Third Man’s The Rise & Fall of Paramount Records, Volume 2

Nobody has ever accused Jack White of subtlety. The former White Stripe and Raconteur has built a successful career – both solo and with his various band side projects – based on his musical creativity and keen business sensibilities. When it comes to the literal “labor of love,” nobody embraces a project like White, which was proven by the ingenuity and experimentation that went into the special features found on the vinyl version of this year’s solo release, Lazaretto.

White’s Third Man Records label has been reissuing recordings by blues legends Charley Patton, Blind Willie McTell, and the Mississippi Sheiks from the Paramount Records catalog on vinyl for the past couple of years. In 2013, however, the label released a monster box set, The Rise & Fall of Paramount Records, Volume 1, which featured six vinyl record albums, a pair of profusely-illustrated books, and thumb drives featuring some 800 re-mastered tracks from the enormous catalog of the legendary Wisconsin record label, all packaged in a beautiful, hand-crafted oak “cabinet of wonder” designed to look like an antique Victrola record player (and sporting a price tag nearing $500!).

It was an impressive labor of love and a critically-acclaimed, if commercially dubious collection, but that’s never stopped White in the past. So what does he do for an encore? How about The Rise & Fall of Paramount Records, Volume 2, a second enormous box set which covers the years 1928 to 1932, when Paramount was the undisputed king of “race records” (i.e. blues music). Like the first, this second box set was released in collaboration with Reverent Records, which released its own massive Charley Patton box set some years ago.

This second volume also includes six 180gram vinyl LPs and a high-capacity USB drive that includes all the music (800 songs) and more than 90 vintage Paramount Records ads that originally appeared in the African-American newspaper The Chicago Defender. A pair of big books (250pp and 400pp) features artist biographies and visual representations of the Paramount advertising art.

For the packaging this time, the label went with a shiny aluminum and stainless steel case that reflects the evolution of not only Paramount’s sound at the time, but also the American industrial revolution. Stylistically, the box is meant to mimic not only the hollow-body National Resonator guitar that was popular among bluesmen at the time, but also the radical design and function of the RCA Victor Special Model K portable record player that became popular in the 1930s. 

Of the boxes design, in a press release Revenant’s Dean Blackwood says, “we didn’t want Volume 2 to be a strict bookend to Volume 1. That’s not an honest reflection of the design themes. The ’30s was the beginning of industrial design coming to the fore with its own brand of modernist design; rather than embracing exotica, our version was around this streamlined modern version of Art Deco. The machine was the source of America’s might and standing in the world, our capacity as an industrial power that connected the vast plains of our country and even other nations – that’s really where we found our sweet spot.”

The Rise & Fall of Paramount Records, Volume 2 includes some of the most essential and influential blues recordings in the history of the genre, including tracks from legends like Son House, Charley Patton, Skip James, Tommy Johnson, the Mississippi Sheiks, King Solomon Hill, Willie Brown, and literally hundreds of others. Like its predecessor, the second volume is priced well north of $400, but it’s an incredible feat – historic music packaged in style and with no little love.

White and Third Man Records have taken some heat for these Paramount sets, with an alleged rights holder filing suit against the label for copyright infringement. It’s hard to believe that these 80 to 90 year old tracks aren’t in the public domain given their age, but there’s no doubt of their influence, and I commend White and Third Man for taking the risk to bring this music to the label’s young audience.

Video of the Week: Last Gasp Books Fall Publishing Kickstarter

Last Gasp Books holds a nostalgic fondness for the Reverend. While a comix-obsessed teenager living in the rural suburbs of Nashville, Tennessee back in the early 1970s, I eagerly bought every underground comic that I could find, and when I couldn't find them easily, I became a "sales rep" for Last Gasp and Rip Off Press, placing comix in local head shops on consignment, and selling enough copies to underwrite my own collection.

Last Gasp has launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds to publish its fall 2014 slate of books and other cool stuff. I know as well as anybody that publishing is a sucker's game these days (please buy my books!) but the good folks at Last Gasp branched out long ago beyond their initial comix fare to include lush art books, trading cards, and other alt-culture flotsam and jetsam. Check out their very cool video below, and then click on the "Save Strange" graphic at the bottom of the page to see what kind of rewards are available for contributing to their Kickstarter. I've already pledged my donation; you can help put Last Gasp over the top.

