Reflections on the death of David Cassidy

It was announced Wednesday, the child actor and singer, David Cassidy died from complications following hospitalization late last weekend

He played the role of Keith Partridge  a teen boy of the touring headed by their Mother who was played by Shirley Jones in the must see tv series of the early 1970's that we all watched and talked about as juniors back then. Indeed I had to go visit friends as we weren't allowed at home to watch commercial tv in order to see the show on the pretext it was a play date.

The series was massive in North America and given its construct being but a few years on from The Monkees, the series gave birth to hit 45's and albums which are still adored by many of our generation as terrific pop songs.

David left the show pursuing a career in popular music having a good number of hit 45's and albums of which this, Daydreamer from the Dreams Are Nuthin' More Than Wishes album was a favourite of mine from 1973

Like a number of artists of this era following a change in music tastes he took time out before resuming in 1985 with the  Romance album  issued by Arista and resuming concert tours. It was sad he had to give up performing in 2014 due to dementia.
David was a part of our lives as kids back then the adorable boy next door who could sing and act whose life we followed in Jackie magazine and elsewhere.
Let's be glad for what he gave us and for the opportunities he was able to take advantage of furthering his craft.
Rest in peace, David.

London American years continued (1964&1965)

Hi pop pickers. It's been a while since I posted a series of entries around the Ace Records (and they are Ace!) series "The London American year By Year" series which explores a range of recordings as issued by this most iconic UK label.
By way of a background capsule, London American was a label owned by UK Decca for recording licensed from many at the time small US record labels for marketing and distribution in the UK making use of UK Decca's strong operation.
In time many of the labels whose recordings had been licensed set up their own UK operations such as Atlantic and Liberty while others got absorbed into increasingly big US concerns or with changing tastes the labels ceased to exist as outlets for new recordings such as Sun.
Ace began this series way way back in 2009 with the 1960 volume covering a number of recordings I heard on many 'oldies' shows while I was younger that played material from period immediately before the popularity of Merseybeat and the British Invasion of North America's airwaves had began.
There had been something of a hiatus since 2012's last release the 1956 volume captured much of the initial rock and roll boom witnessed on radio, television and your local movie theatre.

The most recent release like it came out this very week, is this, the 1965 edition which showed how a combination of changing tastes, increased competition by UK EMI and Pye Records for licenses and that British Invasion had reduced the output considerable and the number of genuine hits.
This said the set does include a number of gems such as Dobie Gray's the In Crowd a number of hits by the Righteous Brothers, Shirley Ellis's infectious The Clapping Song which was covered in the early 80's in the UK, a great version of Trains,Boats and Planes by Burt Bacharach and a UK act signed in the States and issued by London American - the Pageboys - and their song When I Meet a Girl Like You

1964 for many of us was when Beatlemania  struck, we got Stoned with Richmond's finest and an English accent was a guarantee of acceptance!
In throws of all that,  even the mighty Beach Boys would struggle chased off the top spots by some many darn fine UK artists however America still had a few tricks up it's sleeve not least Phil Spector's unforgettable productions that were licensed by London American so we're treated to such numbers as Crystals and Ronettes plus hits from Atlantic, Kapp and Monument stables  such as Ben E Kings Around The Corner, the Drifters with One Way Love and Otis Redding's  Come To Me.
It was also event licenses that had been profitable such as those to Sun Records and Cadence  from the 50's were becoming irrelevant.
Although it had taken some time to put together this compilation - licensing often is complex - the result is highly enjoyable adding a  fine collection of songs to ones collection of favourite oldies.

Catalogue restoration

One downside of the laptop failure two months back is a number of albums I had went with it and although against the odds it rebooted albeit for one occasion only where I was able to grab some audio and picture folders, that left a few missing so I bought on used cd cheaply copies of these two albums.

In a number of ways 21, her second  from 2011 that featured the hits Rolling In The Deep, Turning Tables and Someone Like You was the stronger set of the two and after the Bond tie in  single Skyfall, she taking something of a sabbatical from performing.
I ripped them using dbPoweramp to Mp3 at 320 for the personal player where the originals were iTunes Aac and have turned out well.
One looks forward to her next series of recordings.
I also found my Band Perry albums which were the deluxe iTunes editions.

Love Me Do

Well in October 1962 before I was born, a group with a local and German port following issued a bluesy 45 following their first ever UK recording sesson at Abbey Road, London.
Nobody knew if this group would really take of or just remain one of several provincial groups just selling a few copies to fans.
This Group was of course, the Beatles and that single reached number 17 on the UK charts although it was to go top five in the States in 1964 in an era off unprecedented adoration.

