Archive Review: The 101ers' Elgin Avenue Breakdown Revisited (2005)

Before Joe Strummer became a punk icon with the Clash or the patron saint of rock 'n' roll that he has become since his death, he was just another British musician trying to knock out a hardscrabble living with a local band. In Strummer's case, this band was the 101ers, a better-than-average group of rockers that have found a degree of infamy mostly through being eclipsed by the Clash's considerable legacy and Strummer's significant solo work.

A loose-knit collection of 101ers' material was originally issued on vinyl back in '81 and by various fly-by-night operations in varying forms and formats since. The expanded Astralwerks collection, Elgin Avenue Breakdown Revisited, provides the final word on this important, if historically slighted band's legacy.

Formed by Strummer in 1974 near the end of the British pub-rock era, the 101ers were much closer in spirit to bands like Ducks Deluxe and Dr. Feelgood than anything that would follow during the punk-rock explosion of '77. Inspired by the music of Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, and early Rolling Stones, the 101ers practiced a street-smart brand of R&B drenched, guitar-driven rock 'n' roll that would later inform some of the Clash's London Calling and later musical output. The 101ers never put out a proper album, however, and released only one 7" single, making Elgin Avenue Breakdown Revisited a ragtag collection of rough-hewn studio demos and rare live tracks.

The 101ers' Elgin Avenue Breakdown Revisited

Fans of the Clash expecting the spit-and-bile proto-punk of the band's first two albums will be sorely disappointed. Fans of Strummer, though, who appreciate the artist's wide range of talent and musical tastes, will certainly enjoy the raw charm offered by these rare 101ers songs. Especially significant are Strummer's first attempts at songwriting, tentative steps like "Keys To Your Heart" or "Sweet Revenge" that sound surprisingly mature. Blending a classic Chess Records R&B sound with strains of rockabilly and roots-rock, the 101ers weren't a half bad band by any standards, and Strummer's early songs easily stand with similar efforts from notable songwriters like John Fogerty or Bruce Springsteen.

Elgin Avenue Breakdown Revisited also includes a number of previously unreleased live tracks, including originals like "Keep Taking The Tablets" and "Lonely Woman's Son," one of Strummer's first socially-conscious songs that would later be recreated by the Clash. A number of live cover songs are also included, from the obvious (Chuck Berry's "Maybelline" and Bo Diddley's "Don't Let It Go") to the obscure (Slim Harpo's "Shake Your Hips") and the unusual (the Stones' "Out Of Time"). A glorious performance of Van Morrison's garage-rock standard "Gloria" closes the disc.

The Reverend's Bottom Line

Befitting its pedigree, the sound quality of Elgin Avenue Breakdown Revisited varies wildly, from rough studio recordings to hollow-sounding, thirty-year-old live tracks (digitally massaged to be slightly better than bootleg quality). The material here all displays a certain undeniable rock 'n' roll spirit, however, the performances filled with raw energy and passion. The 101ers were as much a part of Joe Strummer's considerable legacy as the Clash or the Mescaleros, Elgin Avenue Breakdown Revisited an essential document providing an intriguing snapshot of the artist's early days. (Astralwerks Records, released June 14, 2005)

Review originally published by Alt.Culture.Guide™, 2005

Buy the CD from Amazon.com: The 101ers' Elgin Avenue Breakown Revisited

Big Star’s 1974 WLIR sessions resurrected!

Memphis power-pop legends Big Star released their classic sophomore album, Radio City, in February 1974, recording as a trio after the departure of founding member Chris Bell. Minus the overt pop sheen that Bell brought to the band’s material as a songwriter, Radio City features Chilton’s rock ‘n’ roll influences on gems like “September Gurls,” “Mod Lang,” “I’m In Love With A Girl,” and “Back of A Car.” The critically-acclaimed album didn’t sell particularly well, though it would later come to be considered a classic, influential work.

To tour in support of Radio City, Big Star singer and guitarist Alex Chilton and drummer Jody Stephens were joined by John Lightman, who replaced the band’s original bassist Andy Hummel, who was returning to school. The trio subsequently recorded a session for broadcast by New York City radio station WLIR-FM at the legendary Ultrasonic Studios. That near-mythical session was later released under the title Live on CD by Rykodisc in 1992, but would be out-of-print by the end of the decade.

