Innehållsförteckning för Issue 561 från Record Collector

Welcome, indeed, to the 45th anniversary edition of Record Collector – the first issue came out in September 1979, around the time of the release of Chic's Risque, Talking Heads' Fear Of Music, Gang Of Four's Entertainment!, Wire's 154, and Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures, so you could tell something was happening. It was born out of The Beatles Book (aka Beatles Monthly) and The Beatles Book Appreciation Society Magazine. That very first RC came with a copy of the 41st issue of Beatles Monthly. By No 7, in March 1980, the Beatles Monthly section was separated from Record Collector and continued to be sold independently. Meanwhile, two months later, in May 1980, across town, another magazine – The Face – was born, boasting on its first front cover articles on…

To celebrate RC's 45th year, Lois Wilson quizzed an esteemed cast of musicians about their favourite 45s (p98). She also interviewed Steve Ellis about helming one of her favourite groups, Love Affair (p72), and wrote the monthly soul column. As the author of the Bowie Odyssey book series, Simon Goddard spends much of his life stuck in the 70s like an episode of Quantum Leap. While there, he bore the teen tears and screams for this month's David Cassidy feature (p56). Phil Ross is a writer, actor and filmmaker who plays guitar with legendary punk band Spizzenergi. He says: “Coming from a Clydebank Irish-Catholic family, discovering Crass (p62) in 1979 emancipated my thinking and helped form my outlook on the world.” Matt Phillips, who writes about David Bowie's so-called 80s…

At RC Towers, we anticipate fresh music being prepped and seasoned by ASIA, Ashlee Simpson, Suede, Hole's Courtney Love/Melissa Auf Der Maur, S Club's Rachel Stevens, IQ, Megadeth, Ashley Monroe, Disturbed, Marina Diamandis, Karate, Little Mix's Jade Thirlwall, Cradle Of Filth, Rick Wakeman, Drake, Rod Argent, Mobb Deep, Mel C, Agnostic Front, The Hard Quartet (with Pavement's Steven Malkmus), Pentagram (on Heavy Psych Sounds), The Lijadu Sisters (Numero), Adema (Cleopatra, in 2025), ACCEPT (in 2026); a Wang Chung Greatest Hits 2LP; Motörhead's 'Fast' Eddie Clarke box; a new Squeeze studio set and the unissued 1974 Trixie's; a revamped Pat Benatar/Neil Geraldo Invincible musical; and an autobiography by Yes' Jon Anderson. CELLULOID HEROES Projects due include Alex Ranarivelo's Wind Of Change Scorpions biopic, via ESX Entertainment, in 2025; Steve McQueen's Blitz film, in cinemas, 1…

COLLECTING Mark A. Rodriguez is a visual artist and wooden jigsaw puzzle-cutter. He has the largest collection of Grateful Dead live performance recordings on audiocassette, at least that he knows of out there. The collection came about as part of the pursuit to collect every Grateful Dead live performance recording from 1965 to 1995. He has about 160 or so more tapes to locate at the time of this publication and currently has over 15,000 bootleg tapes in his collection. Rodriguez has many diverse interests in sound ranging from salsa music to gospel, drone, proto-house, and experimental synthesiser compositions, even though a substantial amount of attention and energy is spent on Grateful Dead's music and surrounding subcultures. Rodriguez recently published a book about his tape collecting project which includes many…

STEVE LOUW South African rockers Big Sky's frontman on his star-studded set Tell us about the new album. Joe Bonamassa played a beautiful country style solo on Cruel Hand Of Fate, using a Fender Telecaster B Bender guitar. Jim Moginie [Midnight Oil] is on co-write, Giants Walk The Land. Kevin Shirley, a great producer, always comes up with such great collaborations, and we cut the album live in the studio. With whom would you like to make a split 7”? Steve Earle. Who'd you like to produce? Keith Richards. He's great company. Where were you when you first heard one of your songs on vinyl? All Night Radio's Breaking Hearts 7”, at a small sea-side town, Arniston, in October 1984. What was your favourite record shop when you started out?…

