UK Psychedelia Discussion Forum
Regal Zonophone 2
I just stumbled across this listing on Amazon:
Alex Harvey – Last of The Teenage Idols – LP sized 14 x CD box set £97.50 released 18th March
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Last-Teenage-Idols-Alex-Harvey/dp/B019QHELCU/ref=sr_1_69?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1452096750&sr=1-69&keywords=cd+box+set
Can't find a track list for it on the net or any other info - but a 14 CD set could be amazing. I'm a big fan and have the SAHB abums as Japanese mini LP Cds, but even so, this looks like the Alex Harvey anthology he really deserves. The set is pictured in the listing and seems to have been given some serious thought, the box looks great, so hopefully the musical content is as well.
I'd like to know if this includes all the 1960s German soul band material and Decca stuff, anything unissued by Giant Moth, or is it all Vertigo era material? Not a cheap thing to buy of course, but potentially worth the investment. If anyone finds a track listing on line, please post here, thanks.
Cheers
PM
Yes, Harvey is like a new leather jacket, you have to wear it in for a good while before it fits you comfortably. He was pretty eclectic and never had any conventional singing style either. SAHB's 'The Penhouse Tapes'just leaves one word in my head 'why?' It's a collection of 1930s crooner ballads, what was the point?? Whereas 'Faith Healer' (album version)is one of my favourite tracks of all time. Saw SAHB at the Reading Festival in 1977 where they had the enormnous brick wall back drop and 'Vambo Rules' graffitied across it, very impressive live I thought.
The two UK Decca singles were by Glasgow psychsters Gaint Moth, which Harvey fronted in 1967 but Decca refused to put them out under that name. They felt using Harvey's name alone would sell more copies (it didn't!).I've not heard any of the post-SAHB material he did.
I do not think this is a box for casual interest listeners or the SAHB purists as his 60s career veered all over the place. As the track lists suggest (thanks for that Philippe), it includes a lot of standard blues and r&b covers, as was common at the time. He was recording for Polydor in Germany where his strongest fan base was in the mid 60s. But the Roman Wall album from the end of that decade is an interesting listen (the album from which the groovy dancer Fontana 45 'Midnight Moses' was culled and is a such a big mod club raver nowadays, it was even reissued as a record store day 45 last year).
Along withn the bonus cuts (it will be a bizarre listen of the Penthouse Tapes disc with the bonus cuts that have been added, that are not from those sessions at all), there's a lot to absorb here. I've always admired Harvey's tenacity to succeed and his eclecticism and I want the box for the overall 'wholeness' of what he musically was. He should be a 'national treasure' (at least to Scotland / Glasgow) and like a lot of artists with long back catalogues but an eratic profile, the reissues have been patchy and uncohesive. So I say hurrah! for whoever put this cross label set together as it should be a defining statement of his musical career.
Paul - The Springsteen 15 CD set you point to price wise, I think is different in that it is made up of radio broadcasts. I would imagine the licensing was neglible given the cost of the box. It would be interesting to have an insider's report on how the Alex Harvey box was put together, e.g. was it hard to get the licensing, corrolate the songs etc.
Anyway, I for one am eagerly awaiting the issue of this set. In the meantime I'm going to play Bowie's new 'Black Star' CD album that's just arrived.
PM
Hi Paul,
Yes, these super deluxe boxes are usually priced high so the labels make the money off the hard core fan base in initial sales. On a site like the super deluxe editions website, you often see these sets reported as reduced by up to half within a few months of issue, so you can get a bargain.
My favourite Alex Harvey album is the Sensational Alex Harvey Band's 'Next'. This is the one with 'Faith Healer' I'd recommened trying that and SAHB's 'The Impossible Dream' on Youtube or wherever.If you like those try 'Tomorrow Belongs To Me' as well. Harvey tends to 'voice act' his songs rather than sing them a lot of the time, saving his breath for sustaining one long note in a song somewhere so it's not something you may necessarily take a shine to immidiately. Avoid 'The Penthouse Tapes'!
The earlier stuff you might notlike as it's pretty blues based. but just try keying in Alex Harvey or Alex Harvey soul band on Spotify or youtube and sample a bit. Other than that, his defining moments (for me) are 'Midnight Moses'on Fontana and all 4 sides of the 2 x Decca singles he did in 1967 with Giant Moth (but issued under his name only).
The problem for Harvey, a bit like Hendrix used to be, is that a lot of his back catalogue until more recently was reissued as cheap budget samplers without much thought to what went on them. This box will put that right I think.
PM
PS - Yes, do start with the 'Romam Wall Blues' album (Fontana 1969). This used to be an expensive vinyl atrefact at one time (maybe it still is). It marries Harvey's blues roots on some songs with groovier more 'of the times' numbers. It comes at the end of what used to be referrred to his 'no-man's land' years.
Paul
I don't think I've heard the Hair and Joker wild tracks either, so something to explore in due course.
P
By the way I recall reading recently that the 'soul band' on one or other of those two early Polydor albums was actaully the Four Just Men / Just Four Men Merseybeat group, who later of course became Wimple Winch. They were playing at the same venues in Germany as Harvey, who one morning bright and early woke them all up and said, 'I've got an album to record for Polydor today and you're my band'! I think in fact I read that in a recent issue of Shindig in an interview with one of the Wimple Winch guys.
PM