From the Vaults

The Beatles: Revolution Take 20, 10 minutes long (1968)

25 Aug 2021 | <1 min read

This 10 minute version of the John Lennon's Revolution ended up being cut up into the acoustic version of Revolution on The White Album and some of the last part became part of the sonic tapestry of Revolution 9. Whether it would have worked as it stands here on that album is open to debate, but it certainly would have pushed the boundaries of tolerance for some. An interesting... > Read more

Vera Lynn: Everybody's Talkin' (1970)

22 Aug 2021 | <1 min read | 1

Although knows as "the Forces' Sweeheart" for her songs during the Second World War, the great Vera Lynn -- who died in 2020 at age 103 -- subsequently had a successful career with hits in the Fifties and Sixties (although her Rock'n'Roll Party Hits album might not have been the strongest of ideas). In 1970 she released the album Hits of the 60's: My Way and although you might... > Read more

George Harrison: My Sweet Lord 2000 (2001)

15 Aug 2021 | <1 min read | 2

With the 50th anniversary edition of George Harrison's All Things Must Pass album remixed and re-released (51 years after its original release) in a slightly less Spectorised edition, it's worth remembering we have passed this way before. A decade ago the album was reissued on limited edition vinyl which replicated the original three-LP set. On the 30thanniversary of... > Read more

Tony and the Initials: Taboo (1961)

9 Aug 2021 | 1 min read

It's easy to forget just how popular guitar instrumentals were in the years before the Beatles, a band which did their own (Cry for a Shadow) when they got a chance to record in Hamburg. There were many threads to the instrumental genre also: surf, country, space-themed (Telstar leading the way) and of course ballads. This one by Tony Eagleton and his band doesn't easily conform to any... > Read more

Helen Reddy: Angie Baby (1974)

26 Jul 2021 | 1 min read

The damn fine Australian singer Helen Reddy could be convincingly MOR (I Don't Know How to Love Him from Jesus Christ Superstar), kinda country (Delta Dawn) and standing proud (I Am Woman). But this song was just downright weird. It's one part odd fantasy and one part escapism then it gets very strange when the neighbour boy comes around and . . . Well, as the song says “it's... > Read more

The Honeycombs: Have I The Right (1964)

19 Jul 2021 | 1 min read | 3

In the Beatpop boom which followed the Beatles, there were any number of great one-off hits (Concrete and Clay by Unit 4 Plus Two, and Wake Up My Mind by the Ugly's spring to mind). But few had less a one-off success and promise unfulfilled than the Honeycombs. Their simplistic but energetic Have I the Right was no less interesting -- better in fact -- than the tub-thumpy pop of the... > Read more

Curtis Mayfield: Hard Times (1975)

11 Jul 2021 | <1 min read

Few artists captured the feelings of loss, discomfort, urban troubles and spiritual hope better and more consistently than Curtis Mayfield. This subtle slow-burner is lifted from his album There's No Place Like America Today, released in the same period Stevie Wonder was addressingg similar ideas on Livin' For the City (1973), Gil Scott Heron was speaking of revolution (The Liberation... > Read more

Lula Reed: I'll Drown in my Tears (1952)

28 Jun 2021 | <1 min read

Although Ray Charles took a version of this soul classic to the top of the charts in 1956, this earlier version by Lula Reed (1921-2008) is the one to return to. A sassy and soulful r'n'b singer who was discovered singing in a church choir by gospel singer Harold Boggs, she took this version to the top five on Bilboard's r'n'b charts but, despite her penetrating and unwavering vocal style,... > Read more

Joanie Sommers: Johnny Get Angry (1962)

21 Jun 2021 | 1 min read

While not quite in the league of He Hit Me and It Felt Like a Kiss, this sliver of semi-innocent pop sounds very uncomfortable these days. Poor Joanie, just wanting to get a response from the meek boyfriend ("I want a brave man, I want a cave man") and hoping for a lecture from Johnny. She wants Johnny to be the boss, but wimpy Johnny sounds like his part could be played by Gene... > Read more

Southern Tones: It Must Be Jesus (1954)

20 Jun 2021 | <1 min read

Anyone wondering why Ray Charles copped such a backlash from black preachers and congregations in the late Fifties/early Sixties need only listen to this song by a Southern gospel group and Charles' I Got a Woman released the same year. You can hear quite clearly where he got the idea from. He'd heard to song on the radio and loved its drive and passionate intensity... > Read more