On January 25th, 2019 Omnivore Recordings – those herald keepers of the Big Star flame – will release that legendary Ultrasonic recording on CD and double-vinyl as Live On WLIR. The fifteen-track set features material from the first two Big Star albums as well as a cover of singer/songwriter Loudon Wainwright III’s “Motel Blues.” Live On WLIR has been restored and remastered from the original tapes and features liner notes by Memphis native and music historian Robert Gordon (no relation) and includes an interview with bassist John Lightman by Rich Tupica, author of There Was A Light: The Cosmic History of Chris Bell and the Rise of BIG STAR.   

As Gordon writes in the album’s liver notes: “Alex is, in this trio, playing all the guitar and singing lead, and he’s giving it about all he’s got. The road and the march of time eventually wore down that Alex, as time wears on all of us. But this recording is a clear window into the impenetrable past, making it a thrill today to hear Alex so young and enthusiastic.” Check out the complete tracklist below and watch Omnivore’s video trailer for the album before sprinting over to Amazon.com to buy a copy of Big Star’s Live On WLIR on your choice of formats.

Buy the album from Amazon.com:
Big Star’s Live On WLIR CD
Big Star’s Live On WLIR vinyl

Big Star’s Live On WLIR track list:
1. September Gurls
2. Way Out West
3. Mod Lang
4. Don’t Lie To Me
5. O’ My Soul
6. Interview
7. The Ballad Of El Goodo
8. Thirteen
9. I’m In Love With A Girl
10. Motel Blues
11. In The Street
12. You Get What You Deserve
13. Daisy Glaze
14. Back Of A Car
15. She’s A Mover

Soul Asylum’s While You Were Out LP and Clam Dip & Other Delights EP reissued

Before becoming multi-Platinum™ selling major label rock stars during the 1990s, Minneapolis, Minnesota’s Soul Asylum had spent much of the previous decade plugging away in the indie-rock trenches. The band often struggled to escape the long shadows cast by critic’s darlings like the Replacements and Hüsker Dü but, truth is, Soul Asylum was a tough-as-nails rock ‘n’ roll outfit that recorded three fine albums (as well as a cassette and EP) for their independent hometown label Twin/Tone Records before getting their shot at the brass ring from A&M Records.

While You Were Out was Soul Asylum’s third album released during 1986 (following their sophomore effort Made To Be Broken and the aforementioned tape, a cassette-only rarities compilation). Produced by Chris Osgood of local band Suicide Commandos, While You Were Out saw the band begin to transcend their punk roots towards becoming bona fide rock ‘n’ roll contenders.

The band would record a final EP for Twin/Tone before jumping into the major leagues; titled Clam Dip & Other Delights, the EP’s six-songs were a scattershot affair meant to fulfill their contract and provide a good time for the band members in the studio. It would end up becoming a longtime fan favorite. On January 18th, 2019 Omnivore Recordings will reissue both Made To Be Broken and Clam Dip & Other Delights in their entirety on a single CD along with seven bonus tracks, four of which are previously unreleased.

The set includes the full track lists of both the U.K. and U.S. versions of the EP and has been produced by Twin/Tone Records co-founder and Replacements manager Peter Jesperson along with Grammy® winning producer Cheryl Pawelski. This expanded reissue of Made To Be Broken features previously-unpublished photos, artwork, and flyers as well as liner notes by Superchunk drummer Jon Wurster.

Along with the label’s reissues of Say What You Will…Everything Can Happen and Made To Be Broken on CD earlier this year, Omnivore has nicely documented Soul Asylum’s raucous early years for both long-suffering Soul Asylum fans as well as for newcomers looking to rediscover the band’s indie rock roots.

