duaneiac

Y'know why I don't work in the record bizness. Because if I was in charge of a CD reissue which included an album called Soul Grabber, I would damn sure use that as the CD title instead of After Hours.

I think this one should still count even if only 3/4 of the band members are in the picture. The other guy couldn't make it to the photo shoot that day because he was dead, but he's feeling better nowadays.

No image shows up. Ok. Now you have it fixed!

It kinda looks real, but in a way I hope that was just his face Photoshopped into the picture. Putting an 80-something year old New Jerseyite jazz musician on horseback for a photo op doesn't seem like the wisest decision.

Nice one! I don't think I've ever even seen that album "in person", so to speak.

Well, technically the band is "under" -- Not an official reissue, I presume --

This set has a CD & DVD of a Dec. 9, 2001 concert featuring Dan Hicks and a host of past band members. I'm watching the DVD with the commentary by Mr. Hicks turned on.

First impressions: The liner notes are a little disappointing. Mavis & Pervis Staples are both still with us, so it would have been great if they could have been interviewed for the liner notes or written an introduction or something. The liner notes do provide a concise history of the family/group and some info about the recording of the individual albums. The writers indulge in a bit more "opinion" about the music than I would like. They deem "If You're Ready (Come Go With Me)" to be a "less successful" song because it "holistically retreads" "I'll Take You There". Well, no duh. And "My Sweet Lord" holistically retreaded "He's So Fine", but both are great songs. Lots of interesting photos in the book and I bet they look even greater in the LP-sized format. The packaging finds the CDs inserted inside LP sleeve reproductions, including gatefold where needed. I recently got a John Prine Asylum Records boxed set and with that, for each album they have a fold-out paper insert with the original credits and lyrics as printed on the album. Nice for us older listeners whose eyesight is not quite up to reading the tiny print on CD sized LP reproductions. I wish that would be the industry standard, but I guess there are plenty of lyrics sites out there if one really needs that info. This afternoon, I listened to, in order: The Staple Swingers -- This had the hit "Heavy Makes You Happy". Many of the other tracks seemed to fade out just when they were really grooving. I'm not against fadeouts in general, but too often the promise of a song here was left unfulfilled for me. Be Altitude: Respect Yourself -- In addition to the title track, this album also had "I'll Take You There". Those are the strongest tracks, but it' still a good album overall. City In The Sky -- I liked this one best of all. The liner note writers say that the songs on here were originally recorded for what was going to be a double album release. Instead the tracks were divided up between the Be What You Are album and this one. They claim his album "suffers a bit from this approach". You couldn't tell it by me. The Singers and the musicians were really grooving here. If this is second-rate compared to BWYA, then I look forward to hearing that album

Most of it will be new to me. I only have a "greatest hits" CD of their Stax recordings. Just never got around to buying any of the individual albums, so there will be plenty of "new" music for me. I got the CD version, not the vinyl version pictured.

Arrived in today's mail --

I have that album and didn't remember it for this thread! Here's a good one --