"Goats Head Soup" by THE ROLLING STONES – August 1973 UK and US LP on Rolling Stones Records - Guests Included Billy Preston, Nicky Hopkins, Ian Stewart, Rick Grech, Jimmy Page, Bobby Keys and Jim Price with Bruce Rowlands and Jim Keltner (September 2020 UK/EU Rolling Stones Records/Polydor 2CD Deluxe Edition Reissue with New Giles Martin and Greg Calbi Stereo Remixes and Remasters) - A Review by Mark Barry...

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"...Sexy Beast..."

 

*** 2020 Remaster vs. 1994 and 2009 Versions *** 

The June 1994 Virgin Single-CD Remaster had the original uncensored version of "Star Star" - but is now long deleted. The May 2009 subsequent Remaster at the hands of Polydor added unseen insult to injury by using the censored version (naughty words clumsily edited out) without announcing it on the packaging.

 

So now in September 2020, we thankfully revert to the original line-up ("Star Star" intact as it should be) and add in a second disc in the form of a 2CD Deluxe Edition offering 10 Previously Unissued Mixes, Alternates and Updated Outtakes – one of which features Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin on Guitar (not so you'd notice mind).

 

The New 2020 Stereo Mix by GILES MARTIN (of Abbey Road fame) with Mastering from the masterful GREG CALBI (Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Paul Simon and hundreds more) finally gives us the Audio Version that this notoriously muddy album has always deserved. This is without doubt the best that 'Soup' has ever sounded and that CD2 is alarmingly good too. So once more to the veils my peeps and let us wallow in some cauldron broth (on and off the menu)...

 

UK/EU released 4 September 2020 - "Goats Head Soup" by THE ROLLING STONES on Rolling Stones Records/Polydor 089 396-4 (Barcode 602508939648) is a 2CD Deluxe Edition Reissue and New 2020 Remaster that plays out as follows:

 

CD1 - New Stereo Mix - (46:48 minutes):

1. Dancing With Mr. D [Side 1]

2. 100 Years Ago

3. Coming Down Again

4. Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker)

5. Angie

6. Silver Train [Side 2]

7. Hide Your Love

8. Winter

9. Can You Hear The Music

10. Star Star

Tracks 1 to 10 are the album "Goats Head Soup" by THE ROLLING STONES - released 31 August 1973 in both the USA and UK on Rolling Stones COC 59101. Produced by JIMMY MILLER - it also hit the No. 1 spot on both LP charts.

 

CD2 – Rarities & Alternative Mixes – (39:50 minutes):

1. Scarlett

2. All The Rage

3. Criss Cross

4. 100 YearsAgo (Piano Demo)

5. Dancing With Mr. D. (Instrumental)

6. Heartbreaker (Instrumental)

7. Hide Your Love (Alternate Mix)

8. Dancing with Mr. D. (Glyn Johns 1973 Mix)

9. Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker) (Glyn Johns 1973 Mix)

10. Silver Train (Glyn Johns 1973 Mix)

 

THE ROLLING STONES were:

MICK JAGGER - Lead Vocals, Guitar, Harmonica and Piano

KEITH RICHARD - Lead Guitar, Bass and Vocals

MICK TAYLOR - Lead Guitar, Bass and Vocals

BILL WYMAN - Bass

CHARLIE WATTS - Drums

 

CD1 Album Guests:

NICKY HOPKINS - Piano on Tracks 1, 3, 5, 8 and 9

BILLY PRESTON - Clavinet on Track 1, 2 and Piano on Track 4

IAN STEWART - Piano on Tracks 6 and 10

BOBBY KEYS - Tenor and Baritone Saxophone

JIM HORN - Flute and Saxophone

CHUCK FINLEY - Trumpet

JIM PRICE - Horns on Track 4

NICKY HARRISON - String Arrangements on Tracks 5 and 8

PASCHAL BEBOP and JIMMY MILLER - Percussion

 

CD2 Rarities Guests:

JIMMY PAGE – Guitar on Track 1

IAN STEWART – Piano and Organ on Track 1, Piano on Tracks 2, 5 and 7 with Organ on Track 6

