From the Vaults

PJ Proby: Lonely Weekends (1965)

9 Jul 2014 | 2 min read | 1

One of the most pressing problems facing big voiced balladeers of the mid and late Sixties -- PJ Proby, Tom Jones, Solomon King, Engelbert Humperdinck and John Rowles among them -- was a lack of decent material. When the Beatles arrived writing and singing their own material (then the Stones and others) the whole landscape of popular music changed. Although a few songwriters had previously... > Read more

Max Romeo: Wet Dream (1969)

8 Jul 2014 | <1 min read | 1

The great Max Romeo has his War Ina Babylon (produced by Lee Scratch Perry) as an Essential Elsewhere album for its street politics and memorable songs, but this was the thing which got him a lot of attention. Produced by Bunny Lee at Studio One, understandably banned by the BBC ("lie down gal let me push it up, push it up"), not released in Jamaica, reaching number two on the... > Read more

Otis Rush: All Your Love (1958)

7 Jul 2014 | <1 min read

One of Eric Clapton's most definitive and distinctive early statements was his cover of this song by the great Otis Rush, which appeared on the John Mayall Blues Breakers album of '65. You can hear his version at that link. What is interesting is just what a precision player Clapton was. He hears every nuance of Rush's version, but delivers a steely, crisp but deeply felt rendition... > Read more

Ivor Cutler: Life in a Scotch Sitting Room and Go And Sit Upon the Grass (1975)

27 Jun 2014 | 1 min read

The Scottish poet and comedian Ivor Cutler (1923 - 2006) barely scraped the surface of wide public acclaim outside of the UK, and even there he was a minority figure. But he did appear in the Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour in '67 after Paul McCartney spotted the eccentric, quietly spoken Cutler on a late night television show. In that Beatles film he played Buster Bloodvessel, the driver of... > Read more

Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young: Change Partners (1974)

6 Jun 2014 | 1 min read

Here's an early exclusive for you. In a month an album drawn from '74 concerts by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young will be released for the first time. It comes as a single disc (for the track listing see here), but also in a three CD and DVD format, and for the full track listing of that see here. (It's got Young's Revolution Blues on it, can't wait to hear that!) The release of this... > Read more

Tall Dwarfs: Ride a White Swan (1998)

4 Jun 2014 | <1 min read

In the course of researching the folksy-hippie sound of Tyrannosaurus Rex of the late Sixties, before they morphed into the brilliant pixiefied glam rock of T. Rex, I was turning up some interesting oddities in their catalogue. But when I got to their pivotal song Ride a White Swan with which Marc Bolan announced a whole new Rex -- electric, poppy, teen-directed -- I stumbled on this... > Read more

Gurus: Shelley in Camp (1968)

28 May 2014 | <1 min read

The '68 film Wild in the Streets had a helluva cast: mad Shelley Winters as a hippie convert then chewing up the scenery, Hal Holbrook as a shrewd politico seething as only Hal could do; Richard Pryor, Ed Begley . . . Crazy story too: through the machinations of political manipulators a nation turns itself on its head and vote in a president who is a young rock singer who then legislates to... > Read more

The Queen Annes: You Got Me Running (1985)

26 May 2014 | 1 min read

Amazing, isn't it, how far a sound can travel? Like the sound of Mod England as epitmised by the Who reaching right into the heartland of Washington state in the US where, in the early Eighties, this band took it (belatedly) to heart. It would be an exaggeration to say the Queen Annes were one of the great undiscovered pre-grunge bands from Seattle, but on the evidence of a recent... > Read more

Solomon King: Happy Again (1968)

22 May 2014 | 1 min read

Solomon King -- not to be confused with the equally enormous late Solomon Burke -- was something of a one-hit wonder when his big voiced ballad She Wears My Ring went racing up the charts in the UK in '68. Like Engelbert Humperdink, King's style seemed to belong to an earlier era . . . and the album which accompanied the hit confirmed it: he covered the gorgeous Stranger in Paradise... > Read more

Tim Hollier: Full Fathoms Five (1968)

21 May 2014 | 1 min read

The title of this song by an obscure and unfairly overlooked British psych-folkie would be familiar to followers of New Zealand music, and those who know the works of the Bard. The line comes from Shakespeare's The Tempest and Don McGlashan deployed it as the opening words of his lovely Anchor Me. Here the Shakespeare -- it is Ariel's song -- is given a musical setting by Hollier,... > Read more

Jan Berry: The Universal Coward (1965)