Who Came First (Track/Polydor, 1972) £25 Dedicated to Indian spiritual master Meher Baba, Townshend's first official solo album is a highly eclectic affair. There are demos from his aborted Lifehouse project (the wondrous Pure And Easy, Time Is Passing, a Who-less Let's See Action), plus covers of fellow seeker Ronnie Lane's Evolution and Jim Reeves' There's A Heartache Following Me. Empty Glass (Atco, 1980) £15 Still reeling from Keith Moon's death in 1978, Townshend conceived Empty Glass while struggling with addiction and becoming increasingly distanced from The Who. Creatively, however, he was on a high, as evinced by the confessional title track, devotional beauty Let My Love Open The Door and the sexually ambiguous Rough Boys. All The Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes (Atco, 1982) £10 Arguably Townshend's most underrated…

The Love Affair The Everlasting Love Affair (CBS 63416, LP, UK, 1968) £35 The Love Affair's 1968 debut album, recorded in a day at London's CBS Recording Studios with a track listing weighted heavily towards cover versions (Hush, Tobacco Road, Handbags And Gladrags, The First Cut Is The Deepest), is a reminder of how the group cut their teeth on the mod circuit. The Tree, meanwhile, veers into more psych-prog territory a la Traffic and then there's the inclusion of those first three hit singles: the peerless Everlasting Love and the almost-as-gorgeous Rainbow Valley and A Day Without Love, which makes this essential. Steve Ellis Boom! Bang! Twang! (Sony Music 19075827551, LP, 2008) £15 Ellis returns to his soulful roots, recording at Paul Weller's Black Barn studios with Weller's engineer…

Mention the JOHN WRIGHT TRIO to even the most knowledgeable jazz fans and they'll likely look at you blankly. That's because Wright, a Kentucky-born, Chicago-raised pianist, is an obscure, largely forgotten figure whose output was small. A preacher's son who sadly relinquished jazz to become a prison librarian, Wright is enjoying a well-deserved mini-revival. Following New Land's recent reissue of his trio's second Prestige album Nice 'N' Tasty, the band's debut platter, 1960's South Soul Side ( Craft), returns as part of Craft's Original Jazz Classics series. Ably supported by bassist Wendell Roberts and drummer Walter McCants, Wright serves up a selection of succulent blues- and gospel-tinged soul-jazz grooves evoking locations of the Windy City's South Side. Highlights include the evocative after-hours ballad, 39th Street Blues, and the hard-swinging 63rd…

The Sampler (Grand Royal/Capitol GRAND 1, LP, UK, 1994) £100 Released in December 1994, this UK-only nine-track taster acted as a neat summary of their post Licensed To Ill adventures. Available on CD (£5, featuring the threat, “PROMO USE ONLY – DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT SELLING THIS!”) and vinyl, it's the wax that you should look out for. Ill Communication (Instrumentals) (Self-released IC 001, LP, US, 1994) £1,000 Instrumental versions of 12 songs from Ill Communication apparently intended for use during their concerts. “Capitol Records” and “GR 001” are written on the deadwax. It's unclear how many copies exist; online sources say “a few” and those that have made it out onto the market have fetched over a grand at auction. Sure Shot (Grand Royal/Capitol, 724388165822, Netherlands, CD/FD, 1993) £10…

Fanny The Reprise Years 1970-73 Cherry Red CRCD 4 BOX 173 (4CD) “They played like motherfuckers,” gushed David Bowie to Rolling Stone in 1999, recalling how he was captivated by the US all-female rock group Fanny in the early 70s. “They're as important as anybody else who's ever been, ever,” he added, surprisingly. “It just wasn't their time.” For the man cultivating his Ziggy Stardust persona in the early 70s, Fanny seemed the real deal: an authentic hard-rock band hell-bent on breaking down gender barriers and giving women a deserved voice in a male-dominated world. Bowie's high regard for Fanny was shared by celebrity fans Ringo Starr, Harry Nilsson, and Frank Zappa, but despite racking up a couple of US hit singles, the band weren't able to achieve the decisive…

David Gilmour Luck & Strange Columbia 19802804611 (CD/2CD/BD, LP/2LP/BD) David Gilmour's slender catalogue has been many things over the years: tuneful, mellow, thought-provoking, yet, at times, hardly invigorating. Luck & Strange definitely does not fall into that category. Wouldn't it be fantastic to listen to new Gilmour material without knowing his back story? This is exactly what happened to Charlie Andrew, the co-producer of Luck & Strange. Gilmour reached out to him after being impressed with his production work with Alt-J, realising that, after being galvanised to work during lockdown, he wanted to change his approach to recording. By asking fundamental questions of Gilmour, Andrew was very happy to kick over the statues, questioning such Gilmour trademarks as the long fade-out or the positioning of guitar solos. Gilmour himself has…

