"Riley, Riley, Wood and Waggett" by SHAPE OF THE RAIN – July 1971 UK Debut Album on RCA Neon Records NE 7 featuring Keith Riley, Len Riley, Brian Wood, Iain 'Tag' Waggett and Pete Dolan with guests Eric Hine, Bob Skelland, Nip Healey and David Brookfield (22 May 2020 UK Grapefruit Records 3CD Deluxe Edition Reissue with an Unreleased Second Album, Demos and Rehearsals and Live Material – 61 Tracks with 17 Unreleased and Many Other Rarities – Oli Hemingway Remasters) - A Review by Mark Barry...

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"…Rusty Road..."

Seen as Country Hick and terminally unhip by much of the buying public - RCA Victor's answer to the progressive rock craze that was sweeping music in the late Sixties and early Seventies was the ill fated RCA Neon label. With its beautiful Venus In A Shell logo, jet-black labels and inner bags - this home of the obscure and supposedly Avant Garde managed only 11 albums in 2 years (1971 to 1972) and the first was a reissue of an LP initially released in 1970 (Fair Weather's "The Beginning Of The End").

Complete with staggeringly dull please-don't-buy-me because I want to be obscure gatefold sleeves (obligatory for all these releases it seemed) - names such as Fair Weather (NE 1), Chris McGregor's Brotherhood Of Breath (NE 2), Indian Summer (NE 3), Tonton Macoute (NE 4), Dando Shaft (NE 5), Spring (NE 6), Raw Material (NE 8), Centipede (NE 9), Mike Westbrook Orchestra (NE 10) and The Running Man (NE 11) - don't exactly role off the tongue - even now. I have an October 1973 RCA Victor product catalogue and only NE 9 and NE 10 were listed as available for sale – all others were deleted. None of them sold jack and the one-album-then-we-died SHAPE OF THE RAIN effort on RCA Neon NE 7 was no different. They weren't even Prog. SOTR music was West Coast Country Rock via the Byrds meets British Folk Rock via Matthews Southern Comfort, Cochise and Brinsley Schwarz – not an Elf nor a Manticore nor a bank of noodley synths anywhere in sight.

Still - up steps our UK reissue heroes Grapefruit Records in 2020 and they think – screw those I woke up this morning with the post-pandemic woke-generational blues. 

What the hell – let's give these Northern mining-village reprobates and their Seventies Big Star-ish Americana music a whopping great 61-track 3CD anthology and damn the accounting torpedoes. We can even give the album a gatefold card repro sleeve (the public will just love that legal firm LP title that absolutely no one will remember), throw in an unreleased second album complete with homemade artwork of the period, demos, rehearsals and badly-recorded live material before they finally broke up in 1973 and Remaster the damn lot like the flashy gits we are. And who am I to disagree with wiser and hairier men than I. Let's get shapely...

UK released Friday, 22 May 2020 - "Riley Riley Wood and Waggett (Deluxe Edition)" by SHAPE OF THE RAIN on Grapefruit Records CRSEG067T (Barcode 5013929186705) is a DELUXE EDITION 3CD 61-Track Reissue and Anthology of Remasters that plays out as follows:

Disc One – The Album Plus Bonus Tracks (79:13 minutes):

1. Woman [Side 1]

2. Patterns

3. Castles

4. Wasting My Time

5. Rockfield Roll

6. Yes

7. Dusty Road [Side 2]

8. Willowing Trees

9. I'll Be There

10. Broken Man (a) Every One A Gem (b) After Collapsing At Kingsley's

Tracks 1 to 10 are their debut and only album "Riley, Riley, Wood and Waggett" - released July 1971 in the UK on RCA Neon NE 7 (no US release). Produced by ERIC HINE and TONY HALL - it didn't chart.

