ Dusty Street, newscaster Scoop Nisker, musicians (including a few big names like Carlos Santana), and rock journalists Ben Fong-Torres (also sometimes a DJ) and Joel Selvin. There’s not a whole lot of vintage footage, but there’s some, and Tom Donahue’s path from AM radio DJ/record label owner/show promoter to countercultural icon is traced. There are amusing stories, some but not all drug-related, about the looseness of the on-air programming, as well as their key coverage of the Symbionese Liberation Army when the station was given tapes by fugitives in the SLA.

The more troubled late-‘70s era when KSAN both pioneered some commercial new wave radio programming and found it difficult to balance with the older forms of rock with which it had been established is also discussed. So is its unwelcome transition to a country format in the early 1980s, when the very counterculture that had fueled the format’s rise was dissipating. The focus does sometimes go back and forth chronologically a little haphazardly, sometimes jumping from the hippie era to early punk and new wave and back again. It’s also hard to get excited about how KSAN’s airing of early material by Montrose was daring and significant, though the station’s frequent broadcasting of live shows is justly praised. Overall this is a reasonable overview of an important and groundbreaking station (or stations, if you’re counting both KMPX and KSAN), though in need of some more polish.

16. The Session Man. The session man is Nicky Hopkins, the great British keyboardist who played on sessions for many classic records in the 1960s and 1970s, including ones by the Who, the Kinks, the Rolling Stones, the Beatles (just once, on “Revolution”), Jefferson Airplane, John Lennon, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, and others. He was also a member of the Jeff Beck Group and Quicksilver Messenger Service for a while, and even sort of honored by Ray Davies on the Kinks song “Session Man,” on which he played. This fairly interesting documentary has quite a list of interviewees remembering Hopkins and testifying to his gifts, including Dave Davies, Keith Richards, Jorma Kaukonen, Bill Wyman, engineer/producer Glyn Johns, producer Shel Talmy, Graham Parker, and (by archive footage) Mick Jagger. There are also substantial excerpts of a couple interviews Hopkins himself gave late in his life and one done for this film with his second wife, as well as comments by lesser known musicians, some of whom demonstrate famous Hopkins piano parts.

As a film, it’s not as great as the list of contributors. The excerpts of sound recordings on which Hopkins played are very short and usually in the background of the soundtrack. This seems partly why it’s left to those not-so-well-known pianists to play famous parts like those Nicky played on the Rolling Stones’ “She’s a Rainbow” and “Sympathy for the Devil” (and the not as famous one he did for the Who’s “The Ox”). There’s not much footage of Hopkins himself playing in his prime, though he’s glimpsed in short snippets of the Stones working in the studio in 1968 that appeared in One Plus One (aka Sympathy for the Devil). The segments are separated by sections in which his credits for specific artists are briefly on the screen, which then goes to black before the next part is announced with the title of the artist. That’s a picky criticism, yes, but it gets tiring when the device is used over and over.

Hopkins made important contributions to many records, but wasn’t the most colorful guy. Many of the comments are similar in general praise of his versatility and ability to blend rock, blues, and classical style, but short on specific neat stories. It’s noted that his affliction with Crohn’s disease sometimes made it difficult for him to work and contributed to his death at age fifty, and also that Chick Corea was responsible for getting him into rehab, which likely extended his life. According to one interview, Hopkins was offered a place in Wings, but didn’t pursue it when told he had to audition—a story I’ve never come across in Paul McCartney literature, of which I’ve read quite a bit. Again this will strike some as picky, but the narrator says at this point that McCartney had known him for more than twenty years when he made this offer—impossible, since even if that was at the very end of Wings’ lifespan, that would have meant they’d known each other since around the late 1950s. Maybe it was meant Paul made an offer to join his band in the late 1980s when Hopkins did play on a McCartney album, but Wings had long since disbanded then, and it’s a sloppy mistake.

17. Immediate Family (Magnolia). This started to do the round of festivals in 2022, but the 2024 Blu-Ray has a lot of bonus content, which is enough to get it into this list. Immediate Family is the name given to a clique of L.A. session musicians, a la what the Wrecking Crew had been in the 1960s, who played on many records in the 1970s – and also beyond, though the ‘70s albums on which they appear are the most renowned. These included albums, some very famous, by the likes of Carole King, Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, James Taylor, and Warren Zevon. Immediate Family have toured on their own in recent years, and members are interviewed in this documentary, including drummer Russ Kunkel, bassist Leland Sklar, guitarist Danny Kortchmar, and guitarist Waddy Wachtel. So are a good number of the musicians and producers they worked with, including King, Browne, Ronstadt, Taylor, David Crosby, and producers Peter Asher and Lou Adler.

In keeping with the music they played, this film, or at least the first and best part of it, is solid but not spectacular. There’s a bit of footage of the stars and their sidemen from back in the ‘70s, but the bulk of it is devoted to interviews articulating their memories of how they became a go-to team in Hollywood studios. Not all of it’s just about hits like Tapestry and Sweet Baby James; Kortchmar’s roots in the King Bees and the Flying Machine, and Kunkel’s in Things to Come, are noted if not discussed in too much depth. There are also quite a few touring stories, as they’d often back musicians like Browne on the road, and while they might be holding back some of the more salacious ones, there’s an unexpected account of Linda Ronstadt enthusiastically joining with the boys to check out a strip club (and her being required to sing a bit to gain entrance as she didn’t have an ID). After the first hour, the 100-minute doc gets less interesting as it gets into the 1980s and slicker music (which endangered many sessioneers’ living) with the likes of Phil Collins, as well as some coverage of the recent live shows by Immediate Family.

The extras on the Blu-Ray aren’t incidental, adding up to three hours, according to the back cover blurb. An hour of this presents a roundtable discussion between all of the Immediate Family members that, unlike many such things, is coherent and fairly interesting, avoiding having them speak over each other or make silly in-jokes. Most of the rest has extended interview material with people who are interviewed in the documentary—not Immediate Family, but the stars they backed and associated producers, too. While some of this content is of limited appeal, there are some observations and stories of value, like detailed comments on James Taylor’s guitar style, and Kortchmar’s take on whether Taylor wanted to be in a band or go solo. These interview segments (though not the roundtable discussion) are hindered, however, by a ten-second ad of sorts separating each and every part of the specific interviews, flashing logos and sites associated with the documentary while the exact same instrumental passage plays. This doesn’t just happen a few times; it happens dozens of times. It’s an annoyance that’s rude to the viewer.