Melcochita Y Los York's El Sicodélico / El Loco Munster MR 7370 This comes from a period when Los York's were in flux. The two cuts are lifted from the Peruvian garage rockers' third album and their final for the Mag label: Los York's 69. Fans were surprised that the vocals had been finished off by Pablo Villanueva Branda (aka “Melcochita”) in place of usual singer Pablo Luna. There were also rumours that some of the backing tracks had been hastily completed by a different Mag act, Los Teddy's. Although Los York's disowned the LP, it is still a fascinating and fairly feral listen, threatening to collapse under its own raggedness at any moment. This pair of Melcochita-led numbers certainly grab the ears. The first is built around surfy licks…

Sell Vinyl/CDs direct to RC readers, call us on 0208 752 8172 or Email listings@recordcollectormag.com NEXT ISSUE: OCTOBER 2024 (on sale 5 SEPTEMBER) Deadline for submitting adverts (Listings & Classified): Monday 12 AUGUST Please email your advert (word doc/excel file/plain text) to: listings@recordcollectormag.com PLEASE NOTE: NEW POSTAL ADDRESS: Record Collector Listings, Diamond Publishing Limited, 4th Floor, Harmsworth House, 13-15 Bouverie Street, London EC4Y 8DP Following issue: NOVEMBER 2024 (on sale 3 OCTOBER) Deadline: Monday 9 SEPTEMBER…

This month: Lincoln Olivetti Producer, arranger and keyboard player Lincoln Olivetti revolutionised the Brazilian music scene of the late 70s. He forged a new hybrid style that combined the effervescent melodies of MPB (Música Popular Brasileira) with the polished craft and studio mastery of big budget US pop and AOR. A fusion of soul, funk and boogie typified by upbeat arrangements, punchy horns and pulsating bass lines, Olivetti's sound would come to dominate the country's charts into the early part of the 80s, reshaping the music of established stars such as Gilberto Gil, Gal Costa, Rita Lee, Tim Maia, Jorge Ben, and Caetano Veloso in the process. Olivetti's productions were imbued with pinpoint accuracy that spoke of his perfectionism and studio wizardry in an age of rapidly developing technology. Known…

rc.editorial@metropolis.co.uk www.recordcollectormag.com Record Collector Magazine @RecCollmag RecordCollectormag @recordcollectormag TAY OF LIGHT I find that comparing Taylor Swift with Joni Mitchell is an aberration! I think that the person who wrote the cover title must not have been born at the time, unlike me. Taylor Swift is a huge star, but we shouldn't mix genres… Well done all the same for your excellent magazine. Yves Dubail, France Swift speaks to a 20/30/40something constituency about affairs of the heart backed by music that runs the gamut of contemporary styles – why wouldn't you compare her to Joni? She may not have the polymathic range of La Mitchell, but then, Mitchell never produced a record of sustained lugubrious intensity like Tortured Poet – unless you count Blue! PL Is it exclusively me (surely…

This month, a 27CD box set of Bob Dylan & The Band live material from 1974 is due, along with a 3LP/7” Highlights set. The box includes CDs of January 3, 1974 – Chicago Stadium, Chicago, IL; January 4, 1974 – Chicago Stadium, Chicago, IL; January 6, 1974 (Afternoon) – The Spectrum, Philadelphia, PA; January 6, 1974 (Evening) – The Spectrum, Philadelphia, PA; January 6, 1974 (Evening) – The Spectrum, Philadelphia, PA; January 7, 1974 – The Spectrum, Philadelphia, PA; January 9, 1974 – Maple Leaf Gardens, Toronto, Canada; January 11, 1974 – Montreal Forum, Montreal, Canada; January 14, 1974 (Afternoon) – Boston Gardens, Boston, MA; January 15, 1974 – Capital Centre, Largo, MD; January 16, 1974 – Capital Centre, Largo, MD; January 17, 1974 – Coliseum, Charlotte, NC; January 19,…

GASTON WHO? I recently picked up a nice soul and funk collection on Gumtree for £500. Most of it was in Mint condition and included a lot of big-name artists like Michael Jackson, Earth, Wind & Fire, Funkadelic, Parliament, Alexander O'Neal, Anita Baker, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye and the like. One album that stood out like a sore thumb, however, was by a band called Gaston. It's pressed on the Hotlanta label. I played it and it's a great boogie LP. Any information would be appreciated. Tony Jameson via email You really have a rare one here. Gaston were a soul/funk band who played in the North Carolina area in the late 70s. The line-up comprised Jerry Reid, (guitar/piano), William Fewell (drums), Valentino Burroughs (keyboards), Quincy Huitt, (guitar/vocals), Gregory Thompson…