BONUS TRACKS:

11. My Friend John – 29 October 1971 UK Non-Album 45 Single A-side on RCA Victor RCA 2129 with an edit of the LP cut "Yes" on the B-side (last minute lopped off) and the group now credited as SHAPE

12. The Very First Clown *

13. What You Gonna Do Now? *

14. You're The One *

15. From Me And From You *

16. No Use Cryin' Again *

17. Watercolour Sunshine *

18. Nothin' You Could Do *

19. We Can Put It Right *

20. Lady Of My Dreams *

21. It All Depends On You *

22. Listen To Your Heart *

23. Now's The Time To Start *

24. Don't You Know *

25. Second Time Around *

Tracks 12 to 25 (*) are all PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED

Disc Two – The CD "Shape Of The Rain" (aka "The Red Album" 1966-1973) (79:40 minutes):

1. Broken Man (Demo Version)

2. I Don't Need Anybody

3. I'll Be There (Demo Version)

4. We're Not The Boys

5. Hallelujah

6. Hello 503

7. I Doubt I Ever Will

8. Willowing Trees (Demo Version)

9. Canyons

10. Spring

11. Words

12. Look Around

13. Advertising Man

14. Go Around And See It

15. It's So Good Here

16. Big Black Bird

17. Everyone The Fool

18. You Just Call

19. It's My Life

Tracks 1 to 19 previously issued in 2001 as the CD "Shape Of The Rain" (aka "The Red Album") on Background HBG 123/14

BONUS TRACKS:

20. Dusty Road (Demo Version)

21. Too Many Lies

22. Yes (Demo Version)

Tracks 20 to 22 are PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED

Disc Three – Previously Unreleased Live Recordings (1968-1973) (76:26 minutes):

1. Willowing Trees

2. Passing Of Time

3. Imagination

4. I've Been Wrong

5. Spring

6. Everyone The Fool

7. Vanishing Cottage

8. Calling

9. Big Black Bird

10. Go Around And See It

11. Say It's Goodbye

12. Woman

13. We're Not The Boys

14. Hello 503

Tracks 1 to 8 recorded live at Alfreton hall, in England, 2 May 1970

Tracks 9 to 13 recorded live at Manchester University circa 1973

Track 14 is a Live Acetate recorded at Velvet Underground/Down Broadway clubs in 1968

SHAPE OF THE RAIN was:

KEITH RILEY - Lead Guitar, 12-String Guitar and Vocals

LEN RILEY - Bass Guitar

BRIAN WOOD - Pedal Steel Guitar, Bass and Vocals

IAIN 'Tag' WAGGETT - Drums and Percussion

PETE DOLAN on Guitar and Bass from 1973

GUESTS included:

ERIC HINE - Electric Piano on Tracks 5, 7, 8 and 10 on Disc One

BOB SKELLAND - Bass on Track 5 on Disc Two

NIP HEALEY - Drums on Tracks 2, 4 and 11 on Disc Two

DAVID BROOKFIELD - Synths of some of the Keith Riley Home demos - Tracks 12 to 25 on Disc One

Once out of its shrink-wrap (I put the titled sticker on the booklet, difficult peeling it off) - the outer lightweight slipcase holds three card sleeves inside and a 24-page colour booklet. They give the LP the Keef artwork gatefold sleeve (apparently an outtake from the set of the Oliver! film) while the other two are singles with credit details on the rear of those cards instead of taking up pages in the booklet. DAVID WELLS of Cherry Red's Grapefruit Records (and Esoteric Recordings) gives us new January 2020 liner notes with contributions from band players and associates - Keith and Linda Riley, Tag Waggett and Pete Dolan. You get several black and white period photos, Melody Maker reviews, Acetates pictured, the labels for their two singles from May and October 1971 pictured, homemade artwork for the aborted second album and even a calling card for an early embryo of the group as 'The Gear' in a 1965 village hall. There is also a superb two-page collage of support tour press adverts with the likes of Love, Fleetwood Mac, Jethro Tull, Curved Air, Mighty Baby, Elton John and even Pink Floyd in March 1971 at Chesterfield's St. James Hall. It's a classy and in-depth display, as one would expect from Grapefruit. Wells also makes no bones about management mistakes that put the band on the Prog-obscure Neon label (thereby guaranteeing dismal sales figures for an album that deserved better) instead of the more commercially viable RCA Victor label with the likes of David Bowie, Sweet, The Kinks, Jefferson Airplane and Nilsson to name but a few. It’s an entertaining and informative read.