Buy the CD from Amazon.com: Soul Asylum’s While You Were Out/Clam Dip & Other Delights

Track listing:

While You Were Out
1. Freaks
2. Carry On
3. No Man’s Land
4. Crashing Down
5. The Judge
6. Sun Don’t Shine
7. Closer To The Stars
8. Never Too Soon
9. Miracle Mile
10. Lap Of Luxury
11. Passing Sad Daydream
12. Take It To The Root (Jam Mix) *

Clam Dip & Other Delights
13. Just Plain Evil
14. Chains
15. Secret No More
16. Move Over
17. P-9
18. Juke Box Hero
19. Artificial Heart
20. Take It To The Root
21. Saving Grace *
22. Forever And A Day *
23. There It Goes *
24. Artificial Heart (demo) *

* bonus tracks

CD Review: Preacher Boy's The Rumble Strip (2018)

Christopher Watkins, a/k/a ‘Preacher Boy’, has been kicking around the American blues scene for a couple decades, cranking out his original style of acoustic blues across a handful of critically-acclaimed albums. Inspired by country-blues legends like Bukka White, Son House, and Mississippi John Hurt, Watkins developed his own distinctive vocal and guitar style and launched Preacher Boy & the Natural Blues in the early 1990s. He recorded a couple albums for the esteemed Blind Pig Records label and released a couple more independently before disappearing from the blues world.

After a short hiatus from music, Preacher Boy came roaring back in 2016 with three new albums filled with inspired original songs and inspired classic blues covers. The albums all feature Watkins’ sandpaper-soaked-in-whiskey vocals and mesmerizing slide-guitar played on a vintage National Resophonic guitar. The trio of recordings wasn’t so much a commercial endeavor as an artistic one, Watkins shaking off the ‘ring rust’ and getting his blues mojo back in the wake of his absence. The Rumble Strip is his follow-up to 2016, a more commercially-oriented effort that nevertheless displays an amazing amount of artistry and musical sophistication. Simply put, Preacher Boy’s performances on The Rumble Strip leave nothing but scorched earth in their wake.

Preacher Boy’s The Rumble Strip

“The Sliding Window (Hail Mary)” reminds of R.L. Burnside’s 1990s-era electro-blues with its low-slung instrumental groove, Watkins’ vocals a cross between a guttural Tom Waits barroom brogue and Mississippi Hill Country patois. The album’s rockin’ title track is part field-holler and part street-corner talkin’ with percussive percussion, scraps of razor-sharp guitar, and an unrelenting vocal delivery that roars out of your speakers like a bootlegger speeding away from the revenuers. The devastating “Bullet” marries the poetic lyricism of Bob Dylan with Son House’s fatalism, the song’s ornate underlying instrumentation doing little to soften the crushing body-blows and uppercuts delivered by Watkins’ explosive heavyweight-class vocals and harrowing socially-conscious lyrics. I’ve been listening to rock and blues music for almost 50 years and I’ve never heard a more haunting, desperate, anguished story-song.

Watkins’ “Bandy-Legged and Broke” returns to the same cutting-edge blues sound that Jon Spencer brought to Burnside’s A Ass Pocket of Whiskey. The song crackles with energy, with vocals shouted above a deep background groove to jarring effect. The yearning vocals of “Saint Peter” are out of character for Preacher Boy, but quite effective here, Watkins displaying a more soulful facet of his talents on a song that buzzes with distortion, emotion, and raw immediacy. The syncopated rhythms of “Crazy Dirty James” are matched with similar vocal gymnastics with clashing instrumentation adding punctuation to Watkins’ lyrics. Preacher Boy’s familiar National Resophonic can be heard fighting to rise above the din, grounding an otherwise chaotic performance in the murky mud of the Mississippi Delta. The muscular “Can’t Sleep Here Tonight” is a Led Zeppelin-styled blues-rocker pumped up on steroids, threatening to blow out your speakers with a sonic tsunami while “Showers of Rain” ups the ante with exotic instrumentation clamoring behind Watkins’ colorful (autobiographical?) lyrics and world-weary vocals.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

Although The Rumble Strip showcases a welcome expansion of his musical palette beyond his signature country-blues sound, Watkins’ vocals on these songs still growl and bite like Howlin’ Wolf chewing on a microphone, swallowing electricity and spitting out lightning bolts. It’s with his lyrical skills where Preacher Boy really shines, though, and The Rumble Strip is full of whip-smart story-songs backed by imaginative and often-dense instrumentation that proves that Preacher Boy is no one-trick pony. Recommended for rock and blues-rock fans alike, The Rumble Strip marks the return of a unique and original musical voice. Grade: A