18. Brenda Lee: Rockin’ Around: American Masters (PBS). Like some other American Masters episodes, this flashes by the highlights—or some of them, anyway—of a career of a major artist pretty quickly, inevitably providing only a partial picture. As this is just an hour long, that’s more of an issue here than it is in some of the series’ longer episodes. It also zigzags quite a bit in her chronology, and although there are some performance clips, they are very brief—a shame, since some of them are pretty rare to my knowledge, like one of a very young Lee singing “Hound Dog” (which she didn’t put on her records). It does, however, have quite a bit of recent interview footage with Brenda in which she discusses her tough upbringing, the challenges of being a young star, and not only pioneering the role of women in rock, but also going into other genres, particularly country. The only significant peer from her prime among the other interviewees is Jackie DeShannon, who has some good comments about songs she wrote that Lee covered, as well as about Brenda’s general artistic stature. Other interviewees are mostly stars testifying to her influence, none of whom (Pat Benatar, Trisha Yearwood, Keith Urban, Tanya Tucker) were old enough to be performing during Lee’s prime. Although, to be fair, not many of the people who worked with her in the 1950s and 1960s, like producer Owen Bradley, are still around.

The co-author of Lee’s autobiography, incidentally, claims that she had more double-sided hits on singles than anyone. That’s not so; Elvis Presley certainly had more, as did others including Ricky Nelson and Pat Boone, even if you’re limiting yourself to the mid-1950s through the mid-1960s. Lee says she was the first woman rocker, and while she was the first big female rock star (unless perhaps you count Connie Francis as a rock singer), as far as being the first, certainly LaVern Baker predated her; Wanda Jackson did her first rock records around the same time; and some more obscure women rockers debuted around the time Lee did. Her achievements are enough to stand on their own without being inflated. And it’s too bad this documentary somehow didn’t mention that she recorded a 1964 hit single, “Is It True,” in England with then-session man Jimmy Page on guitar.

19. Wes Bound: The Genius of Wes Montgomery (PBS). This modest hour-long documentary is a reminder that for some major musical artists of the 1950s and 1960s, there aren’t many people around any longer to supply first-hand memories. So it is for Wes Montgomery, often acclaimed as one of the greatest jazz guitarists, though few survive who worked with him. While this relies on testimonials from others about his music — a couple quite famous (George Benson and Pat Metheny), more often quite obscure — this does cover the outlines of his career, with his son Robert providing much of the linking context and commentary. Montgomery wasn’t filmed terribly often either, but this does have some excerpts of his work from 1965 European performances (available in much greater length on the Live in ’65 DVD), a much earlier solo he took while in Lionel Hampton’s band, and a 1968 interview conducted shortly before his death. 

20. Disco: Soundtrack of a Revolution (PBS/BBC). Lasting almost three hours, this three-part series covers disco’s birth and heyday in the usual competent PBS/BBC fashion. There’s plenty of archive footage of performers and clubs, and lots of interviews with figures who were important in the genre, from artists, session musicians, and producers to DJs, clubgoers, and journalists. Maybe it’s a little more geared toward rapid cuts from soundbites than other public television music documentaries, owing to the party pace of the subject. There’s a wide range of commentary on the music from several angles, from drummer Earl Young demonstrating the construction of disco’s signature beat to singers like George McRae, Nona Hendryx, Candi Staton, and Anita Ward, producer Tom Moulton, and journalist Vince Aletti. Aside from the music and records, much attention’s given to its roots in gay and black clubs, as well as famed clubs and spaces like Studio 54; the prominent role of black women as disco artists; and the backlash against disco as the 1970s ended.

Certainly there are plenty of figures who aren’t covered, from producers like Giorgio Moroder to artists like Boney M. and Silver Convention, and the European branch of disco isn’t covered to any significant degree. The section on house and disco offshoots at the end could have been shortened. Plenty of territory is covered in the space allotted, however, making it of musical and social interest even for viewers who aren’t especially disco fans.

The following movies came out in 2023 (and perhaps 2022 depending on what release date you see), but I didn’t see them until 2024:

1. Jerry Lee Lewis, Trouble in Mind. This has an official release date of 2022, but really it didn’t seem to be widely seen and streamed until 2024. Putting it in the 2023 section splits the difference. This is unconventionally structured for a documentary as it doesn’t tell a linear story, or use narration or interviews done specifically for the film. Instead there are a wealth of vintage performance clips—some complete, more often excerpted—along with an abundance of vintage interview clips, usually brief soundbites, with Lewis. There are also brief bits of interviews with associates like Lewis’s sister, but it’s almost entirely Jerry Lee’s show. The clips span almost his entire career, from his 1957 performance of “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” on the Steve Allen show—shown in its entirety, and tremendously exciting—to a 2020 song when he was close to death. Both his rock’n’roll and country material/incarnations are covered. There are also some duet performances, including ones with his cousin Mickey Gilley and Little Richard.

Since there’s generally too much in the way of unnecessary and even irrelevant commentary/narration in music documentaries, I generally approve of letting the music and artist speak for themselves. That generally works here, in part because Lewis was a very good and consistent performer, though you sometimes wish the performance excerpts were longer. The pluses considerably outweigh the flaws in this film, but it could be said that it’s on the short side at 73 minutes, and there’s certainly enough fine Lewis on film to fill more time. Some of the cuts between different versions of the same song are a bit hectic. While Lewis is generally witty (and unrepentant) in discussing his career with interviewers, these observations are brief and disconnected enough to make it hard for viewers without considerable familiarity with his work to get a full sense of his career trajectory and accomplishments. There are books, if imperfect ones, to fill in those gaps. Certainly Jerry Lee isn’t shy at taking credit for his greatness in what we hear on screen in this documentary, if uncomfortably blithe in talking about some of the more controversial aspects of his life.

2. Lost Angel: The Genius of Judee Sill (Greenwich Entertainment). Sill only had a couple singer-songwriter albums in the early 1970s, but has generated a sizable cult following in the twenty-first century. Her discography is slim, though it’s been embellished by some unreleased material and live recordings. But there’s enough archival material—including some performance footage (though some of it’s in lo-fi black and white), audio interviews, and diary entries (here voiced rather than read by Sill)—to form a substantial part of this hour and a half documentary. More of it’s devoted to comments from people who knew and worked with Sill, and the roster of interviewees is impressive, including Graham Nash, Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, David Crosby, David Geffen, and Jim Pons of the Leaves/Turtles, along with far less celebrated musical colleagues and friends. There’s also praise from younger musicians who admire Sill’s music, and while her two albums and touring during the early-1970s are detailed, so are her harrowing experiences before and after her brief recording career. Those include extensive drug use, at least some time as a prostitute, and severe physical pain from car accidents and surgery in her final years, exacerbated by her failure to gain a record deal after her two LPs for the Asylum label.

