05/12/08
Reviews by – Lindsay Planer
The 2008 Spring harvest of new arrivals has already yielded a bountiful crop of classic reissues — boasting a vast array of formerly unavailable sights and sounds. This week, As The Disc Spins is rotating no less than four of these recently revamped titles.
Carole King
— Tapestry: Legacy Edition
(Epic/Ode/Legacy)
Few albums have continued to have as significant a cultural impact as singer/songwriter Carole King’s landmark Tapestry
(1971).The project produced a total of four singles — “It’s Too
Late,” “I Feel The Earth Move,” “So Far Away” and “Smackwater Jack” —
all of which landed in the Top 20. The LP stayed at #1 for 15 weeks,
remaining for another 302 consecutive weeks (or, nearly six years) as a
key component of the album charts. In fact, only Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon
(1973) can currently claim a longer run. Indeed, someone must have
been buying it, as it has been certified 10-times platinum Stateside
and sold in excess of 24 million copies globally. With such an
impressive track record, it seems like a no-brainer to occasionally
revisit this truly timeless collection.
Disc One, of the double CD Legacy Edition,
presents a remastering of the entire dozen-song long player. What
better way to go beyond the grooves and enjoy the aforementioned hits
and equally incisive deeper cuts “Home Again,” “Way Over Yonder,”
“Beautiful,” “You’ve Got A Friend,” “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural
Woman” and King’s poignant update of “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?” — a
song she had written over a decade earlier for The Shirelles. However,
it is Disc Two that will undoubtedly and rightfully garner the most
spins. It offers what is essentially the artist playing Tapestry
live and ‘unplugged’ — just King accompanying herself on piano. The
concert material — none of which has ever been issued before — has
been drawn from four separate venues.
The Boston, Columbia MD and Central
Park shows were documenting her Fantasy (1973) tour, while the San Francisco Opera House gig — three years later — hails from the Thoroughbred
(1976) era. The contents of Disc Two mirror the familiar running order
of the original long player with one conspicuous caveat. “Where You
Lead” — that sits comfortably between “You’ve Got A Friend” and “Will
You Love Me Tomorrow?”– was the sole selection not performed by King
as a self-contained number during the early 1970s. Meaning that on the
rare occasions that she did do it there were either no usable
tapes, or she was backed by a band. The 20-page liner booklet is replete
with full-color photos — including a gorgeous un-retouched shot of
the memorable cover art — complete lyrics, fascinating song-by-song
analyses from King’s longtime behind-the-scenes collaborator Lou Adler
and an essay from noted pop music critic and author Harvey Kubernik.
Lynyrd
Skynyrd — Street Survivors: Deluxe
Edition – 30th Anniversary (Geffen/UMe)
Universal
Music Enterprises’ (UMe) certainly raised the bar with their suitably
heroic ‘Deluxe Edition’ treatments of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s epic One More For From The Road (1976) in 2001 and then Gimmie Back My Bullets (1976) four years later. That rich heritage continues with this overhaul of Street Survivors
— marking the 30th Anniversary of the last project by Skynyrd’s
‘legendary’ line-up with Ronnie Van Zant (vocals), Steve Gaines
(guitar/vocals) and Steve’s sister Cassie Gaines, who was a member of
Skynyrd’s backing vocalists, The Honkettes. They were among those who
perished on Thursday, October 20, 1977 — less than 72 hours after the
album came out — when the combo’s chartered tour airplane ran out of
gas and crashed in a densely wooded area near McComb, Mississippi.
However, Street Survivors left enthusiasts with what was unquestionably the band’s definitive musical statement.
Disc One contains the same
top-shelf audio restoration that Doug Schwartz had done in 2001 for the
single disc ‘Expanded Edition’. However, Disc Two augments the
eight-song running order with distinct caches of rare recordings. Up
first are previously unissued songs that had been readied and produced
by the legendary Tom Dowd at his Criteria Studio home-base in Miami, FL
in late 1976. Dissatisfied with the final results, Skynyrd scrapped the
tapes and started over from scratch. After three decades languishing
in the vaults, eager ears are finally treated to ‘Original Versions’ of
“What’s Your Name,” “You Got That Right,” “I Never Dreamed,” “Ain’t
No Good Life,” “Sweet Little Missy” — which is also presented in a
demo form — and “That Smell”. Wrapping up the rejected Criteria studio
sides are “Georgia Peaches” and “Jacksonville Kid” — which was a
working title for Van Zant’s remake of the Merle Haggard staple “Honky
Tonk Night Time Man”. Perhaps the most important elements in the Street Survivors: Deluxe Edition — 30th Anniversary
are what may be the last live recordings of the ’70s Skynyrd. From
August 24, 1977 they perform several yet-to-have-been released songs
from the forthcoming LP — namely “You Got That Right,” “That Smell,”
“Ain’t No Good Life” and “What’s Your Name”. Fittingly, the package
concludes with a rowdy, fist-pumpin’ reading of one of their earliest
hits, “Gimmie Three Steps”.
The oversized 24-page liner insert
is packed with formerly unpublished outtakes of the ominous fiery
cover artwork, discographical details about the creation of Skynyrd’s
swan song, plus a lengthy essay from producer Ron O’Brien that places Street Survivors
in an historic context.