Check out Preacher Boy's website

Also on That Devil Music.com:
Lost & Found: Preacher Boy

Buy the CD from Amazon.com: Preacher Boy’s The Rumble Strip

Spotlight On The Pandoras

Select Discography:
It's About Time (1984, Voxx Records)
Stop Pretending (1986, Rhino Records)
Rock Hard EP (1988, Restless Records)
Live Nymphomania (1989, Restless Records)
Hey It's the Pandoras (2018, Burger Records)

Omnivore reissues Henry Townsend’s 1980 album Mule

Legendary bluesman Henry Jesse James “Mule” Townsend was born in Mississippi in 1909 and grew up in Cairo, Illinois before making his way to St. Louis as a teenager out on his own. Townsend recorded his first sides for Columbia Records in 1929 and enjoyed a lengthy career as both a solo artist (under a number of names) and as a sideman playing on a wealth of classic recordings by artists like Big Joe Williams, Roosevelt Sykes, Sonny Boy Williamson, and Robert Nighthawk, among many others. Along the way, he also recorded his own performances for a number of labels including Paramount Records and Victor/Bluebird.

Never the most prolific of blues artists, Townsend had recorded only a couple of full-length albums for labels like Prestige Bluesville in the 1960s and Adelphi Records in the ‘70s before recoding the album Mule for the St. Louis-based Nighthawk Records. At the time, Nighthawk was making the turn from a blues-oriented label towards reggae with releases by Jamaican artists like the Gladiators, Junior Byles, and others. Townsend’s critically-acclaimed Mule was one of the label’s last blues albums, but it was a good one that has sadly been out-of-print for over a decade.

On December 14, 2018 Omnivore Recordings will reissue Henry Townsend’s Mule as part of their restoration of the Nighthawk Records catalog. The reissue CD includes the original tracks along with eight previously-unreleased songs from the album sessions. Mule also includes updated liner notes and photos from original co-producer and Nighthawk label founder Leroy Dodie Pierson. The CD was remastered from the original master tapes by Grammy® Award-winning engineer Michael Graves.

The original liner notes for Mule show that the label was firmly behind the bluesman and his new album, stating “the production of this record was undertaken with two goals in mind: to create, finally, an album worth of Henry Townsend’s unique genius, and thus secure for him the recognition that an artist of his stature and historical importance deserves. We at Nighthawk have become convinced that Henry is perhaps the greatest living country bluesman.”

Henry Townsend died in 2006 at the ripe old age of 96 years old with a lifetime of great music to his name. He was awarded a posthumous Grammy® Award in 2008 for “Best Traditional Blues Album” for Last of the Great Mississippi Delta Bluesman: Live In Dallas. Released by the Blue Shoe Project, the album featured performances by legends like Townsend, ‘Pinetop’ Perkins, Robert Lockwood, Jr. and ‘Honeyboy’ Edwards. After years lingering in obscurity, it will be good to have Mule back in print again.

Buy the CD from Amazon.com: Henry Townsend’s Mule

Short Rounds: Joe Bonamassa, Peter Holsapple & Alex Chilton, Winston Jarrett, The Posies & Rolling River Royalty (2018)

New album releases in 150 words or less…

Joe Bonamassa – Redemption (J&R Adventures)
The second album this year from the blues-rock guitarist (the first being the live British Blues Explosion), Redemption is also Joe Bonamassa’s first studio work since 2016’s Blues of Desperation. Working again with producer Kevin Shirley and writing with some of Nashville’s finest wordsmiths, Bonamassa leans heavily towards his rock ‘n’ roll side, delivering an explosive set of songs that push against the boundaries of the blues with a scorching blend of classic rock and soul. “King Bee Shakedown” offers rollicking roadhouse boogie, “Deep In the Blues Again” is a blustery Celtic-tinged blues tune, “Pick Up the Pieces” is a sleazy Tom Waits slice-of-life, and the tortured title track welds haunting Delta blues to Rory Gallagher’s shivering ghost. None of the material strays far from Bonamassa’s tried-and-true blues template, but he could use an update and new musical challenges. Still, Redemption is an exciting collection that will thrill the Bona-fan. Grade: B   BUY!