NICKY HOPKINS – Piano on Tracks 2, 4, 5 and 6

BILLY PRESTON – Keyboards on Track 3

BOBBY KEYS –Saxophone on Tracks 5, 6 and 7

JIM PRICE – Trumpet on Track 6

RICK GRECH – Bass on Track 1

BRUCE ROWLANDS – Drums on Track 1

JIM KELTNER - Timbales on Track 3

 

The much-lauded booklets of these 2CD Deluxe Editions is yet again another over-it in a matter of minutes ho-hum affair – 20-pages of sessions photos accompanied by 2-pages of reissue credits at the back that list the players for all tracks and bugger all else. There is no critique of the album or historical placing liner notes which is just ludicrous, but unfortunately typical of their reissues. The original duo of inserts (an inner bag in the USA) and that gatefold artwork all make their way onto the triple-fold-out card sleeve but again the artwork feels lessened somehow to me and not made better. Both GILES MARTIN and CRAIG SILVEY are listed as the bods behind the 2020 Mixes while 2020 Mastering is down to GREG CALBI and EMILY LAZAR. And that's where the real goodies lie...

 

Man does this sucker Rock. Those album cuts we've all loved for decades like the beautiful "Winter" and the trippy "Can You Hear The Music?" are shining (in as much as they can). As someone who has been listening to the dull mastering of the original LP and the definite improvements provided in 1994 and 2009 – this properly thorough Remix in 2020 is a revelation. Stuff like "Dancing With Mr. D" rocks too (a sequel to "Sympathy To The Devil" that isn't quite as great) and the largely Acoustic "Angie" can only be described as Sublime Audio - not something you say about The Rolling Stones on CD very often. Although they didn't issue it as a 45 in the UK - the USA put out "Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker)" as an A-side 7" single in February 1974 with "Dancing With Mr. D" on the flip - it went to No. 15.

 

The sinking into dark-eyes and rotten-teeth druginess of "Coming Down Again" has Keith taking the Lead Vocals before Mick takes over. But as Richards sings in a pleading ache "...she was dying to survive..." and later "...where are all my friends..." - you can literally feel his own spirit crying out for rescue from what was surely a suicidal and inevitable path towards Heroin. The 'case of mistaken identity' song "Heartbreaker" about cops with their trigger-happy forty-fours sounds incredible as does Billy Preston’s piano and that trio of expert brass players. And "Silver Train" rocks too - huge build of slide guitars - Mick Taylor adding so much as he always did – while Mick blows a mean Harmonica and claims he 'did not know her name' but she left with all the money anyway (yikes).

 

Like most I had not expected much from CD2, but frankly I can't stop playing the nifty sounding bugger to death. The first three are the new songs, old outtakes updated and they are excellent – kicking rockers that make me re-imagine Side 1 of the LP in my brain. The "100 Years Ago Demo" almost outdoes the finished article – Jagger clear and intimate as only Nicky Hopkins accompanies him on the old Johanna. Both the Instrumentals of "Dancing" and "Heartbreaker" are fantastic – all that muscle and riffage sneaking across your room. The remaining four are rougher but feel like a Punk Rolling Stones with their voodoo power intact. And again – I cannot stress enough how good that Instrumental of "Heartbreaker" is – crystal clear Acoustic Guitar opening – Bobby Keys and Jim Price giving in their Horns Magic throughout – Rocking and Beautiful at one and the same time. This is Rolling Stones magic.

 

There are multiple formats for this September 2020 reissue of "Goats Head Soup" – the sexy beast variant being the LP-Sized Super Deluxe Box Set with a CD3, Book, Memorabilia Repros and more.

 

The bottom line is that this 2020 version of the mucho-dismissed "Goats Head Soup" album is the best ever. And for a Stones album I've always held a candle for, I'll take this newly cooked two-horned stew all day long over the ones that went before...

"Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid: Original Soundtrack Recording" by BOB DYLAN – July 1973 US LP on Columbia Records and November 1973 UK on CBS Records – Featuring Guitarists Bruce Langhorne, Roger McGuinn, Carol Hunter, Bob Dylan and Stephen Bruton with Byron Berline on Fiddle, Gary Foster on Flute and Recorder, Booker T. of The MG’s and Terry Paul on Bass, Jim Keltner on Drums with Russ Kunkel on Tambourine and Roger McGuinn, Priscilla Jones, Donna Weiss and Brenda Patterson on Vocals (February 1991 UK Columbia CD Reissue) - A Review by Mark Barry

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"...Heaven's Door..."

