Real Gone Music: Great Lost Treasures Now on Vinyl

Real Gone Music: Great Lost Treasures Now on Vinyl – by Tony Mastrianni.

Bernard “Pretty” Purdie: “Stand By Me (Whatcha See Is Whatcha Get)”

You have heard Bernard “Pretty” Purdie drum on more albums than you would have guessed. In addition, he released more than 25 albums as a bandleader and acted as Aretha Franklin’s musical director. Purdie has appeared on albums by countless legendary artists, like Jazz Hall of Famers Miles Davis, Herbie Mann, King Curtis, and others. He has also recorded with folk legend Tom Rush, as well as R&B/soul icons James Brown, Wilson Pickett, Roberta Flack, and Al Green. And if that is not enough, he has also kicked skins for pop/rock luminaries Cat Stevens, Todd Rundgren, and Steely Dan, among many others!!!

Here we have a debut vinyl reissue of his 1971 album he recorded as bandleader. No surprise, he is surrounded by a stellar cast of musicians including guitarist Cornell Dupree, bassist Chuck Rainey, keyboardist Harold Wheeler, trumpeter Snooky Young, and reedman Seldon Powell. It is a downright funky, eclectic affair, highlighted by the proto-rap tune “Artificialness,” featuring Gil Scott-Heron! Comes in the original gatefold jacket art, too. For purists, there is black vinyl. REAL GONE also issues a limited 75 copies on colored wax and a website bundle with both black and quasar editions. The vinyl has been out of print and unavailable. This deluxe package includes an OBI side strip, gatefold album jacket with one pocket, original album artwork, printed inner sleeve, original record labels, and Black vinyl.

On a sidenote (speaking of Gil Scott-Heron), his legendary “Winter In America” with Brian Jackson is being reissued this summer by Culture Factory Records! This is the fifth studio album by American jazz vocalist Gil Scott-Heron and keyboardist Brian Jackson, released in 1974. The album is produced in a stripped-down fashion, relying on traditional African and R&B sounds. The subject matter deals with the African-American community and inner city in the 1970s. Gil Scott-Heron’s most “righteous and provocative.”

Fear Factory: “Concrete”

For all you metal aficionados and collectors, this 2002 album was the last of L.A. band Fear Factory’s amazing run of albums for Roadrunner Records, but it was actually the first. (??) You can read the two sets of liner notes that accompany the package. Briefly, prior to signing with Roadrunner, Fear Factory recorded an entire 1990 album with producer Ross Robinson. The band and Robinson had a falling out, but ironically, it was a cassette recording of that album that got them signed to Roadrunner. Once Fear Factory blew up with the release of 1995’s “Demanufacture,” Roadrunner acquired the rights to the album from Robinson. They waited to release it until 2002, when the band went on hiatus and left the label. But more interesting than the story behind the music is the music itself. For Fear Factory fans, “Concrete” is an absolute treasure trove. Half of the songs are new, while the other half showed up in rerecorded form on their debut album, “Soul of a New Machine” (and especially sharp-eared Fear Factory fans will notice bits and pieces of the new songs that showed up on subsequent albums). Above all, though, “Concrete” sets it in stone that very early on, Fear Factory had perfected the heavy verse-melodic chorus formula imitated by so many nu-metal bands to come. For its first-ever LP release, REAL GONE has remastered this magnificent album for its pressing in gun metal grey vinyl. An essential piece of the Fear Factory legacy!

Gershon Kingsley: “Music To Moog By”

And people mistakenly thought Lothar And The Hand People invented the Moog! It was Bob Moog’s invention of the analog Moog synthesizer that ignited an explosion of creativity across the music spectrum. On the classical side, there was Isao Tomita and Wendy Carlos. On the more avant-garde side, such artists as Mort Garson and Craig Leon used the new technology to explore the limits of sound production, while rockers like Keith Emerson (of The Nice and ELP fame) incorporated the technology into their music. And, of course, there was also a silly pop side to the synth mania, or “moogsploitation” as some wags put it; albums by The Moog Machine, The Happy Moog, and other similarly-titled acts provide good examples of that. But the one man straddling all these camps was Gershon Kingsley. Kingsley studied with John Cage before making a pair of groundbreaking albums with fellow electronic music pioneer Jean-Jacques Perry (their “Baroque Hoedown” was the theme for the Main Street Electrical Parade attractions in Walt Disney theme parks). Kingsley then embarked on a solo career and scored an instant hit with this album, 1968’s “Music to Moog By,” and its signature track, “Pop Corn.” “Popcorn” (one word) became an international smash for Hot Butter four years later, but “Music to Moog By” also caught consumer ears with its blend of originals, classical, and versions of Beatles tunes (though you will have to excuse the egregious misspelling of “Paperback Writer” as “Paperback Rider”)! Ever in pursuit of pop music’s most eccentric manifestations, Real Gone has the exclusive rights to reissue “Music to Moog By” for the first time in the U.S., complete with the eight-page “The Book of Moog” that was inside some original copies. Strawberry with black swirl, pressing limited to 900 copies.

Lamb: “An Extension of Now: Unreleased Recordings 1968-69”

Saving the best for last, this may be the most exciting release of all. We all know that the ‘60s San Francisco psychedelic bands were underground because the music they made was so far removed from the pop and rock sounds that came before them. But of all the bands in the scene, Lamb was perhaps the most underground of them all. It wasn’t just that their blend of rock, folk, classical, country, blues, and gospel was as hard to classify as any of the era. It was also their vibe. Along with classically trained guitarist and songwriting partner Bob Swanson, Barbara Mauritz’s versatile vocals paced material often imbued with a haunting, mystical aura. Yet they could also be earthy and rootsy, occasionally drifting into spacey psychedelia with hints of raga-rock.

Released in the early ‘70s, Lamb’s first two albums, “A Sign of Change” and “Cross Between,” did indeed offer some of the most intriguing and eclectic music of any San Francisco rock band on the psychedelic scene. However, Lamb’s history predated the release of those records by a few years. Unlike many bands of the time who had a bounty of surplus quality tunes, Lamb often taped these in studios and studio-like rehearsal conditions (as well as making some professional tapes of their live performances). Fortunately, many of those tapes survive, including a good number of songs that did not find a place on their LPs, as well as substantially different versions of some that did. The best of these from the late 1960s find release for the first time on “An Extension of Now: Unreleased Recordings 1968-1969.” This collection not only rounds out one of San Francisco rock’s finest underappreciated acts but also serves as a first-class document of Lamb as they made their transition from a more standard rock outfit to one unlike any other in the region, or indeed anywhere. Available in black vinyl and CD (with extra tracks, limited to 500) releases, it features great, detailed liner notes by Richie Unterberger, drawn from an interview with Bob Swanson (who has also contributed photos and memorabilia from his private archive). Produced by noted Bay Area archivist Alec Palao … if you are a fan of late-‘60s West Coast psychedelic music, this is a must-listen!

Look for more “REAL GONE” coverage soon. Buy these now before they are  REAL(LY) GONE!

GO TO www.realgonemusic.com  or visit your local independent record store for these delectable collectible vinyl albums.

… till next time

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