While this is a solid documentary—especially considering there wasn’t abundant source material with which to work—it might not convince viewers such as myself who don’t rate Sill’s records too highly of her greatness. Sill herself seemed convinced of it, but there was a gap between her goal to quickly ascend to stardom and her modest sales at the time, though she had the backing of Geffen and his then-new Asylum label. There’s speculation Geffen dropped her because of some unflattering remarks she made about him, which the record executive refutes here; as to a story that she camped out on his lawn to pressure him, he notes he didn’t have a lawn. While the praise from Nash, Browne, and Ronstadt is so fulsome it seems at times like they regard Sill as having more talent than they do, there really isn’t a mystery as to why she didn’t become nearly as successful—her music wasn’t as accessible or possessed of nearly as much wide appeal. And, in my opinion, not nearly as good, and unrealistic to view as having failed to connect with the masses because of bad breaks or alleged lack of promotion. Whether or not others agree, the music itself is extensively and intelligently discussed, including her blend of period singer-songwriter rock with gospel, jazz, orchestration, and classical flavors, as well as lyrics that sometimes blended religion with sexuality.

This is, incidentally, another film that first screened in 2022 but didn’t seem to get widely seen until 2024. The DVD has a 2023 copyright date, so I’m putting it in the 2023 section.

3. Carole King, Home Again: Live from the Great Lawn, Central Park, New York City, May 26, 1973 (Ode). Actually first screened in 2022, this didn’t make it onto DVD until 2023. It was shown on PBS a lot too, but the DVD gives you the full 80-minute running time without pledge breaks. It’s a straightforward film of this concert before a large audience, with a sizable introductory segment explaining King’s basic rise to stardom and how the concert was arranged, with voiceover from King and producer Lou Adler. King and Adler occasionally have voiceovers during the main concert portion too, but mostly that’s presented without embellishment. The first half of the performance was devoted to King solo at the piano; in the second half, she was accompanied by a band with jazz-rock fusion flavor, in line with what was at the time her more recent material.

It’s curious there’s no “I Feel the Earth Move”  or “So Far Away,” and she didn’t revisit some of the classics she wrote with Gerry Goffin that she redid in her early solo career, like “Will You Love Me Tomorrow,” “A Natural Woman,” and “Up on the Roof.” The songs from her about-to-be-released Fantasy album would have been unfamiliar to the audience, which doesn’t seem to mind, and are still not among her more familiar works, other than the small hit single “Corazon.” But King performs well and with ebullience, and there’s none of the drama associated with some outdoor festival or festival-like events of the time, other than some worry about concertgoers climbing towers. The hockey jerseys worn by some of the backup band are not explained.

According to the liner notes of the recent Mothers of the Invention archive release Whisky a Go Go, 1968, the material on this triple CD was recorded on July 23, 1968 “with the event to be secretly recorded for an upcoming record album.” There was no live Mothers album in the 1960s, and there wouldn’t be one until 1971, by which time there was an entirely new lineup, albeit still led by Frank Zappa.

It doesn’t sound like this recording would have made for an especially good 1968 live LP, and not just because the sound, while pretty good for a 1968 concert recording, isn’t quite as sharp as it should have been for an official release. There’s nothing from their then-recent and brilliant album We’re Only in It for the Money. In fact it seems like they were for the most part avoiding their most accessible songs for not-so-brilliant (certainly without the visuals) comedy and avant-garde-ish improvisation. Maybe they deliberately wanted to showcase sides of their repertoire not heard on their first three albums, but it’s not a great loss it didn’t appear at the time.

This post isn’t a review of the Whisky a Go Go CD, which will be reviewed (and not at great length) in my upcoming year-end roundup of noteworthy 2024 reissues. Thinking about it, however, did make me think generally about how relatively few landmark or “signature” rock albums were made in the 1960s – and how many were attempted, and often released. There were more such concert LPs in the 1970s by the likes of the Allman Brothers (Fillmore East), Cheap Trick (Live in Budokan), and if you want to dig down toward lesser known acts, Humble Pie (Fillmore East again). Or live albums that, if not usually cited as one of an artist’s top efforts, were nonetheless often cited as quite significant for their quality and/or broadening their audience, like Lou Reed’s Rock’n’Roll Animal. 

There were good and even great live albums recorded in the 1960s, of course. But even among those, some of them didn’t come out until after the 1960s—sometimes way after the 1960s—and some were only half of a double LP, paired with a studio set. 

This post looks at twenty or so live albums by top 1960s acts and how notable they are in the context of their entire discography. It doesn’t survey every notable act of the time by any means; some great bands, like the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, Love, Them, and the Pretty Things, didn’t put out live albums in their peak years, and didn’t even leave anything behind in terms of unreleased concert recordings that are truly of release quality. Not too many of the live recordings that did come out would be rated as highlights of their catalog, let alone signature albums, although many contain fine music.

The Beatles: Starting with the usual guys who top such lists, although the Beatles didn’t release live albums while they were active, they made a number of attempts. George Martin seriously considered making their debut LP a live recording at the Cavern in Liverpool before deciding, probably wisely, they could replicate their onstage energy with better acoustics at EMI’s London studios. There were hopes to record a live album at their first US concerts at Carnegie Hall in February 1964, but this was thwarted by the musicians’ union.

Capitol Records famously recorded them at the Hollywood Bowl in 1964 and 1965, but the sound quality and performances were not considered up to standard, the Beatles having a hard time even hearing themselves above the audience screams. Some tracks came out in 1977 on the official At the Hollywood Bowl album, and a few more are on the CD, which took many years to come out. They’re fun, but virtually everyone would agree, including the Beatles, that the group were much better in the studio. Not that they were bad live – far from it, but the conditions were so haphazard that no one could have played and recorded near their full potential. That’s also true of several Beatleamania-era concert bootlegs that aren’t too dissimilar, like their 1965 Shea Stadium show or, more obscurely, a 1964 Philadelphia performance.

They considered making a live album—unusually, comprised of new material—in early 1969, though like other ideas floated during the Get Back era, it didn’t come close to getting realized. Some of Let It Be could be considered a live album, since some of it was recorded during their famous January 30, 1969 Apple rooftop performance. While that’s very good, it’s not really a live LP, and wouldn’t be even if the whole rooftop performance was issued separately. That performance was too short to make a full album, especially considering there were some multiple versions of the same song.

There’s also the double live LP of material taped live in Hamburg in late December 1962, not issued until about fifteen years later. Historically interesting it undeniably is, but the fidelity really is subpar – much more so than the Hollywood Bowl tapes. And the actual performances, while sometimes exciting, are also often sloppy.

