February 3 Releases Include
Deluxe Reissues of Albums from Delaney & Bonnie, Lesley Gore, and Thom
Bell, Plus Long-Lost Albums from Larry Coryell, Jim Kweskin, and Duke
Ellington, Capped with Rare Live Soft Machine on Vinyl and a 2-CD Lynn Anderson
Collection
Year after year, Real Gone Music starts the calendar with a bang
by putting out a huge slate of releases, and this year’s crop is no
exception—the label is putting out a total of ten releases the day after
Groundhog Day! Leading off the line-up is a deluxe reissue of the roots-rock
classic LP Motel Shot by Delaney & Bonnie and Friends, featuring
eight unreleased bonus tracks on a domestic CD debut. The label is also filling
in the last big gap in Lesley Gore’s catalog by reissuing her A&M album Love
Me by Name, again garnished with bonus tracks. And fabled R&B producer
Thom Bell’s classic soundtrack to The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh featuring
The Spinners, The Four Tops, The Sylvers, and more receives an expanded reissue
with three bonus tracks.
Then, the label delves into the Vanguard vaults for a pair of
long-lost classics: guitar god Larry Coryell’s second solo album, and Jug Band
leader Jim Kweskin’s first solo album. The liner notes to both feature quotes
from their respective artists. The only Duke Ellington album yet to be
reissued, 1963’s Serenade to Sweden with Swedish singer Alice Babs,
finally sees the light of day on CD. A rare live show from the proto-prog rock
band Soft Machine comes out on limited edition “soft” purple vinyl. And a
long-overdue, comprehensive collection of the great Lynn Anderson’s hit
recordings for the Chart and Columbia labels caps off the schedule with a
flourish.
Though they never achieved the popular success enjoyed by some of
their peers, Delaney & Bonnie Bramlett spearheaded the roots-rock
revolution of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s along with The Allman Brothers and
The Band, turning away from the exoticism of psychedelia towards music “rooted”
in blues, country, and soul. Witness the fact that the “And Friends” that
played with the pair included Eric Clapton, George Harrison, Leon Russell, Dave
Mason and Bobby Whitlock….out of Delaney and Bonnie’s various aggregations
arose Derek and the Dominoes and Joe Cocker’s band for the legendary Mad
Dogs and Englishmen tour. And for Delaney
& Bonnie and Friends’ Motel Shot, the
duo’s fourth studio album and their third for Atco/Atlantic, the circle of
“friends” included Cocker, Whitlock, and Mason, plus appearances by Duane
Allman, Gram Parsons, and John Hartford among others! But for the most part,
this is a largely acoustic, charmingly informal affair dipped in gospel and
dominated by the Bramletts and Whitlock; the Motel
Shot title refers to informal, after hours jam sessions on the road.
But there’s a whole lot more to the story (and to this release!). The project
began not in a hotel room but in the living room of engineer Bruce Botnick,
with November 1970 sessions as a prospective release for Elektra Records. But,
after Delaney had a falling out with label head Jac Holzman, the project moved
to Atco, who put the “band” into a proper studio to re-record much of the
material. Those later sessions comprise the original album, which has
heretofore only appeared briefly on CD in Japan; but, after hours of tape
research, co-producers Bill Inglot and Pat Thomas uncovered the original
“living room” sessions that yielded the eight unreleased tracks on this
Expanded Edition CD release – and notably is the first American CD release of
the original Motel Shot album as well. Remastered by Inglot, with an
essay by Thomas that includes exclusive (and extremely candid) quotes from
Bonnie Bramlett, Bobby Whitlock, Bruce Botnick, and Jac Holzman, Motel
Shot finally is presented here the way it was originally conceived,
and takes its rightful place as one of the great albums of the classic era of
the roots rock movement.