Peter Holsapple & Alex Chilton – The Death of Rock (Omnivore Recordings)
Months before hooking up with the dB’s, Peter Holsapple sojourned down to Memphis to record some demos at Sam Phillips’ studio, hoping to capture a spark of the ol’ Big Star magic. That band’s Alex Chilton was working on his Like Flies On Sherbert album and the two ended up playing together. The Death of Rock is drawn from those long-lost 1978 recordings, featuring Holsapple and Chilton collaborating on songs like the latter’s poppy “Tennis Bum” and the former’s “Take Me Back.” The recordings have a raw, immediate feel with some of Holsapple’s tunes like “Bad Reputation” and “We Were Happy There” later recorded by the dB’s. Chilton’s “Martial Law” is provided a chaotic, delightfully-messy performance while a ramshackle cover of “Train Kept A Rollin’” recklessly runs off the rails. More than a mere historical curiosity, The Death of Rock showcases two legendary artists trying to find musical common ground. Grade: B   BUY!

Winston Jarrett & the Righteous Flames – Jonestown (Nighthawk Records/Omnivore Recordings)
Winston Jarrett was a veteran of 1960s-era ska legends Alton & the Flames; when frontman Alton Ellis went solo, Jarrett formed the Righteous Flames from the ashes. Recording a number of albums during the 1970s with producers like Joe Gibb, Sir Coxsone, and Lee “Scratch” Perry, Jarrett landed on Nighthawk Records for this 1983 release. Recorded with a new version of the Righteous Flames, including talented guitarist Chinna Smith, Jonestown – named for the Kingston neighborhood where he was raised – showcases Jarrett’s silky vocals and the Flames’ gorgeous harmonies. Jarrett provides socially-conscious lyrics on the dub-tinged “Knotty Got To Find A Way” and “Jonestown” with a fierce voice while “Spanish Town Road” is more akin to Bob Marley. The rhythms of “Run To the Rock” are a throwback to the early ska sound while “Lover’s Making Love” is a pure-hearted R&B jam, Jonestown an album worth discovering for the reggae fanatic. Grade: A   BUY!     

Permanent Green Light – Hallucinations (Omnivore Recordings)
At the end of his legendary “Paisley Underground” band the Three O’Clock in 1989, Michael Quercio went looking for new rock ‘n’ roll cheap thrills. He formed obscure psych-rockers Permanent Green Light, which released a handful of singles and a full-length album, building a loyal West Coast following before breaking up. Hallucinations compiles 16 of the band’s best performances, including three previously-unreleased demos and, to be honest, as much as I liked the Three O’Clock, this stuff rocks with an urgency, creativity, and honesty directly in opposition to most ‘90s bands. While the deliciously psych-pop “We Could Just Die” or the jangly “Street Love” display Quercio’s 1960s-era musical influences, tunes like “The Truth This Time” (with its funky groove) and the somber “Portmanteau” (with its exotic intro) showcase a welcome willingness to experiment musically. Hallucinations is an exceptional collection of guitar-rock from one of the best bands you never heard. Grade: A+   BUY!

The Posies – Frosting On the Beater (Omnivore Recordings)
The second of Omnivore’s restoration of power-pop pioneers the Posies’ major label catalog, Frosting On the Beater picks up where the band’s debut Dear 23 ended. Expanding the Posies’ sound to offer a harder-edge with more prominent guitars and dense instrumentation, the album’s brilliant original tracks offer more joyous noise in the grooves. Red-hot numbers like the psych-flavored “Dream All Day” or the smoldering “Burn & Shine” sound like R.E.M. on steroids. The band didn’t catapult its power-pop roots, though, as the lovely “Flavor of the Month” will attest, and the first disc of the two here offers nine bonus tracks in the form of demos and outtakes. The second disc will delight the faithful, featuring a whopping 21 unreleased songs, my faves being the charming, melodic “21” and the mesmerizing yet raucous “Magnifying Mirror.” Unfairly neglected in their day, the Posies were true heir-apparent to the Big Star legacy. Grade: A   BUY!  

