"Alex Harvey and His Soul Band" by ALEX HARVEY – March 1964 GERMAN Debut Album on Polydor Records - Full Album Inside "The Last Of The Teenage Idols" (March 2016 GERMAN Universal 14CD Box Set with Paschal Byrne and Ben Wiseman Remasters)

 

"...Got My Mojo Working...And I'm Gonna Work It On You..."

 

First issued 31 March 2016 in Germany - "The Last Of The Teenage Idols" by ALEX HARVEY on Universal 536 212-0 (Barcode 00600753621202) came as a 217-Track 14CD 10" x 10" Box Set with 21 Tracks Previously Unreleased and 59 Songs Officially On CD for the first time. 

 

A wee beastie of a thing, it included newly-remastered editions of all Alex's early solo work plus every Sensational Alex Harvey Band album along with outtakes, non-album singles, live recordings and BBC performances. It has a 64-Page Hardback Book with previously unseen photos from the family archives and exclusive interviews with friends, musicians and collaborators.

 

Universal Germany then later truncated that original monster into a more manageable (and sellable) 4CD Book Set called "The Last Of The Teenage Idols – The Highlights" released 24 February 2017 on Universal 537 420-8 (Barcode 600753742082). This later variant comes in a Hardback Book Set with 78-Tracks and a reduced 42-page booklet attached inside. It's easily available on many sites (including Amazon) at somewhere between £25 and £40 depending on the seller.

 

I own both variants (don't ask) – but needless to say when you're seeking the rare German Debut Album from 1964 "Alex Harvey And His Soul Band" – the only place to nab its entirety in superb sound quality is the 10" x 10" Box Set variant.  But in March 2022, "The Last Of The Teenage Idols" on Universal 536 212-0 has become something of a rarity in itself. Still, let’s get to those beginnings when he was just another Scottish lad with Soul Music inveigling itself into every molecule of his being...

 

Disc 1 of 14 (63:47 minutes):

5. Framed [Side 1]

6. I Ain't Worrying Baby

7. Backwater Blues

8. Let The Good Times Roll

9. Going Home

10. I've Got My Mojo Working

11. Teensville USA

12. New Orleans [Side 2]

13. Bo Diddley Is A Gun Slinger

14. When I Grow Too Old To Rock

15. Evil Hearted Man

16. I Just Wanna Make Love To You

17. The Blind Man

18. Reeling And Rocking

Tracks 5 to 18 originally issued March 1964 in Germany as the debut LP "Alex Harvey and His Soul Band" on Polydor 46 424 (Mono) and Polydor 237 624 (Stereo). Vinyl LP reissued 1988 in Europe on Polydor 831 887-1 in Stereo only (I mention this here, because this catalogue number is incorrectly given as the original on this Box Set). 

 

The STEREO Mix is used on this CD and this box set represents the first official release of the whole album on the CD format.

 

The 10" x 10"-Sized Box Set has three inlays with the first two containing the 14 CDs spread across foldout wallets – No. 1 with Discs 1 to 6 covers the Sixties Soul Band years right through the Hair Pit Band, Rock Workshop and the beginnings of The Sensational Alex Harvey Band (aka SAHB). The fabulous hardback book documenting it all is crammed with fantastic black and white/colour photos from the family archive. We get early snaps of AH trying to be Scotland's answer to Tommy Steel as he features on Ma Logan's Rock & Roll show at the Metropole Theatre as far back as July 1957. Page 32 for instance has a display of four impossibly rare Deutsche Grammophon master tape boxes for the German 60ts releases when Harvey (like everyone else in the know) was immersed in American R&B and Soul. Page 63 shows the sixteen album sleeves covered by the Box (a huge haul of music) - while Pages 64 and 65 give a dizzying array of 7" single releases in colour (picture sleeves galore).