OLI HEMINGWAY has handled the Remastering of the album while Audio Engineers KEITH KNIVETON, KEITH RILEY (of the band) and JONATHAN KIRKPATRICK digitised and remastered the Acetate, Home Demos and Live stuff. It's a very mixed bag. The album sounds good but the sheer haphazard nature of the rest is ok to good only. To the music...

Neon tried to pre-empt interest in the band and the album by issuing Side 1's opener "Woman" as a 45 - but the 21 May 1971 UK 7" single on RCA Neon NE 1001 with "Wasting My Time" on the flipside did no business. Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs of St. Etienne featured the "Wasting My Time" B-side on their "Occasional Rain" CD and 2LP compilation for Ace Records just recently (May 2020) - thinking highly of the pleasant acoustic strummer. Maybe "Patterns" would have been a better choice - its Byrds-like jangling-guitars with Pedal Steel overtones hitting that Matthews Southern Comfort crowd with a lovely and catchy tune. "Castles" offers the first hint of Genesis-type acoustic-guitar Prog (only hints mind) - gorgeous 12-string strums rattling around your speakers - build your castles in the air - and yet another possible single.

Things start to clavinet boogie with the short and jolly instrumental "Rockfield Roll" - but soon return to something way more substantial with truly excellent "Yes". It's album-sized Big Star-sounding jangle-and-strut groove of 5:51 minutes was cut by one minute as an edit for the stand-alone single in October 1971 of "My Friend John" - the band momentarily returned to the orange RCA Victor label and now called just SHAPE. In fact when you play the Country-Funky Pedal Steel bopper that is "My Friend John" and you throw in the excellent "Yes" B-side, you can't help thinking the public missed a trick on this one. We go full on Country Rock with "Dusty Road" – a clavinet and distant vocal that could almost be Poco Americana in its delivery (Riley sounds like a young Matty Healy from The 1975 with his 'time' regional twang) – another sweet melody on an album packed with them. Despite some great ideas in the melody, "Willowing Trees" feels badly produced, all those clever guitar moments lost in a muddy mix. "I'll Be There" talks of giving a hand in another potential mid-tempo single. The album ends on the only real rocker on the record "Broken Man" - a good guitar chugger but again with a vocal that lacks muscle or definition. 

I hadn't expected much of the thirteen unreleased tracks that come as Bonuses on Disc One but shockingly Shape Of The Rain sound like another set of tune makers who didn't get the recognition they deserved - Unicorn - over on Transatlantic and Harvest Records. There isn’t anything Prog or Psych about these – all acoustic guitars and at times Pedal Steel. There is even traces of Duncan Browne in the lovely and hooky "The Very First Clown" and the brokenhearted "What You Gonna Do Now?" The well-recorded America-sounding "Now's The Time To Start" is a 'we can make it if we try' song.

The audio drops more than a tad on the looking for a hit "You're The One" and the peaceful (but hissy) "From Me And From You". Best of the others are the decidedly Matthews Southern Comfort vibe to the wash my soul of "Watercolour Sunshine", the how can we tell them "We Can Put It Right" and the McCartney strum/doubled vocals of "Lady Of My Dreams" - all good but needing full realisation in a studio. And you can't help thinking that "Second Time Around" would have been a melody pace setter for that Badfinger meets Brinsley Schwarz-sounding second album.

The first nineteen tracks of Disc Two covering recordings from 1966 through to 1973 was first issued as a stand-alone CD in 2001 as "The Shape Of Rain" on Background HBG 123/14 (Barcode 5032379231421) and typically it comes on as a good compilation with recording values fluctuating from great to poor. The four demos of album tracks "Broken Man", "I'll Be There", "Dusty Road" and "Yes" were recorded in 1970 at DJM Studios by Rodger Bain and Tony Hall - the last of the four being incredibly poor audio so not surprising its been left in the can all these years. "I Don't Need Nobody", "We're Not The Boys" and "Words" were recorded in 1973 at Phonogram Studios and show Shape Of The Rain still playing melodic Folk-Rock tunes with a West Coast influence. Beatles Engineer Geoff Emerick recorded the decidedly poppy "Hello 503" at Abbey Road with Tony Hall as co-producer.