Parchman Farm: Photographs and Field Recordings

On November 11, 2014 the Dust-to-Digital label (what a great name for an archival label) will release an incredible collection titled Parchman Farm: Photographs and Field Recordings. Working in collaboration with the Association For Cultural Equity and the Alan Lomax Archives, DtD’s Parchman Farm set includes a 124-page 6.25” x 9.50” hardcover book with two CDs featuring 44 vintage blues performances (12 of which are previously-unreleased), packaged in a foil-stamped slipcase. The book offers essays by Alan Lomax, Anna Lomax Wood, and Bruce Jackson as well as 77 photos, many of which are being published for the first time. The set was produced by Steven Lance Ledbetter, founder of Dust-to-Digital, and Nathan Salsburg, curator of the Alan Lomax Archive.

So why is this set so damn cool? Musical historian Alan Lomax made three trips behind the wire at the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman, Mississippi. Carrying his portable (but large) reel-to-reel tape deck during his 1947 and ’48 visits, and a camera for his 1959 visit to the institution, Lomax recorded hours of tape of prisoners singing for the Library of Congress. Lomax was the first to record Muddy Waters (known in Mississippi as McKinley Morganfield), and his enormous archive of field recordings from the Southern United States, the Caribbean islands, and the European continent is the largest collection of authentic, traditional folk music in the world.      

The Parchman Farm set offers a wealth of antique recordings that are easily the equal of the Paramount Records collections released by Jack White’s Third Man Records. Although Paramount had the hits and marquee name performers, Parchman Farm provides a voice to the obscure and disenfranchised singers frequently locked up behind barb wire only for the crime of being African-America. Parchman Farm includes performances by little-known but not unimportant talents like Floyd Batts, Clarence Alexander, Grover Wells, and Willie Washington, among others. 

In his essay for the Parchman Farm set, Bruce Jackson writes "Black prisoners in all the Southern agricultural prisons in the years of these recordings participated in two distinct musical traditions: free world (the blues, hollers, spirituals and other songs they sang outside and, when the situation permitted, sang inside as well) and the work-songs, which were specific to the prison situation, and the recordings in this album represent that complete range of material, which is one of the reasons this set is so important: it doesn't just show this or that tradition within Parchman, but the range of musical traditions performed by black prisoners. I know of no other album that does that."

An important, essential collection of first generation American music, the Parchman Farm set deserves space on the shelf of any blues fan. Check out the Dust-to-Digital website for more details on the set.

The Turtles 45RPM Vinyl Singles Collection

Here’s one you may have overlooked among the glut of recent vinyl releases and reissues. Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan have released (through FloEdCo/Manifesto Records) The Turtles 45RPM Vinyl Singles Collection, a box set of eight super-groovy 7” vinyl singles that revisit some of the band’s biggest hits of the late 1960s. Vinyl collectors and ‘60s pop enthusiasts alike can experience a bunch of great songs in their original format – 7” singles!

Kaylan and Volman (a/k/a “Flo and Eddie”) were the frontmen of the Turtles, a chart-topping outfit that mixed the melodic vocal harmonies of the Beatles with the pop sensibilities of the Monkees and the folkish charm and psychedelic roots of bands like the Lovin’ Spoonful. The band included a number of talented musicians through the years, including bassist/producer Chip Douglas (who also produced several Monkees’ hits) and drummer John Barbata (Jefferson Starship). The band’s first single, a cover of Bob Dylan’s “It Ain’t Me Babe” would go Top Ten, jumping off a string of hits like “Happy Together” (#1), “She’d Rather Be With Me” (#3), and “Elenore” (#6), all of which are included in the box set.

Unlike some of their peers at the time, the Turtles were real musicians and artists, and sometimes those singles that didn’t or barely charted were as interesting and entertaining as the hits. “Outside Chance,” for instance, was written by the late Warren Zevon, the song an obscure effort worthy of rediscovery, while “Love In The City,” a non-album track produced by Ray Davies of the Kinks, was an experiment in rock and psych-pop from the band’s final album, Turtle Soup. The band was only together for five short years, circa 1965-1970, but they released 20 singles during that half-decade (I’m not counting the post-break up 45s released by White Whale, the band’s label, that had little or nothing to do with the band), the best of which are included in the vinyl box.

After the demise of the Turtles, Kaylan and Volman would join Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention (along with bassist Jim Pons) as “the Phlorescent Leech & Eddie” as they were unable to use their real names due to contractual conflict with their former record label. The pair would add their harmony vocals behind Marc Bolan on the T. Rex albums Electric Warrior and The Slider as well as on Bruce Springsteen’s hit “Hungry Heart,” and enjoyed a brief career as Flo & Eddie, releasing a handful of albums between 1972 and 1981.

