"The Complete Blue Horizon Sessions" (including the "Long Overdue" LP) by GORDON SMITH (2008 Sony/Blue Horizon CD Remasters) - A Review by Mark Barry...

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"...Having A Good Time..."

Once in a very blue moon - a CD comes along that grabs you by the short and curlies and blows your tiny gin-sozzled mind. Gordon Smith's "The Complete Blue Horizon Sessions" is that album. What a blast – and there’s so much of it too. Here are the finite Acoustic Blues…

UK released September 2008 – "The Complete Blue Horizon Sessions" by GORDOM SMITH on Sony/Blue Horizon 88697359852 (Barcode 886973598528) is a CD Remaster and breaks down as follows (76:07 minutes):

1. Diving Duck Blues [Sleepy John Estes cover]

2. Highway 51 [Tommy McClenman cover]

3. One Dime Blues [Blind Lemon Jefferson cover]

4. Having A Good Time [Gordon Smith song - instrumental]

5. Instrumental No. 2 [Gordon Smith song]

6. Walking Blues [Robert Johnson cover/Muddy Waters Arrangement]

7. Rolling And Tumbling  [Traditional Blues cover]

8. I Been Down So Long [J.B. Lenoir cover]

9. Instrumental No. 4 [Gordon Smith song]

10. Pearlie Blues [Traditional Blues cover]

11. The Woman Down The Hall [Gordon Smith song]

12. Big Road Blues [Gordon Smith song]

13. Instrumental No. 3 [Gordon Smith song]

14. Worried Life Blues [Sleepy John Estes cover]

Tracks 1 to 14 are his lone album "Long Overdue" LP issued on the cult UK label Blue Horizon Records 7-63211 in March 1969. It's an incredibly hard-to-find acoustic blues rarity clocking in at over £100 - if you can actually locate one. It reputedly sold over 4000 copies on release but in the near 20 years that I've been dealing with rare records - I've never actually seen one. So it's reissue is welcome and a huge plus for blues fans everywhere.

BONUS TRACKS:

15. Nobody’s Fault But Mine [Blind Willie Johnson cover] – PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED

16. One Dime Blues (Take 1) [Blind Lemon Jefferson cover] – PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED

17. Instrumental No. 2 (Take 1) [Gordon Smith song] – PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED

18. Walking Blues (Alternate Mono Version) [Robert Johnson cover] – PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED

19. Rollin’ & Tumblin’ (Alternate Mono Version) [Traditional Blues cover] – PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED

20. Walking Blues (Electric Version, Take 1) [Robert Johnson cover] – PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED

21. Pearlie Blues (Alternate Mono Version) [Traditional Blues cover] – PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED

22. I’m So Glad (Take 1) [Skip James cover] – PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED

23. Instrumental No.1 (Take 3) [Gordon Smith cover] – PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED

24. When You Got A Good Friend [Robert Johnson cover] – PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED

25. I’m So Glad (Take 2) [Skip James cover]– PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED

26. Too Long

27. Funk Pedal – tracks 26 and 27 are his lone 7" single on Blue Horizon Records 57-3156 issued in July 1969 (both are non-album tracks) and again the 7” single is impossibly rare - itself upwards to £20 to find a mint copy in it's distinctive Blue Horizon label bag. The A-side is a Mississippi Sheiks cover while the B-side is an instrumental cover of a Robert Johnson song. 

28. I’m Sitting On Top Of The World (Mono) [Robert Johnson cover] – PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED

Tracks 15 through to 25 and 28 are all previously unreleased. Some were from his aborted 2nd album and all are being made available here for the first time anywhere. All are studio quality finished versions.

The original analogue master tapes have been used, mastered by SEAN LYNCH at Torch Music - the sound is SUPERB - clear, warm and punchy. There is hiss on some of the quieter tracks like "Instrumental No. 4" but it's not enough to detract.

The detailed 12-page booklet has a really informative and enthusiastic essay by the label founder MIKE VERNON which stylishly mixes the personal with the factual - making for a really great read. There are promo photos from the Blue Horizon archives of Gordon with his guitar, the A & B-sides and label bags of obscure 7” singles along with the rare album sleeve are pictured too. There's a concert poster showing that he supported Muddy Waters on tour in the UK and a very detailed track-by-track session breakdown. All of it is contained by a card wrap on the outside - which gives the release a classy and eventful look. 