In a way there is a live Beatles album—several, in fact. Because many tracks from their 1962-65 BBC radio sessions survive, though most of them were recorded in a studio, not in front of a live audience. But the performances are often great, and whether you have them on the official CD sets or bootlegs, they do what many live albums aim to do. They show them playing with a somewhat different, more spontaneous energy than they did in the studio, and very often—three dozen times—playing songs (all but one covers) not on their official studio LPs, quite often resulting in great cuts. This could be said of the BBC sessions of many British 1960s rockers, but no one utilized them as often and as well as the Beatles did.

The Rolling Stones: As great as the Rolling Stones were, few live albums by top ‘60s rock acts missed the mark as badly as 1966’s Got Live If You Want It. The sound quality was substandard, and worse, some of the tracks were obviously studio performances overdubbed with audience noise. There’s actually some good energy here if you make your ears fight through the fidelity, but the live versions are sometimes rushed, and no match for the studio counterparts.

A live UK 1965 EP of the same title (most of which came out on different US LPs) also suffered from non-optimum fidelity, though the performances were better than those used for the US Got Live album. Many Stones fans are probably still unaware that you can get a pretty fair facsimile of what that EP would sound like blown up to a full-length LP as one of the discs on the expensive Charlie Is My Darling box, which is built around the 1965 film documentary of them touring Ireland. With songs like “Little Red Rooster,” “Off the Hook,” “Time Is On My Side,” and “The Last Time” that aren’t on the EP, it almost adds up to a bona fide album, all of it recorded around the same time as the EP that did come out. But it was done shortly before they started writing their best original mid-‘60s songs, “The Last Time” excepted. And the sound quality just isn’t good enough to put this in the top rank, seeming more like a very above-average bootleg for a mid-‘60s live concert—not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out, recorded during their US tour in late 1969, is highly esteemed by many, though it turns out some studio overdubbing was later done to the tapes. Certainly it has some pretty different versions of staples like “Street Fighting Man” and particularly “Sympathy for the Devil,” but those actually aren’t as good as the classic studio counterparts. Only “Midnight Rambler” actually surpasses the studio prototype. And Mick Taylor had replaced Brian Jones, meaning there aren’t live Stones relics that capture them with their best lineup, for all Taylor’s estimable contributions.

The Who: Tommy will always be their most well known album, if not always the one most highly regarded by critics. Many Who fans would say Live at Leeds, from just outside the 1960s (recorded in early 1970), comes close, and/or at least certainly ranks among the best live rock albums. In one of my many unpopular opinions, I don’t feel that way, even though I’m a big Who fan. Live their arrangements had gotten too heavy and sometimes overlong for me, as heard not only on the original Live at Leeds, but also on the much longer superdeluxe box, and some other live recordings from the period, both official and unofficial.

The Who did make a serious effort at recording a live album when they weren’t quite as heavy, though still almost as heavy as any band around, at the Fillmore East in April 1968. Recordings from this finally came out a few years ago, and while they’re pretty good, I wouldn’t say they rate among the all-time best of concert tapes from this era. Bonuses include songs they hadn’t put on their records, like the anti-smoking commercial “Little Billy,” a few Eddie Cochran covers, the early soul classic “Fortune Teller,” and some interesting improvisation on the relatively unheralded “Relax.” A big minus is the 33-minute version of “My Generation,” which is ridiculously overlong.

For all the testaments that the Who were a better band live in the ‘60s than on their records—and such accolades are given to many acts, past to present—as actual listening experiences, as opposed to being there when they’re smashing their equipment and such, their concert tapes are considerably less satisfying. 

Note, by the way, that some of the Fillmore material was bootlegged for decades from an acetate that Who manager/producer Kit Lambert made of performances from the Fillmore East shows. Some April 5, 1968 cuts from that acetate aren’t on the official Live at the Fillmore East 1968 release. You can be forgiven for wondering if there’s going to be a deluxe version of that in the future that requires completists to buy it, even if they already have much of it on the Live at the Fillmore East 1968 that’s already out.

The Yardbirds: The Yardbirds put out two albums of live 1960s material, though one was only officially available briefly, and not until 1971. The more commonly heard one was their first LP, Five Live Yardbirds, recorded in 1964 with the Eric Clapton lineup. It’s one of the few debut albums by a top ‘60s act that was live, other examples being live LPs by John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, Georgie Fame, and the MC5.

Although the fidelity on Five Live Yardbirds is only fair, it did the job it was supposed to, capturing the Clapton lineup in good form. A crucial advantage being that, unlike the Beatles and Rolling Stones, they weren’t hindered by huge screaming crowds, as this was recorded in a London club before they had a hit record. On “Smokestack Lightning” and “Here ‘Tis” especially they excel—the whole band, not just Clapton—with their signature raveups, instrumental interplay, and hectic improvisation.

But the album isn’t markedly better than the three studio singles they did with Clapton. Actually those singles are arguably on the whole better, with only “Smokestack Lightning” and “Here ‘Tis” equaling them. Even if Clapton hated the last A-side he did with them, their first hit, “For Your Love”—and he is on there, in the middle part.

The story behind the live album they recorded at New York’s Anderson Theatre in March 1968 is different and peculiar. Done with the Jimmy Page lineup a few months before they broke up, it’s okay, but not the Yardbirds or even the Page lineup at their greatest. It’s of most interest for including a pre-Led Zeppelin “Dazed and Confused,” though even that was done better for the BBC and on French TV. As by now is pretty well known, it was exhumed in 1971 as Live Yardbirds Featuring Jimmy Page to capitalize on Led Zeppelin’s success. It was quickly withdrawn due to Page’s objections, and no one was totally satisfied with it even as a souvenir, since it was overdubbed with ridiculous fake audience noise, often termed “bullfight cheers.”

Predictably, this was soon easily available as a bootleg. It was reconstructed without the fake cheers for an authorized 2017 release, Yardbirds ’68. That was naturally better, but not perfect, as most of singer Keith Relf’s between-song comments were taken out. More seriously, some of the musical performances were edited. Five Live Yardbirds was more successful at representing a different lineup, but as usual, the studio recordings were where they were at their best, whether with Clapton, Page, or (especially) Jeff Beck.

John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers: They weren’t among the highest-selling acts of the ‘60s, but they were very important and good. And they put out two live albums. The first, John Mayall Plays John Mayall, isn’t so widely commented upon, likely because it doesn’t feature any of the three guitarists (Clapton, Peter Green, and Mick Taylor) who did memorable stints in the Bluesbreakers. Recorded in a London club in late 1964, it was taped even before Clapton joined, with the relatively unknown Roger Dean on guitar.

