Author Archives: Steve Matteo

The name Robin Trower may not resonate with today’s young pop streamers, but throughout roughly the mid-1960s through the late 1970s, he went from one successful musical life to another.

From before the group’s debut album in 1967 and through their fifth album in 1971, Trower was the guitarist with Procol Harum. Along with the group’s 1973 album Grand Hotel (which Trower was not part of), the five albums he was on with Procol Harum constituted their peak as one of the most inventive pop/prog groups from England in that period.

If that wasn’t enough, after leaving the group, Trower embarked on a highly successful solo career, in a trio format, beginning with Twice Removed from Yesterday in 1973. His next album, Bridge of Sighs, was an FM staple, has achieved classic rock immortality, and was the first of four best-selling albums, with his next three albums also charting. Chrysalis released all of these albums.

Trower left behind the near-classical, pop/art-prog of Procol Harum and formed a blues-rock power trio, clearly rooted in both the heavier and dreamier sides of Jimi Hendrix’s music. In many respects, even though he was British, his music became a natural bridge between the music of Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughn.

Beginning with the reissue of Twice Removed from Yesterday, issued in a 2-LP or 2-CD edition, Bridge of Sighs and For Earth Below have also been released in remastered, bespoke 2-LP vinyl editions and in an expansive CD/Blu-ray set and a 4-CD box set, respectively, that should not be missed. The latest 50th-anniversary reissue is Robert Trower Live!, originally released in 1976 after For Earth Below.

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Two recent Mobile Fidelity reissues with New York roots, originally released on Elektra, but from two different decades and two very different musical genres, both had a seismic impact on music when they were first released.

East-West, from The Butterfield Blues Band, was the group’s second album, released in 1966, and expanded on the vital promise of its self-titled debut, released in 1965. A veritable supergroup, the band featured the twin-guitar attack of Elvin Bishop and, especially, the iconic Mike Bloomfield. Both would go on to make music beyond their time with Butterfield, but to hear them play together on the first two Butterfield Blues Band albums proved that lightning could indeed strike twice.

Bassist Jerome Arnold and drummer Billy Davenport both played with Howlin’ Wolf, and Davenport also played with Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, and Otis Rush. Keyboardist Mark Naftalan would go on to play with Mother Earth and Quicksilver Messenger Service and has a long list of credits.

Members of the group would be part of Bob Dylan’s infamous 1965 Newport Folk Festival appearance, when the former folkie went electric, backed by, among others, Bloomfield, Arnold, and the drummer of the first Butterfield Blues Band album, Sam Lay. East-West was released on the esteemed Elektra label, and although a blues album, it was a pivotal release in the label’s gradual and organic evolution from a folk/ roots/ world music label to a pop and rock powerhouse.

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Paul McCartney: Man on the Run, a documentary about Paul McCartney’s departure from The Beatles, his beginnings as a solo artist, and his founding of Wings, and ending in the early ’80s with his McCartney II album, is currently playing on Amazon. Directed by Gordon Neville, it’s an entertaining and surprisingly candid portrayal of McCartney’s early solo career, ’70s success, family life, and much more.

A companion soundtrack album has been released. The album is yet another recently released project that looks at the period. The Wings Anthology audio releases and Paul McCartney and Wings: The Story of A Band on the Run book are also part of chronicling this era. In many ways, the soundtrack album, best enjoyed on the 180-gram vinyl edition, is a pared-down version of the Wings Anthology. This album, though, includes some rarities.

There’s a demo of “Silly Love Songs,” a rough mix of “Arrow Through Me,” a track from the James Paul McCartney television special from 1973, and the Rockshow version of “Live and Let Die” from 1980. Although not in chronological order, the album actually has a nice flow. As a single album, it might be a good introduction for younger fans just discovering McCartney’s early solo music and Wings. Collectors will appreciate the rarities and the enclosed two-sided color poster. The sound quality is also quite good, particularly McCartney’s bass, considering how many different sources were accessed for this project.