Elvis Costello and The Attractions — This Year’s Model: Deluxe Edition (Hip-O/UMe)
Very
few pop artists have been able to remain as consistently relevant for
as long as Elvis Costello. If you really wanna feel old, consider that
it has been 30 years since the great bespectacled one first introduced
the world to The Attractions on This Year’s Model (1978). Over
the years, the platter has perpetually ranked near (or at) the top of
the various ‘Greatest Albums of All Time’ polls and surveys. And with
good reason too as Nick Lowe (producer) was able to capture Costello
(guitar/vocals) and Attractions’ Steve Nieve (keyboards), Bruce Thomas
(bass) and Pete Thomas (drums) — at their most viscerally edgy.
Nary a moment is wasted as Disc One
not only houses a recent remastering of the dozen-song LP, but no less
than 10 supplementary sides. Costello himself has taken an active
hand in the assembly of the extras. For this upgrade he has gone deep
into his seemingly infinite archive and retrieved the b-sides “Big
Tears,” “Tiny Steps,” “Neat, Neat, Neat” (live) and “Roadette Song”
(live). He also added “Crawling To The USA” — which initially landed
on the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack to the film Americathon (1979) before surfacing on Costello’s own and Taking Liberties
(1980) odds and sods anthology. Likewise there are demos for
“Running Out Of Angels,” “Greenshirt,” “Big Boys” and alternates of
“This Year’s Girl” and “(I Don’t Want To Go To) Chelsea”.
While the tuneson
the first CD have been widely available, the same cannot be said of
the concert featured on Disc Two. The February 28, 1978 appearance at
the Warner Theatre in Washington DC was captured for local rebroadcast
on a Maryland radio station and only one number (“Chemistry Class”)
within the 17-song live set has ever resurfaced in any legitimate
capacity. The show is wall-to-wall Costello classics from the opening
rager “Pump It Up,” through highlights including “Waiting For The End
Of The World,” “Less Than Zero,” “Little Triggers,” “Radio, Radio,”
“Lipstick Vogue,” “Watching The Detectives,” “Mystery Dance,” “Blame It
On Cain” and seven others. Within the two-dozen pages of the liner
booklet are alternates and outtakes from the LP’s striking
Costello-behind-the-camera cover shot and other full-color photos,
lyrics, as well as a compact discography.
Midnight Oil — Diesel and Dust: Legacy Edition (Columbia/Legacy)
Although
Midnight Oil had already garnered a sizable following throughout the
rest of the world, it wasn’t until their breakthrough Diesel And Dust
(1987) that Aussie-based rockers Peter Garrett (vocals), Martin Rotsey
(guitar), Jim Moginie (guitar/keyboards), Peter Gifford (bass) and Rob
Hirst (drums) made a significant impact Stateside. In fact in their
native Australia, Diesel And Dust became their fourth
consecutive chart topper. To mark both the 20th anniversary of the
release of the original album — and inaugurating the complete
reassessment of Midnight Oil’s back catalogue — Diesel And Dust
has been profoundly updated with a fresh digital remastering that,
simply put, makes the old CD sound like a cassette. Not only has the
fidelity been improved, but after having been banned in North America
due to controversial content and explicit lyrics, the track “Gunbarrel
Highway” has finally been restored to its rightful place within the lineup. As is the Legacy Edition‘s
trademark of quality, they have taken the project’s renovation a step
further, complementing the audio with the DVD debut of the hour-long Blackfella/Whitefella Tour (1987) documentary that aired on Australian television.
It was the events that can be seen
transpiring during the Blackfella/Whitefella Tour that would leave an indelible impression on the entire Diesel And Dust
concept. In effect, the song cycle was actually borne of the band’s
experiences while semi-formally touring the poverty-stricken Aboriginal
settlements of Central Australia during the summer of 1986. What they
saw sent them into profound disbelief at the severity under which these
people were (barely) existing in. The incidences translated directly
into the songs “Bullroarer,” “Dreamworld,” “Put Down That Weapon,”
“Sell My Soul” and, of course, the unexpected world-wide hit “Beds Are
Burning” — which made it all the way to the Top 20 Pop Singles survey
20 years ago, mid-May of 1988. Particularly fascinating are Midnight
Oil’s jams with the Aboriginal Warumpi Band.
It is also worth noting that as
well as containing the aforementioned hour-long main feature, there are
MTV-style concept video clips for “Beds Are Burning” and “The Dead
Heart”. The latter is striking as the number was chosen by the
Aboriginal Community of Australia as an anthem to celebrate the return
of the sacred Uluru monolith (the world’s largest) to the people of its
native land. However, it may have been Peter Garrett who gained the
most from what he saw and heard as he is currently (as of May 2008)
serving as the Minister for the Environment, Heritage & the Arts in
Australian Parliament.
Lindsay Planer is a
freelance journalist based out of the Piedmont of North Carolina. He’s
a frequent contributor to All Music Guide, All Movie Guide,
CrutchfieldAdvisor.com and the Gaston Gazette.
All comments and questions are
encouraged and can be sent to <[email protected]>.