It’s actually very good R&B rock, and not too dissimilar from what the Rolling Stones were doing very early on when they were primarily a cover band, a difference being that Mayall wrote most of the LP’s material. Although it wasn’t issued in the US at the time, it became pretty easy to get in the early 1970s, when it was the second disc on the American two-LP compilation Down the Line. But it wasn’t as good as Mayall’s best work with Clapton and Green. There are sketchy and fairly lo-fi albums of live material from both of those lineups, none of them coming close to doing the musicians justice, mostly but not wholly because of the sound quality.

Recorded in the Fillmore East in July 1969 shortly after Taylor left, The Turning Point is actually one of the albums discussed in this post that comes closest to being a signature statement. It’s probably Mayall’s most well known album other than the sole LP the Bluesbreakers did with Clapton, simply titled Bluesbreakers. It ends with what is probably Mayall’s most well known individual track, “Room to Move.” 

So why isn’t it a signature statement? Not just because there’s no Clapton, Green, or Mayall. The Bluesbreakers changed lineups so many times that no one album could serve as a signature statement, no matter what one’s individual opinion.

The Doors: Though released in 1970, the double LP Absolutely Live was recorded between July 1969 and May 1970. I’ve always had mixed feelings about the record. On the one hand, it absolutely delivers what many listeners hope to get from live albums, and don’t regularly get: numerous songs, both covers and original, not available (at least in 1970) on studio LPs. Some of the songs that were familiar from studio versions were done significantly differently in concert.

Yet for all that, and decent sound quality to boot, it’s not on par with their studio material. At times—not just here, but on many of the Doors’ numerous posthumous archive concert albums—they don’t seem to be taking the material 100% seriously. It makes for a different angle on the group, certainly, but not as good a one as they had in the studio, where they didn’t joke around.

Absolutely Live is for me something of a neat, quirky footnote to their main body of work. Their March 1967 Matrix recordings, recently assembled in a deluxe box (though some had been previously released, and most had been bootlegged), are easily the best live ones available. They’re quite serious playing this small San Francisco club, a few months before “Light My Fire” became a hit. But the slightly imperfect sound, and performances that, while exciting, can’t equal the magnificence of their early studio discs, and put this out of the top tier of the Doors catalog.

The Beach Boys: I’ve read a rock critic essay, written back in the late 1960s, that slammed the Doors for not being nearly as good live as they were on their records, almost as if they and their producer were cheating. A similar sentiment was expressed in the entry for the Beach Boys in the 1972 book Encyclopedia of Rock’n’Roll, a slim volume that was nonetheless one of the first rock reference books, with the tagline “a concise guide to the young sounds of 1954-1963.” “In person, the Beach Boys were and are nothing short of terrible; but on record, they’re fantastic,” it read. “Brian Wilson turned a mediocre group into one of the best sounds on wax.”

Actually numerous mid-1960s film clips, from when Brian was still performing with the group, are pretty exciting and testify they could play well in concert. You wouldn’t guess it, however, from the one live album they issued in the 1960s, Beach Boys Concert, recorded in 1964. The sound is thin—yes, markedly inferior to the studio versions—the performance sometimes rushed, and the between-song commentary often dated and corny. There are cover versions they hadn’t put on their studio releases, but while their take on “Little Old Lady From Pasadena” is pretty good, no one really needed to hear their version of “Monster Mash.”

The Beach Boys made several attempts at recording live in the 1960s, some of which have come out on archive releases. One batch of recordings from December 1968, Live in London, did come out in 1970, though then only in the UK. Alas, some of the same general problems afflicted other live Beach Boys tapes too. They sounded perfunctory, sometimes even half-hearted, compared to the records. Even more than most top acts who weren’t at their best on live tapes, the Beach Boys didn’t seem to have it in them to make a good concert album, let alone one that would be considered a highlight of their discography.

This didn’t bother listeners in 1964, who sent the Concert album to #1—the only #1 LP the Beach Boys had in the 1960s. Such were the commercial depths to which the group fell within a decade, however, that as an 11-year-old in 1973, I bought a reissue of the album on the budget Pickwick label for a dollar—new, not used. By the following year the group’s live (and general) fortunes revived when the Endless Summer compilation was a #1 hit, though they’d never make a fine live album, or indeed studio records to match the quality of what they’d done in the 1960s.

Bob Dylan: Several attempts were made to tape a live Dylan album in the 1960s, including a couple during his early folk period. Those have come out on official archive releases. So has another concert recording that’s far more famous, of him in Manchester, England in spring 1966. Half of it has him solo acoustic; the other, more renowned and notorious half is loud electric rock with the Hawks (later the Band) backing him. This electric half in particular was bootlegged for almost thirty years before the whole show, which had often been erroneously labeled as recorded in London’s Albert Hall on bootlegs, was officially issued on CD.

It could have easily come out as a stopgap release in 1967, when Dylan was out of the public eye after his famous summer 1966 motorcycle accident. Maybe it was felt his Greatest Hits compilation, which did come out to fill the gap, was a better bet. Had it come out shortly after it was recorded, it probably would have been enthusiastically received, especially as both the acoustic and electric arrangements often differed notably and interestingly from the studio versions.

But would it have been received as a signature statement? I don’t think so, in part because while Dylan didn’t have a reputation as a focused studio perfectionist, actually the studio versions were more focused, with better fidelity. And, in cases where electric rock studio tracks were done as solo acoustic tunes (like “Just Like a Woman”), the studio rock versions were simply better and fuller. 

It would be interesting to see how this Live at Albert Hall (as it was frequently mistitled) album would have fared back in 1967. Not so much on the charts, where it almost certainly would have done well, but with listeners and critics. I think it would have been viewed as a very good and cool supplement to what Dylan had done in the mid-1960s, but not better or equal. The luster it acquired among many critics and listeners might have been inflated by its very rarity, or at least lack of easy availability for those not aware of how to acquire unauthorized recordings. Those who were perhaps felt like they were being let in on a secret, or given access denied to much of the public.

Jefferson Airplane: More than any other item on this list, the Airplane’s late-‘60s concert album, Bless Its Pointed Little Head, falls in between a disappointment and a signature record. It never seems to have been intended as either a major statement or something to fill out a release schedule. It was just a decent concert recording that gave satisfyingly different, but not radically different, arrangements than what they were doing in the studio. There were good covers they didn’t fit on their studio albums, like “The Other Side of This Life” and “Fat Angel.” It was a worthwhile part of their discography that, to use a cliche, did what it was supposed to do, or what live albums were supposed to do, pretty well.

Pink Floyd: Ummagumma in some ways approached being a signature album, at least in the US in 1969, where (unlike in the UK and some other countries) they were just becoming widely known. So many listeners wouldn’t have heard the original studio versions of the songs that comprised the live half of the LP: “Astronomy Domine” (the original of which actually wouldn’t be issued in the US for many years), “Careful With That Axe, Eugene,” “Set the Controls For the Heart of the Sun,” and “A Saucerful of Secrets.” The last three of these were pretty similar to the studio versions in some respects, but with four songs occupying two sides of an LP, were more drawn-out. The sound was excellent—indeed, much better than most of the rock concert LP competition. 