The pair legally regained the use of the Turtles name in 1983, as well as the band’s master recordings, and have since released several albums and toured frequently as the Turtles featuring Flo & Eddie. The Turtles’ legacy rests on these singles, however, songs that have influenced several generations of bands to follow. Autographed copies of The Turtles 45RPM Vinyl Singles Collection can be purchased on the Turtles website.

The Turtles 45RPM Vinyl Singles Collection full singles listing:

“It Ain’t Me Babe” (1965) b/w “You Don’t Have To Walk In The Rain” (1969)
“Let Me Be” (1965) b/w “Love in the City” (1969)
“You Baby” (1966)  b/w “You Know What I Mean” (1967)
“Happy Together” (1967) b/w “Grim Reaper of Love” (1965)
“She’d Rather Be With Me” (1967) b/w “Story of Rock and Roll” (1968)
“She’s My Girl” (1967) b/w “Can’t I Get To Know You Better” (1966)
“Elenore” (1968) b/w “Outside Chance” (1966) 
“You Showed Me” (1968) b/w “Sound Asleep” (1968)

Light In The Attic Rescues Sly’s Stone Flower

Sometimes we get a press release in the ol’ email inbox that makes digging through dozens of missives, spam from Nigerian princes, and pleas for publicity all worthwhile. Case in point – Light In The Attic Records’ news that they’re releasing I’m Just Like You: Sly’s Stone Flower 1969-70 on CD, digitally, and as a double-LP vinyl set.

So, you’re asking, what the heckaroonie is/are Sly’s Stone Flower? Well, here’s the back story, Bunkie, courtesy of the hard-working folks at Light In The Attic. By the close of 1969, Sly & the Family Stone were cruising along on the success of that year’s breakthrough Stand! album, which was itself fueled by the chart-topping single “Everyday People” as well as the band’s boisterous performance at the Woodstock Festival. Bandleader Sly Stone was already AWOL, however, at least mentally, his restless muse searching for other musical avenues to explore.

To this end, Stone and his manager David Kapralik launched Stone Flower Records. The label was distributed by Atlantic Records, and during its brief existence, released a handful of innovative and groundbreaking singles. The initial Stone Flower release was by Little Sister, a band fronted by Sly’s sister Vaetta Stewart, that resulted in a pair of Top 40 charting singles – “You’re The One” and “Somebody’s Watching You,” a cover of a song from Stand! The label didn’t experience nearly that level of success with its other releases, which including 45s from R&B singer Joe Hicks and a group called 6IX. For whatever reason, whether due to Stone’s waning interest, or because of flagging sales, Stone Flower folded in 1971.

The importance of Stone Flower Records is in what came afterwards. Although each of the label’s single releases was credited to the individual artist, they all featured material written, produced, and arranged by Sly Stone. It was on Little Sister’s singles that Stone first experimented with a drum machine for rhythms, and across all four 45s, Stone used the studio as a mad scientist would use a laboratory, experimenting with different sounds, electronic effects, and textures, shaping his signature funk and soul into new shapes. A lot of the ideas he perfected on Stone Flower’s releases would be used to create the classic There’s A Riot Goin’ On album in 1971.

Scheduled for September 30th, 2014 release on CD and digitally, I’m Just Like You: Sly’s Stone Flower 1969-70 collects those four original single releases as well as ten previously unreleased cuts from the label’s archives, eighteen songs in all, all re-mastered from the original tapes. The two-album vinyl set will be released on November 4th, but fans can pre-order the LP on limited edition lime green wax (while supplies last) through the Light In The Attic website. Very cool t-shirts and limited edition, hand-numbered 18”x24” prints are also available for order. Kudos to Light In The Attic for rescuing another treasure chest of long-lost music!

Buy the CD on Amazon.com: I' m Just Like You: Sly' s Stone Flower 1969-70

Video of the Week: John Fairhurst's "Breakdown"

Our inaugural That Devil Music "video of the week" is from British bluesman John Fairhurst. His song "Breakdown" is the first single from the guitarist's upcoming album Saltwater.

The YouTube description for the video says that it was "filmed amongst some of Bristol's darkest alleys, rooftops, stairwells, toilets and the Kingsdown Wine Vaults" and it is, indeed, visually striking, outlining a sordid tale that doesn't end well for our protagonist.

