Alan's Album Archives

In-depth reviews of classic or neglected albums, mainly from the 1960s and 70s, now a 30 volume e-book series.Artists covered include Beach Boys, Beatles,Byrds, CSNY, Dire Straits, Grateful Dead, Hollies, Jefferson Airplane/Starship, Kinks, Monkees, Moody Blues, Pink Floyd, Rolling Stones, Searchers, Simon and Garfunkel, Small Faces, 10cc, The Who+Neil Young.Sister site to https://kindredspiritbooks.blogspot.com/ (scifi novels) and https://alonsyaliensdrwho.blogspot.com/ (Dr Who episode reviews)

Monday, 17 December 2012

The AAA Review Of The Year 2012 (News, Views and Music Issue 175)

In 2010 we said that it was like the year 1963 all over again: a triple lot of Beatles re-issues (their group albums in mono and stereo box sets, plus the start of Macca’s solo re-issue series), Keith Richard’s book causing controversy and some long overdue interest in The Searchers. That meant by proxy that 2011 was 1964 and so it proved: The Hollies were everywhere with their first official documentary, a box set and a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame appearance, with cameos by The Kinks (a documentary each on Ray and Dave Davies) and yet more from The Beatles (via a George Harrison book and documentary). 2012 has therefore logically carried on this theme – and helped me fill out this introduction for yet another year - by being like 1965. The Beatles and Stones celebrated big anniversaries (50 years each, questionable in both cases as the former chose the date Ringo joined the band and their first single not when they formed, while the latter hadn’t yet added Bill Wyman or Charlie Watts to the band in 1962) and proper releases for some of their rarer material (Magical Mystery Tour and unreleased 1965 concert film ‘Charlie Is My Darling’ respectively). The Beach Boys were big news too – especially in Europe – thanks to an unexpected reunion tour (one that, sadly, ended the way we all expected after 20 years of continual in-fighting). The Who followed up their ‘director’s cut’ re-issue of Quadrophenia last year with a new documentary on the album, the release of Pete Townshend’s autobiography (first mooted as far back as 1981) and easily the best musical performance at the Olympics (which makes Roger Daltrey Usain Bolt – and the Spice Girls moaning cheat Oscar Pistorius). The Kinks were still there too with a new BBC compilation and a best-of. Meanwhile The Small Faces’ back catalogue was plundered again – this time with decidedly better (if pricey) results. The Monkees, too, might not have been around in 1965 but very much dominated the musical news after the sad death of the much missed Davy Jones (amazingly the only AAA member we lost this year) and the unexpected reunion of the other three. In fact only The Byrds were missing from the AAA crowd of 1965, which means logically that if 2013 is a mirror of 1966 then we’re in for one hell of a year...

However, even though we had quantity galore this year in the shape of new albums, re-issues, rarities, box sets, BBC recordings and especially a bumper crop of documentaries (my poor DVD recorder’s been worked to death these past 12 months!) we haven’t always had quality. The six AAA releases we list in our ‘releases of the year’ section below are all re-issues of previously released albums/singles/bbc sessions with something extra added – releases that admittedly sound better than ever thanks to new tracks/new documentaries/new packaging, but the very small handful of all-new AAA releases this year were sadly uniformly atrocious. The Beach Boys sounded like they’d been together 5000 years not 50, Neil Young released two of his most questionable record-em-quick records and Paul McCartney turned into a crooner for possibly his most misguided album ever. At least 2011 had the excellent first Beady Eye album and half-decent records by Noel Gallagher and Paul Simon going for it – by comparison 2012 was an argument for how badly the music scene is nowadays even for our heroes and heroines, pressurised into releasing dross. Let’s hope for better in 2013: we still have the long-awaited batch of CSNY releases promised (a ‘Stills’ box set to go alongside the ‘Crosby’ and ‘Nash’ ones, plus the first legal issue of the quartet’s record attended show at Wembley in 1974), possibly more from Belle and Sebastian and the ever-busy Neil Young, ‘Wings At The Speed Of Sound’ is set to be 2013’s McCartney deluxe edition and we might finally get a proper legal version of The Beatles’ ‘Let It Be’ film on DVD to follow ‘MMTour’ and ‘Yellow Submarine’ into the shops (don’t hold your breath though...)

THE BEST ALBUMS OF THE YEAR

1) Pink Floyd “The Wall” (Experience Edition)

Re-issues were definitely the best releases of the year and Pink Floyd’s ‘The Wall’ carried on their excellent but bank-breaking re-issue series. I actually preferred this set to both the ‘Dark Side’ and ‘Wish You Were Here’ sets at the end of last year, simply because the ‘unreleased material’ was all so different this time around without any ‘fillers’ like alternate mixes or live versions. The main reason for buying this hideously overpriced set was the chance to hear Roger Waters’ legendary unreleased ‘demo’ version of the entire album (played to the band in 1978 alongside Roger’s demos for ‘The Pros and Cons Of Hitch-Hiking’, of which only one track sadly made this box). What strikes you is how even the roughest and readiest of these songs already have a magic and mystery about them, with Roger’s overdubbed voice already at full emotional stretch across these songs. The one new ‘song’ ‘Teacher’ was a bit of a disappointment, but the alternate six versions of ‘Another Brick In The Wall’ gave fans a great chance to hear the song (which starts off here as a composite of all three versions) develop over the months Roger worked on it (sounding very different without the children’s choir overdubbed near the end of the sessions) and ‘Comfortably Numb’ aka ‘The Doctor’ sounds so different without Gilmour’s contribution and with its original lyrics that it made you completely re-evaluateperhaps the most important Floyd song of them all. Best of all we also heard a cracking demo of ‘What Shall We Do Now?’ a song heard on the film soundtrack and live appearances but senselessly booted off the album in favour of the similar but inferior ‘Empty Spaces’. You probably won’t play any of these ‘new’ tracks that often for fun and few of these versions compete with the finished product, but the sheer difference between the Wall’s first bricks in 1978 and its last polished coat in 1980 came as a welcome shock to many fans, me included and just about moves this box set into our pole position. The coasters and knick-knacks are nice, too, but – frankly – this set would have been better still with the packaging pared down to the bones and re-released at a sensible price (still that’s not really the Floyd way...)

(Highlights to download - 'What Shall We Do Now? 'The Doctor' 'Another Brick In The Wall' (Six Versions)

2) Paul and Linda McCartney “Ram” (Deluxe Edition)

Talking about excessive packaging, the fourth album in the McCartney re-issue series was the best yet. I’ve always been particularly fond of ‘Ram’ which is a real fan’s album – if you love the quirky side of Macca’s writing in the Beatles and don’t expect the hits you know and love then this album will - along with ‘London Town’ and ‘Press To Play’ - become your new best friend. Again for the price there’s painfully little here in terms of new material, with CD 1 the album in stereo, CD3 the album in mono (there’s not that much difference really), CD4 the ‘crooner’ version of the album released by Macca under his ‘Percy Thrills Thrillington’ persona (nice to have properly re-issued but hardly essential listening for 99% of fans) and CD2’s rarities disc contains just four entirely ‘new’ tracks: the much bootlegged but terrific ‘A Love For You’, the surprisingly noisy jam session ‘Rode All Night’ and two instrumentals from the planned feature length cartoon of ‘Rupert The Bear’. The DVD has some nice moments though: Paul and Linda sing ‘Hey Diddle’ while their children play, the rare promo to ‘3 Legs’ as well as the more common ‘Heart Of The Country’, a sweet 10 minute making of (that could – and should – have been a lot longer) and a fascinating film of Wings on tour shot by drummer Denny Seiwell (which is actually out of place here and should be with ‘Wildlife’), though not up to the surprises of the ‘Macca II’ and ‘Band On The Run’ sets. So why do we rate it so highly? The packaging is so much fun and entirely suitable to the album – there’s a flick book of photos of Paul’s sheep, there’s Paul’s original hand-drawn lyrics scribbled in crayon and re-printed in colour complete with crossings out and six glossy photos taken by Linda. ‘Ram’ is an album all about returning to the heart of the country and the hand-made feel of this set captures that nicely, especially as everything here is tied up with home-made string, with a human being having actually touched the thing (a rarity in this day and age). The book is also the best of the four, Macca having actual genuine memories about this record that, to boot, he hasn’t spoken about ad infitum in the past (as per ‘Band On The Run’). I’d like to see this set cut in half in price terms (Macca really doesn’t need all this money anymore surely?) – yes there are smaller, cheaper versions of this album around but they look ordinary without the packaging – but ‘Ram’ was always one of Macca’s better ideas and it now looks and sounds better than ever.

(Highlights to download - 'Too Many People' 'Heart Of The Country' 'Long Haired Lady' 'Back Seat Of My Car' 'A Love For You')

3) 10cc “Tenology”

I’ve waited a long time for 10cc to get the box set they deserve – and sadly I’m still waiting, although this does at least do half a job of capturing the band’s amazing journey. Recently released at the time of going to print, this set’s packaging capture’s the band’s zany humour (lots of Hipgnosis drawings fans can spend hours unscrambling and some free postcards featuring the band’s heads’ cut into sections like some musical biology project) and finally looks past the band’s hits for their deeper album tracks (although there’s still an unnecessary disc of ‘hits’ included – as if a casual fan who doesn’t already own these songs on various £5 compilations is going to fork out £50 on this set). Frankly there’s not as many rarities as I’d like – fans of this site will know I rate 10cc’s last two ‘forgotten’ albums very highly and this would be a welcome chance to make all (or most) of these rare tracks available on CD for the first time, not just a mere four. However, this set does take a pretty good look at the band’s album career and includes pretty much all the essential songs between 1972 and 1978 as well as an excellent CD full of B sides and flop singles, some of which I’ve been trying to get hold of for years. The DVD is less interesting, sadly, mainly being taken up by the band’s music videos (and only the most common ones at that – look out for the excellent ‘Changing Faces’ DVD which isn’t complete either but does at least contain several more than this set) and their oft-repeated ‘In Concert’ set from 1974 that lasts barely 25 minutes and is often a filleron BBC4 ‘1970s night’ repeats. However, even though this box set is far from perfect, it’s nice that it’s here at all and has been made with due care and attention, with input from all band members from all eras and, thankfully, none of the later solo/reunion tracks that ruined many a fine compilation CD down the years. Not quite ten out of ten, perhaps, but easily good enough to make this year’s list.

(Highlights to download: 'Rubber Bullets' 'Don't Turn Me Away' 'Run Away' 'Blackmail' 'Waterfall')

4) “Davy Jones” (Re-Issue)

Davy Jones’ album for Bell after he left The Monkees was a high point in his career, even though it sold a pitifully small amount on release. We Monkee fans have waited patiently for a proper re-issue of one of the last AAA-related albums never to have appeared on CD to come out; it’s just a shame that it took Davy Jones’ death to inspire it. The release – weeks after Davy’s sad and unexpected demise – could have seemed tacky, a cash in on a lost idol that grieving fans would be guaranteed to buy, but Friday Music did the right thing, keeping the price low, adding a handful of bonus tracks and sensitively handling the whole affair in the media. For those who hadn’t heard lo-fi bootlegs/youtube videos of the songs the album was a revelation, Davy singing with his lower, warmer tones heard on the last batch of Monkees LPs and not straining quite so hard to sound young and appealing. Davy took his time with this album, choosing material most suitable for his voice and his character, especially the hit single ‘Rainy Jane’ which is everything Davy represents; upbeat, supportive and optimistic; the fact that it still made #52 on the pop charts at a time when the Monkees were at their lowest critical ebb says much for the single’s worth. The rest of the album isn’t far behind either, a few low points not withstanding. For those sneering critics who didn’t understand what our love affair with Davy was all about we could play them this album and sigh, the silver lining in what has undoubtedly been a sad year for Monkeemaniacs all over the world.