Despite the muddy recordings, there were tunes going a begging in 1969 with "I Doubt I Ever Will", "Canyons" and "Spring" - its just a shame they never got the last especially into a real studio and onto the LP. Sixties Who leaps out at you with "Look Around" recorded in 1966 in Nottingham (Pete would either have been proud of them or ready to punch their copycat lights out). Better is a home recording made at Brian Wood's house in 1972 in the shape of "Go Around And See It" - a hit in the making had it been Badfinger.

The first eight songs from 1970 on the live disc are disappointingly little more than bootleg quality, distant vocals, not much fidelity and therefore not something you’re going to return to any time soon. By the time we reach 1973 the band recordings are marginally better and the playing much tighter and more accomplished. And while "Woman" rocks rather well, the whole of Disc Three is very disposable.

SHAPE OF THE RAIN devotees will love the all-guns-blazing splurge of new material while Seventies-curious Badfinger nee Big Star worshipers will probably find much to love here even if not all of it is essential. But whatever your musical poison, once again, Grapefruit Records of the UK has gone the full hog here and they are to be praised for it...

"Crawling Up A Hill: A Journey Through The British Blues Boom 1966-71" by VARIOUS ARTISTS – featuring LP Tracks, Single Sides, Rarities and Two Previously Unreleased Recordings by John Mayall's Blues Breakers, Graham Bond Organization, Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac, Chicken Shack, Jo-Ann Kelly, Jeff Beck, Duster Bennett, Love Sculpture, Alexis Korner with Robert Plant, John Dummer Blues Band, Taste, Savoy Brown, Blodwyn Pig, Stone The Crows, Ten Years After, Free, Skid Row, Stack Waddy, Black Cat Bones, Icarus, Jeremy Spencer of Fleetwood Mac, Edgar Broughton Band, Jaklin, Steamhammer, Status Quo, Mungo Jerry, Linda Hoyle and more (March 2020 UK Grapefruit Records 3CD Clamshell Box Set – Simon Murphy Remasters) - A Review by Mark Barry...

"...You Shook Me..."

It's a piddly thing really and shouldn't elicit such joy in a 62-year old Dubliner badly in need of a post-lockdown haircut (I'm currently sporting a mad professor look with heaven bound sprouts of grey). And I've provided photos with this review to prove it.

Inside this terminally hip 56-Track Box Set are three single card sleeves with 'alternate' artwork – the hugely important and influential John Mayall and The Blues Breakers self-titled debut LP from July 1966 with Eric Clapton smiling and the Beano comic not fully visible - Fleetwood Mac's Jeremy Spencer looking like he's about to be arrested and cry for not being black enough in his undoubtedly tainted white soul - and finally Rory Gallagher's fantastic Taste (as The Taste) in a colour-red tinted live photo of the Irish rockers in full "What's Going On" reverie.

It's the attention to detail that gets me. No major label would have bothered with this - but Cherry Red's Grapefruit Records knows what its fans and collectors want - respect shown and affection too. This is smart sequencing and for a subject that's been done before (albeit in a piecemeal sort of way), the best presentation of such material that I've ever seen or heard. Before I start weeping into my stale Guinness, we'd better get to the details 'cause there's a shed load of 'em to wade through. Here goes...

UK released 27 March 2020 - "Crawling Up A Hill: A Journey Through The British Blues Boom 1966-71" by VARIOUS ARTISTS on Grapefruit CRSEGBOX068 (Barcode 5013929186804) is a 3CD 56-Track Clamshell Box Set of Remasters that pans out as follows:

Disc One (76:28 minutes):

1. All Your Love - JOHN MAYALL'S BLUES BREAKERS with ERIC CLAPTON (from the July 1966 UK Debut LP "Blues Breakers" on Decca LK 4804 in Mono)

2. Crawling Up A Hill - THE ZANY WOODRUFF OPERATION (Previously Unreleased, recorded December 1966, John Mayall cover)

3. Louise - ANDERSON JONES JACKSON [Ian Anderson, Al Jones and Elliot Jackson] (Track 1 of a January 1967 UK 5-Track 7" EP on Saydisc 33SD 125)

4. I Love You - THE GRAHAM BOND ORGANISATION (February 1967 UK 7" single on Page One PDF 014, B-side of "You Gotta Have Love Baby")

