Donny Hathaway – Live (1972)

Donny Hathaway was one of the brightest new voices in soul music at the dawn of the ’70s, possessed of a smooth, gospel-inflected romantic croon that was also at home on fiery protest material. Hathaway achieved his greatest commercial success as Roberta Flack’s duet partner of choice, but sadly he’s equally remembered for the tragic circumstances of his death — an apparent suicide at age 33.

His 1972 “Live” album is one of the most glorious of his career, an uncomplicated, energetic set with a heavy focus on audience response as well as the potent jazz chops of his group.

The results of shows recorded at the Troubadour in Hollywood and the Bitter End in New York, the record begins with Hathaway’s version of the instant soul classic “What’s Going On,” Marvin Gaye’s original not even a year old when Hathaway recorded this version. His own classic “The Ghetto” follows in short order, but stretches out past ten minutes with revelatory solos from Hathaway on electric piano. “Voices Inside (Everything Is Everything)” is another epic (14-minute) jam, with plenty of room for solos and some of the most sizzling bass work ever heard on record by Willie Weeks.

Any new Donny Hathaway record worth its salt also has to include a radical cover, and “Live” obliges nicely with his deft, loping version of John Lennon’s “Jealous Guy.”

The audience is as much a participant as the band here, immediately taking over with staccato handclaps to introduce “The Ghetto” and basically taking over the chorus on “You’ve Got a Friend.” They also contribute some of the most frenzied screaming heard in response to any Chicago soul singer of the time (excepting only Jackie Wilson and Gene Chandler, of course). Hardly the obligatory live workout of most early-’70s concert LPs, “Live” solidified Hathaway’s importance at the forefront of soul music.

No link.

Donny Hathaway – Live (1972)

Donny Hathaway was one of the brightest new voices in soul music at the dawn of the ’70s, possessed of a smooth, gospel-inflected romantic croon that was also at home on fiery protest material. Hathaway achieved his greatest commercial success as Roberta Flack’s duet partner of choice, but sadly he’s equally remembered for the tragic circumstances of his death — an apparent suicide at age 33.

His 1972 “Live” album is one of the most glorious of his career, an uncomplicated, energetic set with a heavy focus on audience response as well as the potent jazz chops of his group.

The results of shows recorded at the Troubadour in Hollywood and the Bitter End in New York, the record begins with Hathaway’s version of the instant soul classic “What’s Going On,” Marvin Gaye’s original not even a year old when Hathaway recorded this version. His own classic “The Ghetto” follows in short order, but stretches out past ten minutes with revelatory solos from Hathaway on electric piano. “Voices Inside (Everything Is Everything)” is another epic (14-minute) jam, with plenty of room for solos and some of the most sizzling bass work ever heard on record by Willie Weeks.

Any new Donny Hathaway record worth its salt also has to include a radical cover, and “Live” obliges nicely with his deft, loping version of John Lennon’s “Jealous Guy.”

The audience is as much a participant as the band here, immediately taking over with staccato handclaps to introduce “The Ghetto” and basically taking over the chorus on “You’ve Got a Friend.” They also contribute some of the most frenzied screaming heard in response to any Chicago soul singer of the time (excepting only Jackie Wilson and Gene Chandler, of course). Hardly the obligatory live workout of most early-’70s concert LPs, “Live” solidified Hathaway’s importance at the forefront of soul music.

No link.

Robert Wyatt – Nothing Can Stop Us (1982)

An enduring figure who came to prominence in the early days of the English art rock scene, Robert Wyatt has produced a significant body of work, both as the original drummer for art rockers Soft Machine and as a radical political singer/songwriter.

This compilation of early-’80s singles includes some of Wyatt’s finest work. Aside from “Born Again Cretin” (whose vocals recall the Beach Boys at their most experimental), all of it’s non-original material that Wyatt makes his own with his sad, haunting vocals.

You could hardly ask for a more diverse assortment of covers: Chic’s “At Last I Am Free” (given an eerie treatment with especially mysterious, spacy keyboards), the a cappella gospel of “Stalin Wasn’t Stallin’,” political commentary with “Trade Union,” the Billie Holiday standard “Strange Fruit,” Ivor Cutler’s “Grass,” and a couple of songs in Spanish.

Tracks:
01. Born Again Cretin
02. At Last I Am Free
03. Caimanera
04. Grass
05. Stalin Wasn´t Stallin´
06. Red Flag
07. Strange Fruit
08. Arauco
09. Trade Union
10. Stalingrad

Robert Wyatt – Nothing Can Stop Us (1982)
(192 kbps)

The More Extended Versions – Dedicated To You, But You Weren´t Listening (The Music Of Robert Wyatt)

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Here´s the other Robert Wyatt related release by the very astute Austrian group “The More Extended Versions”, published in 1992.