(Highlights to download - 'Rainy Jane' 'Look At Me' 'Girl')

5) The Searchers “Hearts In Their Eyes”

Another box set, this time more reasonably priced and with a nice mixture of A sides, B sides, album tracks, BBC sessions and unreleased songs. For me The Searchers were always at their charismatic best live and the BBC sessions are the nearest we have to that (along with their excellent Swedish live concerts released on CD ten years or so back) and the chance to hear some of the band’s rare solo singles (by Tony Jackson and Chris Curtis) plugs many a missing link in the band’s evolution. Admittedly 18 tracks from the band’s two albums from the late 70s when they were re-inventing themselves as a ‘new wave’ group are about 17 too many, but even these are quite rare these days and likely to have gone unheard by many Searchers fans. The real trouble with this set is that it’s taken so long to get right – we’ve had 25th, 30th, 35th and 40th anniversary sets before this one, each with only slightly running orders– and why is 2012 the Searchers’ 50th anniversary anyway? (Should this set have come out last year – or did they mean to release it in 2013, the 50th anniversary of Jackson joining the band?) Still, if you’re a newcomer, you can’t do better with a single purchase than this box set (I wonder if I can still trade in my others?...)

(Highlights to download - 'Since You Broke My Heart' 'No One Else Could Love Me' 'Goodbye My Love' 'Til I Met You' 'He's Got No Love' 'Umbrella Man' 'Vehevala')

5) The Kinks “At The BBC” (Deluxe Edition)

To be honest the 2CD set of Kinks BBC sessions (released in 2000) is heavy going for the most part and a good half hour to long – but well done to the Kinks/BBC lawyers for working out the copyright problems behind who owns what on this set and the band’s agreement to letting the fans hear them, warts and all, across 5 CDs and one DVD, is a brave move. The trouble with a set like this is that, being near complete, you get blooming sick of hearing almost identical versions of ‘You Really Got Me’ ‘Lola’ et al and for every good night where the Kinks are clearly on cracking form there’s another where they sound lost or bored. The DVD is also a bit of a let down, featuring mainly old TOTP sessions and music videos already available on several dozen Kinks official and unofficial sets along with a spiffing Old Grey Whistle Test from the 1970s that’s sadly incomplete (typically Kinks, the best songs from their ‘Sleepwalker’ era set aren’t here). There are enough nuggets spread across this set to keep fans going, however, including a band version of ‘This Strange Effect’ (a Ray Davies song given away), ‘Good Luck Charm’ (a Dave Davies cover unavailable on album), a gorgeous piano version of ‘Waterloo Sunset’ where that song never shimmered brighter, highlights from a rare ‘Preservation concert’ in 1974 that’s particularly charismatic, the Komplete and Inkredably Kracking ‘Kinks Kristmas Koncert’ from 1977 (its first official release despite being repeated endlessly on BBC6) and my favourite of all the band’s recordings ever, a punky no-holds barred on-the-edge version of Dave Davies’ ‘Love Me Till The Sun Shines’, played at twice the speed and ten times the intensity of the album version. All essential for Kinks fans, though the question remains – why wasn’t more of this stuff released 12 years ago to brighten up the rather dull 2 CD set and why was so much of that earlier set so bad compared to some of the gems on offer here?

Also nominated: Neil Young “Psychedelic Pill” (a Crazy Horse double that’s at least an hour too long but does have some of the old fire back), Mark Knopfler’s “Privateering” (the only AAA album to make the top 10 in the UK this year, not quite up to last album ‘Get Lucky’ but still a strong work) and Art Garfunkel’s “Songwriter” (a long awaited 2 disc compilation with two new tracks that digs deeper than usual and almost gets the track listing spot on; download ‘The Kid’ and ‘Mary Was An Only Child’ and you really do have the best Art Garfunkel performances to date).

THE BEST TV/RADIO DOCUMENTARIES OF THE YEAR

Paul Simon “Under African Skies: The Graceland Tour”

‘Graceland’ is seemingly everyone’s favourite Paul Simon record expect mine. Where most fans hear a groundbreaking piece of world music, uniting African and American musicians as one, I hear as a poor attempt to re-create the ‘world music’ atmosphere of the Muscle Shoals recordings on ‘Rhymin’ Simon’ and a songwriter quickly running out of ideas and looking for gimmicks to cover up the lack of quality in his songs. The album certainly wasn’t worth the outrage it created when it was revealed that Paul broke an agreement on apartheid in South Africa to make the record, although that said it was the political discussions that ‘Graceland’ raised that mean we had the backdrop for this documentary made 25 years on. Reuniting all the cast of characters it can (sadly Miriam Makeba is no longer with us) this documentary (made for DVD in Easter but also shown by the BBC this Autumn) was a heck of a lot better than I expected it to be. Lots of footage of the band rehearsing the songs in 1987 still exists, unbeknown to me and most fans I think, and it’s sprinkled liberally through the film, making for a neat comparison with the band rehearsing the songs for a 2012 tour (the new/old version of ‘The Boy In The Bubble’ with the accordion part back at the heart of the song is particularly strong). The documentary also tries hard to be fair throughout, following Paul as he meets up with the former world minister for Africa and it doesn’t spare his blushes as he squirms on his seat during the interview, admitting his naivete and talking about how much the experience taught him. However, Paul Simon definitely gets the last laugh – everyone who is still alive signs up for the tour straight away and the scenes of Paul meeting old friends he hasn’t seen for 20 years brings a tear to the eye. Like the best documentaries, I learned lots I didn’t know before and it even made me like the album more, having seen Paul and his friends and his enemies come to terms with each other and find closure on the subject. ‘Graceland’ is still over-rated, though – I’d much prefer an ‘Imagine’ special about the making of ‘One Trick Pony’ for instance...

The Who “Can You See The Real Me? The Story Of Quadrophenia”

‘Quadrophenia’, on the other hand, is an album I adore and any documentary dealing with the subject would have to be amazing to be worthy of it. While not quite as worthy as it could have been, this documentary (shown on the BBC) was still a good one, pitting Roger Daltrey’s earthy frustration against Pete Townshend’s more liberal ideas and following the duo as they tried the hopeless task of properly mixing the album for surround sound (the 1973 quadrophonic’ mix was a key part of the story). The most interesting part, though, wasn’t on the songs but on the packaging, the photographer remembering setting up a lot of the shots used in the album booklet and how Ther Who’s cover star ended up in prison and was nearly dropped from the project after over-sleeping on his first day. Unlike ‘African Skies’ there wasn’t all that much I learnt, but it’s nice to see ‘Quadrophenia’ get its time in the spotlight after so many years of watching The Who talk about ‘Tommy’ and ‘Who’s Next’ ad infinitum. I can’t say it made me love the album any more than I did either, but then it would be impossible to rate this album any higher.

The Beatles “Love Me Do”

On the 50th anniversary of ‘Love Me Do’ in October, BBC2 screened a much-trumpeted, all singing, all dancing look at the making of the Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour TV special. It was almost as much of a disaster as the TV special itself; Ringo cracked bad jokes and looked bored, Macca told all his old stories for the umpteempth time, a discussion of the fascinating songs was passed over for rambling stories about how the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band were hired and we had to sit through yet another re-tread of the Beatles’ entire history while the much vaunted unseen footage was limited to about 30 seconds (however see the DVD below...) That same night, on the lesser seen BBC4, a low budget unofficial documentary about the Beatles in 1962 was shown – and it beat the MMTour one in every way. Telling the story of the fab four that year it took in the failed Decca audition, the sacking of Pete Best, fame and fortune in the Cavern and Hamburg and the audition with EMI. Several new or rare interviewees were found: Paul’s old girlfriend Iris (also the sister of Rory Storm, Ringo’s first boss) and session drummer Andy White (who played on the ‘single’ version of ‘Love Me Do’ instead of Ringo) added several fresh insights, while Pete Best stole the show with his memories of the band’s early days. Let’s hope the same production company are planning a special about the Beatles’ year of 1963 in 2013 as that would be better still!
Also nominated: “We Love The Monkees” (a moving tribute to Davy Jones by Channel 4), Dave Davies in conversation with Alan Yentob (rambling but informative, BBC), Paul McCartney at the BBC (interesting radio clip show featuring some rarities not heard in decades, BBC) and Pink Floyd: The Making Of Wish You Were Here (BBC, an excellent new take on an album that’s been talked about to death already).

THE BEST DVDS OF THE YEAR

The Beatles “Magical Mystery Tour”

Thankfully the awful official TV documentary on MMTour didn’t make it to the world’s first fully official DVD of the boxing day 1967 special, which is actually superb and among the finest purchases out this year (the special itself is still pretty weird, and a hard slog for non-fans, though, so be warned if you’re only a casual fan of the fab four). Unlike some re-mastering jobs so slight you wonder why they bother the re-mastering of MMTour takes out all the scratches and puts both colour and sound back into the special so that you really can see and hear the difference. The extras too are essential for any Beatles nut, showing unseen clips from the songs ‘Fool On The Hill’ ‘Your Mother Should Know’ and ‘Blue Jay Way’ (though sadly the ones for ‘Walrus’ don’t appear to exist anymore). Ringo’s film for ‘Blue Jay’ is especially interesting, featuring lots of extra footage of the Beatles mucking around in George’s Weybridge house that’s a delight to see after all these years. There’s also the unseen Ivor Cutler song ‘I’m In A Field’ which is better than most of the film, although the same probably can’t be said for the Nat Jackley sequence (a bit of behind the scenes footage shows John Lennon directing one of his boyhood idols, however, which is worth a giggle). Macca’s eccentric audio commentary isn’t terribly revealing but his references to his home-made films (thought to have been thrown out during a spot of tidying by Jane Asher) and the influences on the special near the beginning are fascinating. All in all, an excellent package and one that bodes well for the ‘Let It Be’ set to come (hopefully). Beatle fans should note that the recent re-issue of ‘Yellow Submarine’ was pretty good too, with some fascinating extras about the making of the animation and the depiction of the chief animator as a ‘blue meanie’, but that DVD fails to make this list because it’s been out on DVD three times already and, frankly, Apple are pushing their luck there sticking it out Again without any new Beatle input.

Crosby, Stills and Nash “2012”

CSN fans have already been spoilt by a strong series of CSN shows from 1974, 1983, 1990, 2006 and Crosby-Nash’s set last year on DVD, so arguably you don’t really need this set unless you’re an obsessive fan. Which means, once you’ve been touched by the CSN bug, that’s more or less all of us. This concert isn’t up to the 70s, 80s or even the acoustic shows of the 90s but it does at least still prove why Stills is still the world’s greatest guitarist (in my eyes, at least) and why Crosby and Nash are among the best singers around even today. New Nash song ‘Almost Gone’ is as good as anything in his canon since the 70s, several intriguing songs litter the setlist, unheard for decades or sometimes at all (‘So Begins The Task’ ‘As I Come Of Age’ and the welcome return of ‘Suite: Judy Blue Eyes’ after 20 or so years) and even the old favourites have some life left in them. Sure, Stills’ voice is a shadow of what it once was and all three men do less leaping around the stage in a whole set than they did during a song in the olden days, but CSN weren’t about that kind of showbiz shtick anyway. Two extra soundtrack CDs of the concert make less sense (it’s the 1970s and 80s shows I want to hear independently, not this one) but might be of interest to some. No classic, but worth your time if you’re a fan.

The Rolling Stones “Crossfire Hurricane”

The two-part documentary has just been screened by BBC 2 as I type this and, well, what a curious mixture it turned out to be. On the plus side the band let the footage do the talking and there are minimal attempts to ‘sum up’ an event from the benefit of 50 years’ hindsight as there was with the Beatles Anthology. On the negative side, much of this footage has been seen before – often in the same weekend in the case of film from the ‘Charlie Is My darling’ set, which is actually more deserving of a release than anything on this DVD – and two hours to tell the story means that just about everything since 1978 got told in one sentence. The second part of the documentary is pretty ghastly to be honest, with no mention of Bill Wyman leaving the band, precious little about Keef and Ronnie’s drug problems and not even a hint of the ‘World War III’ rift between the band’s songwriters Jagger and Richards – the three really crucial developments in this era of the ‘stone’ age. That said, the first part is probably the best single hour’s retrospective on the Stones around, made with care and with some great choice of film that makes the decline and death of Brian Jones across the first hour truly gut-wrenching, not just some hoary old story from 40 years ago we all know in great detail. You might not understand the Stones any better by the end of it all, but you will at least understand why for many this band represented a tidal wave of change and reform – and why so many fans believed in the idea and ideal so whole-heartedly.