Inca Taqui (Capitol OLP 1, 10”, LP, mono, reissue, Japan, 1956) £40 Ah, Yma Sumac, the Nightingale Of The Andes, the Queen Of Exotica, La Castafiore Inca and full-scale diva. Just mentioning her name prompts justifiable superlatives, as well as half-truths and controversy. Sumac was born in 1922 in Peru under the impressive name Zoila Emperatríz Chavarri Castillo – Perita to friends and family. Her actual date of birth, 13 September, was changed to the 10th as the number 13 was considered unlucky in her home country. Throughout her life, Sumac insisted she was a princess descending from Atahualpa, the last Incan emperor. Despite the Peruvian government substantiating the claim, the actual ancestry remains difficult to verify. As a child, Sumac sang in her home village, “learning from the creatures in…

OPINION How did you first pick up the guitar? My brother was older than me and was able to buy records. So, I got to it when I was quite young, and I really loved Scotty Moore who played in Elvis's band. It was his playing that inspired me to play the guitar. Were you playing in local bands prior to joining Procol Harum? Prior to Procol I had a little three-piece. I was working locally in a band called The Jam. Then I got a call from Gary to join Procol and that was the turning point for me. If it wasn't for Gary's call, I wouldn't have had the career I've had. Gary and I were in a band together in school called The Paramounts. Gary started writing…

THE STORY OF THE 45 Someone needs to come and empty the bins behind the Lloyds Bank branch in Kingston-upon-Thames. It's been raining and flattened cardboard slumps next to a fly-tipped air conditioning unit and a rusting clothes rack. There are two signs at head height on the red brick wall. One warns that you'll be clamped if you park here; the other, a stainless-steel plaque, marks Nipper's 100th birthday. Nipper, the dog at the heart of the HMV and RCA Victor logos, was a white terrier with chocolate brown ears, maybe a Jack Russell, Smooth Fox, or Bull Terrier, more likely a mix. This is his final resting place. He was buried under a mulberry tree but, you know, urban sprawl, progress, etc. The plaque was unveiled by the…

In April 1974, having recently relocated to New York in anticipation of his Diamond Dogs tour, David Bowie invited Cassidy to a summit in his Sherry-Netherland hotel suite to discuss the prospect of producing the ex-Partridge's next album. Cassidy's own recollections are that the ever-thinning white Dame initially suggested he record a (sadly) unspecified Lou Reed track, plus a Bowie original “called, as I recall, I'm All Grown Up Now”. The latter would almost certainly have been Growing Up And I'm Fine, one of a handful of tracks Bowie wrote for Mick Ronson's solo debut Slaughter On 10th Avenue, which had just been released. Three months later, returning to the US after the tragic climax of his “farewell” tour, Cassidy was still telling ABC's Good Night America, “At this point…

Since 1979 we've seen an eclectic mix of music released on 45 in the UK, with rarities coming from post-punk, new wave, indie and the then-emerging New Wave Of British Heavy Metal, the 80s shifting through mainstream pop and indie, and through the 90s dance and Britpop, too. After mispressings and cancelled releases, where inevitably copies do make it to the public domain, the nature of the game is the limited release, whether a limited edition or a self-released single. Fanclub and mail order records (even those sold at gigs) will always be highly sought-after. In more recent years there has been a distinct move towards limited releases for special events, such as Record Store Day, charitable events and even a pop-up store, and there'll always be debate over their…

LUTHER VANDROSS It's Philadelphia, mid-August 1974. In the control room of Sigma Sound, the city's most famous recording studio, the crucible where Gamble & Huff have been forging their slick Philly soul sound. The 23-year-old Luther Vandross is sitting on a couch with his friend, Robin Clark, listening intently to Young Americans, a new track by British rock star David Bowie. Vandross and Clark are both singers for hire but are not there to work ‒ Clark is married to Vandross' long-time buddy, Bowie's new guitarist Carlos Alamar, who invited them down from New York to hang out. Both barely know anything about the soon-to-be-christened “Thin White Duke” who looks like he beamed down from another planet with his dyed red hair and gaunt, pale demeanour. But far from otherworldly, the…