Tracklist:

01 Dedicated To You But You Weren´t Listening / Why Are We Sleeping
02 Little Red Riding Hood Hits The Road
03 Alifib
04 Stalin Wasn´t Stalling
05 The Age Of Self
06 The British Road
07 Chairman Mao
08 Gharbzadegi
09 Justice
10 Dondestan
11 Left On Man

The More Extended Versions – Dedicated To You, But You Weren´t Listening
(192 kbps, front cover included)

Kurt Weill – Das Berliner Requiem (1928) – Vom Tod im Wald (1927) – Konzert für Violine und Blasorchester (1925)

It was Brecht´s poetry that Kurt Weill appreciated above all, and his admiration is manifest in the two cantatas, “Vom Tod im Wald” and “Das Berliner Requiem” which throw a visionary light on the famous “golden twenties”. Both can be found on this album accompanied by the “Konzert für Violine und Blasorchester” from 1925

“Berliner Requiem” is a cantata for tenor, baritone, three-part male chorus and wind orchestra by Kurt Weill with text by Bertolt Brecht. It illustrates two fundamental aspects of Weill´s involvement in the twenties: his contribution to a repertory destined specifically for the radio and his struggle against any form of conservativism.

The cantata “Vom Tod im Walde” was to have been placed at the beginning of the “Berliner Requiem”, but Weill gave up the idea just before the premiere considering that its tone was incompatible with that of the other poems. It had ist first performance on 23 November 1927 in ther Berlin Philharmonic. Weill would never write such a sombre work again; the atonal writing is closer to that of the “Konzert für Violine” that to later works. This hymn to animal exisence, to the return to and the absorption by nature is characteristic of Brecht´s early poetry. The depiction of this death-return to the sources is the counterpart to that of the corpse of the drowned girl. Written in 1922, the poem was inserted into the play “Baal”, before being published in a revisited form in the third lesson of Brecht´s “Hauspostille”.

Kurt Weill – Das Berliner Requiem (1928) – Vom Tod im Wald (1927) – Konzert für Violine und Blasorchester (1925)

(192 kbps)

Calypso Pioneers – 1912-1937

This anthology is devoted to classic calypso and presents 16 formative songs from 1912-1937.

The music is still emerging from a confluence of American dance band sounds, African and Afro-Latin rhythms, plus Caribbean social situations and influences.

As carnival became an entrenched celebration within the Caribbean community, the songs composed to be performed during that time came to be known as calypso.

The anthology includes early performances by such calypso heroes as Atilla The Hun, Wilmouth Houdini, Phil Madison, Julian Whiterose and Sam Manning. Vocal styles, instrumental backing, lyrics, arrangements and production are quite unsophisticated and uneven on the early cuts, but a sound and unified approach began to appear in the middle section and is quite evident by the final numbers.

Calypso Pioneers – 1912-1937 (192 kbps, front & back cover included)

Prince Buster – Sister Big Stuff (Melodisc, 1976)

You’ve heard many a ska artist proclaim himself the King of Ska. Perhaps none has more right to do so than the unforgettable Prince Buster, especially since he won so many of those sound system battles against Dodd and the other greats of the early sixties.

By the late 1970s, Prince Buster was in serious financial trouble. Fortunately for him, ska was experiencing a revival in the United Kingdom. In 1979, the band Madness released its first record, a tribute to Buster called “The Prince”, which urged ska fans to remember “the man who set the beat”, stating “So I’ll leave it up to you out there/To get him back on his feet”. Interest in Buster soared during this time; he received royalties when his songs were covered by bands like The Specials, The Beat and Madness and his old records were reissued and sold well. Buster is similarly mentioned in The Toasters song “Shebeen”: “And there was an old man/Who used to bring up the sounds/And he kept those beats, he kept those beats/From when Prince Buster was around”.

Tracklist:

South of the Border
Protection
Sata Masa Gana
Still
Wish Your Picture
Stick By Me
Why Not Tonight
Sister Big Stuff
Stand Accused
Bride Over Troubled Water
Young Gifted and Black
Cool Operator

Prince Buster – Sister Big Stuff (Melodisc, 1976)
(192 kbps)

Calypso Pioneers – 1912-1937

This anthology is devoted to classic calypso and presents 16 formative songs from 1912-1937.

The music is still emerging from a confluence of American dance band sounds, African and Afro-Latin rhythms, plus Caribbean social situations and influences.

As carnival became an entrenched celebration within the Caribbean community, the songs composed to be performed during that time came to be known as calypso.