Several tracks contain guests: the opener, a cover of Sleepy John Estes' "Diving Duck Blues" has PETER GREEN on Harmonica (he plays a blinder) while PETER HALL adds lovely rolling piano blues to the instrumental "Having A Good Time". Another label mate DUSTER BENNETT compliments Smith's stunning acoustic blues with his Harmonica work on the Robert Johnson cover of "Walking Blues". Fans of that early FLEETWOOD MAC sound will flip for the version of J.B. Lenoir's "I Been Down So Long" which has both JOHN McVIE and MICK FLEETWOOD on it. Their rhythm section work perfectly compliments this really cool blues shuffle.

However, the album mostly highlights the beautifully deft guitar work of the 20-year old lad from Tyne & Wear. Many tracks are guitar and vocals only. It sounds like Robert Johnson transported from the 30's to the 60's and 5 of the tunes are his own compositions - pretty impressive stuff really. His voice sounds a little like Danny Kirwan of Fleetwood Mac, but it's his guitar playing that impresses most - especially on the acoustic guitar with a bottleneck squeaking up and down the frets. If you want a good taster of what to expect - try to access the Traditional Blues air of "Pearlie Blues" if possible - wonderfully evocative of the Delta that has so obviously entranced him -body and soul.

I love acoustic blues - especially a really good string bender. And what you get here is a cracking great album full of it - a wad of tasty outtakes that you'll play again rather than just listen to once and leave there - and all of it wrapped up in Grade A packaging. Brill!

Investigate this superb GORDON SMITH CD soonest. An exemplary reissue - and hats off to all the good people involved - keeping the blues flame alive…

"The Complete Blue Horizon Sessions' by TOP TOPHAM with Lloyd Watson and Pete Wingfield [featuring the "Ascension Heights" LP from 1970] (2008 Sony/Blue Horizon CD Remasters) - A Review by Mark Barry...

This review is part of my Series "SOUNDS GOOD: Exceptional CD Remasters 1970s Rock And Pop" Download Book available to buy on Amazon to either your PC or Mac (it will download the Kindle software to read the book for free to your toolbar). Click on the link below to go my Author's Page for this and other related publications:

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At the pimply age of 15 - Surrey-born Anthony 'Top' Topham stepped onto stage in May 1963 at the Eel Pie Island Club in Twickenham with his new wailing blues-band THE YARDBIRDS. A few months later he was replaced with Eric Clapton and after that - a certain Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page also joined that volatile crew. When you consider what a staggering influence CREAM, JEFF BECK, THE YARDBIRDS and LED ZEPPELIN have had on everything in rock then and now - it's a damn shame that Top Topham got musically lost in the mix somehow and has never been given the catalyst credit he so deserves. Maybe this superb and slightly odd release will change all that.

UK released September 2008 – “The Complete Blue Horizon Sessions” by TOP TOPHAM on Sony/BMG 886973590829 is a single-CD based around his obscure sole album “Ascension Heights” for the UK cult label Blue Horizon released in early 1970. 
It boasts top-quality remastered STEREO sound and 7 previously unreleased MONO bonus cuts.

Here's the breakdown (59:43 minutes)

1. Sawbuck

2. Mini-Minor-Mo

3. Hop House

4. Ridin’ The Blinds

5. Hot Ginger

6. Funks Elegy

7. Ascension Heights [Side 2]

8. Tuxedo Junction

9. Globetrottin’

10. Spider Drag

11. Mean Old Pullman

12. How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)

Tracks 1 to 12 are "Ascension Heights” - his only vinyl LP released on Blue Horizon Records 7-63857 in January 1970 (recorded in London at CBS STUDIOS in October 1969)

Tracks 13 and 14 are "Christmas Cracker" and "Cracking Up Over Christmas" - his lone UK 7" single on Blue Horizon 57-3167 released November 1969

Track 15 is "Hop House" which is a previously unreleased live BBC session recorded at The Paris Theatre in London on 8 January 1970 for the Blue Horizon Hour on the JOHN PEEL SHOW. It was aired 11 January 1970 on BBC Radio and is a slow blues tune with lovely fretwork from Top complimented by tasty keyboard rolls from PETE WINGFIELD (then with another BH signing Jellybread).

