Atlantic R& B Volume 3

 

  2021 Charity Shop Purchases 5 - Atlantoc R&B Volume 3  1955 -1957

During my recent charity shop excursion I stumbled upon Atlantic R& B Volume 4 on the shelves .When I opened it to check it contained the CD for Volume 3. I thought about putting it back but decided against it. About 15 minutes later on one of the the other shelves I found Volume 3 and yes it contained the CD for Volume 4.

Result. A quick swop round and they were added to the pile. I only had Volume 1 before but had a copy of Volume 3 which I featured back in August 2016

Covering the period 1955-57 it features  the likes of Ray Charles, the Drifters and a host of others across the 28 tracks.

Today you're getting the Blues of Joe Turner , the Doo wop of The Robins and the risque Soul of Ruth Brown.

Volume 4 next week

Joe Turner -Flip,Flop and Fly

The Robins - Smokey Joe's Cafe

Ruth Brown -Lucky Lips

Punk 3

 

All good things come to an end and today sees the final instalment from my Saturday Punk/New Wave compilations  with some tracks from the imaginatively titled Punk 3 burn from the shelves

Generation X debuted here earlier in this series in March with Dancing With Myself from the Sounds of the City album. Here they sing of their love for Cathy McGowan  with the excellent Ready Steady Go

Eddie and the Hot Rods also debuted on that album. Here they are experiencing some Teenage Depression

I know someone who when he had 998 albums he went out and bought a 999 album and then a Fall album for his 1000th. You won't get any of that nonsense here but you will get 999 making their debut with Homicide.

The Lurkers are another band who until now had not graced these pages. They have now even though they Ain't Got a Clue.

Time to bail out before the barrel gets scraped further.

Generation X - Ready Steady Go

Eddie & the Hot Rods -Teenage Depression

999 - Homicide

The Lurkers -Ain't Got a Clue

Forty Licks

 

  2021 Charity Shop Purchases 4 - The Rolling Stones - Forty Licks

Forty Licks is a 2 x CD 40 year career-spanning retrospective compilation of the work of The Rolling Stones released in 2002. For licensing reasons it was attributed to Virgin/ABCKO/Decca.

Bought primarily to replace a burn but let's face it not too many would turn down the opportunity to pick up 40 songs by the Stones for a quid.

Whereas it is not strictly in chronilogical order disc 1 contains songs from 1964 -1971 and disc 2 from 1971 to 2002.

Two from each disc I think.

From disc 1 I'm going for Gimme Shelter from the great Let it Bleed album from1969 and the single version of She's a Rainbow a song from1967's Their Satanic Majesties Request.

You won't be surprised to hear that disc 2 is not as consistantly brilliant as disc 1 although a couple of songs from  Exile on Main Street are  included. (Sticky Fingers straddles both discs)

Beast of Burden is taken from Some Girls  from 1978 probably their best post 1972 album.

The compilation includes four new songs. No great shakes but Keys to Your Love is probably the best of a fairly mediocre bunch.

Rolling Stones - Gimme Shelter

Rolling Stones - She's a Rainbow

Rolling Stones - Beast of Burden

Rolling Stones - Keys to Your Love

The Kick Inside

 

  2021 Charity Shop Purchases 3  Kate Bush - The Kick Inside

There were about half a dozen Kate Bush CDs in the charity shop where I had my May Day foray .I'm not an uber fan nor am I one of those people who can't stand her.This led me to picking up only two of them.

One was her debut album from 1976 (when she was just 19 if my arithmetic is correct) The Kick Inside  on EMI in the UK and Harvest in the States

You will all be aware of the main single from the album Wuthering Heights which amazingly was the first self written song by a female artist to reach number 1 on the UK singles charts. I shall spare you that one today 

Them Heavy People released on 5th May 1978 was a single in Japan only with the title Rolling the Ball

Kate was only 13 when she wrote The Man With The Child in His Eyes which is pretty astonishing. She recorded it when she was 16.

The more astute among you and/or those who can remember as far back as the first paragraph will have worked out that she will be making a further appearance here sooner rather than later.

Kate Bush -Them Heavy People

Kate Bush - The Man with the Child in His Eyes

Sparky's Dream

  2021 Charity Shop Purchases 2 - Teenage Fanclub Sparky's Dream (CD single)

Sparky's Dream a song written by Gerry Love is the 2nd track on Teenage Fanclub's 1994 album Grand Prix (Creation) and was also the 2nd single  from the album released on 22nd May 1995.

I already have it from the album on vinyl. CD and digitally but if I see a Teenage Fanclub single I'm going to pick it up if only to support Brian's campaign for the release of a B-sides album.

As is the way of these things there appears to be a number of different versions. The one that I acquired seems to be a promo version. It contains 4 tracks - Sparky's Dream (obviously), Burned (a Buffalo Springfield song by Neil Young ), For You (written by Raymond McGinley) and Headstand another Gerry Love number.

Yours for £2.50 plus postage  on Discogs

Teenage Fanclub - Sparky's Dream

Teenage Fanclub -Burned

Teenage Fanclub - For You

Teenage Fanclub -Headstand

At War With the Mystics

 2021 Charity Shop Purchases 1 - The Flaming Lips - At War with the Mystics

Saturday 1st May 2021 saw my first visit to a charity shop this year and gave me my first opportunity of the year to tick the CCM  raison d'etre box. Fortunately it was a good haul but I suspect that I may struggle to match the 2020 total of 74.

I've had The Soft Bulletin and Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots by The Flaming Lips for a while and have never really felt the urge to explore further. However, I was not about to turn down the opportunity to pick up their next one 2006's At War with the Mystics on Warner Brothers for a pound.

My first impressions are mixed. One or two like those below stood out but I suspect it may take a few listens before confirming whether it is bombastic pop brilliance as the blurb on the sticker from Filter Magazine would have it. Defo a keeper though.

Being the Flaming Lips the song titles are fairly ridiculous. The official titles for the two featured below are:

Free Radicals ( A Hallucination of the Christmas Skeleton Pleading with a Suicide Bomber) and

It Overtakes Me /The Stars are so Big...I am so Small ...Do I Stand a Chance?  I'll settle for the abridged versions.

The Flaming Lips - Free Radicals

The Flaming Lips - It Overtakes Me

I Ain't Marching Any More

There was a time in the early 60s when Folk music was pretty much synonymous with protest songs particularly in the States.

This was around the time when Dylan first shot to prominence with songs such as The Times They Are a Changing and With God on Our Side. Another exponent was Phil Ochs although he preferred to by known as a Topical Singer. At the time there was plenty to get topical about.

I Ain't Marching Any More is his second album from 1965 on the Electra label. I have it on a two albums on one CD format along with his 1964 debut All The News That's Fit to Sing.

A number of his songs appeared on George's State of the Union series including one from this album namely Here's to the State of Mississippi which must be one of the most powerful songs that I've ever heard. I don't imagine that he got a warm welcome in that state following that.

We could do with more protest songs now. Although Edwyn Collins spoke of too many protest singers, not enough protest songs it is hard to think of many with the notable exceptions of Steve Earle and Billy Bragg

Phil Ochs - I Ain't Marching Any More

Phil Ochs - Draft Dodger Rag

Phil Ochs - Here's to the State of Mississippi