While this soundtrack and even the Wings Anthology are welcome releases, an audio companion that matched the robustness of the book and film might have been more fitting. Gathering together several discs of rarities would have been thrilling. Also, many live concert discs could have been released, chronicling the different bands McCartney assembled during the Wings period. And of course, fans are still waiting for the obvious reissues of London Town and Back to the Egg from this period, as part of the McCartney Archive.

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Celebrating Nick Lowe on his 77th birthday. —Ed.

Brit Nick Lowe was one of the most beloved, talented, and versatile figures of the punk/new wave explosion of the late-’70s. Oddly, he really wasn’t punk or new wave, but an artist who emerged during that scene in the wake of the pub rock, post-’60s scene in England as a member of Brinsley Schwarz (with Schwarz, Ian Gomm, Billy Rankin, and Bob Andrews).

Lowe was a roots rocker at heart who occasionally dipped his toe into psychedelia, but was most at home with pure pop, even naming the American version of his solo debut album Pure Pop For Now People, released in 1978. Lowe was also and still is an accomplished record producer, most notably for Elvis Costello and The Pretenders. He was part of the group Rockpile (with Dave Edmunds, Billy Bremner, and Terry Williams) while simultaneously producing and releasing solo albums. Later, he would be in another supergroup, Little Village (with John Hiatt, Ry Cooder, and Jim Keltner). He is also a prolific songwriter.

Lowe’s last solo album was The Old Magic, released in 2011. He released a holiday album, Quality Street: A Seasonal Selection for All the Family, in 2013. That resume barely scratches the surface and doesn’t even mention the other singles, EPs, live albums, and contributions he’s made to other people’s work and appearances on a plethora of tribute albums. Indoor Safari is his second with Los Straightjackets, the mysterious, Tennessee-based instrumental band, after their debut together, Walkabout, in 2020. It’s filled with the kind of rootsy simplicity and charm we’ve come to expect from Lowe.

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Neil Young remains one of the most prolific artists in music today. While he continues to put out previously unreleased live and studio recordings from his vast archives and reissues of albums from his full catalog, he also records new studio albums, releases live concert recordings from recent tours, and puts out soundtrack releases. Two recent must-have Young releases, from the many that came out in roughly the last 15 months, are Oceanside Countryside and Coastal.

Oceanside Countryside is an album Young shelved, consisting of songs he originally recorded by himself in 1977 in Florida, as well as several tracks he recorded with additional musicians in Nashville. Except for one song, all the music here would eventually be released in fuller versions. On the tracks with band backing, the core players are Ben Keith on dobro, Rufus Thibodeaux on fiddle, Joe Osborn on bass, and Karl T. Himmel on drums. There are also contributions from Tim Drummond, Greg Thomas, Dennis Belfield, and Tom Scribner, with Levon Helm of the Band on “The Old Homestead.”

This was the Comes a Time period, and most of the music has a wistful, acoustic country feel, with the quintessential ’70s classic Neil Young sound. “Goin’ Back,” “Human Highway,” and “Field of Opportunity” would come out on Comes a Time. “Dance Dance Dance” appeared on Harvest. “It Might Have Been” appeared on A Treasure. “Sail Away” would turn up on Rust Never Sleeps. “Lost In Space” appeared on Hawks and Doves, and “The Old Homestead” would appear on Hawks and Doves.

“Captain Kennedy” has been released in different versions on American Stars and Bars, Hitchhiker, and Chrome Dreams. “Pocahontas” would appear on Rust Never Sleeps, Hitchhiker, and Chrome Dreams. “Human Highway” would also appear on Hitchhiker and was intended for an aborted Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young album.

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It would take several volumes of a biography to detail Don Was’s extensive and celebrated career in music.