RE-ISSUE SERIES OF THE YEAR

The Small Faces on Decca

Immediate went into receivership when the Small Faces split in 1968 and their output for that label has been re-issued a ridiculous amount of times to the highest re-issue bidders ever since, in a series that could be good or bad or downright ugly – or all three. The album and compilation released by Decca haven’t fared much better down the years either, being reassembled on one disc in a dozen or so different ways. Before this year fans had a to buy a whole shelf full of Small Faces CDs if they wanted to own absolutely everything out there, including box sets, compilations and rarities discs in addition to the ‘proper’ albums. At last (almost) everything is here, including some new and exciting finds, spread out across ‘Small Faces’ (both the Decca and Immediate albums of that name), ‘In The Beginning’ and ‘Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake’. The first album comes with seven (yes seven!) alternate takes and goodness knows how many remixes. ‘Beginning’ features the rare and classic B-side ‘Understanding’ that’s better than most A sides, four alternate versions and backing tracks and a whole heap of remixes. The Immediate ‘Small Faces’ – my favourite of all their albums – has just two alternate versions, the backing track to ‘Tin Soldier’ and lots of songs remixed into stereo for the first time, but is still presented with care and attention. ‘Ogden’s is now a three CD set in mono and stereo, plus an extended version of ‘Happydaystoytown’, a backing track for ‘Happiness Stan’, three alternate versions and the unreleased instrumentals ‘Bun In The Oven’ and ‘Kamikhazi’. Alas there are no plans to re-issue ‘The Autumn Stone’, which is nothing short of a criminal offence, but then that album was an unfinished work in progress anyway bolstered by A and B sides which have ended up on these different CDs anyway so I do grudgingly understand why it’s missing this time around. These sets could have been better (some mixes are still absent without leave) – and they could certainly have been a lot cheaper – but at long last both Decca and Immediate have done one of their most pioneering and groundbreaking bands proud. About time, we fans say, but better late than never.

WORST RE-ISSUE SERIES OF THE YEAR

The Beach Boys on Capitol

Somebody somewhere in Capitol headquarters is playing a good cop/bad cop routine with fans. In 1988 every 60s Beach Boys album was released individually on CD with no bonus tracks, minimal packaging and a paltry running time (22 minutes in the case of ‘Surfin’ Safari’ – you can fit 80 on a single CD remember!) In 1990 these were removed and replaced by one of the best re-issue series in AAA history: detailed sleeve notes, track annotation, input from Brian Wilson, bonus tracks galore and – wait for this – every single album up to 1981 issued on a two-fer-one set that often ran to a generous 75 minute running time at the same price(with two exceptions, ‘Pet Sounds’ appeared on its own and ‘So Tough/Holland’, appeared on two discs at the same price as the others). Fans loved them, record stores loved them (they sold well and had a unified packaging that looked good when displayed together) and the Beach Boys’ critical standing was as strong as its ever been that decade, partly thanks to this sensible re-issue series. Alas the CDs have since been deleted and this year have been replaced...with the same shoddy CDs of the 1980s! Admittedly the sound is better than it was back then and many of the albums are in mono and stereo sets which makes up somewhat for the running time, but unlike some bands the mono-stereo mixing differences are fairly minimal and frankly not worth your time if you already own these albums in some form. Plus, where are the bonus tracks? Where’s the packaging? Why have only the albums up to ‘Surf’s Up’ been released?! And why do the Beach Boys risk hitting the fans who’ve fallen in love with the band because of this year’s anniversary tour over the head quite so hard?!

THE MOST DISAPPOINTING RELEASES OF THE YEAR

The Beach Boys “That’s Why God Made The Radio”

The first full Brian Wilson-Beach Boys collaboration since 1986 should have really been something. Brian’s fight back to full health these past two decades has been a magnificent show of courage and determination and unbelievably he’s written and recorded some of his best music during the past 25 years on his solo albums despite coming back from a point in his life as low as you can get. The Beach Boys, meanwhile, have struggled on with rows and deaths making them a pale shadow of their former selves (up to this year only Mike Love and Bruce Johnston remained, with Carl and Dennis dead and Al Jardine estranged from the group). The coming together suggested either desperation or brilliance, the chance to make a load of fast bucks or a worthy attempt to lay old demons to rest. Early reports of the album suggested the latter, with talk of the ‘best Beach Boys album since Holland/Surf’s Up/Pet Sounds’ in most reviews. In truth its barely better than 1992’s non-Brian ‘Summer In Parardise’, recorded by a load of aging men who had little input into the album except croak through it in a poor facsimile of their old harmonies and writing styles (across the album Mike gets one song and that’s it for the rest of the band, with Brian writing 10). The only good singing here comes from the Wondermints backing – and they overshadow every note the ‘real’ Beach Boys sing and that isn’t often, apart from Brian. Fair enough to some extent – the band are back with Brian as the publicity made clear – but its been 20 years since the ‘others’ released a song and they’ve all been responsible for some great songs too (Brian was barely on my favourite Beach Boys album ‘Sunflower’!) A tribute to Carl or Dennis would have been nice too (there are still lots of unreleased Dennis Wilson songs unfinished and unreleased!) Even Brian’s songs date from years gone by for the most part with only two entirely new songs written specially for the project (even the Mike Love song is an outtake from one of his solo records). Only two songs from this new set – the last two interestingly, both written by Brian decades earlier for a Beach Boys reunion that never happened, the musicals-ish ‘Pacific Coast Highway’ and the elegiac ‘Summer’s Gone’ – deserve the Beach Boys name. IThe rhymes are particularly atrocious on this album – ‘clock’ and ‘block’, ‘worry’ and ‘hurry’, ‘anticipation’ and ‘celebration’ and compared to – say- Smile, this is hideously shallow writing, with nothing more to say than ‘we’re back – ansd doin’ it again’, culminating in the teeth-grindingly awful ‘Private Life Of Bill and Sue’, a nothing song about nothing people that’s only here because it pads out another four minutes of this ridiculously short running album and is probably the worst song ever released under the Beach Boys name. Events since the album’s release (Mike Love effectively ‘sacking’ the rest to go back out on tour with the 2011 line-up; apparently no one told him the reunion was long-term) suggest that it really will be the Beach Boy’s last album because there’s no way they’re going to try another reunion after the fallout from this one for another 20 or so years at least; it’s a great shame for both them and us that this is how they say goodbye – and that they say goodbye with so many now clearly ridiculous songs about the joy of being back together again. Give me Brian on his own any day.

Paul McCartney “Kisses On The Bottom”

We reviewed this album in full earlier in the year – suffice to say it hasn’t aged better with time (I heard it the other day and arguably it’s worse!) Macca isn’t a born crooner so why he thought he should kick his rock fans in the teeth so badly with this insipid piece of light jazz junk is a mystery (to be fair Macca’s covered just about every genre in his day, but at least the electronic and dance and even classical albums tried something raw and dangerous – this album plays it safe all the way through). Macca’s new songs written for the project are superior to every single so-called ‘standard’ on the album, with a couple of gems added to his catalogue (‘My Valentine’ especially) but the overall effect is of a rock and roller reaching for his pipe and slippers – and I swear there’s no sound worse around than that. Even for the mercurial Gemini McCartney, making this move so soon after the genuine thrill of the ‘Fireman’ albums -among the most adventurous and courageous releases by all of the 60s legends still working - makes you question what on earth was going on in his head. I never thought there would be an AAA equivalent of the Rod Stewart American Songbooks and, God help us all, I never thought it would be Macca who would sell us out. Give it a big fat miss.

Neil Young and Crazy Horse “Americana”

A few questions for you: why is ‘God Save The Queen’ on an album of American standards? Why are the Horse reaching out so vainly for cover versions when they had a whole host of new original songs in hand to release three months later any way? Why is Neil Young – a Canadian - singing American folk tunes at all? And why oh god why do all these songs sound the same so that they all coagulate into one messy distorted lump of nothing? We know how good the Horse can be and, despite what cloth-eared music critics have written, how eclectic and adventurous they’ve been in the past when Neil’s inspired them to greatness. So who on earth thought this project would be a good idea? When you learn that this album is really a ‘warm-up’ album for 2012’s Crazy Horse reunion proper (‘Psychedelic Pill’) this album makes more sense – nobody intended this to be a proper long lasting masterpiece and its hurried and undercooked, even for Neil Young’s modern standards. But that doesn’t excuse it or why so many tracks ramble on incoherently. Yes, hearing Neil drawl his way through the likes of ‘Clementine’ can be amusing – once, anyway – but why on Earth is Neil covering old standards at all?; leave that to Pentangle and the King’s Singers or at least the less prolific AAA members who don’t release an album every year despite being in their 70s! And why release this album first, killing off all the interest and mystique you’ve built up for the Crazy Horse reunion for good? Too many questions, not nearly enough answers, although at least there’s one good thing you can say for this abominable record; it’s still better than the previous Horse collaboration ‘Greendale’, a soap opera script crossed with a bad prog rock concept album that was the worst AAA album of the 00s for me.

The Hollies “Radio Fun”

Nothing like as bad as the other CDs here, this was still nevertheless deeply disappointing. I know there’s a whole host of classic Hollies BBC sessions out there somewhere because I have a copy of most of them, in better sound than the BBC too apparently! The best Hollies re-recordings, the most different and interesting performances that make you see into the songs in a new and interesting light (the whole reason we fans buy these BBC session discs), by and large aren’t here, while the ever illuminating chat (only Pete Townshend and Ray Davies could compete with Graham Nash for deep thought and philosophising) has been cut away completely, even if it means cutting out the first or last note of some songs. Which is a travesty – these songs are history, some of them 49 years old – and they deserve better (even a fade-in would have sufficed!) What we’re left with is lesser versions of many Hollies album tracks, alongside two nice-to-have curios (covers of ‘Ride Your Pony’ and ‘Shake’ that were never released on album) and the set’s saving grace, a gorgeous graceful early version of ‘Wings’ with alternate lyrics that’s only a smidgeon away from being as beautiful as the finished product released on a wildlife charity album. Even the packaging is nonsensical, making out that one of the most intelligent and thoughtful bands of the 60s were in it merely for ‘fun’ (why oh why isn’t this set simply called ‘The Hollies At The BBC’ in line with every other BBC compilation ever released?!) Plus, would it have killed them to put these songs in chronological order like the superior Kinks and Who sets? Frustratingly ordinary and yet it could have been the release of the year quite easily had those in control spent just that little bit more time and care on this set, as they did on the superlative Clarke-Hicks-Nash compilation last year.

However, had it counted, easily the most disappointing release of the year was the re-boot of Jeff Wayne’s ‘War Of The Worlds’ musical, where the Moody Blues’ Justin Hayward is replaced by...Gary Barlow! (What the?!?!? I’m surprised the martians didn’t just turn round and go home again or simply say ‘take that earthlings!’ and wipe us all out in retaliation...)

THE BEST SONGS OF THE YEAR

Paul and Linda McCartney “A Love For You” (Ram Deluxe Edition)
It’s a curious fact that most of McCartney’s best work ended up on the cutting room floor. It’s even more curious that the best of that is the last to be released. ‘A Love For You’ should have been on ‘Ram’, could have been on the proposed double disc version of ‘Red Rose Speedway’ and absolutely should have been on the 1979 outtakes set ‘Cold Cuts’, had Macca not seen it leaked on bootleg and gone off the whole idea. A rollicking simple blues-rock song, ‘A Love For You’ is Macca at his catchiest, with a killer chorus and a song that’s so cleverly structured it manages to make its three distinct sections merge perfectly with one another. Macca sounds like he’s having fun with the vocal too, which contains elements of both the then-contemporary glam rock and the Buddy Holly records of his childhood. The five minutes playing time is long for the period but the song doesn’t run a second too long, with one of the greatest of all McCartney jams on the fade-out as Macca’s vocal gets more and more histrionic. Great fun and better than a good 90% of the ‘Ram’ record (and I say that as a fan who ranks ‘Ram’ somewhere in McCartney’s top three records of all time!)

