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Thursday 10 January 2019

The Original Memphis Recordings


My last purchase of 2018 was Primal Scream: Give Out But Don't Give Up - The Original Memphis Recordings.
It had been on the list since  I watched the BBC 4 documentary a couple of months ago.
I picked it up in Fopp but hummed and hawed about the price. I came to my senses a couple of days later and got it in  Love Music for 3 quid cheaper!

I don't have the subsequent Give Out, etc  1994 album (my Primal Scream collection consisted of Screamadelica, XTRMNTR and Riot City Blues  before this one) but am familiar with most of the songs.
It starts out reasonably rocky on Jailbird and Rocks but then descends into some wonderful soulful country rock and gospel.
Although it was original recorded and produced in 1993 by the great Tom Dowd  it did not see the light of day until very recently after Andrew Innes found the  tapes in a box in his house
I did not hear  this before  I had  listened to my top album of 2018 - The Last of the Gracious Losers. There are some similarities particularly with the brilliant gospel harmonies.

Here is a fine example


7 comments:

  1. You need Vanishing Point in your collection, trust me you do!

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  2. He's right.
    2013s More Light is also worth a listen.

    This one though takes the original Give Out into (almost) stellar territory - the funk overload, clean production and cocaine-fuelled excesses are not missed

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  3. Is it worth spending £12 of my £20 amazon voucher on this?

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  4. Yes to both Vanishing Point and More Light. I'd go for Evil Heat too.

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  5. Primal Scream and Bobby Gillespie. Mmmm. Years ago I had them/him sussed, sorted, categorised, all parcelled up. They were Stones' soundalikes and copyists right?. Nothing more to say or see here, move along. Then a few weeks ago I saw him on the vile, loathsome Andrew Neil's politics programme This Week, looking on with sheer disgust as the other regulars abased themselves doing some naff dance. I wanted to give him a great big hug. And now....just listened to Big Jet Plane and thought hey this is pretty good. My original judgement may yet hold but don't you hate it when your prejudices start to get undermined?

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