 

Includes 2022 Update on CD Reissues Available

 

Strong silent types who let the pistolas do the jabbering as they gob beef jerky at lame horses and a trembling sheriff, while Claudine (a tired corporate hospitality employee) stands in the doorway of the saloon scratching her less than immaculate garter wondering if business is going to be slow tonight after the boys let off some Prairie steam, Yellowstone style.

 

Dylan's first soundtrack for a Western came as something of a happy accident – something to do between gigs in 1973. Director Sam Peckinpah was holed up in Mexico with his talented and gruffly photogenic MGM cast - Kris Kristofferson as Billy The Kid, James Coburn as Pat Garrett, Jason Robards as Governor Wallace, Richard Jaeckel as Sheriff Kip McKinney and Katy Jurado as Mrs. Baker. Established acting hands, future film stars and cool musical types also peppered the smaller roles – Dr. Strangelove's Slim Pickens as Sheriff Baker, "Paris, Texas" and "Repo Man" uber-dude Harry Dean Stanton as Luke and complimenting those are singer Rita Coolidge and her Keyboardist Donnie Fritts as Maria and Beaver. And of course perhaps coolest of them all – the old moocher himself Bob Dylan as the appropriately obscure character 'Alias' – looking like he fits right in with all the sputum, blood and brucellosis.

 

Sent to him by writer Rudolph Wurlitzer - Dylan had read the script and liked it and was even inspired. Sessions took place on location in CBS's Mexico City Studios and then back in Los Angeles with Warner Brothers producing a string of quietly majestic instrumentals that countered the bloody mayhem on screen. Even the front cover artwork seemed lean and uncluttered in keeping with the mean and moody themes - a bare black and white title complimented on the rear by sparse musician credits and a startling picture of Kris Kristofferson kneeling in the dirt – hand-cuffed - a show-me-some-mercy grimace on his face as Sheriff Richard Jaeckel points his shotgun down into his chest and cocks the trigger.

 

CD COST ISSUES:

But what of the CD you say... a little explanation is needed.

 

The UK 'public domain' CD Master for Dylan's 1973 soundtrack to Sam Peckinpah's film "Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid" was issued as far back as February 1991 (even earlier in the USA, 1989) and has essentially remained that way for over 30-years. However, don't let that put you off; Pat Garrett is one of only a handful of first vanguard CD reissues that I listen to often and need no more. It sounds lovely.

 

But with that old original untouched by Sony in three decades as a stand-alone purchase – reissue companies have spotted a cult-album slot and a veritable slew of pricey audiophile alternatives have emerged to meet that need. In January 2022 (as I write this), there are actually three options, but unfortunately they will make your wallet feel queasy.

 

Japan did a Repro Artwork Paper Sleeve Mini-LP CD Reissue and Remaster in April 2014 on their BLU-SPEC 2 format (Sony International SICP-30487 - Barcode 4547366215977) that has received unanimous rave reviews. It can be played on standard CD players too and is available from various online sites for anything between £22 and £35 (use Barcode number above to locate).

 

Desirable too is the US-Only Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab SACD Version issued March 2019 as one of their Ultradisc UHR reissues, again in a card sleeve, and again playable on all machines. A limited edition of 2,500 copies worldwide, Mobile Fidelity DSACD 2202 (Barcode 821797220262) sells for anything between £40 and £55 all in - another pricey soon-to-be-a deletion.

 

There is also a Remaster in November 2013's 43-CD Box Set "The Complete Album Collection Vol.1" on Sony/Legacy 88691924312 (Barcode 886919243123). "Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid: Original Soundtrack Recording" was one of the 14 Newly Remastered Titles for that fabulous Box Set - but again – sellers now know it is deleted and rare and therefore 'tis well over two-hundred spackaroonies to find one. So let's get back to single-disc reissue basics...and deal with what we can get easily and without costing a limb...

