Music Week's round-up of the latest album reissues and catalogue releases, including The Small Faces, Marianne Faithfull and Zapp.
The Small Faces
Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake (Immediate/Charly/Sanctuary/BMG)
That The Beatles had the first No.1 concept album with Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is well known but few would be able to correctly identify the second as Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake, a psychedelic landmark which spent no fewer than six weeks in pole position in 1968 for The Small Faces. It has been released in several editions over the years but to mark its 50th anniversary it is newly available in several special deluxe editions, including a triple 180gm red, white and blue heavyweight vinyl half-speed mastered box set (IMBX 012); a 180gm black heavyweight vinyl version of the original stereo album with a 12”x12” art card (BMGAA 07LP); a mediabook CD version (BMGAA07CD); and a 3CD+1DVD earbook set (IMEB 012). The CDs in the latter collection includes the mono and stereo versions of the album and a plethora of rare tracks including the US single version of Mad John and the alternate single mix of Afterglow Of Your Love, while the DVD features The Small Faces’ June 1968 appearance on Colour Me Pop, on which they performed seven of the 12 songs on Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake. Previously issued on a long deleted VHS tape, the BBC TV studio performance has had its audio and video elements upgraded. