I wrote last year about a forthcoming box set representing the career of Jess Roden who I believe in his peak had the greatest soul/blues voice in the UK. The set has been lovingly compiled by Neil Storey in collaboration with Jess himself, and the work has involved much trawling through hundreds of tapes of studio and live recordings. These have been restored and remastered and among them are some previously unreleased gems.
After literally months of waiting, the hard work of mastering, manufacturing and hand numbering and signing the sets has been completed and this week I received my copy (number 120 if you must know). And a very fine set it is too. Well worth the wait.
The six discs are set into the front and back covers of a 12" square hardback book. There are complete recording details of all of the songs, numerous photographs and notes from Jess Roden regarding the various stages of his career. Of course the music represents this full career and consequently spans work with Alan Bown, Bronco, The Butts Band, The Rivits, Paul Kossoff, Seven Windows, The Jess Roden Band, Jess Roden & The Humans and of course his solo work.
While the package itself is great, the quality of the music is phenomenal. The boys have certainly done a wonderful job of remastering this material and I am hard pushed to find any fault with this set at all.
I suspect that this box set is going to occupy most of my music listening time over the forthcoming weeks and months.
Deep joy!
Glad you loved it as much as we did
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