And even as a big fan of the Floyd’s Syd Barrett era, “Astronomy Domine” was the definitive version. Doubling the length of the studio track on their first LP, the David Gilmour lineup simply surpasses the prototype here, with superb alternation of tense passages building to creepy crescendos and languid, reflective spaced-out ones. 

Although Ummagumma was successful in expanding the band’s following in the US and internationally, there’s a simple reason it wouldn’t have been received as a signature album. It’s hardly a secret, but the second disc in the two-LP set had studio performances of new material. Except for “Grantchester Meadows,” it wasn’t in the same league as the songs on the live set.

But the group doesn’t seem to have intended this to be solely a studio or solely a concert record; the intent seems very much to have mixed both. Maybe if they’d decided to make a double live LP featuring some of their other best early songs, and adding a live version of “Grantchester Meadows” (which they could do very well live, as some recordings prove), it would have been greeted as a major concert record. But this wasn’t the case, and Pink Floyd wouldn’t issue another live or even partially live album during their prime.

Cream: As long as we’re on half-live/half-studio double albums, Wheels of Fire was not just a lot more popular than Ummagumma, but the most successful such record of the era, and maybe of all time. Commercially, that is; it made #1 in 1968. It had pretty good music, if more on the studio disc, which besides the big hit “White Room” had some of Cream’s better studio tracks, like “Politician” and “Born Under a Bad Sign.” 

At the time, the live part might have been at least as popular, with “Crossroads” and the most famous (or infamous) rock song of the period with a long drum solo, “Toad.” Now, and for some listeners even then, it wasn’t as good as what they did in the studio. Besides “Crossroads,” the four tracks were just too long and indulgent. It did function as a representation of something they wouldn’t put on studio albums, showcasing their lengthy improvisations. But besides this getting disqualified as a signature album because half of it isn’t live, it wouldn’t hold up as a highlight of Cream’s work owing both to its lesser quality than their studio material, and not reflecting all or even most sides of their repertoire and sound.

Jimi Hendrix: Sticking with heavy rock for a bit, Hendrix put out just one live album during his lifetime, though there are many – not just a half dozen – live albums available now, and indeed they continue to get issued posthumously fairly regularly. The one that came out while he was still alive was Band of Gypsys. This is also the only non-posthumous one with the actual Band of Gypsys, Hendrix playing with bassist Billy Cox and drummer Buddy Miles. Recorded on New Year’s Day 1970, its release was at least partially motivated by a complicated contractual obligation rooted in a dispute with a former producer.

Quite a few years ago, a review of a reissue of this called it the jewel of the Hendrix catalog. I don’t see it that way at all, and I think a pretty low percentage of Jimi’s fans view it as the jewel, or even one of the best of his records. Certainly it’s interesting, and “Machine Gun” does rate as a highlight of his catalog, if we’re just talking songs. But though some fans and critics feel he should have been playing with more soul/R&B-rooted musicians instead of the original Experience, this isn’t as good or versatile as what Hendrix did with Mitch Mitchell and Noel Redding. It’s heavier blues-soul-rock, sometimes sluggish and overlong. Just the presence of Buddy Miles as sometime lead vocalist eliminates this from being close to Hendrix’s best, though Miles’s “Changes” was one of the best songs.

Like some other albums in this post, this has been given an expanded CD treatment. In this case, a very expanded one, as there was a five-CD box of his Fillmore East sets from December 31, 1969 and January 1, 1970. It gives you quite a few more songs and the expected multiple versions of songs from the original LP, but doesn’t change my general evaluation.

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young: Although some critics don’t regard this too highly, 4 Way Street comes closer to being a signature album than most of the entries here. Of course that’s helped by CSNY (at first as CSN) only putting out two studio albums during their prime. But 4 Way Street was an extremely successful record, getting to #1 as a double album. Just as importantly, the two-LP format gave the group a chance to present songs not on their studio albums, and in formats that their studio LPs wouldn’t have allowed.

Specifically, there was the chance to hear solo performances, or performances by only part of the group, that were regular features of their concerts. There were extended versions of some of their most popular songs, particularly “Carry On.” There were some of the most popular songs they did outside of CSNY, like Neil Young’s “Southern Man,” extended to thirteen minutes, Stephen Stills’s “Love the One You’re With,” and Graham Nash’s “Chicago.” In these respects, it was more representative of their concerts than their studio work.

Still, these tracks weren’t as good as the studio versions, though they often gave a distinctly different slant to them. The performances themselves weren’t always 100% tight. If there is a signature CSNY album, it’s Déja Vu, another #1 record, and the only one from their brief prime to have Y (Young) as well as CSN.

The Grateful Dead: Speaking of double live albums, what about 1969’s Live/Dead? Certainly it’s the most highly esteemed of their non-archival live records, even if some might vote for Europe ’72. But there’s so much live Grateful Dead—and with so many Deadheads avidly collecting their official and unofficial live tapes, it’s not a peripheral part of their catalog—that nominating any single live show or collection would be difficult. And while both the band and much of their audience don’t consider their studio recordings as important as experiencing the Dead live, their 1970 albums Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty are both easily their most highly regarded studio LPs and quite different from their live albums/tapes. I think they’re better, too. But their prominence would make it impossible to select any one Dead album, live or not, as the cream of the crop.

Quicksilver Messenger Service: Acts with brief careers, and certainly brief primes, are at an advantage for a live LP getting pegged as definitive, simply because there’s less competition within their discography. Quicksilver’s career actually wasn’t all that short, but almost everyone would agree their peak period was the late 1960s, before their lineup altered when Dino Valente joined. They only put out two LPs in that time, with the live one (and second of the pair), Happy Trails, being the more famous and successful. Most Quicksilver fans—those that are left, as they aren’t among the most well remembered acts of the era—would vote for Happy Trails as their signature album.

I know I’m outvoted, but I’m not a big fan of Happy Trails. Their sheer length of “Who Do You Love,” taking up all of side one at 25 minutes, is chiefly responsible for its popularity, but I find it way too long and not all that interesting. Side two, which got lots less play, doesn’t do too much for me either.

Lest it seem like I just don’t like Quicksilver, actually I do like them during this period—much more than I do the Dead, for instance. But although their self-titled studio debut LP was sometimes criticized as not being that great or reflective of their strengths as a live act, I think it’s pretty good, and certainly superior to Happy Trails. The necessity of working in the studio, as it often does, seemed to focus the arrangements more and orient the song selection toward fairly succinct ones, like their career highlight “Pride of Man.” Even the seven-minute “Gold and Silver” instrumental doesn’t have wasted space.