 

1. Main Title Theme (Billy) – Side 1

2. Cantina Theme (Workin’ For The Law)

3. Billy 1

4. Bunkhouse Theme

5. River Theme

6. Turkey Chase – Side 2

7. Knockin' On Heaven's Door

8. Final Theme

9. Billy 4

10. Billy 7

Tracks 1 to 10 are his twelfth studio album "Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid: Original Soundtrack Recording" (First Soundtrack) – released July 1973 in the USA on Columbia KC 32460 and November 1973 in the UK on CBS Records S 69042. Produced by GORDON CARROLL – it peaked at No. 16 in the USA and No. 29 in the UK.

 

UK-issued February 1991, Columbia CD 32098 (Barcode 5099703209822) sports a puny gatefold-slip of paper as an inlay with ne'er a mastering credit in sight anywhere (35:25 minutes). And yet when you slap on "Main Title Theme (Billy)" - adopted by the public as a walk-in theme song to many a bride arriving for her wedding day - the audio clarity is gobsmacking. This CD may be old and dull to look at (like the original LP with its simplistic artwork and frankly bugger all info front or back) - but it delivers on the audio front with a simple hiss-less beauty that sends this mainly-instrumentals album rattling around your room with impressive power.

 

The album opens with the beautiful and moving instrumental "Main Title Theme (Billy)" – Russ Kunkel shaking a Tambourine (like a backdrop of crickets at night) against one of the true heroes of the album – Guitarist Bruce Langhorne. Langhorne had met Dylan back in 1961 as a young pup hustling his song wares and had a large drum kit that sounded like a tambourine – hence he became the inspiration for "Mr. Tambourine Man". The sheer musicality of his playing here is magical, a subtle Bass line from Booker T. of the MG’s giving a bottom end to the six minute linger. After another instrumental called "Cantina Theme (Workin' For The Law)" that's decidedly less impressive than what went before it, we get Dylan's first vocal on "Billy 1" - our gunslingin' hero playing cards while guns across the river threaten in the distance. 

 

At only 2:13 minutes "Bunkhouse Theme" has only Carol Hunter and Bob Dyan dueling on Acoustic Guitars (although they make it sound like there are two more) and again, a gorgeous audio. "River Theme" has a wall of three humming voices 'la-la-la-ing' their way into your heart (Byron Berline, Priscilla Jones and Donna Weiss) - whilst Booker T. Jones (Priscilla is his wife) holds the Bass and the acoustics of Bruce Langhorne and Bob set the slightly doomy mood for this faraway-getting-too-near chant.

 

Side 2 opens with Byron Berline on fiddle while Roger McGuinn posing as Jolly Roger plucks a banjo on "Turkey Chase". It's never been a fave instrumental on the album for me, but it is followed by a barnstormer - "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" smooching into your air with a brilliantly placed Harmonium (played by Carl Fortina). Roger McGuinn of The Byrds doubles with Bruce Langhorne on guitars for "Knockin'..." - the ooh-ooh-ing ladies including Carol Hunter, Priscilla Jones, Donna Weiss and Brenda Patterson. Terry Paul plucks his Bass, Jim Keltner taps his Drums while Dylan sings of the darkness getting too thick to see. Even now, it's a stunner.

 

I can't be the only listener who thinks Dylan could have called Billy 4 "So Far Away From Home" and Billy 7 "Might Be Thunder" instead of the lazy numbers system he applied. And speaking of re-arrangements, surely the magisterial flute and instrument-building instrumental "Final Theme" should indeed have been the finale song? I often program the CD to run Tracks 9, 10 and then 8 – just sounds more coherent that way.

 

Dylan would do two on Asylum of a frankly ho-hum nature in 1974 – "Planet Waves" in January and the live double "Before The Flood" in June – both in collusion with his old muckers The Band (the less said about the contractual 1973 "Dylan" album, the better). But it wouldn't really be until the monumental "Blood On The Tracks" album in January 1975 that he would regain the awe he was held with in the 60ts – a musical and lyrical milestone ever since.