Having filled a major gap in the late, great Lesley
Gore’s discography with its
release of her Motown album Someplace Else Now, Real Gone Music now
turns its attention to the other major missing piece of her catalog, the 1976
album she recorded for A&M Records. Love
Me by Name not
only reunited Lesley with producer Quincy Jones from her hit-making ‘60s days,
but brought her into together with a truly staggering array of talent,
including Herbie Hancock, Toots Thielemans, Harvey Mason, Jim Keltner, Dave
Grusin and just about every other studio superstar you could name, even the
Partridge Family! Love
Me by Name features
compositions written by Gore and her songwriting partner Ellen Weston, most
notably the title track, which was later covered by Dusty Springfield, Patti
Austin, and Jennifer Holiday among others. The album also gave a nod to the
disco and funk trends that were so prominent in pop music at the time,
particularly on the lead-off track, “Sometimes,” which paired her unmistakable
pipes with the Brothers Johnson. Our Real Gone reissue marks the worldwide
debut of this album on CD, and adds two rare single versions as well as liner
notes by Joe Marchese that explore the life and times of this remarkable lady.
Remastered by Mike Milchner at SonicVision and featuring rare photos, this
Expanded Edition of Love
Me by Name is the
one release that Lesley Gore fans worldwide have been waiting for.
Real Gone Music and Second Disc Records are tipping off 2017 with
a slam dunk release! The 1979 cult favorite film The
Fish That Saved Pittsburgh featured an all-star
team from the worlds of basketball and Hollywood - Julius “Dr. J” Erving,
Meadowlark Lemon, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Jerry Tarkanian, Stockard Channing,
Jonathan Winters, Flip Wilson, Debbie Allen, Harry Shearer, and more – for its
fantastical tale of a struggling Pittsburgh basketball team that beats the odds
with a little help from the heavens. The movie’s soundtrack was equally
illustrious. Pop-soul maestro Thom Bell, renowned for his work with The
Spinners, The Stylistics, The Delfonics, and Johnny Mathis, wrote, produced,
arranged, and conducted his very first motion picture score, and the result was
a soul symphony incorporating funk, disco, and jazz rhythms, and of course,
Bell’s trademark luscious balladry. An A-team of R&B’s finest artists
was enlisted to perform Bell’s all-new songs, including The Four Tops, The
Spinners, Bell and James, Phyllis Hyman, The Delfonics’ William “Poogie” Hart,
and The Sylvers, plus country superstar Loretta Lynn, ragtime legend Eubie
Blake, and the one and only Doc Severinsen. Yet, when the movie came and
went from theatres, so did the soundtrack album…until now! The Fish
gained a cult following on television and VHS, and now, it’s time for its
sizzling soundtrack to have its chance on the court, too. Hip-hop’s most
tuned-in artists have already sampled these lost grooves; now you can hear the
originals! The first-ever CD release of The
Fish That Saved Pittsburgh boasts a sparkling new
remastering from the original Lorimar Records tapes by Sean Brennan at Sony’s
Battery Studios, detailed liner notes by The Second Disc’s Joe Marchese
featuring fresh quotes from Thom Bell, and three rare bonus tracks: two
distinctive 12-inch mixes of Bell and James’ infectious title track, and the
lush, dramatic “Pisces Theme.” This deluxe Expanded Edition is nothing
but net, and a must-have for classic soul fans from Philly to Motown…and of
course, Pittsburgh. The Doctor is in!
Larry
Coryell is one of the greatest guitarists ever to walk the face of the
earth, but he remains somewhat underappreciated—witness the fact that this, his
second solo album, has never been released on CD until this Real Gone reissue!
1969’s Coryell offers
an intriguing blend of improvised and arranged pieces, with an all-star cast
that includes Ron Carter, Bernard Purdie, Albert Stinson (“The Jam with Albert”
is perhaps the highlight of the entire album), Chuck Rainey, and Free Spirits
bandmate Jim Pepper. Jimi Hendrix is definitely an influence on this jazz-rock
gem, but Coryell takes his axe in directions only known to him; at this time,
only John McLaughlin (with whom Coryell would shortly cut the one-off Spaces)
could rival him in the fusion field. Bill Kopp’s notes include copious quotes
from Larry Coryell himself; Mike Milchner’s remastering lets this overlooked
album shine.
