The Rolling
Stones
Let It Bleed: 50th
Anniversary Edition ABKCO
The veterans’ 60s high-water
mark, now in a multi-format
package with extras.
If the Rolling
Stones
inadvertently
slammed the
coffin lid shut
on the 60s with the disaster that
was Altamont, then Let It Bleed,
the band’s eighth UK album and
released the day before, was
a focused summation of the
turbulent times both within and
beyond the band. Founder Brian
Jones was out, his replacement
Mick Taylor was coming in, and
the scenes of televised violence
from Vietnam and more
suffused the Stones’ music.
Fifty years on, Let It Bleed has
lost none of its power to thrill
and shock in equal measure. Like
Gimme Shelter, Midnight Rambler
remains an eldritch contradiction
which combines horrific imagery
with an irresistible groove.
Elsewhere, the outré mores of
Live With Me – the first song
recorded with Taylor and
saxophonist Bobby Keys – are
tempered by targeting the hips,
although You Got The Silver’s
concerns seems quaint in
comparison. But it all adds up to
a filler-free classic.
Containing mono and stereo
vinyl versions as well as SACD
counterparts, this anniversary
edition is bolstered with a mono
seven-inch of Honky Tonk Women
and an 80-page book illustrated
with previously unseen photos.
A mark is deducted for the lack
of out-takes which are available
illicitly elsewhere.
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Julian MarszalekDavid Bowie
Conversation Piece
PARLOPHONE
Commencing countdown...
Early Bowie on the brink
of ignition.
There’s a lovely
intimacy to
hearing the
young, aspiring
Bowie’s
Beckenham home demos, and
his between-song apologies into
the tape recorder for the spillage
seeping from the elderly piano
teacher upstairs – Mrs.
Fahrenheit, he calls her. Box sets
have been coming thick and fast
since Bowie’s death, arguably
with indecent haste, but there’s
a charming warmth to the
rarities and outliers from thisearly phase. On Conversation
Piece, across five discs there are
a dozen unreleased treasures
alongside the new, lovingly and
knowingly handled Tony Visconti
mix of the Space Oddity album
(Marc Bolan among a backing
“choir”), the 1968 BBC radio
session (where he’s confidently
hitting his stride) and a 1969
DLT session, plus sundry mixes
and rough takes, and John
Hutchinson announcing that
Bowie’s just stood up to get
a cigarette.
When some of these cuts first
appeared via unofficial back
channels there were affectionate
muttering of their
“unprofessional” amateurism.
That now seems harsh, as
they’re perfectly sweet acoustic
demos, with Bowie in
disarmingly innocent, non-ironic
voice. At times the formative
tracks sound akin to the folky
Al Stewart of the era, and the
seemingly childlike lyrics of
When I’m Five or Angel, Angel,
Grubby Face are as cleverly multi-
layered as Winnie The Pooh.
Admittedly Ching-A-Ling is no
lost classic, but the overall sense
is of Bowie and Hutch coming
over, sitting cross-legged on your
floor and showcasing then-new
songs to you with enthusiasm
and effervescence.
So, far from being another
vault-raiding cash-grab by the
label, it’s a privilege and an
honour. Occasionally dreamlike.
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Chris RobertsSparks
Reissues BMG
Reissue of extensive Greatest
Hits collection, plus ’94 album
with bonuses and rarities.
Sparks are
the most
un-American
of American
bands; the very
earliest track featured on Past
Tense: The Best Of Sparks (9/10) is
Computer Girl, a late-60s outing
dreaming BBC Radiophonic
Workshop-style dreams.
Although they had their peaks
and troughs commercially,
Sparks’ acid wit, yin and yang
style, inquisitiveness and
infectiously rigid sense of pop
structure has persisted to the
present day. From their mid-70s
success with This Town Ain’t Big
Enough For The Both Of Us to
their synthpop reinvention with
Beat The Clock, to 90s
collaborations with Finitribe
and Les Rita Mitsouko, and
21st-century gems like Lighten
Up, Morrissey (a fan, he took itGET
TYJimi Hendrix
Songs For Groovy Children: The
Fillmore East Concerts EXPERIENCE HENDRIX/LEGACY
All four Band Of Gypsys shows.
T
he original Band Of Gypsys (live)
album was released in April 1970
as a legal settlement. Hendrix
dismissed it, saying: “Not enough
preparation went into it and it came out
a bit ‘grizzly’”. Nevertheless, it has grown in
stature ever since, as it showcases Jimi, six
months after the final Experience show,
taking his music in a bluesier, more soulful
direction. More of which could be heard on
studio recordings he was making at the
time. All of it came to an end with his death
on September 18, 1970.
The Band Of Gypsys line-up was
Hendrix plus Buddy Miles on drums
and Billy Cox on bass (his core rhythm
section at Woodstock). The trio debuted
with four shows at the Fillmore East in
New York City: two on December 31,
1969, followed by a pair on New Year’s
Day 1970. All were recorded. The six
songs on the original album were lifted
from the third and fourth shows. This
five-CD package (an eight-LP vinyl set is
to follow) gives us everything: one disc
for each of the four shows, the fifth
containing encores, all newly mixed by
Eddie Kramer, who was working with
Jimi at the time.
The set-list on each of the four nights
was different, with only Machine Gun and
Changes (written and sung by Miles) in allfour. The first show, given a standalone
release in 2016 as Machine Gun, is probably
the best as it features Hear My Train
A-Comin’ and Machine Gun, the former
a heavy blues, the latter an extraordinary
guitar tour de force into which Jimi
seemingly distills all the pain and suffering
of the Vietnam War. The first show is also
unique in that it contains no material
from the Experience era.
Later that night, just after midnight
and a cursory Auld Lang Syne to mark the
dawn of the new decade, the second
show was less experimental and included
the more familiar (for the audience at the
time) Fire, Stone Free and Foxy Lady. The
first of those, though, sounds out of place
after the extended funk workout of Who
Knows, and the second is jammed to 17
minutes. The third show introduces
Stepping Stone, the fourth includes the
Jimmy Hughes cover Steal Away (sung
by Miles).
Releasing so much loose and under-
rehearsed material might seem like
madness. Yet time and again Hendrix
conjures sounds from his guitar that
make perfect sense of the decision.
Even an under-rehearsed Jimi Hendrix
remains a treasure.
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Neil Jeffries88 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COMRE
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