PARLOR GREENS are a supergroup of sorts featuring Tim Carman (GA-20) on drums, Jimmy James (True Loves, Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio) on guitar and Adam Scone (Scone Cash Players, The Sugarman 3) on organ. They make in-the-pocket instrumentals indebted to Melvin Sparks, Dr Lonnie Smith and the JBs and their debut In Green/We Dream ( Colemine) is an absolute joy with its 10 blistering soul-jazz-funk originals and one cover (My Sweet Lord). The only criticism is it's too short, clocking in at just a smidge over half an hour. Its follow up is rumoured to already be in the bag, though, which is good news. Best known for her high-profile collaborations with Erykah Badu and Georgia Anne Muldrow, Jimetta Rose is an LA singer, musician and producer who also makes solo…

Louis Armstrong Louis In London Verve 6554369 (CD, LP) In 1968, Louis Armstrong might well have struck younger listeners as a distinctly quaint, even embarrassing figure. His fondness for the “good old good ones” in his repertoire as featured on Louis In London would hardly have endeared him to aficionados of the new jazz still blazing a revolutionary trail despite the death of John Coltrane a year earlier. Armstrong, for all his youthful innovations, had failed even to embrace bebop, which he decried as “Chinese music”. And rock'n'roll was a distant cry from his sound world in the 60s. He was even regarded by some as an Uncle Tom for his seemingly ingratiating “Yessuh” vocal growl and rolling, a relic of an era in which African-Americans were supposed to know…

Fanny (Reprise, RS6416, LP, Canada, 1970) £190 This is the rarest and most desirable Fanny collectible, an alternative version of the group's debut album released by mistake in Canada using the wrong set of master tapes. Its markedly different track list included early versions of later songs Charity Ball and Place In The Country, plus the gems Changes, Ladies Choice, and New Day, ace songs all dropped from the running sequence of the official US iteration. Fanny Hill (Reprise, MS 2058, LP, white label test-pressing, US, 1972) £250 This highly collectible test pressing of the group's third album came in a different sleeve from the finished product. Though officially released in a gatefold sleeve with black and white artwork, this super-rare white-label version came with a front cover colour photo…

Fontaines D.C. Romance XL Recordings XL 1436 LP (CD, LP, cassette) “Maybe romance is a place,” ponders Grian Chatten at the opening of Fontaines D.C's superb fourth album. It's a typically intellectual thought exercise that permeates a set of progressive songs that play with ideas of fantasy and reality, and a different sort of identity to the one that the Dublin-formed, London-based quintet have always connected to. A band that always defined themselves with, and sometimes against, a sense of Irishness – first as literate post-punks (2019 debut Dogrel), then dislocated tour-induced nomads (2020's A Hero's Death), then, on 2022's third album Skinty Fia, the conflicted feeling that comes with joining the Irish diaspora – are now tethered to a more existential place. Here, romance becomes a metaphysical safe haven…

Call on 020 8752 8172 or email stockists@metropolis.co.uk for more information or to sign up today! SOUTH EAST 101 Collectors Records – 'Established in 1991. Now under new management. Buying and selling new and second hand vinyl and cd's. Stock a range of quality artist merchandise in store.' 101 West Street, Farnham, GU9 7EN. Tel: 01252 734409. richard.101collectorsrecords@hotmail.com www.101collectorsrecords.com Across the Tracks – 'On busiest corner of hippest city, open seven days. Thousands of rarities in the shop that aren't on the net. All genres, including classical and new CD promos, nothing mundane. Collections bought.' 110 Gloucester Road, Brighton BN1 4AF. Tel: 01273 677906. edfrombrighton@tiscali.co.uk www.acrossthetracksrecords.com Alan's Record & CD Shop – 'Diggers paradise! Over 15,000 records and 3,500 CD's. Soul, Reggae, House, Dance, Blues, Hip-Hop, Jazz, Rock, Punk, World Music.…

This month: Jethro Tull and Fanny, Capitol Theatre, Cardiff, 25 November 1974 I hadn't seen Jethro Tull since the Isle of Wight Festival in 1970, so this was a different lineup and they now had a rhythm partnership of Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond and Barriemore Barlow. I was a big Glenn Cornick fan so I was interested to see whether his replacement could cut it. Anyway, first up was Fanny; a band ahead of their time in many respects; not sure if there was another all-female rock band around at the time. They were very good, and they did rock, although I suspect the short skirts, fishnet tights and thigh-length boots weren't there to enhance the audience's listening pleasure. But they were worthy openers. This Was Tull's WarChild tour and Ian Anderson…