Musically, the song offers up plenty o' greasy, gutbucket blues with Fairhurst's gritty, grunge slide-guitar displaying more than a little Delta mud among its raging Middle Eastern rhythms. Check it out for yourself... 

 

CD Preview: Dave Davies’ Rippin’ Up Time

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee and Kinks co-founder Dave Davies has been making up for lost time since suffering a stroke in 2004. He’s released two solo albums between now and then, including 2013’s I Will Be Me. On October 28th, 2014 Red River Entertainment will release the guitarist’s third studio album in the past decade, Rippin’ Up Time.

A collection of ten new guitar-driven songs, in a press release for the new album Davies describes Rippin’ Up Time as “a man's reflections of the past, his fears, anxieties and optimism about the present and hopeful expectations about the future. I had a lot of ideas in my head thinking about the past and how we started and the Kinks and my own life and the present and what's happening with my life now and concerns and worries, anxieties about the future. I suddenly had an image of all the times overlapping as if they're all in one place in my mind. I thought I'd just write it from the point of view of a dream. It's a mixture of emotions that I was going through as I was writing the songs, some would be happy or reflective or sad.”

Davies’ distorted, high-flying guitar was a signature part of the Kinks’ “British Invasion” era sound, his infectious riffs providing songs like “You Really Got Me” and “All Day And All Of The Night” with their visceral punch and undeniable energy. His original material, like the U.K. hit “Death of a Clown,” showed Davies to be as talented a songwriter as he is a musician. Although his conflicts with his brother and fellow Kinks bandmate Ray Davies are the stuff of legend, Dave stuck it out until the band’s break-up in 1996 after better than 30 years. Davies was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1990 as a member of the Kinks.

Although Davies released a few singles as a solo artist during the 1960s, he didn’t really launch his solo career until the 1980 release of his self-titled debut (also known as AFL1-3603). In between touring with the Kinks, Davies released solo works like 1981’s Glamour, 1983’s Chosen People, and 2002’s Bug. Davies songs have been featured in films and on TV, including the HBO series The Sopranos, which used his song “Living On A Thin Line” in a third season episode.

Rippin’ Up Time is Davies sixth solo studio effort, the bulk of which was recorded this summer in Los Angeles with producer David Nolte. They put together the album in just six weeks, the two playing virtually all of the instruments themselves; Davies’ son Russell, handled vocals on two songs. As for the material, it’s said to be lyrically introspective while still showcasing Davies’ distinctive and hard-rocking guitar style.

Rippin’ Up Time track listing:

1. Ripping Up Time
2. Semblance of Sanity
3. King of Karaoke
4. Front Room
5. Johnny Adams
6. Nosey Neighbours
7. Mindwash
8. Between the Towers
9. In The Old Days
10. Through My Window

Buy the CD on Amazon.com: Dave Davies' Rippin Up Time

More Captain Beefheart & the Magic Band Live!

Back in May, the good folks at Gonzo Multimedia released a rare live recording by the legendary Captain Beefheart & the Magic Band, Live From Harpo’s 1980. Now the label is going for a second bite at the apple with the upcoming release of yet another rare Beefheart platter. On October 27th, 2014 (U.S.) Gonzo Multimedia will release Somewhere Over Paris, a two-disc set that captures a November 1977 performance at the Le Nouvel Hippodrome in Paris.

According to The Radar Station, a Beefheart fan site, this particular show was part of a festival at Sorbonne University organized by a French Trotskyist party, and was the only European performance by the band until 1980. Gong, Prime Time, and Buffy Saint Marie also performed at the festival. Performing songs from across its discography, including material from the troubled Bat Chain Puller (which wouldn’t be released in its original form until 2012), the Magic Band line-up for this show included guitarists Jeff Moris Tepper and Denny Walley, bassist/keyboardist Eric Drew Feldman, and drummer Robert Arthur Williams.

The Radar Station describes the sound of the album as “very good bootleg quality. Well balanced so you hear everything.” Indeed, this Paris show has seen infrequent release on CD as a European bootleg, but it’s nice to have a well-sourced legitimate release to document the band’s performance, of which Beefheart himself was particularly proud of, telling a reporter “the gig we played in Paris was monstrous. It was three days ago, but I haven't slept since – it was so good! And my voice, well, I can still feel that show in my voice. It hit me so hard I am down to three octaves...I couldn't get over the way the audience was singing along with it, singing the words back at me in English – and I don't speak a word of French.”