Tracks 16 to 19 are “Heart Of Stone”, “You Gonna Ruin Me Baby”, “Long And Lonely Year’ and “Anything For You” - previously unreleased tracks recorded in May 1969 by then unknown Blue Horizon signing - LLOYD WATSON – a very talented 20-year old guitar player (Jamaican mother and English Dad) who looked and played a little like Shuggie Otis meets Peter Green. "You're Gonna Ruin Me Baby" is a rocking Leslie Johnson/Jerry West cover version while the other three are Lloyd Watson originals.

The tapes were transferred and remastered by SEAN LYNCH at Torch Music and the sound quality is gorgeous - really clear and clean - all the instruments given a fab new lease of life. The 12-page booklet has detailed liner notes and stories about Topham's life by the label founder MIKE VERNON, colour and black & white photos from the period, full session discographies and it even sports a dapper card wrap sleeve on the outside that gives the whole package a real air of class and event.

The album "Ascension Heights" has always been a £100+ vinyl rarity (I've seen only one copy of it in my life), so its reissue here is to be welcomed. But it has also divided Blues purists for years because - for a blues label release - it's a slightly strange record! Firstly it's entirely instrumental - and not in a blues way either. It doesn't seem to quite know what it is. One minute it has the playfulness of Django Reinhardt jazz noodling on "Spider Drag", the next minute it's Sixties Chet Atkins on "Globetrottin'", the next second its funky Blood, Sweat and Tears without the vocals on the brass filled "Mini-Minor-Mo" (a personal favourite and one that funky rock enthusiasts should check out pronto). It also features PETE WINGFIELD on Piano. There are even times on "Hot Ginger" where it sounds like a soulful version of Fleetwood Mac's debut album. It's a varied record - daring in its choices and filled with original songs by Topham. "Ascension Heights" is a grower that bears repeated listening.

The extras are a mixed bag. The funky backbeat of "Christmas Cracker" sounds like something Booker T & The MG's would dash off as festivities filler. It's good - if not great. The live track is received well too by an enthusiastic British audience.

But the four LLOYD WATSON tracks are however - a real find. He had an excellent voice and presence; they're mostly rockin' blues and make for a fab vocal surprise after the dearth of instrumentals that preceded them.  "Anything For You" finishes the disc in a great Yardbirds meets Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac kind of a way and will have fans of both loving this release. 

Another winner from Blue Horizon that’s thoughtfully put together - and full of surprises you wish there was more of...

“Ascension Heights” - A 1970 LP Rarity Is Finally Reissued by BLUE HORIZON with Superlative Previously Unreleased Bonus Tracks and Remastered Sound

At the pimply age of 15, Surrey-born Anthony “Top” Topham stepped onto stage in May 1963 at the Eel Pie Island Club in Twickenham with his new blues-wailing band - THE YARDBIRDS. A few months later he was replaced with ERIC CLAPTON and after that a certain JEFF BECK and JIMMY PAGE also joined that volatile crew. When you consider what a staggering influence CREAM, BECK and LED ZEPPELIN have had on everything in rock then and now - it’s a damn shame that Top Topham got musically lost in the mix somehow and has never been given the catalyst credit he so deserves.

Maybe this superb and slightly odd release will change all that.

This 19-track September 2008 single CD is based around his obscure sole album for the UK cult Blue Horizon label released in early 1970; it also top-quality remastered STEREO sound and 7 previously unreleased MONO bonus cuts.

Here’s the breakdown (59:43 minutes)
Tracks 1 to 12 are “Ascension Heights”, his only album released on Blue Horizon Records 7-63857 in January 1970 (recorded in London at CBS STUDIOS in October 1969)
Tracks 13 and 14 are “Christmas Cracker” and “Cracking Up Over Christmas”, his lone 7” single on Blue Horizon 57-3167, which preceded the release of the album in November 1969
Track 15 is “Hop House” which is a previously unreleased live BBC session recorded at The Paris Theatre in London on 8 January 1970 for the ‘Blue Horizon Hour’ on the JOHN PEEL SHOW – it was aired on BBC Radio 1 on 11 January 1970. It’s a slow blues tune with lovely fretwork from Top complimented by PETE WINGFIELD’s tasty keyboard rolls.
Tracks 16 to 19 are previously unreleased tracks recorded in May 1969 by then unknown Blue Horizon signing LLOYD WATSON, a talented 20-year old guitar player (Jamaican mother and English Dad) who looked and played a little like SHUGGIE OTIS meets PETER GREEN. Three are his own compositions with “You’re Gonna Ruin Me Baby” being a rocking Leslie Johnson/Jerry West cover version.