If fans who were there might maintain Happy Trails doesn’t wholly capture their live glory, by this time there are quite a few official and unofficial live Quicksilver releases from the era. They have their moments, and I would say some are better than Happy Trails. Yet none of them are as good as that underrated studio debut, Quicksilver Messenger Service.

The MC5: More than Happy Trails, and more than any other album here, Kick Out the Jams is the album most people think of first, or even think of only, when it comes to this particular act. While not exactly a hit record, it was easily their most widely heard, and certainly their most notorious—indeed, one of the most notorious from the whole era. Live debut albums are unusual, but this one did make an impact and to some degree define the group, even if it didn’t sell the loads of copies that some might have expected.

To present an unpopular opinion, I’m not a big MC5 fan. Lester Bangs wasn’t a fan of the record when it first came out and he reviewed it. But more to the point, the sound quality isn’t sparkling, and sheer volume and outrage outweigh the quality of the material, which often isn’t that strong. While this gets into revisionist snobbery, their rare pre-LP singles (not so rare now that they’ve been reissued on CD) have sharper playing, and even if the fidelity isn’t top-notch, the energy’s off the charts. The record’s legendary status might have as much to do with their revolutionary reputation and the pure outlandish in-your-faceness of the disc than its inherent merits, and the subsequent controversy it caused when Elektra Records dropped them from the label after the band took out a profane ad with unauthorized use of the Elektra logo.

But although the MC5’s later albums have their champions, not many would favor them above Kick Out the Jams. It overshadows the other records they put out in their original incarnation, and is certainly the first one that comes to mind when the group’s recorded legacy is considered, even among people who aren’t big fans.

The Great Society: Here we have a case where a notable group’s live albums aren’t just their signature statements, but almost their only statements. Most famous for featuring Grace Slick before she joined Jefferson Airplane, the Great Society only managed one barely distributed single (with an early version of “Somebody to Love,” then titled “Someone to Love”) before breaking up in late 1966 when Slick left. To capitalize on Slick’s fame, two albums of live recordings from mid-1966 at San Francisco’s Matrix club were issued in 1968. But they’re not mere historical footnotes. The Great Society were a fine group in their own right, and blended improvisation, jazz, raga, middle eastern music, and folk-rock into innovative and often excellent early San Francisco psychedelia. Early versions of “Somebody to Love” and “White Rabbit” are on the first and better of the two LPs, Conspicuous Only in Its Absence. But the albums have plenty of fine original songs not available elsewhere, and some good covers.

An album’s worth of earlier demos for Autumn Records was issued several decades after these two LPs, so they no longer represent close to 100% of their discography. Those demos show the group in much rougher and less impressive form. So Conspicuous Only in Its Absence and its follow-up How It Was, which have been combined onto one CD, very much overshadow anything else on record by the Great Society. I can’t think of another instance where a significant 1960s rock act is only represented well by live albums.

James Brown: There were plenty of live 1960s soul albums, and though I’m not covering those in this post, I’ll make an exception for one artist. Brown’s Live at the Apollo, recorded in 1962, is sometimes enthused about as if it’s not only one of the greatest live albums, but one of the greatest albums, period. Here’s another instance where I’m probably outvoted, but even as a Brown fan, I don’t share that opinion, and in fact don’t find the record that exciting. It’s less oriented toward his uptempo material than you might expect, and predates his move into his absolute prime in the mid-to-late 1960s when he pioneered funk.

Since Brown (and many soul and rock artists of the time) didn’t pay nearly as much attention to crafting fine full-length albums as making hit singles, there aren’t standalone studio LPs that are nearly as good as his compilations. He did record more live albums, the best of which is the double LP Live at the Apollo Vol. 2, recorded in 1967. If everything on that record was as good as the thrilling near-continuous melody of funk (including “There Was a Time” and “Cold Sweat”) that takes up all of side two, it might just stand as Brown’s best recorded statement, or certainly best album, though his best singles would still be his greatest achievements. But the other three sides of that double LP aren’t nearly as good or cutting-edge, including some of his older ballads, perfunctory covers, and ridiculously short versions of “Out of Sight” and “I Got You (I Feel Good).”

The Velvet Underground: The Velvets didn’t put out a live record when they were active, and that doesn’t seem to have been seriously considered. They weren’t such big record sellers that their labels would be eager to inflate their catalog with a live release. This changed when Lou Reed rose to prominence as a solo artist, and the VU in general started to get more and more deserved accolades for the pioneering quality of their music. Even before “Walk on the Wild Side,” Atlantic had issued, in 1972, a lo-fi recording of them in summer 1970 at Max’s Kansas City (taped on cassette).

The Velvets’ live brilliance is far better represented by the terrific double LP 1969 Velvet Underground Live, recorded at various San Francisco and Dallas gigs in autumn 1969, but not issued until 1974, with Reed’s name in the subtitle. It’s notable not just because of the sky-high quality of the music. It also shows how, much more so than most top bands, they could change around and almost redefine their songs in performance, sometimes with arrangements that were decidedly superior to the studio versions, such as their extended version of “White Light/White Heat.” There were also good songs that hadn’t appeared on their studio albums (or even Reed’s solo albums), like “Over You” and “Sweet Bonnie Brown/It’s Just Too Much.”

But is this the Velvets’ best and/or signature album? Their first LP, 1967’s The Velvet Underground & Nico aka “The Banana Album,” will always be their most famous album by far. There are good reasons for that: besides the basic classic worth of the music, it has some of their best/most celebrated songs, and is the only LP with Nico, though she sings lead on only three tracks. It’s not a signature album since each of their four studio albums were quite different, and worthy in their own way. But their subsequent records will never be as widely hailed, as good as they were.

And 1969 Velvet Underground Live was very good—almost as good as The Velvet Underground & Nico, I’d say. And in some ways more representative of their range, not only because it encompassed material from all three of their first three albums and then some, but also because it had sweet romantic ballads, pummeling proto-punk, joyous celebratory rockers, and more, testifying to the underrated breadth of their repertoire. Some listeners would automatically fail to consider this their best or nearly their best because of the absence of John Cale, who’d left the group in late 1968. But with his replacement Doug Yule, they did reach their peak as a live act, and while these tapes were not originally intended for an album, they couldn’t have captured them better in concert. If not the signature album of the Velvet Underground as a whole, it could certainly be considered the signature album of their underrated period with the Yule lineup.