5. I'm A Man (Live) - THE YARDBIRDS (not originally issued, recorded April 1967, features Jimmy Page)

6. Don't Want You No More - THE SPENCER DAVIS GROUP (July 1967 UK 7" single on Fontana TF 854, B-side of "Time Seller")

7. I Can't Keep From Crying, Sometimes - TEN YEARS AFTER (from the November 1967 UK debut LP "Ten Years After" on Deram DML 1015)

8. Jumping At Shadows - DUSTER BENNETT (not originally issued solo Demo Version, recorded early 1968)

9. Charlie - THE DEVIANTS (from the June 1968 UK debut LP "Ptooff!" on Impresarios IMP 1)

10. You Shook Me - JEFF BECK (from the July 1968 US debut LP "Truth" on Epic BN 26413, November 1968 UK debut LP on Columbia SCX 6293 in Stereo)

11. Ain't Nothin' In Ramblin' – JO-ANN KELLY (from the July 1968 UK compilation LP "Blues Like Showers Of Rain" on Saydisc Matchbox SDM 142)

12. Love That Burns - FLEETWOOD MAC (from their August 1968 UK 2nd LP "Mr. Wonderful" on Blue Horizon 7-63205)

13. Wang Dang Doodle - LOVE SCULPTURE (September 1968 UK 7" single on Parlophone R 5731, A-side)

14. Operator - ALEXIS KORNER featuring ROBERT PLANT (not originally issued, recorded September 1968)

15. Can Blue Men Sing The Whites? - THE BONZO DOG DOO DAH BAND (from their November 1968 UK second LP "The Doughnut In Granny's Greenhouse" on Liberty LBS 83158 in Stereo)

16. Walking - DR. K's BLUES BAND (from the December 1968 debut LP "Dr. K's Blues Band" on Spark SRLP 101)

17. Little Woman You're So Sweet - SHAKEY VICK (from the January 1968 UK LP "Little Woman You're So Sweet" on Pye NSPL 18276 in Stereo)

18. A Stranger In Your Town - THE CLIMAX CHICAGO BLUES BAND (from the February 1969 UK LP "The Climax Chicago Blues Band" on Parlophone PCS 7069 in Stereo)

19. Lord Of The Rings - DOWNLINERS SECT (from a February 1969 Swedish 4-Track EP on Juke Box JSEP 5584)

Disc Two (75:29 minutes):

1. Sweet Tooth - FREE (from their March 1969 UK debut LP "Tons Of Sobs" on Island ILPS 9089 in Stereo)

2. Death Letter – MIKE COOPER (from the March 1969 UK LP "Oh Really!?" on Pye Records NSPL 18281 in Stereo)

3. Blister On The Moon – TASTE (from their April 1969 debut LP "Taste" on Polydor 583 042 in Stereo featuring Rory Gallagher)

4. I Just Can't Keep From Crying – LEVEE CAMP MOAN (from the April 1969 UK LP "Levee Camp Moan" on County Recording Service COUN LP 132)

5. Sometime Girl – SAM APPLE PIE (May 1969 UK 7" single on Decca F 22932, B-side of "Tiger Man (King Of The Jungle)"

6. Skin Game - JOHN DUMMER BLUES BAND (not originally issued alternate version, recorded May 1969)

7. Diamond Joe - QUIET MELON (not originally issued, recorded May 1969)

8. Nobody By My Side - KILLING FLOOR (from the May 1969 UK debut LP "Killing Floor" on Spark SRLP 102)

9. Dear Jill (Live) - BLODWYN PIG (not originally issued, recorded circa May 1969)

10. There's An Easy And A Hard Way Of Living - ICARUS (not originally issued, recorded July 1969)

11. Tears In The Wind - CHICKEN SHACK (August 1969 UK 7" single on Blue Horizon 57-3160, A-side)

12. Bring It On Home - BAKERLOO (from the September 1969 UK debut LP on Harvest SHVL 762 in Stereo)

13. The Same For You - JAKLIN (from the October 1969 UK LP "Jaklin" on Stable SLE 8003)

14. Train Comes, Train Goes - FROZEN TEAR (Previously Unissued, recorded October 1969) 

15. Telephone Blues (aka "Talk To Me Baby") - THE RATS (not originally issued, recorded November 1969)

16. Madison Blues - ANGEL PAVEMENT (not originally issued, recorded November 1969)

17. It's You I Miss - CHRISTINE PERFECT BAND (not originally issued, recorded November 1969)

18. This Love Of Old - MEDICINE HEAD (from their May 1970 UK second LP "New Bottles, Old Medicine" on Dandelion S 63757 in Stereo)