The tapes were transferred and remastered by SEAN LYNCH at TORCH MUSIC – the sound quality is GORGEOUS – really clear and clean – all the instruments given a fab new lease of life – superb stuff. The 12-page booklet has detailed liner notes and stories about Topham’s life by the label founder MIKE VERNON, colour and black & white photos from the period, full session discographies and a even sports a dapper card wrap sleeve on the outside that gives the whole package a real air of class and event.

The album “Ascension Heights” has always been a £100+ vinyl rarity (I’ve seen only one copy of it in my life), so its reissue here is to be welcomed. But it has also divided Blues purists for years because - for a blues label release – it's a slightly strange record! Firstly it’s entirely instrumental – and not in a blues way either. It doesn’t seem to quite know what it is. One minute it has the playfulness of Django Reinhardt jazz noodlings on “Spider Drag”, the next minute it’s Sixties Chet Atkins on “Globetrottin’”, the next second its funky Blood, Sweat and Tears without the vocals on the brass filled “Mini-Minor-Mo” (a personal favourite and one that soul boys should check out pronto) which also features PETE WINGFIELD on Piano. There are even times on “Hot Ginger” where it sounds a soulful version of Fleetwood Mac’s debut album! A heady mix to say the least! It’s varied, daring too – a grower that bears repeated listening.

The funky backbeat of “Christmas Cracker” sounds like something Booker T & The MG’s would dash off as festivities filler. It’s good if not great.

The 4 LLOYD WATSON tracks however are a real find – he had an excellent voice and presence; they’re mostly rockin’ blues and make for a fab surprise after the dearth of instrumentals that precede them. “Anything For You” finishes the disc in great Yardbirds meets Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac kind of a way and will have fans of both loving this release.

Another winner from Blue Horizon- highly recommended.

"Caramel" - A Review Of The Nadine Labaki Film Now On DVD and BLU RAY (2014)

"Your Name Is My Prayer…" - Caramel on DVD and BLU RAY

"Caramel" is not what you'd expect from Lebanese filmmaking and in particular movies about that most troubled of their cities - Beirut. I found it touching, unbelievably insightful and genuinely romantic too - it's one of the loveliest watches I've had the pleasure of seeing in years. The largely unknown cast is superb and each deserves specific mention:

NADINE LABAKI plays Layale - the sexy yet scatter-brained 35-year old owner of "Si Belle" - a salon that acts as emotion-central for co-workers and girlfriends. Layale is having a giddy but demeaning affair with a married man whom we never see except as a shadow in a car under a bridge - or hear him - as he honks his horn outside the premises for her to come running...

YASMINE AL MASRI plays Nisrine - one of Layale's best workers - the beautiful and young Nisrine is having doubts about her forthcoming marriage to Bassam - a headstrong modern man played by ISMAL ANTAR. Bassam is a man who will take on the oppressive state and even God rather than capitulate; Nisrine's also worried that Bassam might not want her should he find out about her less-than-virginal past...

GISELE AOUAD plays Jamale - a customer and friend of the younger ladies. Jamale's mid to late 40's, an actress who is getting too old to nab the lucrative advert roles anymore and goes to sad and desperate lengths to stay young-looking...

JOANNA MOUKARZEL plays the slightly butch Rima - a lowly washer of hair in the saloon who falls silently and breathlessly in love with a beautiful woman who walks in off the street one afternoon. She is played by FATME SAFA - and may even share with shy Rima the love that dares not speaks its name (the title of this review is a lyric from a love song sung by Rima at Nisrine's wedding)...

SIHAM HADDAD plays the stoical and ceaselessly loving Rose - Rima's 65-year-old Aunt who lives across the street from the salon in her humble haberdashery business...