The anthology includes early performances by such calypso heroes as Atilla The Hun, Wilmouth Houdini, Phil Madison, Julian Whiterose and Sam Manning. Vocal styles, instrumental backing, lyrics, arrangements and production are quite unsophisticated and uneven on the early cuts, but a sound and unified approach began to appear in the middle section and is quite evident by the final numbers.

Calypso Pioneers – 1912-1937 (192 kbps, front & back cover included)

Prince Buster – Sister Big Stuff (Melodisc, 1976)

You’ve heard many a ska artist proclaim himself the King of Ska. Perhaps none has more right to do so than the unforgettable Prince Buster, especially since he won so many of those sound system battles against Dodd and the other greats of the early sixties.

By the late 1970s, Prince Buster was in serious financial trouble. Fortunately for him, ska was experiencing a revival in the United Kingdom. In 1979, the band Madness released its first record, a tribute to Buster called “The Prince”, which urged ska fans to remember “the man who set the beat”, stating “So I’ll leave it up to you out there/To get him back on his feet”. Interest in Buster soared during this time; he received royalties when his songs were covered by bands like The Specials, The Beat and Madness and his old records were reissued and sold well. Buster is similarly mentioned in The Toasters song “Shebeen”: “And there was an old man/Who used to bring up the sounds/And he kept those beats, he kept those beats/From when Prince Buster was around”.

Tracklist:

South of the Border
Protection
Sata Masa Gana
Still
Wish Your Picture
Stick By Me
Why Not Tonight
Sister Big Stuff
Stand Accused
Bride Over Troubled Water
Young Gifted and Black
Cool Operator

Prince Buster – Sister Big Stuff (Melodisc, 1976)
(192 kbps)

Calypso War – Black Music In Britain 1956-1958

Calypso was considered the people’s newspaper in Trinidad, and these mid-’50s recordings chronicle the adaptation of Caribbean immigrants to the U.K. during the mid- to late ’50s.

 

The excellent liner notes provide much detailed information on artists and the social context, the last batch of songs before Jamaican sounds took over and the next generation went dreadlocks Rasta in the ’70s.

Homesickness is part of that equation, and a fair number of these tracks are remakes of older calypsos popular in Trinidad. “Not Me” is thinly veiled rewrite of “Man Smart, Woman Smarter,” (the melody recalls a revved-up take on “Meet Da Boys on De Battlefront” by the Wild Tchoupitoulas) given a jivey reading by the dismissible, exaggerated crooner Ben Bowers — luckily he only has three tracks.

The Mighty Terror tightropes along the dodgy divide of sexism and machismo — the stay-home-and-mind-the-baby-while-I-go-off-in-the-world theme of “Brownskin Gal” is pretty irredeemable, but “Woman Police in England” is funny as hell in its own way. It’s pretty revealing of cultural differences in attitude, and so is “Patricia Gone With Millicent,” where Terror gets abandoned for another woman but seems more puzzled than vindictive about it. Terror is a strong singer who cuts through crisp, clean arrangements built around jazz guitar and bongos.

The “Heading North” commentary on racism (South African apartheid and U.S. civil rights heating up are the focus) sound naïve in retrospect, not the least for ignoring the U.K. But “T.V. Calypso” is a great social snapshot of the moment television became a fixture in modern life, s well as a source of status and family pressure. Lord Invader wrote “Rum and Coca Cola,” and was fresh from a victorious, ten-year battle for royalties from the songs when he began recording in Britain. His calypsos are gently mellow, featuring flute and bongos, and at first seem confined to lightweight themes like “Prince Rainier” (the famous wedding to actress Grace Kelly) or “Mahalia, I Want Back My Dollar.” “My Experience on the Rieperbahn” is a hilarious cultural collision as our innocent Invader gets confused by a transvestite encounter in Hamburg’s red-light district. But “I’m Going Back to Africa” is a surprisingly pointed repatriation song with jazzy guitar and bongos, and Invader sounds genuinely angry singing “Teddy Boy Calypso,” updating his own 1945 calypso to 1958 U.K. street violence.

It’s Lord Ivanhoe who delves most often into hard social commentary here. “Africa Here I Come” is a pointed statement of pan-African consciousness (the end of the European colonial era in Africa looming on the horizon in the late ’50s), while “New York Subway” is a deceptively mild-mannered critique about getting lost and cabdriver racism. “Lift the Iron Curtain” is a sincere plea with a sly dig at Britain (“I think the Russians are selfish/In a way, they are like the British/For no man can get inside/To see what Moscow has got to hide”) and a chorus referencing Khrushchev and satellites.

It’s an interesting, if not essential, collection, and valuable for documenting the last round of U.K. calypso creators before Jamaican sounds took over in the Caribbean community there.

Calypso War – Black Music In Britain 1956-1958

(192 kbps, front & back cover included)