The Hollies “Wings” (Alternate Version) (Radio Fun)

This recording is a puzzle. The official word is that it’s an early sketch of a song that the band were still working on and a first draft for the version famous for appearing on the ‘No One’s Gonna Change My World’ compilation in 1968 and Hollies compilation ‘Rarities’ 20 years later. But the date given in the booklet of the CD and the sessionography for the final version suggests this version comes a full two months afterwards and is, indeed, very nearly the last thing Nash ever did with his first band (only the single ‘Listen To Me’ was recorded later). In this version of ‘Wings’ the narrator is looking through the eyes of birds in the sky and having them wonder why humans fail to walk ‘when they can fly’ (in the final version its humans looking on birds enviously from the ground). Even after this opening there’s a few subtle differences: ‘what a face to show, can’t you make it go?’ instead of the more upbeat (and more Holliesy) ‘we can make it go’. Even some of the familiar lines are sung in different ways, with Clarke and Nash noticeably deeper than on the ‘proper’ record. It’s always nice to hear such a different version of a song you know and love and ‘Wings’ scores on both points, being both very different and very wonderful in both versions. On balance I’d still take the more poetic ‘Rarities’ version, but this was still a most welcome surprise that helped Hollies fans re-evaluate one of their most important songs.

The Beach Boys “Summer’s Gone” (That’s Why God Made The Radio)

The best song on the Beach Boys reunion set was this slow and languid slice of melancholy, a track that Brian wrote about 15 years or so ago and yet has kept in his pocket all this time because he thought it would be a ‘perfect’ way to end the Beach Boys’ career. Fans will know that I’m paying this song a compliment when I compare it to Brian’s ‘Cry’, the best individual song of his solo career and the melancholy mood is perfectly in keeping with Brian’s writing style across the ages (instead of the falsely poppy or curiously rigid and dull strict tempos of the rest of the record). Curiously, the other Beach Boys and even the Wondermints don’t appear to vocally be on it at all, though, which makes a bit of a con out of the project and suggests, perhaps, that too many cooks across the rest of the record spoiled it compared to the bare stark beauty on offer here. If this is to be the Beach Boys’ last ever release then this is a fine place to bow out, with a sad reflective piece about youth disappearing and getting ready for one’s twilight years. If you haven’t bought the album yet then I recommend you download this song – and then steer clear of this album for good...

Also nominated: ‘What Shall We Do Now?’ (the two minute burst of rhetorical questions from Pink Floyd’s re-issue of ‘The Wall’, well known from the live concerts and film soundtrack but never released on record in studio form), ‘Tin Soldier’ (backing track) (the best single moment from the Small Faces re-issue series) and ‘Run Away’ (a great ‘lost’ flop single from 10cc’s best period in 1980, finally out on CD as part of the ‘Tenology’ box set).

THE BEST AAA ARTICLES OF THE YEAR

Last month we invited all our followers on Twitter and on our emailing list to nominate what they considered to be our best work of the year, from issue 128 on January 3rd right up to last weeks’ edition, no 174. An amazing four of you voted. Two of you said you didn’t mind what won because you liked it all. Which was lovely to hear, but not entirely helpful. One of you said you really liked my Led Zeppelin review, until tweeting me a couple of hours later to tell me he’d remembered that he’d read it on a different site (no Zepp here!) Which left regular reader Lizzie giving her vote on the best articles of the year yet again, just like she did last year. And the year before. Which was probably just as well in the end actually as she kindly nominated six whole articles and told me she couldn’t cut it down to five. So here they are, the pieces where the writing Gods came out to play and shined a light on Alan’s Album Archives before veering off again into the night, leaving our site in December 2012 at officially six and a half times the length of War and Peace and counting...

1) Issue -9774 Sweden Elizabethan Issue (April Fool’s Day Issue)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012_04_01_archive.html
Our silliest article of the year was the fourth in our series of April Fool’s Day’s editions that were sent back to us via a black hole in space and time from the past (or something like that). It turns out that time travel experiments in the future, sponsored by the AAA (the 367th most influential website in the universe, no less) have gone a bit wrong and disrupted the nexus point in time (or something like that), re-writing history and letting all time periods happen at once. In between trying to sort the mess out we get to know all the time periods and hear what AAAA music all time periods from the Stone Age to the 22nd century enjoy. Along the way we review a few new AAA releases including ‘The Byrds Sing Byrds’ ‘The Madrigal Moody Blues’ and the Rolling Stones collaboration with some cavemen, have some question and answers with our resident canine Max The Singing Dog, laugh at ‘Spice Girls – The Opera’, talk about the latest AAA-sponsored Dr Who series, have a special ‘top 10’ run down from some very special guests and go back in time to the formation of Crosby, Stills and Nash. Despite a few, err, teething issues Alan’s Album Archives seems to be thriving in the past/future/present despite coming from Sweden in the Elizabethan era! For the music fan with a sense of humour.

2) Issue 136 (Davy Jones Tribute Special)

http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012_03_04_archive.html
From our silliest moment to our most serious. We’ve only lost one AAA member all year but Davy Jones’ loss was all the worse because it came so suddenly, without warning, on the verge of the Monkees making a come back. The press said at the time that they were overwhelmed with the grief people showed for a singer who’d last been a regular in the news 40 odd years ago but we weren’t surprised - Davy Jones was a major part of many people’s childhoods and was part of some of the best records ever made. This is our tribute to him, with a potted history of his beginnings in the music and acting business, his ‘second career’ as a jockey and what happened to him after the Monkees split, along with a top ten run down on his very under-rated work as both a singer and composer. We miss him still.

3) Issue 158 (Pink Floyd “Animals”)

http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/pink-floyd-animals-1977.html?utm_source=BP_recent

How could I resist turning the Floyd’s parable of a world filled with crooked pigs, ignorant sheeps and ignored, put-upon, chained-up dogs into a metaphor for our modern age? Inspired by Coalition cuts, a horrifying attack on the vulnerable and disabled and disgraceful attempts to ruin our website by pointless penny pinching, our own canine mascot Max The Singing Dog speaks out against pig Cameron and his co-swines, speaking out for justice on behalf of us all, whatever part of the farmyard we may come from. ‘AAAAAAAAH’ said our site. ‘Hahahahahaha’ said the pigs. ‘Baaaaaaaaaaaaa’ said the sheep.

4) Issue 151 (‘AAA Books’ special edition)

http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012_07_01_archive.html

Ever wanted to know which of the mountain of books on the Beatles will tell you the most about their earliest years? Which biographies are biased towards a particular Beatle? Or whether there’s a book out on a more obscure AAA band that you really want to read about in more detail? Then you’ve come to the right place! I can’t pretend that I’ve read everything there is to know – I could spend the rest of my life reading books on the Beatles and, yes, knowing me I probably shall –but this section does cover more than 200 disperate books on all the AAA members we can find. They vary from the straightforward biographies to the day by day blow accounts and picture books, with tales of Yellow Submarines, Wirral the Squirrel and Ray Davies meeting his younger self in a corrupt future taken over by the faceless corporation... A piece written specially for the literary AAA scholar and a fourth ‘special edition’ to go alongside past attempts at covering AAA compilations, live albums and solo recordings. Expect an ‘AAADVD’ special sometime in the new year.

5) Issue 149 (‘A Short Precise Of The Years 1962-1970’)

http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/news-views-and-music-149-top-eight.html?utm_source=BP_recent

Our attempt at working out why the 1960s were as special as they were and why, taking into account then-current tastes and trends, new bands arriving that decade with their own new styles and working out what the ‘sound’ of a particular year is. After all, from ‘Love Me Do’ in 1962 to ‘Let It Bleed’ in 1970 is one heck of a change in, well, just about everything and there must be a reason for it. Here’s our take on the subject. There’s no getting away from it either – as far as your’s truly is concerned music peaked in 1966 and everything since then has been a let-down...

6) Issue 163 (‘Introduction’)

http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/news-views-and-music-issue-163-intro.htm

For everyone who wonders why, when and what for Alan’s Album Archives came into being – this introduction is for you. The truth is this site was in gestation for as long as I’ve been alive and despite taking 270 odd articles to say this piece should answer all your questions.
And that really really is it for now. Thank you for being a part of Alan’s Album Archives in 2012, by far our most successful year since our beginnings in 2008, and we look forward to seeing you – and hearing from you – again in 2013. Goodbye from your AAA staff, Alan’s Archives, Max The Singing Dog, Bingo Ye Boozy Dog, Android TZ964-2 and Philosophy Phil! Have a great Christmas and see you next year!

A NOW COMPLETE List Of Top Five/Top Ten/TOP TWENTY Entries 2008-2019

143) How Every AAA Band Got Their Name (News, Views and Music 155...

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144) AAA Top 10: The Motor Car (News, Views and Music 156)

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145) AAA Singles With The Most Weeks On The US Billboard Charts (...

This week we’re going to have a look at the 10 AAA singles that spent the most weeks at number on the American chart ‘Billboard’ – and it makes for...

146) AAA Albums With The Most Weeks On The USA Billboard Charts (...

Following on from last issue’s study of the American Billboard charts, here’s a look at which AAA albums spent the most weeks on the chart. The...

147) AAA Songs Featuring Whistling (News, Views and Music Issue 1...

There are many dying arts in our modern world: incorruptible politicians, faith that things are going to get better and the ability to make decent...

148) The Session Musicians Who've Played On The Most AAA Albums (...

This week we’ve decided to dedicate our top ten to those unsung heroes of music, the session musicians, whose playing often brings AAA artists (and...

149) Top 10 Silliest AAA Album Titles (News, Views and Music Issu...

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150) A Short Guide To 10 AAA Spin-Off Bands (News, Views and Musi...

What do you do when you’ve left a multi-million selling band and yet you still feel the pull of the road and the tours and the playing to audiences...

151) Martin Kitcher "The ATOS Song (You're Not Fit To Live)"

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152) AAA Songs (More Or Less) Exclusive To Film Soundtracks (News...

In honour of this week’s review of an album released to cash in on a movie soundtrack (only one of these songs actually appears in ‘Easy Rider’...and...

153) AAA Alcohilic-hic! Songs (Top 10 News, Views and Music 164)

Hic! Everyone raise a glass to the rock stars of the past and to this week’s feature...songs about alcolholic beverages! Yes that’s right, everything...

Spoken Word Passages On AAA Songs (News, Views and Music Top...

154) The human singing voice carries with it a vast array of emotions, thoughts that cannot be expressed in any other way except opening the lungs and...

156) AAA Songs About Carlisle (News, Views and Music Top Five Iss...

Everyone has a spiritual home, even if they don’t actually live there. Mine is in a windy, rainy city where the weather is always awful but the...

157) AAA Songs About Children Being Born (News, Views and Music I...

Having a family does funny things to some musicians, as we’ve already seen in this week’s review (surely the only AAA album actually written around...

158) The Best AAA Outtakes (News, Views and Music Issue 168)

Some artists just have no idea what their best work really is. One thing that amazes me as a collector is how consistently excellent many of the...