 

JOE BLACK arranged the compilation and tape research (aided by Brian McNeill, Joe Foster, Michael Ivarsson, Christer Lagergren and Jim Mclean) whilst the superb mastering is courtesy of a team I love and trust – PASCHAL BYRNE and BEN WISEMAN – two Audio Engineers who are no strangers to huge swathes of Rock, Blues and Soul CD reissues. Right from the tightly rehearsed Soul Band stuff in 1964 through the nine SAHB albums and beyond – the Audio is superb.

 

The debut album "Alex Harvey and His Soul Band" shows his prowess even so early on – tight, cool and with that fantastic Scottish lilt in his singing. Of the many covers on the debut album, it’s worth noting that Leslie Harvey (his brother and an ace guitarist in his own right) would later bring the stunning Josh White, Jr. Blues ballad "The Blind Man" to Scotland’s finest Blues-Rock band Stone The Crows (which he formed with James Dewar and Maggie Bell). Leslie and Maggie would absolutely nail it with the most fantastic version on their 1970 Stone The Crows debut album. How cool is it to hear its first incarnation here – and finally legal too.

 

Despite claims that it was recorded in The Star Club in Hamburg, the book states it was recorded October 1963 in Polydor's studio in Harvesterhuder Weg, Hamburg. Supposed to be a 'live' album simulating all that R&B energy, the fake audience turns out to be the musicians hootin' and hollerin' in the studio bleachers. The band and Bassist was a stand-in, Bobby Thompson of Kingsize Taylor & The Dominoes, but at least Alex's own Soul Band Saxophonist George 'Hoagy' Carmichael provided blistering horn solos and accompaniment throughout. 

 

Harvey introduces himself and his Soul Band to the supposed audience before going into his trademark speak-and-sing on the prison-song "Framed" – Lieber & Stoller's "Riot in Cell Block No 9" in other words, first done by The Robins way back in 1954. Not to be outdone by other people's classics, his own "I Ain't Worried Anymore" is a brilliant R&B groover. He does raucous versions of Bo Diddley's "Bo Diddley Is A Gunslinger", Robert Johnson's "Backwater Blues" while "Evil Hearted Man" is a Traditional Blues. There is an obscure Rockabilly cover version called "Teensville, U.S.A." originally done by Wayne Cogswell on Sun Records. And the LP ends with a joyous "Reeling And Rocking" - Chuck Berry being the influence for so many young bands and artists. 

 

Three months after the album came (end of May 1964), Polydor UK finally got in on the Alex Harvey And His Soul Men act again by issuing his cover version of the Muddy Waters Chess Records classic "Got My Mojo Working" as a 45-single. Polydor NH 52907 came with the brilliant "I Ain't Worried Baby" on the flipside. Unfortunately, the second Polydor 45 went nowhere and is a known rarity now. Speaking of rarities included here - his debut UK 7" single was "I Just Want To Make Love To You" (another Muddy Waters classic) b/w "Let The Good Times Roll" (a Louis Jordan cover) - issued January 1964 on Polydor NH 52264 - around the time the band made their debut live show at The 100 Club in London (6 February 1964). It is said that even The Beatles were aware of and impressed by the single and maybe even a few of them had his German album too.

 

Disc 1 finishes on a winning combo giving us the first three of 21 Previously Unreleased tracks. They have crystal audio and are sensational too – the Folk Traditional "Lord Randall" is Alex and acoustic guitar, while the great Scot gets real with the Brownie McGhee classic "Born With The Blues" – a poor soul trying to ditch the booze and the bottle but struggling to do so. Even a song I actually loath with a vengeance - "House Of The Rising Sun" (made famous of course by The Animals) gets a wickedly good AH going over.

 

For sure the 14CD Box Set will be for fans only (the truncated 4CD variant of 2017 offers only three tracks from his debut - "Framed", "Let The Good Times Roll" and "Reeling And Rocking") - but it is a thing of beauty and wonder and we remember Alex with affection for a reason. 

 

Give my compliments to the Soul Chefs of the Sixties, artists like this who paved the way and then morphed into something new and even more brill...