Highlights include his band Was Not Was, the countless sessions he’s played on, and the high-profile albums he’s produced. If that wasn’t enough, he has been the president of Blue Note Records since 2012. In an industry where lawyers, agents, accountants, and executives who couldn’t even carry a tune in their shower head labels, Was brings a wealth of musical knowledge and experience to a historic label, and his tenure there has been nothing short of successful on every level.

Not content to just run one of the most esteemed record labels in the world, Was has continued to perform, produce, and stay involved in day-to-day music-making. Somehow, amidst all that activity, he has a new album out: the debut album of his new group, Don Was and the Pan-Detroit Ensemble Groove in the Face of Adversity, on the Michigan-based Mack Avenue Records, is a heady stew of soul, funk, and jazz with touches of reggae, pop, rock, and R&B. This is no solo album and is truly a group project. Was anchors the affair with his stand-up bass playing, but this large, nine-piece ensemble is an all-star lineup.

The opening track, with subtle dub reggae grooves, features lead vocalist Steffanie Christi’an. “Nubian Lady,” a sprawling soul-funk epic written by jazz keyboardist Kenny Barron that features Dave McMurray, has the kind of spiritual flute feel of vintage Yusef Lateef mixed with the groove of the Brian Jackson, Gil Scott-Heron, and the Midnight Band recordings. “I Ain’t Got Nothing But Mine,” surprisingly a cover of a Hank Williams song, is a powerful jazz workout that, like “Nubian Lady,” was recorded live.

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The Sun Records label, based in Memphis, Tennessee, put rock ‘n’ roll on the map in the 1950s and launched a musical, artistic, and cultural explosion that resonated around the world and can still be felt today. While rock ‘n’ roll and its many permeations are virtually absent from popular music these days, their place in American culture remains.

The key artists of the Sun rock ‘n’ roll explosion—Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and others—arrived at their sound by a gradual and organic mixing of American roots music, primarily country and blues, but also R&B, jazz, and folk. Other Sun artists, while considered part of Sun’s seminal and groundbreaking rock ‘n’ roll stable, made a sound rooted in country. For Sam Phillips, who launched the company, labels meant very little.

Which brings us to two original and important Sun releases. One from Johnny Cash, Johnny Cash with His Hot and Blue Guitar, which might be deemed strictly country, and one from Carl Perkins, Dance Album of Carl Perkins, which was a rock ‘n’ roll hybrid (rockabilly) that added a pinch of country to rock ‘n’ roll. The descriptions, categorizations, and assigning of labels are debatable and ultimately pointless.

Reissues of important recordings can serve many purposes, but often the big questions are: how do they sound and how faithful are they to the originals? Although these two Sun recordings from Cash and Perkins are revolutionary, the original pressings of the albums just don’t sound very good. Poor tape transfers, inferior vinyl record quality, and primitive means of producing records and getting them out to market in the mid- to late-’50s resulted in great music of historical significance.

However, given how quickly every step of the record-making process evolved through the late ’50s and particularly ’60s and ’70s, even mint copies of original and later vinyl pressings just didn’t sound very good. Of course, various CD reissues and deluxe packages of Sun recordings have been released over the years, preserving the music for generations and expanding on the knowledge, significance, and understanding of this important music. However, it would appear that these new Intervention Records releases are not only the best reissues of these albums, but maybe the best recordings of them to ever be released.

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Axis: Bold as Love, the second album from The Jimi Hendrix Experience (Jimi Hendrix, Noel Redding, and Mitch Mitchell), originally released in December 1967, is the middle child of the trilogy of albums that introduced guitarist Jimi Hendrix to the world and often receives much less attention than the other two albums.

As detailed in an overview of the Bold As Love box set from 2025, the album was recorded quickly at Olympic Studios in London, following the startling group debut of Are You Experienced?, and was released just seven months after that album in the UK. Hendrix often lamented that the album was rushed, but a listen to it reveals a musician burning with inspiration as a songwriter, guitarist, and studio innovator. The album features some of Hendrix’s most beloved songs, including “Little Wing” and “Spanish Castles.”