169) The Last 10 AAA Songs Listed Alphabetically http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/the-last-10-aaa-songs-listed.html%20%0d170

170) Tributes To The 10 AAA Stars Who Died The Youngest http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/the-10-youngest-aaa-stars-at-time-of.html%20%0d171

171) The 10 Best Songs From The Psychedelia Box-Sets ‘Nuggets’ and ‘Nuggets Two’ http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/the-best-of-two-nuggets-psychedelia.html%20%0d172

172) The 20 Most Common Girl’s Names In AAA Song Titles (With Definitions) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/girls-names-in-aaa-song-titles-from.html

17 3) NME/Melody Maker Questionairres Filled Out By AAA Bands http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/nmemelody-maker-questionairres-filled.html

174) Top Ten AAA Bootlegs http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/top-10-aaa-bootlegs-news-views-and.html

175) Days Of The Week AAA Style http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/days-of-week-aaa-style-news-views-and.html

176) AAA Musicals http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/aaa-musicals-news-views-and-music-issue.html

177) Interesting AAA Line-Ups That Were Or Nearly Were http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/ten-interesting-aaa-line-ups-that-were.html

178) The 101 Greatest AAA Songs Of All Time (Maybe?!) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/the-greatest-101-aaa-songs-well-ish-see.html

179) Mrs Thatcher Meets The Devil http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/mrs-thatcher-meets-devil-plus-intro-for.html

180) First Recordings By Future AAA Stars http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/first-

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181) The Ten Oldest AAA Songs http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/the-ten-oldest-aaa-songs-news-views-and.html

182) AAA Artists (Books Of Paintings) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/aaa-artists-books-of-paintings-news.html

183) AAA Appearances on TV Show 'Colour Me Pop' http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/aaa-appearances-on-colour-me-pop-tv.html

184) AAA Years In Song http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/aaa-years-in-song-news-views-and-music.html

185) A Tribute To Storm Thorgerson Via The Five AAA Bands He Worked With http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/a-tribute-to-hipgnosis-via-five-aaa.html

186) Five Top AAA Apps http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/top-five-aaa-apps-news-views-and-music.html

187) The Ultimate Grateful Dead Concert Setlist http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/the-ultimate-grateful-dead-concert-top.html

188) Surprise! Celebrating 300 Album Reviews With The Biggest 'Surprises' Of The Past Five Years Of Alan's Album Archives! http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/celebrating-300-album-reviews-10.html

189) Top Ten Dave Davies Songs http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/top-ten-dave-davies-songs-news-views.html

190) Comparatively Obscure First Compositions By AAA Stars http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/comparatively-obscure-debut.html

191) Famous AAA Fathers: http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/famous-aaa-fathers-news-views-and-music.html

192) The Best Five AAA Re-Issue CD Series http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/the-best-five-aaa-re-issues-series-news.html

193) Evolution Of A Band: Comparing First Lyric With Last Lyric: http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/evolution-of-band-comparing-1st-lyric.html

194) Ten Of The Best AAA Riffs http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/ten-of-best-aaa-riffs-news-views-and.html

195) Twenty AAA Milestone Moments Part One 1956-66 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/twenty-aaa-milestone-events-part-one.html

196) Twenty AAA Milestone Moments Part Two 1967-80 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/twenty-aaa-milestone-events-part-two.html

197) Eleven Random Recent Purchases http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/eleven-random-recent-purchases.html

198) Five AAA Outcasts Who Know More Than They Let Onhttp://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/five-aaa-outcast-characters-who-know.html

199) That's Why They Call It The (Top Ten) Blues! http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/thats-why-they-call-it-bluesaaa-top-ten.html

200) The Monkees In Relation To Postmodernism (University Dissertation) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/university-dissertation-monkees-in.html

201) The Music Never Stopped: AAA Youtube Video #5 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/the-music-never-stopped-alans-album.html

202) Carly Simon's 'You're So Vain': Was It About One Of The AAA Crew? http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/carly-simons-youre-so-vain-was-it-about.html

203) Ten AAA Stars In Further Education http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/aaa-stars-in-further-education-top-five.html

204) AAA Dramas and Plays http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/aaa-dramas-and-plays-news-views-and.html

205) Abandoned AAA Album Covers http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/abandoned-aaa-album-covers-top-ten-news.html

206) Chinese Horoscopes AAA Style http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/chinese-horoscopes-aaa-style-top-twelve.html

207) Top Ten Songs The Beatles 'Gave Away' http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/top-ten-songs-beatles-gave-away-news.html

208) AAA Song Titles That Are The Same As Other AAA Songs http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/aaa-songs-with-same-titles-as-other-aaa.html

209) Updates to Our 'Special Editions' #1 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/updates-to-our-special-editions-on.html

210) Most Parodied AAA Albums http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/the-most-parodied-aaa-album-covers-news.html

211) Longest Average AAA Songs Per Album http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/the-longest-average-aaa-songs-per-album.html

212) Shortest Average AAA Songs Per Album http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/the-shortest-average-aaa-songs-per.html

213) An AAA Guide To The Twenty Best Dr Who Stories http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/the-20-best-doctor-who-stories-aaa.html

214) AAA Songs and Albums Based On Books http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/aaa-songsalbums-based-on-books-and.html

215) Top Ten AAA Concert Quotes http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/top-aaa-quotes-from-concerts-top.html

216) Top Ten Surrealist AAA Lyrics http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/top-ten-sureallist-aaa-song-lyrics-news.html

217) AAA 'Christmas Presents' we'd most like to have next year http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/aaa-christmas-presents-wed-most-like-to.html

218) Review Of The Year 2013 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/review-of-year-2013-news-views-and.html

219) Nominate This Site For A Shorty Award 2014 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/nominate-this-site-for-shorty-award-2014.html

220) A Tribute To Phil Everly http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/a-tribute-to-phil-everly-everly.html

221) Dr Who and the AAA (Five Musical Links) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2014/01/dr-who-and-five-musical-links-to-alans.html

222) Five Random Recent Purchases http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2014/01/five-random-recent-purchases-news-views.html

223) AAA Grammy Nominees http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2014/02/aaa-grammy-nominees-top-twelve-news.html

224) Ten AAA songs that are better heard unedited and in full http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2014/02/ten-aaa-songs-that-are-better-unedited.html

225) The shortest gaps between AAA albums http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-shortest-gaps-between-aaa-albums.html

226) The longest gaps between AAA albums http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-longest-gaps-between-aaa-albums.html

227) Top ten AAA drummers http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2014/03/top-ten-aaa-drummers-news-views-and.html

228) Top Ten AAA Singles (In Terms of 'A' and 'B' Sides) http://www.alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/top-ten-aaa-singles-and-b-sides-news.html

229) The Stories Behind Six AAA Logos http://www.alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/the-stories-behind-six-aaa-logos.html

230) AAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!! The Best Ten AAA Screams http://www.alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/the-best-aaa-screams-top-ten-news-views.html

231) An AAA Pack Of Horses http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/aaa-songs-about-horses-top-ten-news.html

232) AAA Granamas - Sorry, Anagrams! http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/aaa-anagrams-news-views-and-music-issue.html

233) AAA Surnames and Their Meanings http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/aaa-surnames-and-their-meanings-news.html

234) 20 Erroneous AAA Album Titles http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/twenty-erroneous-aaa-album-titles-news.html

235) The Best AAA Orchestral Arrangements http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/fifteen-great-aaa-string-parts-news.html

236) Top 30 Hilariously Misheard Album Titles/Lyrics http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/top-thirty-hilariously-misheard-aaa.html

237) Ten controversial AAA sackings - and whether they were right http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/ten-controversial-aaa-sackings-news.html

238) A Critique On Critiquing - In Response To Brian Wilson http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/a-critique-on-critiquing-in-response-to.html

239) The Ten MusicianS Who've Played On The Most AAA Albums http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/the-ten-musicians-whove-played-on-most.html

240) Thoughts on #CameronMustGo http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/thoughts-on-cameronmustgo.html

241) Random Recent Purchases (Kinks/Grateful Dead/Nils Lofgren/Rolling Stones/Hollies) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/six-random-recent-purchases-kinksg.html

242) AAA Christmas Number Ones http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/aaa-christmas-number-ones.html

243) AAA Review Of The Year 2014 (Top Releases/Re-issues/Documentaries/DVDs/Books/Songs/ Articles plus worst releases of the year) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/aaa-review-of-year-2014.html

244) Me/CFS Awareness Week 2015 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/mecfs-awareness-week-at-alans-album.html

245) Why The Tory 2015 Victory Seems A Little...Suspicious http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/why-tory-victory-seems-deeply.html

246) A Plea For Peace and Tolerance After The Attacks on Paris - and Syria http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/a-plea-for-peace-and-toleration.html

247) AAA Review Of The Year 2015 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/the-aaa-review-of-year-2015.html

248) The Fifty Most Read AAA Articles (as of December 31st 2015) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/the-fifty-most-read-aaa-posts-2008-2015.html

249) The Revised AAA Crossword! http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2016_07_10_archive.html

250) AAA Review Of The Year 2016 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2016/12/the-aaa-review-of-year-2016.html

251) Half-A-Dozen Berries Plus One (An AAA Tribute To Chuck Berry) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/an-aaa-covers-tribute-to-chuck-berry.html

252) Guest Post: ‘The Skids – Joy’ (1981) by Kenny Brown https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/guest-post-skids-joy-1981.html

253) AAA Review Of The Year 2017 https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/the-aaa-review-of-year-2017.html

254) Guest Post: ‘Supertramp – Some Things Never Change’ by Kenny Brown https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2018/06/guest-review-supertramp-some-things.html

255) AAA Review Of The Year 2018 https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-aaa-review-of-year-2018.html

256) AAA Review Of The Year 2019 plus Review Of The Decade 2010-2019 https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2019/12/the-alans-album-archives-review-of-year.html

257) Tiermaker https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2019/06/alans-album-archives-on-tiermaker.html

258) #Coronastock https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronastock.html

259) #Coronadocstock https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2020/05/coronadocstock.html

Monday, 10 December 2012

News, Views and Music Issue 174 (Intro)

December 19th:
Well dear readers, Christmas is coming and George Osbourne’s getting fat, are we all really going to stand for that? It’s just dawned on me that this might be our penultimate ever issue if the Mayan prophecy about the end of the world on December 21st is true. Even if it isn’t, it seems like the end of the world. As of last Monday I wait to hear whether I will be forced into slave labour on the whim of the Government for no greater crime than being ill and having been placed in the ‘work programme’ category of ESA. Frankly, it was a random throw of the dice which group I ended up in anyway, as it is for so many others. Either way it may be my last chance to write these newsletters. It might be my last chance to actually do some good rather than merely struggle to survive. And if my body is forced to do what its crying out not to do then, who knows, I might not last to the end of the course – whatever allotted time that might be. I might not even pass my latest esa application, sent in months ago to a ridiculously tight deadline. Or I might have passed it already – no one could be bothered to tell me last time until yet another application form came through my door. If the world ends then I can’t say I care too much – because the way that I’ve seen human beings behave towards each other, with those in power showing no empathy or capacity for caring at all, makes me wonder whether we might not be better off cast away to oblivion swiftly, rather than slowly. If the world does survive into December 22nd this year, I hope that the likes of Cameron, Clegg and Osbourne take a long hard look at themselves and realise the damage they have caused to countless thousands of us and do something to put that fact right. If I have a new year’s resolution for next year it’s to show everyone I can how badly some of us are being treated – and how much better it would be for all of us if we showed a bit of humanity towards each other next year.

In the meantime, here’s our usual news section for you which you can access by clicking on the normal link:

http://paper.li/f-1347835090

ANNIVERSARIES: Birthdays come but once a year so for these AAA stars (born 12-18th December) give a big cheer: Ray ‘Jacka’ Jackson (lead singer with Lindisfarne 1970-72 and 1978-89) who turns 64 on December 12th, Frank Allen (bassist with The Searchers 1965-present) who turns 69 on December 14th, Tony Hicks (guitarist with The Hollies 1963-present) who turns 69 on December 16th and Keith Richards (guitarist with The Rolling Stones 1962-present) who turns 69 on December 18th. Anniversaries of events include: Pink Floyd perform their first gig under that name at an Oxfam charity show (December 12th 1966); The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus, also featuring The Who, is filmed but left unscreened for another 30-odd years (December 12th 1968), John Lennon also plays his first post-Beatles gig with the Plastic Ono Band at Toronto Peace Festival (December 12th 1969), The Who perform ‘Tommy’ at the Coliseum Opera House in London (December 13th 1969); Paul Simon scores his first hit in seven years with ‘The Boy In The Bubble’ (December 13th 1969); Ringo takes a close-up look at the younger trendy pop sensations when he dons a camera for ‘Born To Boogie’, the Apple label’s documentary film about T Rex (December 14th 1972); Mick Taylor quits the Rolling Stones after just four albums with the band (December 14th 1974); John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band play the first solo gig of any Beatle at the Lyceum in London, weeks before the announcement of a split (December 15th 1969); George Harrison breaks up the Beatles when he is deported from Germany for being underage – thankfully for music as we know it the band decamp to Liverpool and reunite in the new year (December 16th 1961); The Who bow out for the first time after 17 years on the road, after a show at Toronto’s Maple Leaf Gardens (December 17th 1982) and finally, JohnandYoko appear in a ‘bag’ to highlight racism classism and sexism during a memorable event during London’s ‘Alchemical Wedding’ Christmas celebration (December 18th 1968).

