still Bo Diddley and the familiar shave-and- a-haircut and ‘I’m A Man’ rhythms prevail, as does Bo’s trademark trash talk. This is a perfectly good funky blues- rock record with a couple of stone classic tracks in the greasy ‘Elephant Man’ and sliding groover ‘You, Bo Diddley’, but don’t let the bizarro sleeve images trick you into thinking this was a huge departure for Diddley.
Brian Greene
THE DOORS LA Woman: 40th Anniversary Edition Rhino CD
This two-disc set rectifies a disastrous miss at the big time with its glorious hippy harmonies, country-tinged melodies and sumptuous rural/ harmony/CSN/post-psych sound! The delightfully titled ‘Spaced On Happy’ says it all! Jon ‘Mojo’ Mills
THE GRATEFUL DEAD Dave’s Picks Volume 1: The Mosque, Richmond, VA, 5/25/77 Rhino 3-CD Why is this series not called Dave’s Faves? That issue aside, the
exploitation of the Dead’s vault by Rhino (owners of
the catalogue, T-shirt and out-takes) continues to preserve the band’s memory now they are gone. The new series kicks off with a 1977
There’s nothing like an anniversary to recycle an album and The Doors have proved masterful at exploiting their catalogue via multiple editions and additional live recordings. Poor old Jimbo is either the world’s most overrated drunk or one of rock’s true geniuses. The truth is somewhere in between. Certainly few, if any, current pop pretenders could write a song as insightful and timeless as ‘Love Her Madly’ or remain a threat to public security after they are dead, as a visit to his grave in Paris reveals. LA Woman was the sound of Mr Mojo
Risin’ revaluating his trajectory and it suggests his career, had it not ended in a Paris bath tub soon after, may have developed into something interesting. This double CD doesn’t add a great deal to the legend with some nice practice/demo alternate takes and the previously unreleased blues, ‘Rock Me’, all housed in a rather cheap card package.
Richard Allen
FISHBAUGH, FISHBAUGH & ZORN The Whole Story: The Complete Authorised Anthology Acrobat 2-CD The title may be putting it a little strongly – especially when “the whole story” is so short and the anthology consists of one
album and its unreleased follow-up. Nevertheless, Gary and Paula Fishbaugh (a married couple who had earlier worked with The New Christy Minstrels) and Pete Zorn amassed a fine body of work in that golden West Coast tradition. Although American, the act based themselves in England, toured with The Moody Blues and The Kinks and released their self-titled debut for CBS in 1971, with production duties undertaken by Marmalade’s Junior Campbell.
show recorded at the end of a spring tour. This year is for many the peak of the Keith and Donna Godchaux line-up of the band, if not the band’s entire career. An intense period working with Keith Olsen (ex-Music Machine and then high-flying producer of Fleetwood Mac) on the underrated Terrapin Station album had tightened the Dead’s licks to such a degree they seemed imbued with a new energy. Effervescent versions of Kingfish’s ‘Lazy
Lightning’ into ‘Supplication’ are of note but it’s disc three’s mind-melting ‘The Other One/Wharf Rat/The Other One/The Wheel’ that’s the real meat here. Long and strange. Richard Allen
MELANIE HARROLD AKA JOANNA CARLIN The Complete ’70s Albums Acrobat CD Joanna Carlin had been a member of the second line-up of the rather pleasant UK folk- rockers The Natural Acoustic Band, then
quit and got high, discovered Paul McCartney “as a musician” and took off on a hippy trip that encompassed RD Laing, alternative theatre and spirituality. After starring alongside Paul Jones in The Prospect Theatre Group’s musical, The Pilgrim, Carlin landed a deal with DJM Records (who had just had a hit with the very philosophical alt lifestyle signature tune ‘The Funky Moped’ by Jasper Carrott!)