Hendrix grew to love working in the studio, and this album takes some of the raw fury and guitar dazzle of Are You Experienced? and adds songs of great depth, often with more emphasis on mood and spirit than sheer guitar prowess. Hendrix was becoming more involved in shaping the sound of his music in the studio and did so on the album’s mix, alongside engineer Eddie Kramer and manager Chas Chandler. Unfortunately, side one of the album had to be remixed in one night at the last moment by Hendrix, Kramer, and Chandler, as Hendrix lost the master tape in a taxi. Over the years, those involved in the making of the album have said this added to the rushed nature of the album.

This new UHQR release of the album from Acoustic Sounds marks a slight departure in design for the UHQR package. The new outer box is a flip-open, clam-shell package with gold foil lettering, with the change being a flip-open design replacing the rounded dowel spine, slip-case box. Released previously in a UHQR package as a single-33 1/3 vinyl album, this set is a double 45- RPM Clarity vinyl set, with the two vinyl records in audiophile archival sleeves in a plastic sleeve.

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Remembering Nicky Hopkins, born on this day in 1944. —Ed.

Ever since the late ’50s/early ’60s pop music explosion, session or studio musicians were integral to recording. Whether they be backing singers, soloists, part of such illustrious posses as the famed Wrecking Crew, or the musicians who were the heart and soul of the Motown sound, these formerly somewhat anonymous players have been given their due over the years in books and in such movies as Standing in the Shadows of Motown from 2002, The Wrecking Crew from 2008, and 20 Feet from Stardom from 2013.

For anyone who has followed the birth and evolution in particular of British rock, from the singles-based British Invasion or album-based ’70s, one name stands out for those who read liner notes: British pianist Nicky Hopkins. In 2011 the book And on Piano …Nicky Hopkins: The Extraordinary Life of Rock’s Greatest Session Man by Julian Dawson was published. The book came many years after Hopkins passed away in 1994 at the age of 50. That book did a lot to recognize what an important musical artist he was and solidified his place in rock music history.

A new film entitled The Session Man: Nicky Hopkins is sure to bring his legacy alive for even more fans of great British and in some cases even American music. The film was directed by Mike Treen who has primarily worked in television. The timing is just right as it was just announced that Hopkins will be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame with the “Musical Excellence Award.”

This is a perfectly crafted musical doc and includes a star-studded cast of interviewees with whom Hopkins worked. There are interviews with Keith Richards, Bill Wyman, Peter Frampton, Nils Lofgren, Jorma Kaukonen, Jack Casady, Jim Keltner, Terry Reid, Chuck Leavell, Graham Parker, P.P. Arnold, Harry Shearer from Spinal Tap, and record producers Glynn Johns, Shel Talmy, and Chris Kimsey, among many others. There’s also an audio interview with Pete Townshend and a previously filmed interview with Mick Jagger.

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It’s hard to believe it’s been 50 years since The Alan Parsons Project debuted in 1976 with their album Tales of Mystery and Imagination. The group was somewhat of an anomaly when they started. They were the brainchild of British songwriter Eric Woolfson and British superstar producer Alan Parsons. Parsons began as an engineer at Abbey Road Studios on recordings by The Beatles and Paul McCartney, among others, and quickly made the leap to uber-producer, working on defining ’70s albums such as Year of the Cat by Al Stewart, and struck gold with the iconic Dark Side Of The Moon by Pink Floyd.

Parsons initially enlisted Woolfson to start a production company and serve as his manager, and then the duo was suggested to form a studio group. Few record producers have made the transition from producer to performer or group leader. Still, in the case of The Alan Parsons Project, it worked: 11 successful albums over 15 years saw the group explore ’70s rock, prog, and a unique combination of electronic soft rock/MOR and pop, resulting in hits.