19. Baby Please Don't Go - JASPER (from the November 1969 UK LP "Liberation" on Spark SRLP 103)

Disc Three (78:16 minutes):

1. I've Got Those Fleetwood Mac Chicken Shack John Mayall Can't Fail Blues - LIVERPOOL SCENE (from the November 1969 UK LP "Bread On The Night" on RCA Victor SF 8057 in Stereo)

2. Ride With Your Daddy Tonight - BRUNNING SUNFLOWER BLUES BAND featuring PETER GREEN (from the December 1969 UK LP "Trackside Blues" on Saga EROS 8132)

3. Time To Move - RED DIRT (not originally issued, recorded December 1969)

4. A Hard Way To Go (Live) - SAVOY BROWN (not originally issued, recorded circa January 1970)

5. Mean Blues - JEREMY SPENCER (from his January 1970 UK debut solo LP "Jeremy Spencer" on Reprise RSLP 9002)

6. Chauffeur - BLACK CAT BONES (from their February 1970 UK debut LP "Barbed Wire Sandwich" on Decca Nova SDN 15)

7. Gardener Man - SIREN (featuring Kevin Coyne on Lead Vocals) (from their February 1970 UK debut LP "Siren" on Dandelion 63755)

8. Dupree Blues - BLUE BLOOD (from the February 1970 UK LP "Blue Blood" on Sonet SNTF 615)

9. Passing Through - STEAMHAMMER (from the March 1970 UK debut LP "Steamhammer" on CBS Records S 63694)

10. Raining In My Heart - STONE THE CROWS (from their May 1970 UK debut LP "Stone The Crows" on Polydor 2425 017)

11. Old Gopher - EDGAR BROUGHTON BAND (from the June 1970 UK LP "Sing Brother Sing" on Harvest SHVL 772)

12. Roadrunner - STACK WADDY (July 1970 UK 7" single on Dandelion S 5199, A-side)

13. Take Me Down To The Water - HEAVY JELLY (from the September 1970 Unissued LP "Heavy Jelly" on Head Records HELP 4 - Test Pressings Only)

14. The Man Who Never Was - SKID ROW featuring Gary Moore and Brush Shiels (from their October 1970 UK debut LP "Skid" on CBS Records S 63847)

15. Take Your Money - BRETT MARVIN & THE THUNDERBOLTS (from the May 1971 UK LP "12 Inches Of Brett Marvin & The Thunderbolts" on Sonet SNTF 619)

16. The Sun Is Shining - MUNGO JERRY (from the September 1971 UK 4-Track EP "You Don't Have To Be In The Army" on Dawn records DNX 2513)

17. Backlash Blues - LINDA HOYLE (from the November 1971 UK LP "Pieces Of Me" on Vertigo 6360 060)

18. Railroad - STATUS QUO (from the November 1971 UK LP "Dog Of Two Head" on Pye NSPL 18371)

The 40-page booklet is the usual feast of images and words - compiler and annotator DAVID WELLS pouring on the factoids to keep even nerdish disciple like me in rapture for hours. And once again the visuals are a knockout - cool pictures of a guitar-wielding Alexis Korner with P.P. Arnold at a microphone - Jimmy Page fronting the (new) Yardbirds - the Emidisc acetate for Frozen Tear's "Train Comes, Train Goes" offering - Maggie Bell giggling as she reads a comic with her fellow band mates in Stone The Crows - and so much more. Posters, Trade Adverts, Magazine Reviews, Badges – it’s all here and more. SIMON MURPHY at Another Planet has done the mastering and it all feels great even when the source is something as crude as Levee Camp Moan doing "I Just Can't Keep From Crying". To the music and choices...