An enormous amount of valuable rock music was performed on BBC radio in the decade or so after the Beatles’ first session in March 1962. Fortunately tapes of much (though far from all) of it survive, varying in fidelity from superb to lo-fi tinniness that seems to have resulted from putting a home recorder next to a radio speaker. Also fortunately, many BBC tapes have come out on official releases, and many others have unofficially circulated.

In my previous post, I discussed rock radio sessions in the 1960s on the BBC that differed notably from what groups offered on their official recordings. That post focused on a few specific groups I think took the best advantage of the format, all of them well known. Those were the Beatles, Fairport Convention, and Pink Floyd, with an honorable mention to Fleetwood Mac.

It wasn’t too often that anyone presented a BBC version of an officially released studio track and substantially changed the arrangement. There might have been two opposing viewpoints taken into consideration as to whether to do such things. One, and the one probably preferred by fans decades later looking for something different than the official record, would be that the BBC offered a fairly low-pressure environment for experimenting and offering a version as different from the familiar one as the Beatles’ “Revolution” single was from the “Revolution 1” version of the same song on The White Album.

The more cautious and common one is that it would take a lot of effort to reinvent an arrangement for just one BBC performance that, to the performers’ knowledge, wouldn’t be released and just be broadcast once or twice, before it was realized that BBC sessions had some commercial value on reissues many years later. In addition, a lot of acts probably viewed the sessions as promotion for their records, and wouldn’t have thought it sensible to perform versions that varied notably from what you’d hear on official vinyl.

Once in a great while, an act would conjure a BBC variation quite different from the studio version, and in some cases superior. Here are a few obscure ones:

The most obscure of these, but also the most interesting, was by a group who were themselves obscure, Blossom Toes. Their two late-’60s albums were among the best fairly little known ones of the British psychedelic and early progressive rock era, though they’re more well known, at least among collectors, now than they were then. The first of these, We Are Ever So Clean, was wistful psych-pop with traces of the Beatles and the Kinks, but with its own brand of tuneful whimsy. One of the better tracks was “Love Is,” with its melancholic, bittersweet look at fading love. It was embellished, as much of the album was, by orchestration, including a cello.

The BBC version is as different from the studio one as the White Album version of “Revolution” was from the single. There’s no orchestration from session musicians; the song’s much slower and more somber; the harmonies are more haunting; there’s a prominent flute; and, most notably, a ghostly mellotron. It’s almost like the dark doppelganger of the relatively cheery studio counterpart, as if it’s the reflection of what’s really felt when a love affair ends, and not a glossier lament. It’s true that not many are familiar with the original version to begin with, and not too many have concerned themselves with the differences. They’re about as wide as they are on any BBC rock recordings of interest from the 1960s, however, and the BBC version is now fortunately easily available on CD, after only having done the rounds unofficially for many years.

It might have been effective for Blossom Toes to present both of these different arrangements on one album, as is sometimes done for very different versions by plenty of acts, including the Beatles on Sgt. Pepper (with the reprise of the title song). This would almost have subtly conveyed how the romance in the song could be experienced in very different ways. Or, at the very least, to put the BBC version, or a studio recording following the BBC arrangement, on a B-side; as obscure as they were, Blossom Toes did have non-LP-B-side material. This too was sometimes done by acts—not just the Beatles—who did very different versions of the same song on album vs. single. It’s not known if Blossom Toes even thought of this, but the BBC variation is certainly worth hearing.

Wayne Fontana is not nearly as obscure as Blossom Toes. He fronted the Mindbenders on the 1965 #1 classic hit “Game of Love,” after all. His solo career didn’t go so well, and he never made the US Top 100. But he did have some mild British hits, the biggest of which was “Pamela, Pamela,” which almost made the UK Top Ten. It was written by Graham Gouldman, who’d already penned great songs for the Yardbirds and the Hollies.

I’d hardly make the case that Fontana was a major figure of British rock, or that “Pamela, Pamela” was one of Gouldman’s best songs, though it’s okay and has his characteristic deft use of minor melody. I’d hardly given the track much thought since first hearing it more than thirty years ago. So I was a little astounded when I heard the January 6, 1967 BBC version on a double CD of 1964-68 Fontana BBC sessions (about half with the Mindbenders). It sounded pretty good, whereas I’d never thought much of the hit single.

As recorded in the studio, “Pamela, Pamela” is bloated orchestral pop, and not sung particularly well by Wayne, especially at the end, where he strains to hit a really high note. Its BBC counterpart (one of them; he’d record a less distinguished one on January 26, 1968) isn’t nearly as different as Blossom Toes’ “Love Is” from its studio version, but it’s still of particular note for those who are fanatical enough about the British Invasion to invest in a double CD of Fontana radio sessions in the first place. The term “unplugged” wasn’t around in 1967, and this isn’t acoustic solo, but the 1967 BBC “Pamela, Pamela” greatly improves the song by removing the orchestration. Actually the arrangement is effectively minimal, with weedy Greek-flavored guitar and very light percussion, almost amounting to tapping. Fontana’s vocal sounds far more relaxed, and hits the final high note with dramatic ease. It’s as if he’s doing what he wants with the song instead of what is considered to be the most commercial in an age when orchestral pop by Tom Jones was big.

While the double CD itself (titled Live on Air 1964-1968) is no great shakes, it’s far more enjoyable than I braced myself for. Fontana’s singing, while again not for the ages and no match for the best vocalists of his era, is pretty accomplished, and even the non-Mindbenders stuff is largely pleasant, though he only got a truly excellent song with “The Game of Love.” So, as they’d say in the UK, good on you Wayne.

As a third example of a very different BBC version you’re not likely to read about many or any other places, there’s Duffy Power’s October 10, 1964 performance of “Where Am I?” Power was an excellent British blues-rock singer who never had a hit, despite associations with top British musicians like Graham Bond, Duffy Power, and John McLaughlin. He made quite a few records, including some flop singles, one of which was 1964’s “Where Am I?” This sounds like a transparent attempt to mold him for the pop market, as the soul-pop ballad is given soaring orchestration and rather loud, melodramatic female backup vocals.

As with Fontana’s “Pamela, Pamela,” on the BBC, the logical alternative path was to subtract the over-production. Suddenly what sounds like a misguided fire at the pop market sounds like a superb, ghostly mood piece. Sung just by Power with conventional rock instruments, it’s sparse and eerie. Not commercial, but certainly better, and Duffy’s vocal sounds far more comfortable in this setting. Again, this sounds like Duffy doing what he wants, instead of what is thought might sell. It can be heard on the triple CD compilation Live at the BBC Plus Other Innovations; for all his commercial obscurity, there’s a wealth of Power music on CD, both from reissues of official discs and material that was unreleased when it was recorded in the 1960s and early 1970s.