Okay, just a quick update while we sit 'between issues' and I continue putting the 'Highway' material together. There have been a few things come out that, due to page space and time, WON'T be reviewed in the FAS magazine while I concentrate on the issues running through the 50th anniversaries. These include the BSC 4CD set, Richard Digby Smith's book and also the 'Rock & Roll Fantasy' book. See below...
Richard Digby Smith
Book Guild Publishing Ltd.
ISBN 9781912881208
www.bookguild.co.uk
Richard Digby Smith had a dream as a kid of working in a recording studio, and having attempted first build one at home, the time eventually came for him to see if it was possible to make a living working like that for real. That's basically the premise of this book, a look in the life of a jobbing engineer and producer from year one; making the tea.
Obviously from our standpoint as FREE fans we know Digby was heavily involved with 'KKTR', 'Free At Least' and 'Heartbreaker'. From that point the book includes those periods (albeit briefly) but also things you may not know about, like the sessions for 'Stairway To Heaven' with Led Zeppelin and also working with people like Bob Marley and The Wailers, Stephen Stills, Traffic, Cat Stevens, Sparks and many more who shuffled through the Basing Street studio where Digby resided for many years - almost living there in fact, due to the crazy hours an engineer in demand keeps.
I was less familiar with his work in LA, the touring with Head, Hands & Feet as a live engineer, or that he worked on Sammy Hager's excellent 'All Night Long' live album (issued in the UK as 'Loud & Clear' with an extra track!). Interesting. Nor did I know he had two different No.1 albums in different countries at the same time. How cool is that! I guess few people knew he crawled through studio air conditioning ducting to stare at Frank Sinatra's shiny shoes while he recorded a session until now either!
The book guides us through the days at Island, going freelance and moving to LA, then finally returning home, which was when I first met Digby. It's equally funny and sad, and doesn't hold back too many punches when it deals with the perils of living in LA and the blight of drug addiction, drinking too much and generally 'living the lifestyle'. Also, happily, how to break the habit and move on from it.
At over 300 pages you may think some things are 'glanced over' a bit, and there's too much about daily LA life for me personally, but overall this is a good read and there really aren't too many books like this. Glyn Johns got his book 'Sound Man' out a few years back, but there's nothing that deals with the UK scene from this prospective - and certainly nothing like this about Island Records. Hopefully a future book or two can give us more depth on particular artists and sessions. I understand that may be the plan. In the meantime this is recommended, and with Christmas coming it's a nice little stocking filler for any friend interested in how music is actually made.
As always with books and CD's, shop around for a good price, but at just over £10 a pop there's really nothing here not to like. I really enjoyed it.
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Back Street Crawler -
The Atlantic Years 1975-1976
HNE Recordings (Cherry Red) QHNECD137Q
www.cherryred.co.uk
'The story of Back Street Crawler is a sadly short one, but also a tale of what might have been' was the promotion blurb for this... Yup, sure is - and sadly this does nothing to re-dress any of that at all. I actually wasn't going to review this, but here we go.
Firstly, if you have absolutely nothing by Back Street Crawler (which would be something of a surprise if you are an FAS subscriber) then this set represents a good 'instant collection' covering many of the bases. Shop around and you'll pick this up for around £21 - so being a fiver per CD I can't say it doesn't offer some value for money. What is does however is slop the two albums together with a bootleg rip of the original Repertoire 'Croydon 1975' CD - which itself is actually cut down in length a little from the original 'Street Tunes' 2LP set, and the bootleg of the Starwood show THOUGHT to come from March 3rd 1976, originally recorded by a friend of Snuffy Walden's and a few of cassette outtakes from the same bootleg. Mmmmm.
Sadly the boast of this 'Featuring plenty of rare,
contemporary memorabilia' is utter bollocks. This consists of a poorly
illustrated folded double sided sheet of glossy paper with cuttings pasted on -
some covering the text of another. The various clippings look poor too. A
little clean up would have improved things and even I can hit 'auto-adjust'
in Photoshop. No sleeve notes of any kind, so don't expect to learn anything
about the history of the band - and even though four of the players are still
around it appears none of them got to contribute anything. 'Full involvement
with front man Terry Slesser'? WHERE? And what about Rabbit, Tony Braunagel
and Terry Wilson (the American one!)
Fortunately the CD sleeves themselves look good, and have nicely
reproduced copies of the original album covers in small Japanese style card
mini LP sleeves. Two perfectly acceptable sleeves are given to the 'bootleg'
element of the set. Sadly these then come packed in a shitty thin card (thick
paper) 'box' giving the whole set the feel of 'cheap'. No one
should be proud of this, and it's NOT showing much respect to the product
really. Slap it in, throw it out - get paid.