"Grateful Dead" aka "Skulls and Roses" (1971)

'High Time - The Alan's Album Archives Guide To The Music Of The Grateful Dead' is available to buy now by clicking here!

“Grateful Dead” aka “Skulls and Roses” (1971)

Bertha/Mama Tried/Big Railroad Blues/Playing In The Band//(That’s It For) The Other One//Me and My Uncle/Big Boss Man/Me and Bobby McGee/Johnny B Goode//Wharf Rat/Not Fade Away-Goin’ Down The Road Feelin’ Bad

This week’s chapter dedicated to the wonderful world of news, views and music is all about dealing with the record company, Grateful Dead style. Back in 1968 and their second album ‘Anthem Of The Sun’ the Dead had already caused so many nervous breakdowns amongst members of the Warner Brothers staff assigned to work with the band that the Dead were – rather impolitely – told to get the job done themselves. Certain that these crazed hippies would never get their act together and would probably fold for good within a week, the company agreed to anything to get the band off their back, including full editorial control of their product. Come 1971, with the Dead’s massive record company debts repaid and their records selling better than almost anyone else’s on the label, Warner Brothers weren’t quite so sure they’d done the right thing. Then they got the phone call from someone in the Dead office warning them that their new double live album and a guaranteed heavy seller was to be titled ‘Skullfuck’. Remember, this was in 1971. When you couldn’t use the f word on the radio, on television, in the papers or for the most part in private conversation without being depicted as the harbinger of doom and destruction. Warner Brothers had no legal right any longer to stop the Dead calling the album what they wanted – and they didn’t want to lose the band either, whose strong sales were responsible for most of their profit that year. They were scared.

The Dead, however, knew full well the label would never let them use the title and were just having a little joke. After letting their bosses stew for a few weeks they offered a compromise; they’d agree to change the title if Warner Brothers would pay for a unique commercial enterprise, a series of concert broadcasts on national radio that their fans would love. The label were edgy – bootleg taping was a burgeoning industry back then and they feared that the band would simply play the songs from their new record and every Dead fan with a radio would promptly tape them. Worriedly, they asked the Dead to OK their planned setlists with them first which the Dead did, kindly agreeing to only plug one or two songs from the album. Warner Brothers had a sigh of relief. They’d finally got a good deal from those perishing San Franciscan hippies and come out best. What do those greasy hippies know about business anyway? They’d been so easily conned.

Legend has it the first radio concert went well. It was a big success in fact and album sales of what was to become known as ‘Grateful Dead’ (the chosen title despite the fact the Dead ha laready used it on their debut in 1966) were brisk. The band also kept their part of the bargain and played just ‘Bertha’ and ‘Wharf Rat’ to advertise the LP. However, all these plans went for naught when guitarist Bob Weir announced live, on air, to a kid in the front row with a microphone ‘no, no, if you want to tape us you’re going to have to move back a little to get the balance right...yeah, that’s right...tell you what, in the break you can plug your microphone directly into our mixing board and then you can have a tape of it to take home. And a big hello to all you tapers out there at home!’ In the ensuing interview Jerry Garcia then got kicked off the air for using the word ‘shit’ during a conversation about the Dead’s less inspiring shows that year and – despite the fact that no complaints were filed and no Dead fans probably noticed – the radio networks announced that they would never work with the band again. The score reads Grateful Dead 1, Warner Brothers 0.
This is the story behind how the Dead ended up releasing a second straight album titled ‘Grateful Dead’ just five years after their first. Some fans call this album its original jokey title ‘Skullfuck’ – others know it better as ‘Skulls and Roses’, after band artist friend Mouse’s iconic front cover painting of, err, a skull and roses (it looks mighty impressive on a gatefold vinyl sleeve, too, although it loses something reproduced in CD size like so many of these grand works). By any title, it’s the band’s seventh LP and came out at a time when they were about as celebrated as the Dead have ever been, coming after two straight commercial hits (‘Workingman’s Dead’ and ‘American Beauty’) and not that long after artistic classics (‘Anthem Of The Sun’ and ’Live/Dead’). The band, surely, were onto a winner.

Well, sadly not. ‘Grateful Dead’ or ‘Skulls and Roses’ or whatever we want to call it isn’t quite the Dead classic it should be. The Dead were on such a songwriting roll in 1970 that its hard to fathom why they should release an album the following year with only four original songs on it (one of which, ‘The Other One’, had first been released three years earlier). Nor indeed why the band should have decided to record live an album that is so obviously crying out for studio recordings (especially when the band went to all tat trouble to cut out the audience noise from the recordings). Had the Dead decided to ‘hang fire’ for a year in 1971 and released a ‘proper’ album in 1972 (made up of this album’s ‘Bertha’ ‘Wharf Rat’ and ‘Playing In The Band’ plus the ‘original’ songs from ‘Europe ‘72’ such as ‘He’s Gone’ ‘One More Saturday Night’ ‘Jack Straw’ ‘Ramble On Rose’ ‘Mr Charlie’ and ‘Tennessee Jed’ plus perhaps the best of the cover songs then this bunch of songs had the potential to be the best Dead album of all, or at least a match for the highs of ‘Workingman’s ‘ and ‘Beauty’. In the end, this album ends up coming off half-baked, without the finesse of their studio recordings and without the power of their more obviously live albums like ‘Live/Dead’. The 18 minutes of ‘The Other One’ may also be the most disappointing 18 of your life – or at least they were of mine – as one of the Dead’s career peaks, a thrilling cavalcade of noise, fire, turbulence, mystery, excitement and newness is relegated to a long and plodding drum solo that had poor Billy Kreutzmann on possibly the worst night of his career. Why filler like this made it to the album – never mind taking up a whole side of the original double LP – is unknown.

Yet you dismiss this album at your peril. Of the three new original songs, all three are superb, now Dead standards all three. ‘Playing In The Band’ isn’t yet the majestic gallant beast it will be on Bob Weir’s first solo record ‘Ace’ (in fact comparing the two is the difference between a sleek tiger pouncing on a mouse after careful planning and stealth and a one-man-band gorilla chasing it’s prey with a clash of cymbals) but its still an exciting, enervating, important song all about the Dead’s relationship with their audience. ‘Bertha’ is one of Garcia’s best rockers, with the oompah of the band’s Chuck Berry covers but with something extra decidedly Dead-like about the cryptic lyrics and the warning message at its heart (see below for just what unlikely subject this weird song is about). Finally ‘Wharf Rat’ is my favourite Dead song of them all, mournful and elegiac and amongst the best descriptions of poverty, futile dreams and hopeless characters ever written, a whole Dickens book compacted into song. All three tracks are highlights, not just of this album but of the band’s entire career and they all deserve better than to be slung away on a double live LP that doesn’t even have a ‘proper’ name.

Some of the covers aren’t that bad either, even if none of them come close to the poise and significance of the originals. ‘Mama Tried’ is a classic guilt-ridden in-prison song that’s a clear ‘sister song’ to Dead classic ‘Friend Of The Devil’, with a narrator on the wrong side of the tracks and agonising over how to bridge the gap (I’m amazed Johnny Cash never covered it as this Merle Haggard song is right up his street). ‘Big Railroad Blues’ is a strange song arranged superbly, Garcia and Weir uniting on a song that’s like a coda to ‘Mama Tried’. Pigpen’s near-farewell song ‘Big Boss Man’ is a welcome chuckling take on an old blues classic, the band revelling in the hint of menace and one-upmanship in the words rather than the betrayal and heartbreak. Even the two old 1950s songs that every band together more than five minutes has at least tried to cover (Chuck Berry’s ‘Johnny B Goode’ and Buddy Holly’s ‘Not Fade Away’) sound better here than in almost any other permutation.
The main problem of this record is one that was summed up in m ny reviews of the time: why, after two of the most groundbreaking records of their age, were the Dead suddenly so directionless? I’ve read several books on the Dead and I still don’t really have the answer. Sure ‘Skulls and Roses’ or whatever its called was cheap, recorded live in three or four goes rather than clocking up expensive studio time over weeks with the tapes running at huge cost and most Dead fans agree that the band always sounded better live. But the Dead had already released two previous live albums, each superior to this, simply because they don’t ‘sound’ like live albums; ‘Anthem Of The Sun’ is a glorious collage which cross-fades between several different versions of the album songs from second to second, stretching out in thousands of directions at once; ‘Live/Dead’ is structured around its four core songs which last a minimum of 10 minutes each and sounds so different to the restricted studio Dead sound that it might as well be a different group playing. Here the Dead don’t know whether to simply make another studio record like the last two albeit recorded out on the road) with little of their trademark improvisation or make another extended Dead opus, ending up with an uneasy hybrid between the two. It doesn’t help that, sonically, this live record is actually better than any of the Dead’s studio records thus far, remarkably clear and well balanced and a real credit to engineers Bob Matthews and Betty Cantor.

One sop to studio perfection was an overdub session added later featuring organist Merl Saunders, a friend of Garcia’s. For years I thought this was another slight on the ailing Pigpen’s behalf, as the band attempted to cover up their once lead singer’s failing health with a pointless revivalism (Pig was by far the band’s best keyboard player, wrong notes and all), but I was wrong: Saunders was actually brought in at Pigpen’s request, who loved his style of playing. Legend has it that Saunders didn’t know any of these songs – he only knew a handful of old Jerry originals after playing in the Garcia band – and was simply told to ‘play’ over the top of the tape. The result is odd: the playing is often superb (the organ part in ‘Playing In The Band’ is particularly spot on and suggests Saunders could have been a major part of the 1970s Dead) but its mixed too high and in places its obvious it doesn’t follow the same natural ‘flow’ of the other musicians. There’s a long standing quote that the Dead members play ‘like the fingers on one hand’ which is largely true; adding a sixth bionic finger seems like a genetic intervention too far.

One positive, however, is that this is one of the few chances Dead fans have to hear Billy Kreutzmann’s superb drumming solo. This is the same period that second drummer Micky Hart has left the band, having discovered to his horror that his oddball father – hired by the band as manager to ‘keep it in the family’ – has run off with the band’s money (The pained Europe ’72 track ‘He’s Gone’ is at least in part about this affair: ‘you know better but I know him’). Hart was well loved by the rest of his colleagues who felt no blame on his part (indeed Mickey will join the band in full after their 18 month hiatus ends in 1975), but Micky felt too guilty to be part of the group. The task must have been especially difficult for Billy, who has lost his ‘soulmate’ within the band (people forget that Micky only joined the band at Billy’s urging) and yet has to make enough ‘noise’ to cover his absence. He handles the job superbly across this album, switching styles depending on whether the band are playing country, blues, rock or one of their more psychedelised originals and its an awful shame that its his worst drumming on the record (‘The Other One’) that makes the album as a celebrated ‘solo’. Just listen to his inventive and complex part on ‘Big Boss Man’; the joke about doing traditional songs is that the 1930s and 40s only differ from the 1960s because they didn’t have good bass players; I add here that it’s the drummer that makes all the difference, giving what in the original Jimmy Reed version was a rather tame, throwaway joke a real power and frustration. I’m also mighty impressed with Billy’s playing on more traditional Dead fare like ‘Playing In The Band’ (where the band listen to him for when to come in, rather than Garcia like normal) and ‘Wharf Rat’, where a less sensitive player would have smothered the song with sound rather than leaving meaningful empty silences. It’s not for nothing that the ‘Golden Road’ box set booklet records how Billy was playing ‘like a little God’ by Phil Lesh (actually in the sleevenotes to next record 'Europe '72' but more applicable here I think); much as I love the joint percussion work of Billy and Micky together it’s almost a shame when the band go back to business as usual in 1974-5.