 

The Original Soundtrack to "Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid" could be construed in a Dylan Multi-Verse as a chucked-together quickie with one huge hit on it whilst the rest of it is just a bunch of lumbering guitar, vocal and fiddle noodling. But I suspect that for many fans of the enigma that is the Bobster and his sparing 'Mr. Tambourine Man' guitarist partner-in-crime Bruce Langhorne – this a regular port of call when many others have lain on their bulging CD shelves, untouched for years.

 

"Billy, they don't like you to be so free..." Well my crazy faces, bullet holes and four more aces - feel free to investigate this forgotten corner of the Zim's incredible Seventies legacy - because it's never too dark to see new light in old windows like these (and it's cheap too)...

"On Track...STATUS QUO: The Frantic Four Years" by RICHARD JAMES - 1968 to 1984 Studio Album and Single Reviews (December 2021 UK Sonicbond Publishing Paperback Book) - A Review by Mark Barry...

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"...Whatever You Want..."

 

The problem with fans is that they're fans. And if you're an old mucksavage like me (soon to be a pensioner with a hairstyle that should know better) - you look back on really great Seventies Rock Bands with such rose-tinted hues that it's hard to separate out the Weetabix from the Crapabites.

 

I've enjoyed the Led Zeppelin and Electric Light Orchestra books in this on-going "On Track..." series from Sonicbond Publishing of the UK precisely because they've been written by people who love and know their chosen poison and can relay that with good writing. These books also dig in where it matters – the actual songs, the albums, the music – even if that critique is not all milk and cookies.

 

Richard James is the same when it comes to the England's Mighty Status Quo. But James' problem is that he's honest about the song-quality of their output after the March 1977 "Live" Double (which defined them like Lizzy's stunning "Live And Dangerous" did in 1978) - it went downhill or even off a cliff edge. Truth is that most of us Rock kids who were Punk/New Wave embracers had moved on and would never come back. 

 

Also, because this paperback series concentrates on studio sets, the "Live" double of March 1977 that went to No. 3 in the UK LP charts is 'not' reviewed here. That alone kind of negates their impact in their natural arena - a place they were king. With Quo, it was always about how good they were on stage (saw them in Dublin - fabulous stuff) when all that riffage came to life. So the book loses out a little on that. Let's get to what is good...

 

I suspect like most Seventies Quo fans, I'm a "Ma Kelly's Greasy Spoon" starter in 1970 with crackers like "Shy Fly", "Junior's Wailing" and the cool chugging boogie single "In My Chair" through to 1976's "Blue For You" with the full length album version of "Mystery Song". What a tune - a rocker that like the best of 1976 and 1977 Thin Lizzy - it could awaken a dead man and make a preacher lay his good book on the pew for a moment and get, well, "Down Down - Deeper And Down".

 

Across the 142 A5-pages of this 31 December 2021 paperback (published 25 February 2022 in the USA) - "On Track... STATUS QUO: The Frantic Four Years" by RICHARD JAMES also supplies 16-pages of colour photos. There are period live shots from each of their decades (including the reunion tour), Album Sleeves, the four principal culprits - Francis Rossi (Lead Guitar), Rick Parfitt (Lead Guitar), Alan Lancaster (Bass) and John Coghlan (Drums) with their two long-time song collaborators and part-time/full-time fifth and sixth band members - Bob Young (Harmonica) and Andy Bown (Keyboards).

 

I loved albums like 1971's "Dog Of Two Head" on Pye Records with classics like "Gerdundula" and "Railroad" through to 1972's Vertigo Records debut LP "Piledriver" with that great attacking stance cover and tunes like "Don't Waste My Time", their blistering cover version of The Doors "Roadhouse Blues" and sleepers like "O Baby" and the slow blues of "Unspoken Words". Worst sleeve design in the world didn't stop 1973's "Hello" going to No. 1 - something that 1975's "On The Level" did followed by 1976's Levi-Jeans covered "Blue For You" (were you a Wranglers kid or a Levis one?). In fact if you look in the Guinness Book of Chart Hits - the three-chord wonder boys have clocked up a huge page and half of entries from 1968 to the present day - over 50 years of defying their detractors.