The 'mastering' is okay. A bit 'harsh' certainly, but no
real problems. Not really any worse than the 'Wounded Bird' editions (or
is that where these come from?). Here we could have used a bit of TLC really,
at least a good re-mastering, and the debut really needs a re-mix if the best
is to be got from it these days. Fat chance here. If you really want to hear '2nd
Street' try and get the Japanese remaster, which is far superior (packaging
and sound) but of course will cost you more than this entire set, hence my
comment about value here. You get what you pay for however.
So why do I dislike this set so much? Well the lack of any care or
attention to detail is a bummer. For a start it would have been nice to have
had the Atlantic labels on the CD's of the albums - but that's a small thing.
The lack of sleeve notes at all for this set is ridiculous, but more than that
the lack of ANY research to make it complete. To the first album, how about
adding the unreleased single mixes? (One of which can be found further back on
this very blog - see March 2019). What about the tracks that weren't used on
the first record, like the version of 'Molten Gold', or 'Sidekick To
The Stars', or 'Never Take Me Alive'? There are also two un-issued
tracks from '2nd Street'. All of these would have made a huge difference
and helped round out a more complete body of work. The bootlegs don't bother
me, there inclusion is fine, but why not get the Croydon masters or try finding
a low generation copy of the Starwood show? Was an effort made..? Nah, it'll be
fine...
In the end is seems like no-one really wanted to spend any money here
or wanted to do this properly, and if that's the case, quite simply, why do it
at all? A band of great promise yet again given
the shit covered end of the stick. I'm glad my name isn't on this!
If you are a fan of Paul Kossoff, or this band, and you have all the audio contained here, then you don't need this set at all. It offers you NOTHING. I know there's the draw of the 'completist' but the disappointment here is overwhelming. If you own NONE of this, sure, give it a shot - and if you like '2nd Street' you can then always search out the Japanese HQCD. It's still out there, as are copies of the original vinyl LPs. In the end this was a really badly wasted opportunity, and unlikely to be repeated. All rather sad really.
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'Rock 'N' Roll Fantasy : The Musical Journey of Free And
Bad Company'
David Roberts
This Day In Music Books - ISBN 978-1838078317
thisdayinmusicbooks.com
This is a weighty volume and while the listed author is David Roberts this is more a compilation of quotes and memories from fans than anything else. It's a beautifully produced hardback (retail is around £40, it's currently £35 on Amazon) and it has lots of quotes from band members, friends and fans throughout it's 400 lavish colour pages. While given a foreword by both Paul Rodgers and Simon Kirke this book is weighted heavily towards the history of Rodgers, as evidenced by including The Firm, The Law, Queen and his solo career. Not much here at all about Simon's other activities, but both Andy Fraser and Kossoff / Back Street Crawler get a nod in the history.
As is the nature of the book some sections read better than
others, but the fan content is interesting and it's nice to see some of Lucy
Piller's pictures so nicely reproduced. The only thing stopping this being an
essential purchase is that no one seems to have fact checked it! So while there
is a disclaimer in the back saying 'The content reflects the contributions
from fans, musicians and associates whose memory may not be 100% accurate when
recalling events and dates' some of this could easily have been resolved to
the betterment of the text (and the history). I do not intend to provide a
history lesson here, nor correct everything, but as a couple of examples, Snowy
White did not play with Free, that was Snuffy Walden ( I mean, seriously, it's
ON the album sleeve!). Rabbit wasn't at the BSC Liverpool Empire show in 1975
(that was Mike Montgomery), Mr Bundrick was with Eric Burdon at the time. 'My
Bother Jake' wasn't recorded during the 'Highway' sessions (nor were
those sessions 'recorded hurriedly in September') and Tetsu wasn't found for KKTR by 'asking if there
was any session work available' at Basing Street reception! He flew over to
work on the album at Kossoff's request after they met in Japan! There are many
others sadly, but who the hell is Leigh Webster, he apparently toured as part
of Free in the USA in 1973? News to me. That one confused both me and Rabbit -
who has never heard of him either!!
That said, and if you can take
these errors (some worse than others) with a pinch of salt, there is much here
to enjoy as the fan accounts of gigs seen and band members met, shows the love
people still have for Free and Bad Company. It would have been nice if Paul and
Simon had been more involved (it's obvious neither of them has actually read
this) but even so It's time Simon's own book came out, and Paul Rodgers started
work on one of his own. If you are feeling flush this is a nice another nice
Christmas present. The quality of the actual product is really nice however if
this is a limited publication - and
everyone who has there name in here buys a copy - actually getting a copy might be a bit time sensitive! I should
mentioned there is also a slip-cased limited edition (500) with some extra bits
and pieces priced at £75 as a pre-order for a October 29th release. You'll find
more information here;
https://thisdayinmusicbooks.com/product/rock-n-roll-fantasy/
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