On 17 October, the Rory Gallagher Collection of 150-plus items is auctioned via Bonham's London, lots including Fender Stratocaster guitars, estimate, £1 million (1961), £300,000 (1958), and Fender Esquire (1959), £120,000. ■ The sothebys.com Popular Culture auction of 29 August-12 September includes a Prince tour guitar, estimate, £300,000. ■ On 24 June, The Beatles Love Me Do, with misspelled 'McArtney' credit, was offered via Stacey's Auctioneers, Chelmsford, estimate £9,000. ■ John Denver's five-bed, five-bath guesthouse/studio,, with garage, five acres, at Starwood, Aspen, Colorado, was offered in June via Christies International Real Estate, $8.495 million. ■ On 18 July, Wilco offered guitars, keyboards, effects pedals, via reverb.com, while ex-Metallica's Jason Newsted had 60-plus guitars from 24 July. ■ Elton John held a Rocket Man Resale charity auction of personal clothing via eBay, 27…

Being a millennial purveyor of art rock, people often look at me slightly surprised when I tell them how much I adore the most recent Taylor Swift album, The Tortured Poets Department. With its pristine, back-to-mono pop production, it sits at odds with the rest of the rather more adventurous records in my collection. And yet, its pretentious title (a sideswipe at former paramour Matty Healy's penchant for writing on a typewriter) gestures to a more audacious lyrical offering than the music might at first suggest. Dig a little deeper and TTPD has much in common with albums of yore that have captured the mood of a generation (such as The Smiths or Pulp) and the songwriters that have sung about heartbreak in a manner that is unfiltered (Joni Mitchell),…

There are too many things demanding Pete Townshend's time right now. He's been awake since 6am today, busy working on the next stage of The Age Of Anxiety, a multi-mediaproject, based around his hallucinatory 2019 novel, that also involves an opera and art installation. “I'm finishing off the music,” he explains to RC over Zoom from his home studio in Oxfordshire. “It's taken a long time, but I've just been listening to it now and it sounds really good.” There's also the recent announcement of Quadrophenia: A Mod Ballet, an ambitious dance production of Townshend's classic study of teenage rebellion, set to an orchestral score co-written by his partner, Rachel Fuller. Due to tour the UK next year, it promises to place The Who's 1973 epic in a whole other…

45 RPM 7” singles were a package. 45 equalled single equalled 7”s. They belonged together; like Jagger with Richards, like Terry Hall was Special. Except they could all explore other combinations. Any speed could be pressed on any sized vinyl. There are 7, 10 and 12”s that turn at 33, 45 and 78 RPM. 45 on 12”s came from two directions. Singles grew to 12”s to accommodate remixes for clubs, with more room to play with, more time to settle into a groove. Blue Monday by New Order, at seven-and-a-half minutes, famously came only on 12”. But the single didn't have to be the starting point. 12” LPs could also draw on the benefits of 45. Sound quality could be better, but more than 13 minutes per side and the…

DAVID CASSIDY Summer Days (Sound Magazine, Bell, 1971) The hit Partridge single that wasn't. Cassidy punches bantamweight to a minor melody and a meaty chorus with an almost glam-ish thump. You struggle to imagine why this wouldn't have charted in the year of Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep. Ricky's Tune (Cherish, Bell, 1972) Not unsuspiciously similar to the Stones' You Can't Always Get What You Want, Cassidy himself wrote this country rock gospel which wouldn't have been out of place in the throat of Joe South. Or even (like he'd ever admit it) Bobby Gillespie. Song For A Rainy Day (Rock Me Baby, Bell, 1972) Written by Cassidy and his touring band's Kim “Bette Davis Eyes” Carnes, like the same album's Two Time Loser, another taster of the soul-baring (Tim Buckley-esque,…

LOVE AFFAIR It's late one afternoon in November 1967. Temperatures are near freezing and Steve Ellis, the 17-year-old lead singer of The Love Affair, is at the top of the Eros statue in London's Piccadilly Circus. Two of his bandmates are in the fountain beneath, shivering in the water they've just fallen into and now there's a crowd of people gathering, big enough to cause a scene. Ellis is stuck and starting to panic. He's hanging on to Eros's arrow for dear life. Traffic is coming to a halt, drivers and passengers trying to get a glimpse of what is going on. Someone sensible calls the police and the fire brigade. Ellis is eventually escorted down. “It was a PR stunt that went wrong,” he tells RC from his Brighton home.…