After a couple of albums on Vanguard Records established Jim
Kweskin and the Jug Band as a major force in the folk scene, their leader
had something different in mind for his first LP without the group. Billed to
Jim Kweskin, 1965’s Relax
Your Mind gave him the opportunity to, as
he puts it in Richie Unterberger’s liner notes, record “music that was a little
more meaningful to me personally.” With accompaniment by the Jug Band members
Fritz Richmond on washtub bass and Mel Lyman on harmonica, Kweskin delivered a
set just as diverse as his records with the full Jug Band, encompassing
traditional folk standards, blues, gospel, African music, and more. Mel Lyman’s
original, stream-of-consciousness liner notes (also included here) describe an
uproarious, impromptu jam session in the Vanguard studios from which much of
this record was taken; the rest comes from a live date recorded at Cambridge’s
Club 47 a year or two earlier. Remastering by Mike Milchner at SonicVision and
copious Kweskin quotes in the notes present this fine folk album—which sees its
first domestic release to retail—in its best light.
Real Gone Music is proud to present what is probably the rarest
album in the voluminous Duke
Ellington discography, his 1963 date with Swedish singer Alice
Babs, Serenade
to Sweden. That year, Ellington was hired by the
Reprise label as an A&R man, free to sign any artist he wanted and to
record them. His first choice was Babs, who, in Ellington’s words, was “the
most unique artist I know…She sings opera, she sings lieder, she sings what we
call jazz and blues, she sings like an instrument, she even yodels, and she can
read any and all of it!” For her part, Babs (born Hildur Alice Nilson) had a
hit in Sweden when was only 15 (“Swing It Teacher”), and was an iconic figure
in her homeland, appearing in 14 Swedish films from 1938 to 1959. The result of
this meeting of legendary musical minds was a sublime cool jazz masterpiece
that, sadly, never received a proper release in the U.S. and appears to be the only
Ellington album never to be reissued on CD or even digitally, having eluded
even the most comprehensive compilers. Needless to say, original copies go for
big Swedish krona online, and not just because it’s rare; Babs’ wordless
vocals and scat singing on “The Boy in My Dreams,” “Strange Visitor,” and
“Babsie” are positively Ella-worthy, and Ellington’s masterful arrangements—at
times filigreed with a French horn section—provide the perfect accompaniment.
We’ve added liner notes by Scott Yanow, while the album boasts remastering by
Aaron Kannowski. Fascinating for any jazz fan—essential for Ellington
enthusiasts!
Soft
Machine was one of the first prog-rock bands, but if your vision of prog-rock
consists of musicians wreathed in pot smoke airily singing of fairies and
wizards, it will be summarily dispelled by this fantastic “authorized bootleg,”
which captures the band in March 1969 at the Paradiso in Amsterdam, playing
material that was to be released six months later on Soft Machine: Volume
Two. The trio of Robert Wyatt on drums and vocals, Mike Ratledge on organ,
and Hugh Hopper on bass launch what can only be called a high-decibel,
jazz-rock sonic assault; “Like vindaloo for the ears” is how Hopper puts it on
the accompanying notes on the inner sleeve, adding, “I do remember playing
incredibly loud, Mike on fuzz organ and me on fuzz bass, both through
hundred-watt Marshall stacks.” Some of the frenzied instrumental passages on Live
at the Paradiso might recall Miles Davis’ Agharta-era
band, but remember, this is a trio making all this racket (in 1969, no
less); Soft Machine at this point in time were on a journey all their own. This
is the first-ever vinyl release of this notorious concert, and it comes on
“soft” purple vinyl limited to 1000 copies. Anybody interested in just how far
out rock got in the late ‘60s will want to give this repeated listens.
She is one of the Top Ten charting female country singers of all
time, the first to win an American Music Award, the first to headline and sell
out Madison Square Garden, and was a regular on TV including everything from The
Lawrence Welk Show to The Tonight Show to Starsky & Hutch.
Now, Real Gone Music is proud to present a collection that finally does justice
to the superstar career of Lynn
Anderson: 40 tracks, 38 hits, all of her classic Chart and Columbia sides,
lovingly remastered by Vic Anesini at Battery Studios and annotated by Joe
Marchese. The
Definitive Collection starts
with her first hit, “Ride, Ride, Ride,” and continues with every other notable
song, including “Rose Garden,” “You’re My Man,” “How Can I Unlove You,” “What a
Man, My Man Is,” “Keep Me in Mind,” “Mother, May I” (with her mother, Liz
Anderson), “That’s a No No,” “Cry,” “Listen to a Country Song,” “Fool Me,” and
many more hits both major and minor. Great, great ‘70s country from an
oft-overlooked artist (why isn’t Lynn in the Country Music Hall of Fame?)!
