Del Shannon - Home and Away: The Complete Recording 1960-1970 [8 CD, 2004]

 

Of all the early rock & rollers, Del Shannon is the hardest to classify. He came on the scene a little late -- his first hits, "Hats off to Larry" and "Runaway," arrived in 1961, five years after rock & roll came crashing in, a long enough period of time where his music felt much, much different than the three-chord ravers of the first wave of rock & roll. He arrived during the peak of teen idol pop and was handsome enough to ride that wave, but he was older than Fabian and Ricky Nelson, scoring his first hits in his mid-twenties. Shannon could be seen as a kindred spirit of Roy Orbison, favoring dramatic ballast to blues boogie, threading a sense of melancholy into his biggest hits, but he never verged on the operatic the way Orbison did. He was comfortable enough with country to cut an album of Hank Williams tunes in 1965 and hip enough to go psychedelic when the times shifted in the late '60s. He wrote his biggest hits but also had exceptional taste in other songwriters, being one of the first American rockers to cover the Beatles, along with such '60s pop hits as Bobby Hebb's "Sunny," Brian Hyland's "The Joker Went Wild" and the Lovin' Spoonful's "Summer in the City."

 
None of this restlessness brought Del Shannon big hits -- his run peaked early, with the back-to-back Top 10 hits of "Hats off to Larry" and "Runaway," with the latter reaching number one, then he bounced back in 1965 with the Top 10 "Keep Searchin' (We'll Follow the Sun)" -- but it did result in a singularly fascinating body of work, one that's compiled in its entirety on Bear Family's box Home and Away: The Complete Recordings 1960-1970. 

 

 

Mike Tramp - Tramp : The Bootleg Series (7 CD, 2004/FLAC)

 

Michael Trampenau (born January 14, 1961), better known as Mike Tramp, is a Danish singer and songwriter who is best known for his work with the glam metal band, White Lion. Since 1998, he has released several solo albums. In 2012, Tramp went on a solo acoustic tour releasing acoustic albums in both 2013 and 2014. He returned with a full band line up in 2015 and in 2017, released the album Maybe Tomorrow, which charted at No. 1 in Denmark.

 

 

Peter, Paul & Mary - 11 Albums Mini LP CD Collection 1962-69 (12 CD, 2012/FLAC)

 

Cardboard sleeve (mini LP) reissue from Peter, Paul and Mary featuring 2012 remastering, using the original master tape. Includes a description and lyrics. Part of a eleven-album Peter, Paul and Mary cardboard sleeve reissue series featuring albums "Peter, Paul And Mary I," "Moving," "In The Wind," "Peter, Paul And Mary in Concert," "A Song Will Rise," "See What Tomorrow Brings," "The Peter, Paul And Mary Album," "Album 1700," "In Japan," "Late Again," and "Peter, Paul And Mommy."

 

1962 - Peter, Paul And Mary 00:34:30

1963 - (Moving) 00:35:10

1963 - In The Wind 00:38:12

1964 - In Concert (2CD Set) 01:23:21

1965 - A Song Will Rise 00:37:39

1965 - See What Tomorrow Brings 00:33:52

1966 - Album 00:35:25

1967 - Album 1700 00:40:14

1967 - In Japan 00:43:54

1968 - Late Again 00:33:05

1969 - Peter, Paul And Mommy 00:35:48

VA - The Many Faces Of Oasis (3 CD, 2017/FLAC)

 

The Many Faces Of Oasis celebrates the Britpop band by taking a journey through the band's rich history. 

Disc One features tracks by bands that featured former or future Oasis members including Hurricane #1 (with Andy Bell), Dr. Robert (with Alan White), Simon Townshend (with Zak Starkey) and others. 

Disc Two continues the theme form Disc One and features performances by All Star Band (with Noel Gallagher and Gem Archer), Parlour Flames (with Bonehead) and Phoneys And The Freaks (also with Bonehead). 

Disc Three includes tracks from their British Pop/Rock contemporaries including Inspiral Carpets, Lloyd Cole, 999, Martin Carr (Boo Radleys) and more. 

 

 

 

Buster Brown - Fannie Mae: The Bobby Robinson Sessions (2021)

 One of America’s earliest cartoon strips (originating in 1902), Buster Brown was a nationally known name before the Brown Show Company introduced its Buster Brown line for kids in 1904. The shoes are still around, but the cartoon strip is long gone, as is this Buster Brown. Fannie Mae was an anachronistic record at the time of release, and Brown had probably been playing it for a while. Bill Griggs found a poster from 1955 advertising an appearance by Brown in Fort Worth, and Fannie Mae was advertised among the songs you could expect to hear. Surprisingly perhaps, it topped the R&B charts and reached #38 on the pop charts. The combination of whooping and harmonica had been popularized by Sonny Terry in the early 1940s, but some reckon that the technique originated in Africa, albeit not with the harmonica.