 

James is aware that Status Quo and their same-song rawk elicits ridicule in some circles, but is smart enough to dismiss that as unwarranted snobbery and instead concentrates on the tunes within those confines. He will rightly highlight for instance "Lonely Man" on 1974's "Quo", "Long Legged Linda" on 1978's "If You Can't Stand The Heat" and even find something in "Ol' Rag Blues" on the piddle poor "Back To Back" album of 1983.

 

Changes in musical direction, the relentless grind of touring demands and a copious amount of chemical intake eventually took its toll and they imploded after poor albums like "Never Too Late" and "1.9.8.2." - a record with even worse artwork than "Hello". His track-analysis ends at their workmanlike cover version of that Dion & The Belmonts classic "The Wanderer" in 1984. Quo reformed in 1986 and a variant of that old school sound/band existed until The Frantic Four's Final Fling Tour in 2014. Frontman and all-round handsome guy Richard Parfitt sadly left us Christmas 2016 and Bassist Lancaster passed in 2021 (then living in Australia).

 

Status Quo have sold over 110-million records (probably three times that if truth be told when it comes to used vinyl), been inducted into all manner of Halls of Fame – Rossi and Parfitt were given the Royal OBE nod for Contributions to Music and Charitable Work and the band was the perfect raucous act to open the monumental 'Live Aid' Concert in July 1985 with John Fogerty's "Rockin' All Over The World". That show reminded everybody of what they had missed and gave the group a whole new lease of life.

 

Status Quo are held in affection for a reason and it's nice for old codgers like me to read track-by-track reminiscences of those songs we tapped feet to - those gorgeous Vertigo Records gatefold sleeves we held under our arms with pride. It isn't perfect, but then neither were they!

 

Time for me to get my head down, push aside the Zimmer Frame and give it some boogie with a tennis-racket. God bless ye boys and Rock In Peace...

"Blessed Are..." by JOAN BAEZ – August 1971 US and UK 2LP Studio Set on Vanguard Records with a Bonus 45-Single (US Copies Only) – band featuring Norman Blake and Pete Wade on Guitars, Charlie McCoy on Harmonica, Norbert Putnam on Bass and Production, Kenneth Buttrey on Drums with Back Up from The Memphis Horns, The Holladay Singers and The Town And Country Singers (September 2005 UK Ace/Vanguard Masters 2CD Expanded Edition Reissue in the Original Masters Series – Jeff Zaraya Remasters) - A Review by Mark Barry...

 

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GET IT ON - 1971

 

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"...Salt Of The Earth..."

 

Joan Baez needed (in some respects) to re-establish herself with the buying public as not just that 60ts protest singer of old, but a contemporary artist in the emerging singer-songwriter scenery of 1971.

 

And for platter number fourteen on Vanguard Records – her studio double album "Blessed Are..." released in August of that huge year for Rock Music and its adjoining genres, did just that - it went to No. 11 in the US Billboard Rock LP charts- something many Folkies hadn’t been able to do. Amongst the ten cover versions of contemporary Country-Rock and Folk-Rock hipsters like Mickey Newbury, The Band, Kris Kristofferson and Jesse Winchester – were ten new originals and even a free 2-Track 45-single for first callers.

 

This sweet-sounding 2CD Remaster has done that urge-to-splurge proud – even including both sides of that 45-single on a separate CD and throwing in a previously unreleased throwback to 1969 as a Bonus. To the hungry and the broken...

 

UK released September 2005 - "Blessed Are..." by JOAN BAEZ is on Ace/Vanguard Masters VMD2 79760 (Barcode 029667016728). This 'Original Master Series' 2CD Reissue offers the full August 1971 US double-album Remastered onto CD1 with its accompanying 2-Track 7" bonus single remastered onto CD2 as Plus One More, a Previously Unreleased Performance from the 1969 Woodstock Festival as Track 3. It plays out as follows:

 

CD1 "Blessed Are..." (78:06 minutes):

