By GRAHAM REID
Okay, this column is for old people. People who've seen so much reality they don't need "reality" TV shows. People who maybe have short-term memory loss but a good recall of the music of their youth. People who buy reissues and who know American Woman is by Guess Who, not Lenny Kravitz.
Guess Who's 72 Live at the Paramount (BMG) has been re-released on CD with six extra tracks, among them their lovely These Eyes which never made the original vinyl. The tight'n'tidy 40-minute vinyl is now a 75-minute CD and that's a lot of GW if you were only a casual fan.
But what helps this go the longer distance is their pop-smarts - Albert Flasher, Runnin' Back to Saskatoon, These Eyes, and their anti-Vietnam War American Woman all have accessible pop structures. Good one. * * * *
What GW had in pop-economy a lot of 70s bands lost in spiralling, often indulgent guitar and keyboard solos. Auckland's lysergic-rockers Space Farm - guitarist Harvey Mann, bassist Billy Williams and drummer Glen Absolum - made music which expanded the contract of Hendrix power-rock into extended flights. On their previously unreleased Live (Homogus) the titles tell you as much: Tomorrow's Child, Flying, Free, Infinity Way and Gypsy Queen.
Recorded in 71 at the Wellington Town Hall and released with slightly nostalgic liner notes by Mann, this captures that moment in time when redemption seemed but the push of a wah-wah pedal away. A memento for fans only. * *
For pure pop you can't go past the Hollies' Greatest Hits (EMI), a chronological collection of 24 songs tracing their career from astute pickers of material (Just One Look, I'm Alive, Look Through Any Window, I Can't Let Go and Bus Stop weren't written by them) into clever songwriters (Stop Stop Stop, On a Carousel, Carrie Anne, Dear Eloise and the cloying Jennifer Eccles were.)
They were remarkably durable despite constant lineup changes and their survival into the 70s with Long Cool Woman in A Black Dress and The Air That I Breathe meant they outlasted their peers by a considerable distance. However the version here for the Mission concert carrying only two original members seems somewhat farcical. Remember them this way: close harmony, perfect pop. * * * *
For pop of another kind check the I-Roy collection Touting I Self (Heart Beat/Elite) a 16-track, self-compiled collection by one of Jamaica's finest toasters who took his distinctive voice across some cannily selected rhythm tracks. Check the Nyabinghi feel on Repatriation is a Must, the rock-chipping reggae of Keep On Spinning, the wobbly pop-reggae of Set Up Yourself Jazzbo and Walk Right In with Chinna Smith on banjo. Good stuff. * * *
Best of all these reissues is the double disc of George Harrison's 1970 All Things Must Pass (EMI). Freed from the Beatles and able to get out all the songs which had been bottled up, this Phil Spector-produced, triple-vinyl was almost an embarrassment of riches and, in retrospect, was certainly Harrison's best solo album. Thirty years on and beautifully remastered, it stacks up exceptionally well.
Songs such as the elegantly simple I'd Have You Anytime (co-written with Bob Dylan), Dylan's If Not For You, Behind That Locked Door, Beware of Darkness and Awaiting on You All sound even more poignant. And of course there's his much-overlooked Isn't It A Pity and Let It Roll, the Krishna pop of My Sweet Lord, the pop-rock of What Is Life and more, including five bonus tracks: a previously unreleased I Live For You and alternate versions of three album tracks plus a decidedly uncalled for My Sweet Lord 2000.
And Harrison, a man few credit with much humour, poses wittily in the updated liner art. A lovely little designer package chock full of aural rediscoveries, most played by the band which became Eric Clapton's Derek and the Dominoes, and with guests such as Badfinger, Clapton, Ringo and Pete Drake on pedal steel guitar.
So old people, if you only buy one reissue with your pension this month ... * * * *
<i>Elsewhere:</i> Second time round, the oldies are still goodies
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