The fairy-lit and decorated tree stands in the living room and supermarkets are beginning to clear their shelves to make room for Easter eggs which means it must be time to look back at the best albums of 2014. Beginning as usual with the best re-releases and box sets.
The most excitement this year seems to have been generated by the release of Bob Dylan's Bootleg Series Volume 11.
In other words 'The Basement Tapes'.
Understandable I guess when one considers the significance of those recordings. Without those informal sessions I doubt there would have been any 'Music From Big Pink'
nor any of the genre which we now call 'Americana'. So, pretty important then. But what of the actual musical content of the set itself?
Well to satisfy the Dylan fans, it simply had to be a complete release of all the tracks available including alternate takes, demos and false starts. But therein lies the problem for me because the truth is that most of that stuff is not very good. Nevertheless it is an historic document and most of those who were prepared to fork out about £100 appear to have been well pleased. Personally I have found it more enjoyable to create a playlist of my favourite pieces, and let's be honest, there are some truly great songs there, but each to his own.
Other box sets this year have included the Small Faces excellent 'Here Comes The Nice' which I wrote about here. Of course this release has been made even more poignant by the recent death of Ian McLagan.
Also Led Zeppelin have released remastered and expanded versions of their first five albums, Wilco have released a collection of rarities entitled 'Alpha Mike Foxtrot' and Crosby Stills Nash & Young have also brought us a 4 CD set of live recordings from their 1974 stadium tour. Another fine box set came from the occasionally overlooked Mike Bloomfield. 'From His Head To His Heart To His Hands' is a mixed bag of material from throughout Bloomfield's career including a dozen previously unreleased tracks. It has all been nicely compiled by his friend and frequent collaborator, Al Kooper.
All very nice indeed.
However I suspect that they will all pale into insignificance when I eventually get to hear Volume 2 of 'The Rise and Fall of Paramount Records'. I have repeatedly been drawn back to the wonders of Volume 1 which was released last year, and the second volume covering the period 1928 to 1932 promises to be even more wonderful, featuring the recordings of Charley Patton and my own personal favourites, Geeshie Wiley and Elvie Thomas. I can't wait to hear it in it's entirety (800 tracks)
I'm now turning my attention to the best of the new releases of 2014. Check back soon to see if you agree with my selections.
After a busy but very good day of music related events yesterday, I returned home late in pretty good spirits only to learn the sad news of the death of Ian McLagan at the age of 69.
What did Ian mean to me personally? Well, back in my teenage years, I recall loving the sound of the Hammond organ. A friend of mine was very much into that sound, particularly the more jazz related players such as Ray Charles, Georgie Fame and Roy Phillips of The Peddlers. However I tended to veer more to the pop / rock side of things and I remember playing to death the second Small Faces album (the first on the Immediate label - released on Columbia in the USA with a different track list under the title, 'There Are But Four Small Faces').
That one album for me best demonstrates the skill of McLagan not just on Hammond organ but on a range of keyboard instruments. His Hammond B3 (which he named Betsy) added such colour to some of those songs that one wonders whether they would have been so great without Mac's embellishments. Personally I doubt it. On the recently released Small Faces box set 'Here Come The Nice' there are several, stripped down early versions of some of those tracks and through these one can truly appreciate just what a brilliant musician McLagan was.
Of course McLagan also went on to play alongside Rod Stewart and Ronnie Lane in the Faces and continued to add his masterful touches to their repertoire.
I understand that there had been plans for a full Faces reunion in the near future. That will never happen now but at least McLagan is reunited with his old mates Ronnie Lane and Steve Marriott.
So long 'Mac' and thanks for all that great music.
My patience has been sorely tested as I ordered this item back in November last year. Finally it arrived, after a 17 week wait!
Still, some things are worth waiting for.
Restricted to 3000 copies signed by surviving Small Faces, Kenney Jones and Ian 'Mac' McLagan, this heavyweight box contains 75 remastered songs spread across four CD's, three rare EP's on coloured vinyl, an Olympic Studios rare 7" acetate replica disc, a 64 page lyric book, a 72 page hardbacked book and a host of extra goodies such as a facsimile press kit for 'Ogden's Nut Gone Flake', postcards, posters and some Gered Mankowitz fine art prints.
The extra bits and pieces are all very nice but it's really all about the music, so how does that measure up? Well I happen to think that the Small Faces were one of the most underrated bands in the 1960's and I don't just mean for the quality of their singles. Which was why I ordered this set in the first place. Included within the CD tracks are both sides of every single released worldwide by Immediate Records between 1967 and 1969. On top of that we get a host of unreleased material, studio outtakes, live tracks and early and alternate versions of many numbers. Among the live tracks are some from a concert the lads performed at Newcastle City Hall on 18 November 1968. I wasn't there so this recording will compensate me for missing it.
The sound quality of the recorded tracks is superb, wonderfully enhancing every single note that went into each recording. Of course the same cannot be said for the live recordings but the quality is still pretty good bearing in mind that the recording was made in 1968. Discs 2 & 3 contain a variety of outtakes and alternate versions which of course include a number of false starts which perhaps will not bear repeated listens. Nevertheless it is interesting to hear the lads working on these numbers and unencumbered by vocals, the backing tracks enable the listener to discover just what good musicians these four lads were.
While still with Decca, the band were already becoming a little more progressive with singles such as 'All Or Nothing' and 'My Mind's Eye'. On the Immediate label however, they really came of age and their singles became more than mere 'pop' songs.
It may have been a long wait but now this package is in my possession, I have no complaints whatsoever.