Busy Body (Epic, EPC 25608, UK, 1983) £8 Vandross shared producer credits for the first time with co-writer Marcus Miller, who steered the record's dance tracks towards electro-funk. The standout is Vandross' epic ballad treatment of Bonnie Bramlett's Superstar, which is fused with Stevie Wonder's Until You Come Back To Me (That's What I'm Gonna Do). Give Me The Reason (Epic, EPC 450134-1, UK, 1986) £5 Recorded in the Caribbean at Air Studios, Montserrat, this hit-packed platter ranged from infectious dance numbers (Stop To Love) to euphoric ballads (So Amazing). Its showstopper is a grandiose reimagining of Bacharach-David's Anyone Who Had A Heart. Dance With My Father (J Records, 82876 54073 2, UK, 2003) £5 Vandross's final album, released two years before his death, grabbed four Grammys and contained the…

Without You (EMI America, 1984) £50 This France-only single, backed by Let's Dance album track Criminal World, comes sans the Keith Haring cover design that graced other versions but avec some unique French text on the centre labels. Blue Jean (EMI America, 1984) £30 A Japan-only promo copy of John “Jellybean” Benitez's extended dance mix backed with two Arthur Baker remixes of Dancing With The Big Boys, and featuring a different catalogue number to the retail edition. Tonight (EMI America, 1984) £10 This limited-edition version of Bowie's flop Christmas single comes with a fold-out poster featuring four exclusive images plus a 1985 calendar. Tonight (Virgin, 1995) £15 The 1984 studio album was graced with a fine-sounding 1995 CD reissue – for some, far superior to the EMI and Parlophone versions…

Oasis Definitely Maybe (30th anniversary Deluxe Edition) Big Brother RKIDCD 125 X (2CD, 4LP) When Oasis released Definitely Maybe in August 1994, they did not feel like the retrograde, ladrock/dadrock/Britpop proposition they were later derided as by some. They felt like part of a general dirty yet fresh guitar air, swirling alongside the likes of Swervedriver, Verve (prior to their “The” period), even My Bloody Valentine and the hazy, neo-psychedelic shoegaze crew. Far from being some sort of Union Jack riposte to grunge, they felt akin to some of that, too, Nirvana in particular, in their billowing toxicity and grand rock designs. Definitely Maybe remains their finest album but it's only retrospectively that you can see where the group were leading hereafter. It's possible to imagine that had they done…

Beastie Boys Ill Communication – 30th Anniversary Edition Universal 6503790 (3LP) There's a case to be made for the Beasties' fourth album as the ultimate record collector's LP. While on tour for 1992's Check Your Head the trio, plus producer Mario Caldato Jr, made a point of splitting up and going crate-digging in every city, making a competitive sport of uncovering rare and arcane gems. Their bounty was boxed up and sent back to their Los Angeles studio/ adult playground, G-Son, where they'd later comb through it for samples and inspiration. Unsurprisingly, then, Ill Communication is a sprawling, Aladdin's cave of an album; a shrugging off of genre restrictions with the collective's road-honed live chops and innate curiosity given room to flourish. Frenetic hardcore (Tough Guy) goes elbow-to-elbow with straight-up…

The “classic quartet” of SOFT MACHINE would conclude a few months after the recording of Høvikodden 1971 ( Cuneiform) with the departure of Robert Wyatt. This live album captures the Canterbury fusionists' two-night residency in Norway's Henie Onstad Kunstsenter in February of that year. The band performed twice each evening with both dates' setlists virtually identical. That doesn't mean the renditions themselves were exactly the same, of course, given the group's enthusiasm for improvisation and extemporisation. Drawing mostly from material on the LPs Third and Fourth, the band were evidently on phenomenal form and the recording quality itself appears to have benefitted from its plush art gallery setting. A four-disc set is a lot to absorb in one sitting but it's an essential item for anyone with an interest in…

The The Ensoulment Cineola / earMUSIC 0219535 EMU (CD, 2LP) Back in the late 20th century there were a lot of takers for Matt Johnson's musings on love, loss and religion. As the founder and sole constant member of The The, the multi-instrumentalist pushed himself – and anyone up the task of working with him – to health-threatening extremes. The resulting albums -Soul Mining, Infected and Dusk – made an artform of self-examination, while The The's ever-revolving line-up created music of both searing intensity and warm introspection. But in 2002, after touring the neglected NakedSelf album, Johnson shut his guitar case and walked away from the music industry. He was a long time gone, battling creative inertia, self-doubt, and, tragically, multiple familial bereavements. But over the past decade, via soundtracks,…