The albums, however, were surprisingly complex, sometimes dense, lyrically thematic and conceptual, reflecting peerless state-of-the-art studio innovation and with a shifting musical cast. They were far ahead of their time in exploring the vast possibilities of electronic music and in tackling the philosophical themes of thinkers/writers such as Issac Asimov.

Tales of Mystery and Imagination is an album that, while primarily based on the stories of Gothic horror writer Edgar Allen Poe, draws on a variety of musical styles. It starts a bit heavy in spots and has moments of ’70s bombast, but it is quite varied. Arthur Brown, from the group The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, takes a star turn on “Tell Tale Hearts.” Terry Sylvester, who replaced Graham Nash in the Hollies, guests on vocals on “The Cask of Amontillado” and “To One in Paradise.” The musical foundation of the album is unique, as it features all members of the bands Pilot and Ambrosia, along with Francis Monkman of Curved Air.

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Jethro Tull holds a unique place in rock history. Led by flute-playing, musical minstrel, and Dickensian vagabond Ian Anderson, the quintessential British group has been lumped into various trends, most notably prog, but it is so much more. Their melding of folk, jazz, rock, classical, and pop began with their bluesy debut, This Was, in 1968, and successfully evolved through nearly the end of the 1970s before their sound became heavier and more straightforward.

Arguably, their first 10 studio albums are exceptional, and much of their music still stands up today. Along with Anderson, the key members of Tull who contributed to this rich period are Glenn Cornick, Clive Bunker, Martin Barre, Jeffrey Hammond, John Evan, Barriemore Barlow, John Glascock, and Dee Palmer, in an ever-shifting lineup that found guitarist Barre as Anderson’s most important and consistent collaborator.

The 1972 double-album release Living in the Past came at perhaps the group’s peak and is an odd, yet excellent album in the Tull discography. Their sixth overall album was also their first on Chrysalis in the States. It has recently been reissued in both vinyl and a deluxe CD/Blu-ray box set, billed as Still Living in the Past, further enhancing the album’s stature.

What made the initial double-album release so successful was that rather than being the standard compilation album or just a simple collection of bits and bobs (or odds and sods), it offered a rich variety of music, much of it B-sides, different single mixes, live material, EP tracks, and previously unreleased music from various album configurations or territories. It was a beautiful presentation in an era when the rock album package was truly a thing of beauty.

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Remembering Bob Marley, born on this day in 1945. —Ed.

Live concert music from Bob Marley and the Wailers during their ’70s heyday has often been presented at mid-size to large venues, as evidenced by their 1975 album Live! and 1978 double-album Babylon By Bus, along with the 1978 video Live at the Rainbow. Sometimes the spectacle of the music is quite pronounced and, as amazing as those albums are, the musical subtleties can get lost.

The Capitol Session ‘73 should rectify that. A live session, for the cameras from October 24th, 1973, just a week after the release of their latest album, Burnin’, produced by Denny Cordell, received a video and audio release from Mercury Studios, co-executive-produced by Cordell’s son Barney.

Filmed and recorded at the Capitol Records Tower in Los Angeles using Cordell’s portable rig of four cameras and mixing the sound live on the fly, even though Marley was under contract at the time with Island Records, this one-off show was thought to be lost, but after a twenty-year, international search, the film and audio were found.

The concert came on the heels of the group’s second Island Records release, Burnin’. That album featured the original version of “I Shot the Sheriff,” later made into a hit by Eric Clapton in 1974 from his 461 Ocean Boulevard album. Burnin’ also included a version of “Get Up, Stand Up” and the classic “Burning and Looting.” The group was then on only its second U.S. tour, after having been in the States the previous spring. For both tours, the group also played in England.

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Three recent releases, two reissues, and one soundtrack album spotlight guitar gods who, in varying degrees, fuse rock, jazz, and blues to create their own unique musical vision.