Rolling River Royalty – Rolling River Royalty (Kingfish Records/New Bohemian Records)
Nashvillian Robert Jetton has been making great music since he landed in Tennessee from Texas 40 years ago. He partners with multi-instrumentalist Wendell Tilley as Rolling River Royalty, the two raising a helluva ruckus and having a grand ol’ time rocking a mix of original and traditional songs with a couple of Merle Haggard covers ‘cause why not? The duo’s self-titled debut is a sprightly collection of country, folk, blues, and bluegrass music delivered with no little authenticity. The laid-back “What A Country” is a twangy tale of love on the 4th of July and their “Man of Constant Sorrow” skews closer to the Stanley Brothers than contemporary versions. Jetton’s “Something’s Gonna Break” matches clever lyrics with “Black Betty” foot-stompin’ rhythms while Haggard’s “Mama Tried” displays a hauntingly beautiful performance. With plenty of high-lonesome vocals, spry guitar pickin’, and wailing harmonicas to entertain any listener, Rolling River Royalty defines Americana. Grade: A   BUY!

Previously on That Devil Music.com:
Short Rounds, October 2018: Mike Felten, Eric Lindell, John McLaughlin, Daniel Seymour & Mark Robinson, Bob Seger & Ska Authentic
Short Rounds, September 2018: Junior Byles, Guadalcanal Diary, Peter Holsapple, the Textones & Bill Kopp’s Reinventing Pink Floyd book
Short Rounds, August 2018: Gene Clark, Kinky Friedman, David Olney, The Posies, Boz Scaggs, & Southside Johnny

The Blues Images 2019 calendar has arrived!

The Reverend has been a big fan of John Tefteller’s incredible Blues Images calendar for around a decade now, and every autumn I look forward to receiving that record-shaped box that includes the next year’s calendar. The 2019 edition is now available and, as usual, Mr. Tefteller has outdone himself once again.

The Blues Images calendar features vintage 1920s-era advertising artwork from long-gone blues label Paramount Records. Some of each month’s art includes artist photos – this year more than in the past – but typically each page offers gorgeous B&W artwork from label advertisements that noted record collector and dealer Tefteller literally rescued from a dumpster almost 20 years ago. Each year’s calendar preserves an immensely-valuable visual history of the early years of the blues; I donate my copies at the end of each year to the Bill Schurk Sound Archives at Bowling Green State University in Ohio.

The 2019 calendar offers the imaginative pen-and-ink art promoting Paramount releases of plastic fantastic sides like Blind Lemon Jefferson’s “Piney Woods Money Mama” (February), Blind Blake’s “Too Tight Blues No. 2” (May), “Dad” Nelson’s “Coon Can Blues” (August), “Papa Charlie” Jackson’s “Ash Tray Blues” (September), and Charley Patton’s “Oh Death” (October). Several pages feature rare B&W photos of blues artists like Papa George Lightfoot, Memphis Minnie, the Beale Street Sheiks, and Joe Williams instead of the drawings. Each calendar page is annotated with historical and biographical information about the featured artist, and each month also includes the birth and death dates of classic blues artists.
 
The Blues Images 2019 calendar cost more than some cheap wall-hanger you’d buy from the mall or local bookstore, but for the hardcore blues fan, Tefteller packs a lot of value for the $24.95 (plus shipping) it will cost you. Each Blues Images catalog also includes a full-length CD that features rare, impossible-to-find, and often one-of-a-kind tracks, many of them sourced from Tefteller’s extensive personal collection. The performances, which include the songs from the original advertising as well as related releases, have been remastered from the original 78rpm records using the recently-developed ‘American Epic’ digital process that makes the sound on these antique shellac marvels really pop out of your speakers.

The free CD accompanying the Blues Images 2019 calendar features a wealth of vintage ‘20s blues tunes by both reasonably well-known artists like Memphis Minnie (“Ma Rainey”), Blind Lemon Jefferson (“Low Down Mojo Blues”), Charley Patton (“Troubled ‘Bout My Mother”), and Joe Williams (“My Grey Pony”) as well as the aforementioned tracks illustrated by the advertising artwork. The disc also includes super-rare sides by obscure bluesmen-and-women like Lottie Kimbrough (“Don’t Speak To Me”), Leola B. Wilson with Blind Blake (“Black Biting Bee Blues”), Otto Virgial (“Got the Blues About Rome” and “Seven Year Itch”), and gospel-blues artist Sam Butler (“Heaven Is My View” and “Christians Fight On, Your Time Ain’t Long”) and others.