Disc One

Zeppelin's absence from this Box Set makes for an obvious chasm but "Crawling Up A Hill..." has a clever way of plugging that gaping hole. In September 1968 the gravel-voiced Godfather of British Blues Alexis Korner (later of the much loved C.C.S.) brought into the studio a new young vocal talent from the Midlands called Robert Plant. They recorded two songs "Operator" and "Steal Away" in what was supposed to be an album project, but Percy of course got lured away by some guitarist called Jimmy Page who would then go on to form some minor English band that no one even remembers now. Both of these truly fantastic vocals performances first turned up on the Alexis Korner "Bootleg Him!" double-album from August 1972 on Mickie Most's RAK Records where they were simply credited as 'The Duo'. To hear a pre-Zep Plant in that staggering vocal form that he would then bring in spades to Led Zeppelin's debut is hair-raising stuff and a very smart inclusion.

And just when it's all getting a tad too po-faced, time to bring in the sort-em-out humour of The Bonzo’s with their fab "Can Blue Men Sing The Whites?" on the best-album-title-ever "The Doughnut In Granny's Greenhouse". The box set's namesake "Crawling Up A Hill" is more fast-paced 60ts R&B than Blues but both Graham Bond's "I Love You" and the Spencer Davis Group B-side "Don't Want You No More" are great choices - Steve Winwood's God-given set of pipes still amazing us even after 50+ years. Acoustic Blues lovers will zip to the Jo Ann Kelly contribution - such a fantastic voice and interpreter. Fronting Love Sculpture, Dave Edmunds tells fast-talking Fanny that we're gonna "Wang Dang Doodle" all night long. And I recently re-discovered how good The Climax Chicago Blues Band were on their "A Stranger In Your Town" while I admit I've never heard the Anderson Jones and Jackson track "Louise" - a sweetest girl I know jug-band shuffle with harmonica accompaniment.

Disc Two

Free get heavy with "Sweet Tooth" but as much as I love the band, I would have chosen another track. The sliding acoustic blues of Son House's "Death Letter" however finds a sympathetic home with Mike Cooper (great stuff). The re-recorded "Blister On The Moon" for the April 1969 debut "Taste" LP is beefier than the Major Minor single variant of the previous year (they dropped The Taste in favour of just Taste from thereon in). It also shows off the fantastic axeman talent of Rory Gallagher still only a young man when his band supported Cream on their farewell tour of November 1968. It tickles me pink that a colorised variant of a live photo for TASTE has been used as the cover art for Disc Two. Absolutely any version of the fabulously Bluesy "Dear Jill" by Blodwyn Pig is cool by me. The studio version is on the smoking-porker-with-headphones debut album "Ahead Rings Out", but what we have here is a live cut I've not heard before recorded about May 1969 making a welcome inclusion (guitarist Mick Abrahams includes the fan-fave tune in his sets to this day).

Stan Webb takes the lead vocals on Chicken Shack's follow-up to "I'd Rather Go Blind" - the similarly mournful "Tears In The Wind" - with Plastic Penny's keyboardist Paul Raymond having just joined the band. Quite by accident The Bakerloo Blues Line (shortened to Bakerloo for their one and only LP on Harvest in September 1969) famously opened for the newly formed Led Zeppelin in October 1968 then still hogging the moniker of The Yardbirds (albeit as the 'New' Yardbirds). Zep's cover of Willie Dixon's "Bring It On Home" that ended Side 2 of October 1969's "Led Zeppelin II" owes an uncomfortable amount to the Bakerloo arrangement. But still it's a smart inclusion and shows the bridge being formed between old Blues and the new Blues Rock and Heavy Metal. Killing Floor's wickedly good "Nobody By My Side" feels the same - heavy heavy. Misses for me include Christine Perfect's "It's You I Miss" which is awful and an odd choice - and while the melancholic Medicine Head "This Love Of Old" may be a really lovely song 