Although it's been released several times before being only deleted briefly during the late 60's and very early 70's with a famous 20th anniversary issue in 1982 where it climbed to number 5 in the UK charts that I bought in high school, this week it comes out in a retro label design complete with company inner bag.
I've ordered a copy for my collection as I believe they *may* use the original singles version for this that was switched in early 1963 to the now familiar version featured on the Please Please Me album.

NEWSFLASH:
Somebody goofed big time.
http://wogew.blogspot.ca/2012/10/lov...ry-mix-up.html

Quote:

Word is that EMI have recalled all the stock of the 50th anniversary edition of the Love Me Do 7" vinyl single , because the version on the single is incorrect. Under strict instructions from Apple the stock is to be destroyed.
The single version as you probably know featured Ringo, and the album version featured Andy White with Ringo on the tambourine. The mistake is that they have supposedly put the album version on the new 7 inch.
At the moment EMI have no plans to replace it with the correct version.
This information came from one of the retailers who had already shipped their pre-orders, so there will be a number of lucky owners of this rarity when the post arrives tomorrow....
Coming soon is the much waited for stereo  vinyl issues of September 2009's album remasters. One hopes the three year and two months wait is worth it.

Wall Street shuffle

"The online Miss with masters degree in punnery" is the tag line at my account at a certain social network which as those unfortunate enough to encounter me know is true enough so why would it surprise anyone that among many music acts I liked 10cc, a Manchester based on would be one?
Simply apart from their excellent musicianship each being multi-talented coming on as a budgie on supercharge Trill, the bands lyricists shared the same love of punnery as I do as well as sending whole genres of music with style.
Recently I got this Dutch 3 cd compilation:

This is a distillation over three cds and 51 tracks of the total output of the group from 1970 as Hotlegs through the peaks of tracks like 1975's Life's a Minestrone with epic punnery and great use of nonsense chanting of minestrone in syllables to their last album from 1983 plus for good measure some 80's gems by Godley and Creme such as Cry and Under Your Thumb that are in the same style.Tracks like I'm Mandy, Fly Me, Good Morning Judge, One Night in Paris (a mini opera of Parisienne fun set in Stockport of all places) are all desert island stuff for me. Did UK pop in the 70's get anymore intelligent without getting all po-faced?
Including tracks by Wax, the band formed by Graham Gouldman and Andrew Gold, might of appealed to completists but I feel regardless of merit, they would just jar next to the 10cc material and in any event are included on the Music Club Deluxe Andrew Gold double compilation issued a few years back that I'd recommended to Andrew Gold fans.
The mastering for those are concerned as much as I am about the trend in the last 15 years toward louder more bloated sounding cds is pretty good if not quite up to the dynamic contrasts of the original  mid 80's Mercury era 10cc albums issued in Europe or the original Greatest Hits cd issued in the 80's.
For the modest price this set cost's it's worth owning either on it's own or in conjuction with a collection of original studio albums.
1997's remasters done by Roger Wake which remain the only in print regular editions are frankly crap -a word I'd seldom use on this blog ever - lacking detail, distorted complete with obvious tape drag. People, don't waste your money on them as even the original artwork included in say the 80's cd of  How Dare You has gone AWL for the remastered edition replaced by an essay of sorts.

Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme plus Overkill!

No! Not the Election campaign but that's the title of one of several hits by this 80's Australian band rounded up on this compilation well mastered by Mark Wilder on Columbia's Legacy series.
Contrary to the UK Amazon listing it DOES contain Down Under together with Who Can It Be Now, It's a Mistake and many more.
Recommended for 80's pop fans.

A wind is howling at Steve Hoffmans music site and it seems to of come to head with those awfully nice folk-rock singers Simon & Garfunkel following the Audio Fidelity release of their 'Parsley, Sage & Rosemary' album which is advertised on the cover as being from "The original mastertapes".
Trouble is that claim is just demonstrably untrue as it lines up perfectly- and it has been proven by science - to the 1980's Columbia cd issued in the States .
They were given the same digital transfer of a copy tape not an analogue original reel!
All AF have done is what anyone with some knowledge of mastering can do which is to equalize each track for better reproduction.
Unfortunately in a pique of temper the site own nuked one thread and is taking an axe to any critical posts in another oblivious to the knowledge the more you do this rather explained why they used this copy the more credibility is lost and more members drift elsewhere.
It's not that the disc doesn't sound good of what it is and it does use the original mixes which all the issues from the mid nineties onwards don't as Bob Irwin did a really good job remixing them from the multi tracks, rather the attempt to hide the deception that claws many music fans.
Following that I decided to buy this set instead:

This comprises of the Legacy reissues of Parsley, Sage & Rosemary, The Sounds Of Silence together with Bookends that do sound really good and can be had from Rarewaves for just under GBP £10 shipped compared to GBP £25 for the AF!

I own the 1994 Sony 'Mastersound' issue of Bridge Over Troubled Water which is wounderful sounding and taken from the real analogue masters.