Dalvanius: Chudka Popoy Ugh Cha Cha (1993)

4 Jun 2021 | 1 min read

Here is further proof – if any more were needed – of what a musical genius Dalvanius Prime was. Perhaps best (and only?) known by hundreds and thousands of New Zealanders for Poi E by Patea Maori Club, there was so much more to the man, not the least his Sydney-based showband Dalvanius and the Fascinations. And by chance this 12” single was pulled from the shelves... > Read more

Genya Ravan: Junkman (1979)

31 May 2021 | 1 min read

By the time New York singer Ravan got to her album And I Mean It, from which this track is taken, she'd already had a few careers: she'd been the singer in the Escorts in the early Sixties (the line-up included soon-to-be-producer Richard Perry); she was Goldie of Goldie and The Gingerbreads who scored a top 10 UK single with Can't You Hear My Heartbeat (produced by Alan Price of the Animals)... > Read more

Jim Reeves: He'll Have To Go (1960)

24 May 2021 | 1 min read

One of the saddest songs ever penned, He'll Have to Go became a signature ballad for the man they called Gentleman Jim Reeves. Reeves (1923-64) had the vocal ease of Bing Crosby but with less of the Crosby's lower register scuff: if Bing was brown, Jim was tan. And there was something about his slow aching honesty that made him the perfect voice for songs about a man in love whose... > Read more

Elaine Brown: Seize the Time (1969)

17 May 2021 | 1 min read

In that period when rock joined hands with the revolutionaries (the late Sixties into the early Seventies), few could claim to so confidently occupy both sides: Brown was one of them. Born in Philadelphia, she moved to California in the mid-Sixties to wait tables, became a member of the Black Congress community orgainsation, wrote freedom poetry and songs, performed in various places and... > Read more

Rod Stewart: Don't Come Around Here (2001)

25 Apr 2021 | 2 min read | 1

In his candid autobiography, Rod Stewart -- whom I unashamedly like and admire for his original songs, covers and sense of humour -- dismisses, or is highly critical, of some of his albums. In 2000 after a skirmish with cancer, he returned with the album Human, which included Charlie Parker Loves Me and this song with Helicopter Girl. But as he writes, "[Human] sold poorly.... > Read more

The Saints: See You in Paradise (1986)

19 Apr 2021 | <1 min read

Bob Geldof once said that “rock music of the Seventies was changed by three bands: the Sex Pistols, the Ramones and the Saints”. The Saints out of Brisbane were certainly the vanguard of a style which would be recognized as punk with songs like (I'm) Stranded, Wild About You and the Ramones-like speed-thrash of Demolition Girl in '76. But there was more to their musical... > Read more

Brian Eno and Snatch: RAF (1978)

12 Apr 2021 | <1 min read

The idea of “found sound” was hardly new when Brian Eno, Judy Nylon and Patti Palladin (aka Snatch) and Eno's then-familiar crew of Phil Collins (drums), bassist Percy Jones and guitarist Paul Rudolph release this as the B-side to his song King's Lead Hat (an anagram of Talking Heads) from his Before and After Science album (a longtime Essential Elsewhere album). The RAF of... > Read more

Arthur Russell: Another Thought (1985)

4 Apr 2021 | 1 min read

Curiously, it has only been in recent years that the British music press "discovered" Arthur Russell. But maybe not so curious: Russell died of Aids-related illnesses in '92 and although he left behind literally many hundreds of reels of recordings (everything from disco through experimental pop to Russell singing with just his cello for accompaniment) his work was little known beyond... > Read more

Bo Diddley: Say Man (1958)

29 Mar 2021 | 1 min read

The late Bo Diddley was perhaps best known for that distinctive self-titled riff that he bequeathed to rock. He used it on a number of songs -- Hey Bo Diddley, Pretty Thing, Hush Your Mouth and others -- and it came into rock with Buddy Holly's Not Fade Away, the Downliners Sect's Be A Sect Maniac and Sect Appeal and many others. Bo referred to it as his "shave and a haircut, two... > Read more

Death: Politicians in My Eyes (1976)

22 Mar 2021 | <1 min read

Until the 2012 doco A Band Called Death, few outside of Detroit had heard much about Death, the three brothers Hackney who formed a funk band but then, influenced by rock music, turned into a serious, proto-punk rock band inspired by the politics of the late Sixties/early Seventies (which was very volatile, especially in Detroit and Chicago). They stumbled at the first... > Read more