Disc Three

Opening with a frighteningly impressive amount of riffage, The Liverpool Scene then quickly begin to take the almighty Michael out of their band compatriots in the British Blues Boom with lyrics like "I woke up this morning with Mike Vernon from Blue Horizon Records in my room..." (that's Plainsong's Andy Roberts on impressive slide guitar). Actual Blues Rock then shows with the impressive snake-boogie of "Ride With Your Daddy Tonight" where you could easily mistake the wildly similar vocals and harmonica of Bob Brunning for an uncredited Peter Green (he plays guitar). The flute-rocker "Time To Move" by Red Dirt could easily have been a Blodwyn Pig outtake from the "Ahead Rings Out" LP featuring guitarist Steve Howden (formerly Fickle Pickle). Unissued was probably the right move for the plodding live version of "A Hard Way To Go" by Savoy Brown that is followed by an equally lost and bemused offering from Jeremy Spencer - "Mean Blues" pre-ambled by an ill-advised mock announcement to an indifferent crowd that is supposed to be funny but just isn’t (has some fab wild grungy guitar though).

Future Savoy Brown and Foghat guitarist Ray Price gives the Memphis Minnie cover of "Me And My Chauffeur Blues" a very Free feel - weird as Guitarist Paul Kossoff, Drummer Simon Kirke and Vocalist Paul Rodgers had all sat in on Black Cat Bones rehearsals and sessions. Before going solo, Kevin Coyne leant his vocals and wit to the Bluesy "Gardener Man" for Dandelion Records act Siren giving in some Them's Gloria by spelling out G-A-R-D-E-N-E-R lyrics in the same way Van the Man did. Far better is the Acoustic/Harmonica Blues playing of Roger Barnes in the obscure band Blue Blood - doing a damn good job covering the Blind Willie Walker stuck in Atlanta Jail classic "Dupree Blues" (tell my baby to sail on). Steamhammer give us the 70ts Rock of "Passing Through" – a tune that feels slightly plodding at first but soon develops into a deceptively hooky melody something Guitarist Martin Quittenton who would of course do for future collaborator Rod Stewart when he co-penned both "Maggie Mae" and "You Wear It Well" with Rodders for the 1971 smash album "Every Picture Tells A Story".

I can understand the rocking choice of "Raining In Your Heart" by the fabulous Stone The Crows given that the rapid-paced thrasher highlights both stunning vocalists in the band – Maggie Bell and future Robin Trower Band leading man James Dewar. But I’d have gone for the genuinely great Josh White cover version "Blind Man" (also on their July 1970 self-titled debut album) where Maggie Bell pulls off one of the most authentically brilliant Blues Vocals performances I've ever heard (but that's just me). Disc 3 begins to lose its way with the bruiser vocals of Edgar Broughton killing "Old Gopher" and the ordinary cover of Bo Diddley's beep-beep "Roadrunner" by Stack Waddy - only to pick up again with the Slow Rock Blues discovery that is Heavy Jelly's "Take Me Down To The Water". This brooding beast features sloppy heavy guitar work from John Morshead of Aynsley Dunbar Retaliation along with a trio of Apple artists - Jackie Lomax and two from Badfinger, Pete Ham and Tommy Evans - all on Vocals (very cool).

Other Disc Three highlights include the happy-go-lucky jug-band shuffle of "Take Your Money" by Brett Marvin & The Thunderbirds on Sonet Records and Ray Dorset already showing frontman/songwriting genius in the self-penned "The Sun Is Shining", a gutbucket-sounding live-in-the-studio B-side from their September 1971 "You Don't Have To Be In The Army" EP on Dawn Records. Affinity's Linda Hoyle provides sexy vocals on the fantastic and hard-hitting "Backlash Blues" (second-class schools for second-class folks and then send my son to Vietnam) - a Nina Simone social satire cover version that features superb slide-acoustic and electric geetar from Chris Spedding. And it all comes to and end with the Quo giving us "Railroad" from their excellent "Dog Of Two Head" LP - a song that sets the Blues-Rock template for an entire 40 years of heads down boogie to come.

For sure not everything on "Crawling Up A Hill: A Journey Through The British Blues Boom 1966-71" will appeal to all (The Downliners Sect grunge-Tolkien track may make many punters run for the hill) and there are absences that probably couldn't be included because of licensing rights. But in my mind, this is still one helluva impressive release and a damn good reminder of what's bin did and what's bin hid. Grapefruit Records do it again folks...