Side 1

1. Blessed Are...

2. The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down [Band cover]

3. The Salt Of The Earth [Rolling Stones cover]

4. Three Horses

5. The Brand New Tennessee Waltz [Jesse Winchester cover]

Side 2

6. Last, Lonely And Wretched

7. Lincoln Freed Me Today [David Patton cover]

8. Outside The Nashville City Limits

9. San Francisco Mabel Joy [Mickey Newbury cover]

10. When Time Is Stolen

Side 3

11. Heaven Help Us All [Ron Miller cover]

12. Angeline [Mickey Newbury cover]

13. Help Me Make It Through The Night [Kris Kristofferson cover]

14. Let It Be [Beatles cover]

15. Put Your Hand In The Hand [Gene MacLellan cover]

Side 4

16. Gabriel And Me

17. Milanese Waltz/Marie Flore

18. The Hitchhiker's Song

19. The 33rd Of August [Mickey Newbury cover]

20. Fifteen Months

Tracks 1 to 20 are her fourteenth album "Blessed Are..." - released August 1971 in the USA on Vanguard VSD-6570-1 - same catalogue number in the UK but minus the bonus 2-track 7" single that came with original US copies (see CD2). Produced by NORBERT PUTNAM and JACK LOTHROP - all songs written by Joan Baez (except the cover versions noted above). It peaked at No. 11 on the US Billboard Rock Charts (didn't chart UK).

 

CD2 "Blessed Are..." Bonus Tracks (12:56 minutes):

1. Maria Dolores

2. Plane Wreck At Los Gatos (Deportee)

Tracks 1 and 2 were issued as 'Bonus Disc' 7" single with original copies of the US double album

3. Warm And Tender Love (PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED performance from the 1969 Woodstock Festival)

 

The 12-page booklet has dense new liner notes (done in 2004) by Grammy-nominated music historian ARTHUR LEVY. Levy explains that a suggestion to relocate sessions to the newly kitted out Quadrafonic Studios in Nashville by Maynard Soloman (a Producer at Vanguard) opened up a whole new level of creativity for her. Perhaps more importantly, it sided Baez's beautiful voice and poise with top session-players like Norman Blake and Pete Wade on Guitars, Charlie McCoy on Harmonica, Norbert Putnam on Bass and Production, Kenneth Buttrey on Drums with Back Up from The Memphis Horns, The Holladay Singers and The Town And Country Singers. Blake had played for Johnny Cash for years while Norbert Putnam and Kenneth Buttrey were in Area Code 615.

 

The Remaster is by JEFF ZARAYA using original analogue tapes and is gorgeous - clean and full - and with much of the music acoustic-based - has a sweet clarity to it.

 

She smartly chooses three Mickey Newbury tunes all from his "Looks Like Rain" album issued in the USA on Mercury Records SR 61236 in September 1969. She taps 1968's "Beggars Banquet" for a cover of The Stones "Salt Of The Earth" and you can so see why her heart would be with the lyrical and musical sophistication of The Beatles' beautiful "Let It Be". Matthews Southern Comfort also saw the beauty in the Country sway of "The Brand New Tennessee Waltz" - probably Jesse Winchester's most popular tune.

 

While I kinda cringe at the overwhelming earnest in the title track "Be Blessed..." and stuff like "Last, Lonely And Wretched", Baez was no slouch on quality with songs of her own like the seven-minutes of "Three Horses" (a stallion on the hill tale), the horse-trot acoustic jaunt in "Outside The Nashville City Limits" (a local with a slow drawl shows her the most beautiful place in Tennessee), the sad and plaintive "When Time Is Stolen" (laughter riddled with tears) and the grey quiet horse that nobody sees except "Gabriel And Me".

 

The Spanish Language "Maria Dolores" 7"-single track over on the short CD2 comes complete with hacienda swaying strings and ladies – while lettuce is rotting in the five-minute Mexican Border deportation tale of woe - "Plane Wreck At Los Gatos" – a Woody Guthrie lyrical gem. But best surprise of all is the pretty love-in vibe of Bobby Robinson's "Warm And Tender" (a song he gave to Percy Sledge on Atlantic Records). Recorded live at Woodstock in August 1969, it's actually a gorgeous Baez and Harmony Vocalist rendition – a slow and heartfelt melody ballad and a clever way of tying-up this themed double.

 

I would be the first to admit that this kind of Folk/Folk-Rock is very much of its time – but the quality of the songs, playing and the CD transfers makes "Blessed Are..." a must-buy for fans...