20 May 2014 | 1 min read

Jan Berry was half of the surf pop group Jan and Dean, and he co-wrote this song with Jill Gibson as an answer to Buffy Sainte-Marie's Universal Soldier of the same year which had been covered by Donovan and Glen Campbell. His partner Dean Torrance – who had done an Army Reserve stint – wanted nothing to do with it. It's blunt! A real Cold War classic in a way.... > Read more

Grace Jones: Me, I Disconnect From You (1981)

15 May 2014 | <1 min read

Before interviewing Gary Numan recently I put a call out on Facebook to anyone who had questions for the man they wanted answered. He was a delight to speak with (see here) and happy to take these random questions at the end, one being about great (and lousy) covers of his songs which he might have heard. He was very generous as you may see, but hadn't heard this recently... > Read more

The Martin Drew Band w. Brian Smith: Child is Born (1977)

14 May 2014 | 1 min read

For many decades Martin Drew - who died in 2010 -- was the go-to drummer in Britain. A partial list, which he drew up himself, of the people he'd played with included Lee Konitz, Woody Herman, Paul McCartney, Dexter Gordon, Chico Freeman, Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Goodman, Warren Vache, Oscar Peterson (in whose band he was), Chet Baker, Chico Freeman . . . Most of those jazz players he... > Read more

Diane Hildebrand: You Wonder Why You're Lonely (1969)

6 May 2014 | 1 min read

The recent Record Store Day made a major gouge in my bank account, but even so there were some accidental bargains in my bag. While waiting in the queue at Southbound Records with some pricey gems I found myself by their discount bin and so, idly flicking through the selections, I . . . Yes, the album by Diane Hildebrand made itself known to me for a number of reasons: first because I'd... > Read more

Lawrence Arabia: Eye A (2009)

28 Apr 2014 | 1 min read

In a long and interesting interview with Elsewhere, Lawrence Arabia spoke about his past, his present, his doubts and hopes. But also about the forthcoming concerts in which he will be playing his three albums -- Lawrence Arabia, Chant Darling and The Sparrow -- in their entirety at concerts in Auckland and Wellington (see poster). Obviously some of these songs he would not have played... > Read more

World Saxophone Quartet: Take the A Train (1986)

24 Apr 2014 | <1 min read

One of the most innovative and sometimes daring jazz groups around, World Saxophone Quartet was an implosion of individual talents: Julius Hemphill (alto), Oliver Lake (alto), David Murray (tenor) and Hamiet Bluiett (baritone). Each of them had come into jazz from an angle of post-bop and often free playing, and their subsequent careers took them in very different directions again, notably... > Read more

Tony Lambrianou: Product of the Environment (1999)

23 Apr 2014 | <1 min read

Gangsta rappers may bang on about putting "a cap in yo ass" (trans: a bullet in your bottom) but much of that is posturing. The London 'ard men on the album Product of the Environment (1999, produced by Tricky's offsider Gareth Bowen) were the real thing: safe-breakers, hitmen, mad (Frankie Fraser certified mad three times), mates with the Krays . . . The album has 11 gangsters... > Read more

Park/Kaiser/Moyes: OO-AA-YI (1984, extract only)

21 Apr 2014 | <1 min read

Does anyone release albums like Invite the Spirit, from which this extract is lifted, anymore? This expansive double album came through Celluloid out of New York and was a live recording of improvisations by Korean gayageum player (and vocalist) Sang-Won Park, avant-guitarist Henry Kaiser and percussion player Charles K. Noyes (who also plays saw). That's not the kind of line-up... > Read more

Gregory Porter: 1960 What? (Opolopo remix, 2012)

18 Apr 2014 | 1 min read

When singer Gregory Porter won best jazz album at the Grammys in January 2014 for his Blue Note abum Liquid Spirit, it threw attention back onto his two previous albums. Far from being a straight jazz vocal album, Liquid Spirit touched on gospel, soul, blues and pop as much as jazz, and Porter has always brought that diversity into the mix. This song from his 2010 album Water -- here... > Read more

Polyrock: Your Dragging Feet (1980)

17 Apr 2014 | <1 min read

While it's always been fashionable and hip for rock musicians -- especially those in what we might call avant-rock -- to namedrop jazz or contemporary classical composers in interviews, but when you listen to their music there is usually scant evidence of an influence. However Polyrock from New York -- who mostly came off as more jittery post-Talking Heads/Feelies on their self-titled debut... > Read more