Lili (her even older sister) is played to heart-breaking perfection by AZIZA SEMAAN. Lili is a mouthy old curmudgeon who picks up bits of paper off the streets and tells everyone there's a plane coming to take her and her lover away. Rose is driven to despair by Lili's increasingly difficult senility until one day a gentleman caller comes in for a suit alteration. His name is Charles played by a debonair DIMITRI STANCOFSKY - Charles says little, but his kind and warm glances reawaken a tenderness in Rose she'd long thought gone - and of course poses her with a horrible family conundrum....

ADEL KARAM plays Youssef - the parking-ticket Policeman who longs for Layale from a distance, but she is too busy screwing up her life to notice. Youssef is handsome, decent and right for her, if only Layale would stop sticking her tongue out at him...

FADIA STELLA plays the redheaded and lovely Christine, wife of Rahid, the feckless husband we never see. She comes calling to "So Beautiful" for a free waxing one afternoon after a phone-call the previous day to her home by a sappily desperate Layale. Or perhaps Christine's there to size up the threat to her marriage and her lovely young daughter. There are many other cameos and they're all excellent.

Nadine Labaki - the principal actress and director - co-wrote the script with RODNEY EL HADDAD and JIHAD HOJEILY. It's her 1st film and she could easily have shirked the undeniable downside of their world in order to make the film a more palatable package for Western viewers - but she doesn't. The eternal shame heaped on women by virtue of religious guilt in all things that they do - the double standards of the authorities - the legacy of war lingering malevolently in the background - all of is subtly woven into crucial scenes. Their lives are not given to you in a preachy or clichéd manner, but in a way that shows you just what a Middle Eastern woman has to cope with nowadays. They laugh like us, they cry, they triumph, they make their mistakes, take stock, get back up again - and try their damnedest to be modern in a world inextricably tied into a two-thousand year old past. Family acts as the bedrock - friends are cherished - and love - like in every society - is the simple and deeply sought after goal for all. It's a positive and refreshing film and a view of Beirut city life that you just don't ever see.

The script is full of deftly insightful stuff too - scenes that are just so funny, tender, sad, romantic: the kid under the family dinner table looking up Nisrine's skirt because she and Bassam were playing touchy-feely legs and he knows the woman can't rat him out; the tenderness between Charles and Rose as he quietly sugars her tea in his apartment after she's returned his altered gentleman's trousers; Jamale sat on a toilet using a bottle of ink on tissue paper to feign her still having youth; Rima's lovely face as she falls in love, softly washing the long flowing jet-black hair of a stunningly beautiful customer in the lean-back sink...her huge brown eyes as she looks back up at Rima....and smiles. To effortlessly move from the old-world respect of the elderly couple to the sensual playfulness of the young lesbians in the salon is fantastic writing.

"Caramel" blew me away - it made me ache for these good people and their hopes and aspirations and dreams. But if you want real persuasion, there are FOUR nomination references on the DVD's rear sleeve, one of which is the WINNER of the AUDIENCE AWARD at the "San Sebastian Film Festival". Not the critics - not the industry insiders - the 'audience' award.  That public knew a winner when they saw one.

Joy, pride and heart went into the making of this little foreign film (called "Sukkar Banat" in some territories) - and as the credits role and Nadine Labaki's dedication tells you the movie is "For My Beirut" - it's hard not to be impossibly moved. Put "Caramel" high on your rental/to buy list. And then make a beeline for Mira Nair's "The Namesake" - another peach of a movie - cut with the same tenderness and grace.

PS 2014 FORMATS UPDATE:

As of June 2014 - the UK REGION 2 DVD on Momentum (Barcode 5060116722819 for the correct issue) is the only format to have this Lebanese language film in ENGLISH subtitles – English and English for the Hard of Hearing.

There are now two All Regions BLU RAY reissues: The German issue on Barcode 4042564130788 has two Audio tracks – German DD 5.1 and Arabic DD 5.1  - but has only German language subtitles.

The French BLU RAY also has two Audio tracks – Lebanese and French 5.1 HD Master Audio – but with only French subtitles

In short - both BLU RAY reissues have *NO ENGLISH SUBTITLES* of any kind for this Lebanese language film. The picture quality on both BLU RAYs is gorgeous but it's a damn shame someone doesn't release this lovely film for the English-speaking world on BLU RAY...