The other distinguishing feature of this album is the impressive cover art by ‘Mouse’ (as regular artist Stanley Miller is better known to Dead fans) of a skeleton adorned with roses, based on the original cover illustration of the ‘Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam’ series of poems (a thousand in total – and you thought I wrote lots!) which date back to the 11th century. Like the Dead, it could be argued, these poems are left elusive so that they have been open to almost as many interpretations as they have been read over the years. Scholars have argued that the poems are evidence of Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism and atheism and have even spent whole books arguing whether the poems are ‘for’ or ‘against’ such differing subjects as alcohol, religion and fatalism. The sense you get from the few I’ve read is that the compilers (allegedly just Khayyam but probably the work of several writers) aren’t trying to be ‘for’ or ‘against’ anything; they’re merely trying to portray life as they see it around them, without comment or bias (of course a writer always has some form of ‘bias’ simply by what he chooses to include or miss out, but hopefully you get my gist all the same). The fact that translations into different languages almost always throw up new translations every time adds to the hazy, confusing feel of the work. Who does this sound like? Why the good ‘ol Grateful Dead of course, weaving folk tales round the concert campfires that might or might not be traditional in origin, might have a message or might not and are really just a description of their times, without the outrage and politicism of Jefferson Airplane and CSNY or the social poetry of a Paul Simon or Ray Davies, rather earthy in description but also quite possible full of mystical, spiritual importance too. The cover was a good choice.

One other distinguishing feature of the album artwork was a rather novel questionnaire asking Dead fans to get in touch with the band. And not just in a fan club-get a badge and a free picture- way either, but a fully blown attempt to organise Dead ‘happenings’ and get their fans to meet up with each other way from the concerts. As it turns out this invention (probably Garcia’s according to most books) wasn’t all that successful a) because the Airplane stole its thunder with its poetic message to fans to be ‘ready’ when the starship of hippies call for them on Paul Kantner and co’s ‘Blows Against The Empire’ a few months before and b) because the Dead never quite got it together enough to let the invite be anything more than a glorified mailing list. But still, how many other bands were even thinking about their fans as an integral part of a band’s appeal at this point? And how many were simply prepared to be the passive means by which their fans got together, started new friendships, new interests, new revolutions? The wording, you see, is very Dead: ‘Who are you? Where are you? How are you?...Everybody ought to think of ways to get together with other Dead freaks. At any rate, we know where you all are, we have all your addresses and WE HAVE YOUR NAME!’

Overall, then, ‘Grateful Dead’ aka ‘Skullfuck’ aka ‘Skulls and Roses’ aka ‘That weird album with the cover that looks like it comes from some zombie film’ is a poor album with some very good ideas. The cover, as discussed, is superb - everything a Dead artwork should be. The three new originals are as good as the Dead ever got, full of pathos, sensitivity and performed with that natural, eerily natural spontaneity that only the Dead can bring. The Dead performances of some of the covers also proves what an original, inventive band they could be, featuring the debut recordings of several songs that went on to be regulars in their concerts for over 30 years. Yet for all that imagination and verve there’s something hollow about this album. The 18 minutes of ‘The Other One’ may be the longest of your Dead listening life, packing only three ‘new’ songs onto a ‘new ‘record seems like career suicide after two strong albums full of strong material that have had the world at your feet and at 72 minutes this album is short for a double record. Half of the album has you asking ‘why?’, even if the other half of the album is so terrifically amazing that you feel you’ll never have to ask ‘why?’ about anything ever again. Surprisingly, this album won over the critics of the day almost as much as career highlight ‘American Beauty’ (if you think my writing is OTT try this review from ‘Rampart’ music magazine in 1971: ‘[This album’s] neo-Rousseauvian ruralism is exposed as possessing severe limits, with violence and despair in cities, with conventional politics and economics worse than irrelevant, nobody seems to know where to turn...’) and good as parts of it is I’m not quite sure why this album won so many people over. Superb in part and featuring some of the best work the Dead ever did – but woefully, inexplicably inconsistent.

‘Bertha’ is one of Garcia and Hunter’s rockier songs, with a chunky rhythm guitar lick, a booming Motown-ish bass riff and a killer catchy chorus. On first glance its lyrics are about a pesky woman who keeps chasing the narrator and makes his life a misery – but actually the inspiration was a lot more prosaic than that, it was inspired by a fan (no, not that sort!) In the hot summer of 1971 the Grateful Dead office had a large electric fan installed which, for reasons best known to themselves, the staff nicknamed ‘Bertha’. Unfortunately, like many things in the Dead universe, Bertha was slightly wonky and its motor was far too powerful for the stand it was on, which meant it would occasionally chase people around the room when it span out of control. No wonder this song has a chorus that runs ‘I really had to move!’ The second and third verses are weirder, though, and unusually simplified by Bob Hunter’s standards, with the narrator being chased to some cliffs and the escaping to first a bar and then in jail. There is no ending to the song either – you sense that Bertha is still waiting for Garcia when ‘the sun goes down’; and he’s released once more. Trust Garcia to turn such an oddball story into a song, but ‘Bertha’ is one of the Dead’s finer rockers of the period, giving him plenty of space to stretch out on his guitar solos. However, there’s something slightly rushed about this early live performance that made the record – like many Dead performed the song much better when it had been around for a few years and the many live gigs from the mid 70s featuring this song are generally superior to this one.

‘Mama Tried’ is one of the better choices of covers on the album, with the Dead electric power giving this Merle Haggard song a bit more clout than most cover versions (the song is only three years old when the Dead sing it, though, so this is one of the earlier cover versions of it around). The narrator is a ‘rebel child from a family meek and mild’, lured by the bright lights of the city and easily corruptible. By the time the song flashed back to the present day he’s ‘turning 21 in prison, doing life without parole’ and feeling guilty about all the people who tried to warn him about this day (his ‘mama’ especially). (Haggard admitted later this song was partly autobiographical, as the songwriter did indeed turn 21 when serving time in San Quentin, though it was for a minor misdemeanour rather than a crime deserving ‘life without parole’). Haggard’s original is sincere and heartfelt and one of his better songs; the Dead’s performance, though is a little ragged and Bob Weir’s vocal tries too hard to sound like a faithful country boy to match the original (Garcia’s rockier ragged harmonies are pretty good mind) although the Dead win out slightly thanks to the ensemble playing when the band hit the chorus (‘And I turned 21 in prison...’). The song seems like a terribly strange choice for the Dead to do (guilt for being different and slightly rebellious isn’t something you’d expect them to take to readily), but the band seemed to love it, totting up some 300 performances of the song across 25 years or so.

‘Big Railroad Blues’ carries on the same theme, with Garcia’s troubled narrator homeless and sleeping rough on a train, desperately trying to escape the ‘jailor’ come to put him away. Realising that ‘I should have listened to what my mama said’ the narrator seems to be on the run, the clever melody mimicking the hop from carriage to carriage as the man is pursued. While slightly more Dead-friendly than the last song (this is more of a straight forward rock and roll tune than a country and western) and with plenty of space for some more fiery lead guitar work from Garcia (who is exceptional across this album), the same problems apply. I’d love to know what the Dead audiences made of these two songs which, to some extent make a mockery of the ‘run away with the circus and turn your back on capitalism’ magical pull of the band. I’ve never actually heard the original version of this song (its by the ‘Cannon Jug Stompers’ apparently) and I’ve not been unable to unearth where the Dead might have learned it (most sites quote the Dead as the first band to formerly record the song), although AAA fans might be interested to learn that Jorma Kaukanen’s group ‘Hot Tuna’ (a spin-off from Jefferson Airplane) also recorded the song in 1999.

‘Playing In The Band’ is the next key song on the album, a gorgeous (and rare) collaboration between Weir, Hunter and departing drummer Micky Hart that sounds more like a Who composition in the way it tried to understand the relationship between band and audience. Weir’s narrator admits that he’s a hopeless, typical human being whose life is full of mistakes and missed opportunities, but that he – and his audience – all get to the real ‘truth’ of life when they join together at a Grateful Dead concert. A series of witty parables infiltrate the song like a musical version of Aesop’s fables (‘Some folks look for answers, some folk look for fights, some are up in treetops just looking at the sights’) while the band truly get behind the song musically to make it sound like a revelatory, almost religious experience. Everything in this song sounds guided by some greater hand, as the band pass through section after section and yet somehow get back to the same place all together at the same time. Not bad for a song that started off as an interesting rhythm part Micky improvised during one bored recording session! (It’s a measure of how forgiving the Dead are that they still credit the drummer for kick-starting the song despite the fact that he’s not in the band anymore and the fact that its his father whose put them in such a precarious financial position that this album had to be released at all). However, the band are still clearly learning the song by the time of its appearance on ‘Skulls and Roses’ and their playing and especially their harmonies are quite ragged in parts. If you’re a fan of this song then I strongly urge you to dig out the studio re-recording on Bob Weir’s first solo album ‘Ace’ where various members of the Dead family and new-boy pianist Keith Godchaux excel themselves with a breathtaking performance that’s amongst the band’s strongest on record. How the band manage to get that atonal and yet all hit the same reprise when it matters is one of those glorious Dead mysteries that make you feel that this band clearly aren’t human! The two performances also have a few little lyrics changes: the people ‘just lookin’ for their kites’ has become people ‘lookin’ to see sights’ by the time of ‘Ace’. The song became something of a Grateful Dead standard down the years, outperformed only by ‘Sugar Magnolia’ across the band’s 30 years on stage.

‘The Other One’ has already been covered by us on our review for the Dead’s second album ‘Anthem Of The Sun’. However here’s a short precise: Garcia’s strummed minstrel opening embraces destruction and death (ie the 1950s), Bob Weir escapes to run away with the circus (‘A bus came by and I got on, that’s where it all began’, while watching ‘children learning from books that they were burning’, thus neatly summing up the mid 60s) before the whole thing spirals out of control and leaves us back where we began, facing annihilation again circa the end of 1967. The song is called ‘The Other One’ because it was the band’s ‘other’ big improvisatory song after ‘Dark Star’ and no one could come up with a proper name (have a look at the four min-suites listed on ‘Anthem Of The Sun’ to see why...) Of course, if you’ve tuned in simply to read about the ‘Skulls and Roses’ version of the tune then you won’t need to know any of that. All you need to know is that drum solos suck – especially when they take up 8 precious minutes of one of the Dead’s career best songs. Not that this performance gets any better when the rest of the band chip in – this version of ‘The Other One’ is the most ragged, slow and downright uninteresting variation out of the 20-odd Dead performances of the song I have in my collection. If the band wanted to use the song so badly why couldn’t they have included the extraordinary Fillmore West performance from 1969 (included in the ‘So Many Roads’ box set), by far the best performance of this song the Dead ever did (that I know of) and one of their best full stop (the band mean every word they sing and the guitar solo flight at the end, desperately trying to stave off destruction before finally falling crumpled at the band’s feet, is a tremendously powerful experience). Alas this version doesn’t pounce on your emotion – it simply rambles, like the band haven’t played this song in a while and are trying to learn how it goes. They seem to have forgotten entirely by the end of the song too, falling part in a squeal of feedback and noise which is a whole lot interesting than the usual direction-filled use of feedback and noise on most Dead performances. Learn on your own time guys – we want to hear this song played the way it was meant to be! What a waste...

‘Me and My Uncle’ is another curious cover song, a John Phillips original written just too late to appear on a ‘Mamas and Papas’ album. It’s an unusually strident, rockabilly number that again sees the Dead playing around with country and western influences. In the song the narrator is a cowboy in the ole’ wild west and comes to the aid of his uncle when a bunch of crooks accuse him of cheating in a card game and try to shoot him (the narrator gets in first). The uncle dies too, but instead of rushing for help for him the narrator reflects on all the life-lessons his uncle taught him and decides to use them (‘so I grabbed the gold and left his dead ass by the side of the road’). Given the strange turns Phillips life took in the 70s (drug addictions, prison, an alleged incestuous relationship with daughter Mackenzie) this song sounds like an uncomfortable bit of self-realisation about where is life was heading and how powerless he was to stop it. Weir’s lead is a lot more impressive this time around and the song suits him much better, rattling off the words at a real gallop, although again its Garcia’s double-time guitar solo that steals the show. A curious song, this one, quite different to anything the Dead ever do again, and one that is only a qualified success.