John McLaughlin remains one of the most innovative and relevant guitarists to first emerge in the 1960s. In fact, his guitar prowess, insatiable search for new sounds, and penchant for playing music that seems light-years ahead of his peers may have been matched only by Jeff Beck in the 21st century. Like many British guitarists, he began in the London blues scene. Unlike his contemporaries, however, he detoured away from the rock god road and pursued a jazz journey.

His work with Miles Davis, his solo albums, and his formation of both the Mahavishnu Orchestra, which defined the jazz-fusion movement, and Shakti, which, while crossing jazz and Indian music, were forerunners of world music, are peerless. Now, McLaughlin tackles another musical realm with startling results. His latest release, Music for Abandoned Heights, is the soundtrack album for a movie that never happened.

As a standalone album, it’s a rare gem. Influenced by the Miles Davis soundtrack for the 1958 Louis Malle film Elevator to the Gallows, Abandoned Heights began in 2019 and, unlike the Paris-set Malle film, was set in New York. McLaughlin began working on the score, which was eventually recorded in London, after reading the script, even before he saw any film footage.

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Rhino continues to release Quadio discs that seek to recapture and replicate the quadraphonic audiophile album format of the 1970s. Instead of vinyl albums, Quadio releases present the four-channel audio experience on Blu-ray audio discs with 192/24 resolution and also provide listeners with high-res two-channel stereo and, in some cases, 5.1 surround sound mixes at very affordable prices for such a bespoke product.

The discs are transferred from the original half-inch four-channel master tapes and mixed for a fully dimensional immersive experience. The releases include technical notes on the Quadio format and have beautiful visual interfaces. These new Quadio Blu-ray Audio albums are available in bundles and individually. Multiple musical genres are featured in the series, and all the releases first appeared in the 1970s. The success of these Qaudio disc releases proves the quality, viability, and continuing relevance of the optical disc format.

Three recent Quadio releases represent distinct California sounds, and two of the three discs are spin-off groups of one of the most important San Francisco groups that began in the 1960s and were both originally released on the airplane’s Grunt record label.

America’s Choice was Hot Tuna’s third studio album and the second album released by the group since Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady departed from the Jefferson Airplane. Hot Tuna’s first three albums were all recorded while the two prominent members of the group, Casady and Kaukonen, were still in the Airplane.

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In The Wee Small Hours, the 1955 album from Frank Sinatra, is a recording weighted down by history. Its place in the evolution of 20th-century popular recording history is peerless. The album came out at a key point not only in Frank Sinatra’s career but also for his label, Capitol Records, and the recording world in general.

Capitol was Sinatra’s third label after RCA and Columbia. The album was his third on Capitol. His Capitol tenure up to this point had included producing Voyle Gilmore and, more importantly, the arranging and conducting duties of Nelson Riddle. Riddle is the most important collaborator Sinatra worked with, and it is Riddle’s ability to arrange strings in particular that distinguishes Sinatra’s best music.

Sinatra’s two previous albums on Capitol marked the beginning of the mature Sinatra period. The teen matinee idol was being replaced by a man who, for all his talents, bravado, and success, had been battered by life and wasn’t afraid to let it show. Dropped by Columbia, considered by some to be past his prime, battling voice issues and emotionally scarred by being spurned by actress Ava Gardner, Sinatra didn’t just sing a selection of great American songbook popular songs; he turned them into his own, wearing them like a perfectly fitting dinner jacket.

What he also did, with his producer and arranger, is produce the first fully realized concept album, a full twelve years before Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band from The Beatles. The album, through song selection, musical backing, and mood, gives voice to the lonely saloon singer, drinking in the wee small hours of the morning, at a mostly empty dive bar in some run-down part of town. The singer is thinking about that girl: the one that got away—the one who would haunt his dreams for the rest of his life. Of course, the listener can relate, and it’s the simple universal appeal of that feeling that makes this album still sound so powerful 70 years later.

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