Throw in newly-discovered songs by William Harris (“I’m A Roamin’ Gambler” and “I Was Born In the Country – Raised In Town”) and Papa George Lightfoot (“Winding Ball Mama” and “Snake Hipping Daddy”) from Tefteller’s ever-evolving collection, and between the calendar and 23-track CD, you have a bona fide collector’s item. Blues Images sells other cool blues-related stuff like posters, t-shirts, CDs from previous years, and past years’ calendars. You can find it all on the Blues Images website. Tell John that “the Rev sent ya!”

BMG Books’ RPM Series launches with Sub Pop, Excello Records stories

The Reverend loves books about music – heck, I’ve written a couple dozen of ‘em myself, and I’m currently reading the bio of former Jefferson Airplane/Hot Tuna guitarist Jorma Kaukonen – so I’m particularly hepped up with this news of a new series from BMG Books. Dubbed ‘RPM’, the series kicks off on November 20th, 2018 with the publication of its first two books – Gillian G. Gaar’s World Domination: The Sub Pop Records Story and Randy Fox’s Shake Your Hips: The Excello Records Story.

Each tome in the RPM series is sized at 7” x 7” square to resemble the dimensions of a 45rpm record and each book features a special insert offering rare and previously-unpublished photographs. In a press release for the new series, BMG’s Kate Hyman, who conceived of the project, states “we want to honor the truly special independent labels. We want to celebrate the days when fans would buy records based on the logo alone. Let’s hope there will continue to be more of them that take the big risks and break the mold of the majors.”

Future volumes in the series will explore the history of Chrysalis Records (home to essential recordings by Procol Harum, Jethro Tull, Blondie, and many others) and the Cold Chillin’ label (a pioneering hip-hop imprint that released albums by Kool G Rap, Big Daddy Kane, and Biz Markie, among other ground-breaking artists). In the same press release, Publisher and Senior Director of BMG Books Scott B. Bomar says “As a self-proclaimed music geek, I’ve always been a big fan of the 33 1/3 series. We wanted to take that concept and build upon it. Instead of focusing on a single album, each volume in the series covers a label that made an important splash in one way or another. We’ve given ourselves space to dive into some of these stories in ways that maybe haven’t been explored in the past.”

They’ve certainly picked a couple of good ‘uns to launch the series. I’ve been reading Gillian G. Gaar, a Seattle-based writer, for years in publications like Mojo, Rolling Stone, and Goldmine and she’s written better than 15 books on subjects like Nirvana and Elvis Presley. As Senior Editor of Seattle’s The Rocket music magazine, Gaar was at ground zero in the late 1980s when Bruce Pavitt and Jonathan Poneman launched the legendary Sup Pop Records label with recordings by regional bands such as Green River, Soundgarden, Mudhoney, and Screaming Trees, among many others. Gaar’s World Domination draws upon her years of covering the local music scene to provide a comprehensive history of the label from its founding to the present day.

Nashville’s Randy Fox is an acquaintance of mine, a well-known local DJ, music journalist and historian who has written for publications like The East Nashvillian, Nashville Scene, Record Collector, The Journal of Country Music, Vintage Rock, and others. A co-founder of the independent free-form Nashville radio station WXNA-FM, Randy hosts “Hipbilly Jamboree,” a weekly broadcast of classic country, rockabilly, and Western swing music. Fox is uniquely qualified to write about the legendary Excello Records label.

Fox’s Shake Your Hips: The Excello Records Story dives into the history of the trailblazing record label. Founded in 1953 by Ernie Young and operating out of Ernie Young’s Record Mart (“The Record Center of the South!”), Excello found a natural partnership with Nashville’s WLAC-AM, a 50,000-watt clear channel station that would broadcast R&B and blues music across much of the U.S. every night. Excello’s releases by artists like Slim Harpo, Lazy Lester, Lonnie Brooks, Lightnin’ Slim, Marion James and others were tailor-made for the station’s playlist, which helped extend the label’s popularity across the country and even to the U.K. where it would influence young musicians like Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and Eric Clapton.

Buy the books from Amazon.com:
Gillian G. Gaar’s World Domination: The Sub Pop Records Story
Randy Fox’s Shake Your Hips: The Excello Records Story