‘Big Boss Man’ is more like it, a fairly famous song from the 60s that’s best known for covers by Elvis and Jimmy Reed (although The Animals’ lesser known version is about the best). Pigpen’s tongue-in-cheek interpretation of the song is delightful and he sounds like the blues hollerer of old, not the frail figure he was on stage at the time (Pig dies from liver failure 18 months from here). The song is sure to chime with many, telling the tale of a powerful boss whose corrupt and lazy, relying on the hard work of his underlings to see him right day after day. Realising that his boss is all mouth and no substance, the usual interpretation of this song is anger or frustration. The Dead, however, go in for mockery, slowing down the tempo, relishing the dreams of escape (‘I’ll work hard in the daytime, but I’ll sure get stoned at night!’) and taking the mickey out of the bosses’ attempts to restore order. The ‘feeling’ in this song is that both band and audience have already ‘seen’ through the lies of the capitalist system and have found their own alternative way to life, as represented by the Grateful Dead. It’s just a shame that this way of life will see the early death of so many of the band – not least poor Pigpen whose at his mesmerising best on this song, playing some wonderful blues harmonica and a guttural vocal caught somewhere between a taunt and a chuckle. Probably the best cover on the album.

‘Me and Bobby McGee’ is a Kris Kristoffersen song that was big in the news in 1971. Fellow AAA member Janis Joplin died mere weeks after recording the song which, when released as a single, became her only #1 hit. Legend has it that the Dead started singing it on stage as their tribute to their fallen comrade, as well as the Garcia-Hunter original ‘Bird Song’ (‘She sang for a little while and then flew off’). The song is apt in both versions for the pained chorus (‘Freedom’s just another word for ‘nothing left to lose’) and the rather bittersweet verse lyrics that seem to suggest that everything ends so don’t get too close to anything or you’ll get stung (‘I’d trade all my tomorrows for one yesterday’) – except music (‘feeling good was easy when Bobby sang the blues’). Janis barked the hell out of the song, which is why it became so associated with her – alas the Dead don’t have the same investment in the song and theirs is slow and unusually cautious, tentative rather than thrilling and sweet rather than memorable. The fact that the Dead had two Bobbies ‘singing the blues’ in Weir and Hunter makes for a sweet band-and-fan chuckle, but that’s about it. Oh by the way – in Kris Kristoffersen’s original ‘Bobby’ is a woman; Janis changed the sex when she covered the song and the Dead stuck to it, making it more of a ‘brothers in arms’ song than a love song.

‘Johnny B Goode’ was the band’s 1971 ‘rock song’ (there was usually one in the set-list somewhere) and the band play their cover version super fast, matching almost Chuck Berry’s original for speed. However, the band don’t have the same finesse so that the ‘clear ringing sound’ (as if you were ringing a bell) of the original is substituted for noise and power. Garcia sounds surprisingly at home on the solo, though, getting to grips with Berry’s riff even more than Keith Richards does on the Stones’ records and the band are clearly relishing the fact that they are playing something fun rather than something meaningful or substantial. Like the last song, it’s another piece about how music can cure all ills – like composer Chuck Johnny is born in poverty and hopeless in school, seemingly born for a life of drudgery and emptiness. Instead he overcomes it all by his ear for music, living to see his name ‘in lights’. A more apt choice for the Dead than many critics assume, then, with most of the band (expect perhaps the university student Phil Lesh) coming from a similar background and using music as their stepping stone to all the success the education system denied them. One of the better covers of this song around, although still no match for Chuck Berry’s life-affirming original.

‘Wharf Rat’ is the real reason you need to own this album, however, my favourite of all the songs the Dead ever did. A melodramatic Garcia-Hunter original, on paper this song should be as boring as a maths exam: the song sticks to one chord more or less throughout and if its tempo slowed down just a smidgeon more it would be standing still. But the melancholy of the tune, the poignancy of the words and the power of the performance make up for everything. The narrator stumbles across a man at the wharf (‘way down,down, down by the docks of the city’, a line that neatly sums up his depressing situation). With no money himself he can’t offer aid to the man, but he can at least hear his story. And what a story it is, dear readers – the man named August West (visions of sun setting suns there) was sent to prison instead of a real killer and, when released back to nothing, becomes an alcoholic. However he still dreams of getting back on his feet, to the accompaniment of a terrific mock-gospel organ from Merl Saunders overdubbed later, and pleads with the God he’d only just dismissed out of hand (‘He’s no friend of mine’) to see him right. With a pained cry of ‘I’ll get up and fly away!’ the band launch into some of the best improvising of their career, locked into a prison of the same rigid key they can’t escape, Garcia almost levitating as he tries everything he can to find a way out of those prison walls, launching into perhaps his greatest ever solo with a squeal of feedback, tiredness, pain and injustice. The song reverts back to the narrator who, shocked by the story, goes back to thinking about his own life and seeing ther world through new eyes, questioning the previously safe and certain world he once saw around him, even wondering if his girls’ being true to him. ‘Wharf Rat’ is famously only the third song to ever use the ‘f word’ (the first two are both AAA songs: John Lennon’s ‘Working Class Hero’ and Jefferson Airplane’s still shocking ‘We Can Be Together’) but what else could the writers do? (‘Half my life I spent doing time for some other ducker’s crime’ hardly sounds the same without the word there). It should be even more famous for being one of the most moving Hunter-Garcia songs, with one of Bob Hunter’s most gripping and believable characters in August West, a character we know is trying so hard to better himself and yet never can, caught up in a cycle of inhumanity, fear and anger. Listen out, too, for the clever way Hunter balances the song on a tightrope between first and third person, so that you’re never entirely sure whose singing (the hint being that this sad life could happen to any of us at any time without any warning or reason). Garcia’s performance of this song is riveting too, clearly believing every word and with his voice even cracking at times as he tries to find a good point in this sad sad story. His music, too, is extraordinary – beautiful but in a fragile, doomed sense (no wonder this is the same partnership who came up with the ‘he had to die’ section of ‘The Other One’). In all ‘Wharf Rat’ is as good as music gets, saying so much more than its few lines tell us and conjuring up a whole world beyond the grooves in a record.

After such an extraordinary song the closing medley of ‘Not Fade Away’ and ‘Goin’ Down The Road Feelin’ Bad’ sounds like something of an anti-climax. Buddy Holly’s song was covered so many times by the Dead that they did in just about every form going, although this medley sadly isn’t one of them (its slight reggae-ish lilt is distracting and its shared Garcia and Weir harmonies too loose for comfort). Things liven up by the time the band are letting fly on the song’s end, somehow turning the stop-start quality of the song into the simple 4/4 time of Cliff Carlisle’s forgotten blues song. Unfortunately while these songs tail together quite neatly musically, there’s no link between these two thematically: the first is about love staying constant over time - the second is about a homesick band wanting to go home. The band are also just a fraction too loose to sustain interest in the song (had they made the push for the segue a few minutes earlier this medley would have fared better), but then loose jamming is after all something of a dead speciality. Still, this isn’t the Dead at their best and makes for a pretty limp end to the LP.

In fact, this is a pretty limp LP overall. Fans expecting another ‘Workingman’s Dead’ or ‘American Beauty’ must have been furious at having to spend double their money for a double record that featured only half as many songs as those LPs. Had the Dead had the patience to wait and combine this batch of originals with those destined for ‘Europe ‘72’ then we fans might have had a treat on our hands. After all, the originals on offer here are all superb and among the best the Dead wrote (indeed, as songs all four of them are of a higher standard than the more famous songs the Dead cover on this album) – there just isn’t enough of them. However, it would be unfair to dismiss the cover songs here merely as filler – cover songs were always more integral to the Dead’s setlists than most band’s and varied from night to night without much warning or rehearsal, hence the roughness of some of the performances. The band could have taken the easy route and made this a single album quite easily, but by giving us 70 odd minutes its like having half a Dead concert of our own to enjoy; one no better or worse than all the other Dead concerts they gave in this period. However, like many snapshot live albums it’s superseded as soon as the next one comes along and probably never played again (the Stones are particularly bad at this), just like snapshot photographs. For ‘Wharf Rat’ alone this album is still an integral essential part of any self-respecting Dead album collection – but newcomers be warned; if this your first stop on the Dead train then you might not stay onboard for the more interesting destinations (and that would be a real shame!)

A Now Complete List Of Dead-Related Articles Available To Read At Alan’s Album Archives:

'Grateful Dead' (1967) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/10/news-views-and-music-issue-10-grateful.html

'Anthem Of The Sun' (1968) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-23-grateful-dead-anthem-of-sun.html

'Aoxomoxoa' (1969) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/02/news-views-and-music-issue-20-grateful.html

‘Live/Dead’ (1969) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/grateful-dead-livedead-1969.html

'Workingman's Dead' (1970) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/news-views-and-music-issue-138-grateful.html

'American Beauty' (1970) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-40-grateful-dead-american-beauty.html

‘Grateful Dead’ (1971) aka ‘Skulls and Roses’ http://www.alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/grateful-dead-aka-skulls-and-roses-1971.html

‘Europe ‘72’ (1972) http://www.alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/grateful-dead-europe-72-album-review.html

'Wake Of The Flood' (1973) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-59-grateful-dead-wake-of-flood.html

'From The Mars Hotel' (1974) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/news-views-and-music-issue-99-grateful.html

'Blues For Allah' (1975) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/grateful-dead-blues-for-allah-1975.html

'Terrapin Station' (1977) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/08/news-views-and-music-issue-72-grateful.html

'Shakedown Street' (1978) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/grateful-dead-shakedown-street-1978.html

'Go To Heaven' (1980) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/grateful-dead-go-to-heaven-1980-album.html

'In The Dark' (1987) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2013/12/grateful-dead-in-dark-album-review.html

'Built To Last' (1989) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/10/news-views-and-music-issue-7-grateful.html

Surviving TV Clips 1966-1994 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/grateful-dead-surviving-tv-clips-1967.html

The Best Unreleased Recordings 1966-1993 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/grateful-dead-best-unreleased.html

The Last Unfinished Album 1990-1995 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/grateful-dead-last-unfinished-album.html

Live/Solo/Compilations Part One 1966-1976 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/grateful-dead-official.html

Live/Solo/Compilations Part Two 1978-2011 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/grateful-dead-official_29.html

A Guide To The CD Bonus Tracks http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/grateful-dead-guide-to-cd-bonus-tracks.html

Dick's Picks/Dave's Picks http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/grateful-dead-dicks-picksdaves-picks.html

Road Trips/Download Series/Miscellaneous Archive Releases
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/grateful-dead-road-tripsdownload.html

Essay: Why The ‘Dead’ Made Fans Feel So ‘Alive’ https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/grateful-dead-essay-why-dead-makes-fans.html

Five Landmark Concerts and Three Key Cover Versions https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2018/03/grateful-dead-five-landmark-concerts.html

Monday, 17 December 2012

The AAA Review Of The Year 2012 (News, Views and Music Issue 175)

Monday, 10 December 2012

News, Views and Music Issue 174 (Intro)

"Grateful Dead" aka "Skulls and Roses" (1971)

'High Time - The Alan's Album Archives Guide To The Music Of The Grateful Dead' is available to buy now by clicking here!

“Grateful Dead” aka “Skulls and Roses” (1971)

Bertha/Mama Tried/Big Railroad Blues/Playing In The Band//(That’s It For) The Other One//Me and My Uncle/Big Boss Man/Me and Bobby McGee/Johnny B Goode//Wharf Rat/Not Fade Away-Goin’ Down The Road Feelin’ Bad

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