Mixing Pop And Politics: A Marxist History Of Popular Music Toby Manning Repeater Books, £25 ISBN 9781913462673, 576 pages Well hello, illusion of freedom RC writer Toby Manning's Marxist history of pop (“not a history of Marxist pop”, he clarifies) is a 576-page, 160,000-word monster written to master's degree-level density and complexity, and every page is loaded with citations, so have coffee and Wikipedia at hand. If you're up to the challenge, you'll be rewarded with an unnerving take on music as far back as the 50s, with a lot of the received wisdom that we all take for granted redefined through a fresh prism. Manning's self-imposed remit is both ambitious and wordy (“This chapter will haul rock'n'roll out of the high school, recapture it from conservative nostalgia, restore its…

Ryan Adams September (20) York Barbican (21) Liverpool Eventim Olympia (24) Sheffield City Hall (25) Wolverhampton Wulfrun Halls Marc Almond September (8) Leeds Grand Theatre (9) London Coliseum (11) Brighton Dome (14) Manchester Bridgewater Hall (15) Gateshead Glasshouse (16) Birmingham Symphony Hall (18) Bristol Beacon (21) Edinburgh Usher Hall (22) New Brighton Floral Pavilion Big Big Train September (17) Swindon Wyvern Theatre (18) Newport Riverfront (19) Whitley Bay Playhouse (21) Edinburgh Queen's Hall (22) Newark Palace Theatre (24) Wavendon Stables (25) Manchester Stoller Hall Big Country, The Alarm September (6) Glasgow SWG3 (7) Edinburgh Queen's Hall (13) Sheffield Foundry (14) Middlesbrough Town Hall (21) Swindon MECA October (4) Walsall Arena (17) Bournemouth O2 Academy (18) Exeter Phoenix (19) Falmouth Princess Pavilion (26) Bwcle Tivoli November (1) Warrington Pyramid (2) Newcastle-under-Lyme…

This month: Jensen Sportag The New Order of The Perfect Kiss, the Scritti Politti of Absolute, 80s boogie and smooth jazz-funk put through a 2010s chillwave filter, hypnagogic disco… Jensen Sportag are the chimerical brothers. They make pristine electronic dreamfunk that could have come out of Kreuzberg, Berlin, or one of Paris' edgier arrondissements, though they, in fact, live on the outskirts of Nashville. An inscrutable pair with a band name that sounds like a Danish trainer shop (it's a composite of two surnames they latched onto during the credits of Lars Von Trier's The Idiots), they make Kate Bush look prolific. In short, they're extremely difficult to place, and that may be why they're not massive yet. Following the release of their widely acclaimed first album proper, Stealth Of…

Elvis Presley It's Now Or Never (O Sole Mio) (RCA 45-RCA-1207 7”, UK, 1960) £3 The first record that alerted my ears that something else was going on in the world. The sound of claves is quite prominent on the record so my dad, being a carpenter of type bloke, made me a pair. And every time it would come on the radio, my mum would say, “Go and get your claves, lad,” and I'd tap along, trying to perfect the rhythm. So that got things going. Jet Harris & Tony Meehan Diamonds (Decca 45-F 11563, 7”, UK, 1963) £2 A little bit later, this really turned my head. Jet Harris plucks a bass melody, which is out of this world, but then Tony Meehan, who's keeping this skiffle type…

This month: blue-eyed soul albums Dusty Springfield Dusty In Memphis (Philips SBL 7889, LP, UK, 1969) £60 This beautifully crafted work hits the right balance in all departments. Sweet but never saccharine, Springfield's voice is huskily emotive. The Sweet Inspirations offer gorgeous counterpoint while Atlantic provide top sidemen and the best producers around. Orchestral ornamentation is deployed to just the right degree and the whole thing trickles past like audio honey. It's a record as laidback as could be, with one notable exception: the hit single Son Of A Preacher Man – one of the greatest 45s of all time. Elvis Presley From Elvis In Memphis (RCA Victor RD 8029, LP, UK, 1969) £35 Recorded a year after the audacious “'68 Comeback Special”, Presley was on fire for this set,…