Somewhere Over Paris track list:

Disc One
1. Hair Pie: Bake III
2. Suction Prints
3. Low Yo Yo Stuff
4. Bat Chain Puller
5. I Wanna Find A Woman That'll Hold My Big Toe Till I Have To Go
6. Abba Zabba
7. Dali's Car
8. One Nest Rolls After Another
9. The Dust Blows Forward and the Dust Blows Back
10. Nowadays a Woman's Got To Hit a Man
11. Click Clack
12. Grow Fins
13. Golden Birdies

Disc Two
14. Electricity
15. A Carrot Is As Close As a Rabbit Gets To a Diamond
16. China Pig
17. Sun Zoom Spark
18. My Human Gets Me Blues
19. Floppy Boot Stomp
20. Moonlight on Vermont
21. Carson City
22. Old Black Snake
23. Pachuco Cadaver
24. Veteran's Day Poppy/Band Intro
25. The Blimp
26. Big Eyed Beans From Venus

Previous Content: Captain Beefheart's Live From Harpo's CD review

Buy the CD from Amazon.com: Captain Beefheart's Somewhere Over Paris (Le Nouvel Hippodrome Paris 1977)

Al Kooper and Blood, Sweat & Tears’ Classic Debut Album Gets SACD Reissue!

The pairing of rock ‘n’ roll legend Al Kooper and the good folks at Marshall Blonstein’s Audio Fidelity label has proven to be a creatively lucrative one so far, with the famed musician and producer re-vamping his classic Super Session album (with Michael Bloomfield) for the label with re-mastered 5.1 multichannel sound. Now Kooper digs into a project that has to bring up some painful memories, the debut album from Blood, Sweat & Tears – Child Is Father To The Man.

On November 11th, 2014 Audio Fidelity will release Child Is Father To The Man, the classic debut album by Blood, Sweat & Tears, as a hybrid SACD complete with 5.1 multichannel sound. The multichannel mix was produced by Kooper himself at The Magic Shop in New York City and mastered by Bob Ludwig. Since its release in 1968, Child Is Father To The Man has since become considered one of the most influential and important recordings of the era, Kooper’s brilliant mix of rock, soul, R&B and jazz styles as groundbreaking as it was entertaining.

Kooper had the idea for what would become Blood, Sweat & Tears in 1967 after having dabbled in a similar musical direction with his band Blues Project. Finding some like-minded musicians, including trumpeter Randy Brecker, guitarist Steve Katz (from Blues Project), bassist Jim Fielder, and drummer Bobby Columby, with Kooper himself on keyboards and vocals, the band recorded and released Child Is Father To The Man in 1968. The album featured a number of songs penned by Kooper – including the incredible blues ballad “I Love You More Than You’ll Ever Know” – as well as material by then obscure tunesmiths like Tim Buckley (“Morning Glory”), Harry Nilsson (“Without Her”), and Randy Newman (“Just One Smile”), among others.

Child Is Father To The Man rose as high as #47 on the Billboard albums chart, mostly on the strength of songs like the aforementioned “I Love You More Than You’ll Ever Know” and Kooper’s “I Can’t Quit Her.” If the album had been released a couple of years later, once FM broadcasting had gotten a foothold, the aforementioned tracks and others would have been radio staples. But the band’s revolutionary mix of styles and instruments, even in a pop setting, was too vigorous and strange for AM radio. The album’s meager commercial fortunes led to a mutiny, with Kooper forced out of the band he’d created, with Katz and Columby carrying on with a new singer and musical direction.

If the name Blood, Sweat & Tears reminds you of the worst commercial excesses of the early 1970s, you should know that the pre-David Clayton-Thomas version of the band as conceived by Al Kooper is a far different and creatively imaginative group. If you’ve dismissed BS&T on the basis of the band’s intelligence-challenged 1970s-era hits, you should check out Child Is Father To The Man to remind yourself of what true genius sounds like. Complete track list for the album below…   

Child Is Father To The Man track list:

1. Overture
2. I Love You More Than You'll Ever Know
3. Morning Glory
4. My Days Are Numbered
5. Without Her
6. Just One Smile
7. I Can't Quit Her
8. Meagan's Gypsy Eyes
9. Somethin' Goin' On
10. House in the Country
11. The Modern Adventures of Plato, Diogenes and Freud
12. So Much Love/Underture

Buy the CD on Amazon.com: Blood, Sweat & Tears' Child Is Father To the Man (SACD)