1977 saw the release of the Hugh
Murphy-produced Fancy That featuring Fotheringay’s Pat Donaldson and Jerry Donahue, Fairport’s Dave Mattacks, Pete Zorn and a host of “the old-guard of British folk-rock in need of a gig”. The album passes by in a soporific haze of dull singer-songwriter tunes, equally up and down. Only Sandy Denny could deal with such material and make it sound magical. Two years down the line and a name change to Melanie Harrold signals in glossy production and MOR tunes. Jon ‘Mojo’ Mills
THE INCREDIBLE KIDDA BAND Too Much, Too Little, Too Late Red Lounge 2-LP
Back in 2000, a set of 29 demos by Nuneaton’s Kidda Band was issued by Detour Records as a double LP. Long out of print on vinyl,
here it is again with an extra track and new cover art. The time frame covers the classic “skinny tie era” of new wave and powerpop, roughly 1977 to ’81. Although the sound quality varies, the
earliest demos are positively speaker- shredding, the powerpop style and adrenaline levels are consistent throughout. So productive were the group at this time that there are still another two double LPs’ worth of unissued demos due later this year! Red Lounge have produced a sumptuous glossy photo play gatefold jacket and 180 gram vinyl for this reissue, though sadly, there are no liners. Kidda Band’s website however provides their story. Full of teenage angst themes, choppy guitars and urgent delivery, the band deserved a breakthrough. Retrieve their buried treasure now instead. Paul Martin
JODY MILLER Complete Epic Hits Real Gone CD After having success in the ’60s on Capitol with her Grammy-winner ‘Queen Of The House’ (the answer record to Roger
Miller’s ‘King Of The Road’) and the opinionated ‘Home Of The Brave’, the Phoenix, Arizona native’s country career stalled with the advent of the ’70s. A shift to Epic and the grandiose, countrypolitan production genius of Billy Sherill supporting Miller’s dramatic vocals led to 25 hit singles between 1970 and ’79, some of which, like a remake of The Chiffons’ girl group classic, ‘He’s So Fine’, even dented the pop charts. Other smash R&B covers include spirited redos of material by Barbara Lewis, The Ronettes and The Shirelles but, under Sherill’s tutelage, Miller was also quite adventurous, covering folk-blues material like ‘House Of The Rising Sun’, joining Johnny Paycheck on the gospel number ‘Let’s All Go Down To The River’ and revamping Johnnie and Jack’s early country smash ‘Ashes Of Love’. Miller retired from music in ’79 but Bill
Dahl’s liners indicate she still performs occasionally. Gary von Tersch
MAGGIE AND TERRE ROCHE Seductive Reasoning Real Gone CD Aided and informatively abetted by track-for- track notes and lyrics from deft songwriter Maggie Roche’s private
archives, this long overdue reissue of the harmonizing pair’s one-off 1975 Columbia
project reveals itself as a three decade-old folk, country and pop hybrid that still sounds contemporary. Toss in backup by the justifiably celebrated Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section (including keyboardist Barry Beckett and drummer Roger Hawkins) along with a guest shot from Paul Simon (who produced and sings on the folk-rocking gem, ‘If You Empty Out All Your Pockets You Could Not Make The Change’), fresh off the sisters’ ebullient backup work on his There Goes Rhymin’ Simon project and you have a masterpiece. Further favourites begin with a dreamy, mescaline-infused memory-scape titled ‘West Virginia’, an outre rumination about a Mill Valley ‘Telephone Bill’ and the atmospheric ‘Malachy’s’, concerning an early gig at an old, Upper West Side Irish bar full of characters. Throughout, the pair’s contrasting yet airily limber harmonies are stunning. Gary von Tersch
T. REX Electric Warrior: Super Deluxe Edition Universal 2-CD/DVD
Before David Bowie became Ziggy and The New York Dolls starting dressing like ladies there was T. Rex. In 1971, Marc Bolan kick-started the glam rock revolution with Electric Warrior, distilling his new sleazy and feather boa’d glitter vision. With the Bolan/Finn/Legend/Currie team now hot to trot, Tony Visconti fully instated as producer and Flo & Eddie of The Turtles/Mothers Of Invention on eerie backing vocals, T. Rex mixed Chuck Berry with Syd Barrett and a deep sense of groove. No one seemed to have been quite this strangely sexy before. This set is another top-notch triple-
whammy from Universal featuring the original album – superbly remastered by Visconti himself – plus relevant singles and B-sides, a whole 21 track disc of demos, promo versions and out-takes and a spanking DVD of videos, live footage and TV appearances.
Still the original – still the best. Luke Smyth
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