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RHINO
WARREN ZEVON/Stand in the Fire; Excitable Boy; The Envoy: In today’s market, if you want to do an extensive reissue program of an artist but can’t release all his albums at once, this three LP program is a pretty intelligent way to go about it. Take a live album that recaps a lot of tracks, take the break out album that is loaded with the pop signature songs and take the mature, late contract period stuff after he’s been through a cycle or two. Add bonus tracks, make one of the sets a cd debut, remaster the whole clutch and you have an essential look at one of the essential left field artists of the contemporary era when he was at his mightiest. A skewed oddball to the core, often driven by demons, Zevon stood out and delivered classic stuff that would never get signed today but is revered as all hell; figure it out. He might be gone, but this series makes up appreciate him all over again and make us glad his music will never leave.
UNIVERSAL MUSIC ENTERPRISES
FLYING BURRITO BROTHERS/Definitive Collection: There’s been repacks that housed all the band’s works in the past, but this one caters to the real fans, it focuses only on the works where Parsons and Hillman were there together, the band that real fans consider the real band. Sure it’s sloppy, sure it’s ragged, but it was the real mix of hippies and country where grassy, boozy druggy visions all came together in a vison that foretold meth being the libation of choice of the heartland. It sounds like normal country today but that just underscores the speed of the moving finger.
(A&M)
HOWLIN WOLF/Definitive Collection: Why lie? We’ve always been big fans of Wolf and this remastered collection makes it sound like he’s right in the room. Some people thought he was one of the scariest of the classic blues artists and he was imposing enough to make you think that, but he wasn’t scary, he was just one of the classic artists that knew how to blast the blues from his soul. A delightfully killer collection of the real stuff from the 50’s and 60s when blues went urban and went electric. If you have any interest in the blues, you are going to love this set.
(Geffen/Chess)
MOTOWN #1s/various: There’s a lot of Motown collections out there for every taste, price, whatever, but if you want to boil the entire history of a label down to 26 songs, this is the non-stop, no fat way to do it. If you like contemporary soul, this is the place, end of story.
(Motown)
Volume 30/Number 178
April 27, 2007
MIDWEST RECORD
830 W. Route 22 #144
Lake Zurich, IL., 60047
CHRIS SPECTOR, Editor and Publisher
(c)2007 Midwest Record
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