Tag Archives: Record Shop Top Picks

Record Shop Top Picks

Renaissance – Renaissance

The Island label in the late sixties and early seventies remains a fertile hunting ground for serious vinyl collectors from this era. One reason for that is that the label comes across like it was run by actual music lovers that extended to great attention and artistry being put into even the sampler compilation LPs like ‘El Pea’ and ‘You Can All Join In’. The other being the impressive range of eclectic, era defining styles featured on the label including folk-rock, prog, reggae, pop and hard rock. This is firmly in the progressive vein and an impressive debut by a band put together by ex-Yardbirds Keith Relf & Jim McCarty; they gained a solid reputation for their fusion of rock with classical flourishes that can be witnessed below on the stand out track ‘Island’

There is a nice pink-rim palm tree label edition available currently in our store at https://www.discogs.com/seller/Fruit_Tree_Records/profile

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Record Shop Top Picks

The Kinks – Dead End Street

It might have something to do with their ban from playing in America that led The Kinks to focus on such British sounding and referencing music in the mid sixties, but it equally could be this attention to detail and characters of his native land was the natural writing mode for Ray Davies. Either way he, perhaps better than any other pop song writer, captured something of the seasonal darkness and light of UK living, he was almost Lowry-esque in his bleak yet beautiful depiction of working class streets and social groups. This is one such example, a classic slice of exactly that bittersweet melancholy and a splash of music hall whimsy; this did not appear on a Kinks album in 1966 so if you want to taste the sound of the original vinyl issue it is this 45 single that you need to find. There is one sitting in the Fruit Tree Records online store right now so dig in and dig out… https://www.discogs.com/seller/Fruit_Tree_Records/profile

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Record Shop Top Picks

Super Furry Animals – The Man Don’t Give A F%$k

Released in 1996 as a limited edition single, one that had not appeared on the Super Furry Animals debut album from earlier that year but a song that, for years thereafter, would instigate mass singing and hysteria at their gigs. The main sample in the track is taken from Steely Dan’s ‘Show Biz Kids’ and it became a cult hit at the time thanks to its ineligibility for any mainstream radio play and controversy inviting claim to feature the F word fifty times. It still conjures thoughts of a time when there were numerous Britpop adjacent bands in the UK charts making great records, uninhibited and full of creative flare, the Super Furry Animals shone brightest in that regard a lot longer than many of their contemporaries, a great band.

The original twelve inch single on the Creation Records label is currently available in the Fruit Tree Records online store: https://www.discogs.com/seller/Fruit_Tree_Records/profile

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Record Shop Top Picks

Dory Previn – One A.M. Phonecalls

By the time Dory Previn emerged as a devastatingly raw and emotive singer-songwriter of a singular grain in the seventies she was already in her mid-forties with a trunk load of life trauma spinning in her head. She had cut her musical teeth in the sixties alongside then husband Andre Previn writing lyrics on motion picture soundtrack pieces (for which they received several Academy Award nominations) but it was after their split that the solo acoustic style in vogue at the time became her forte. Her music was raw and real, perhaps a little too much for some, which may account for her criminal lack of commercial recognition before or since, as she dealt not just with the fall out of her Andre split but also childhood abuse and her own mental health. That her recipe was always topped off with a glittering Hollywood, musical-like melodic flare only serves to make her music all the more appealing and guarantees that Dory is forever a wonderful musical surprise in waiting for the uninitiated. This album is a 1977 compilation of highlights from her solo releases and a very good condition vinyl pressing on UAR records is available right now at our shop https://www.discogs.com/seller/Fruit_Tree_Records/profile

Despite there not being a large amount of Dory Previn film clips available, I have found two filmed performances of a brace of songs that appear on One A.M. Phonecalls here:

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Record Shop Top Picks

Lee Morgan – The Sidewinder

Jazz trumpeter Lee Morgan’s 1964 album on the Blue Note has remained one of the foundation LP’s in the classic Jazz labels catalogue. Even at the time, the title track achieved some unexpected crossover success in the pop and R&B charts thanks to the relentless hard shuffle of the rhythm and the hook heavy lead trumpet lines. This was heading in the direction of funk for sure, so much so that a few years later the James Brown band would often lift directly from the main riff that remains the backbone of the tune. Of course Blue Note during this golden period had many examples of groove based pieces ensuring these records were a fertile hunting ground when, decades later, the Acid Jazz scene were crate digging for samples. Lee Morgan himself would make several other albums in the sixties as a bandleader, top of the pile for me being ‘Search For The New Land’ as well as contributing often the most tasty parts on records as part of John Coltrane’s or Wayne Shorter’s bands and not forgetting his pivotal parts in Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. Lee’s untimely death in 1972, shot in a club he was performing at by his live-in girlfriend, robbed the Jazz scene of a talent whose work has not aged one bit; anyone taking a dive into the Blue Note label or hard jazz and bebop in general can do a lot worse than start with the work of Lee Morgan. A lovely 2020 Audiophile Blue Note pressing of The Sidewinder album is currently available in our shop https://www.discogs.com/seller/Fruit_Tree_Records/profile

The two clips I have are firstly audio of The Sidewinder track itself and secondly, some quality film footage of Morgan in action in the mid sixties as part of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers…

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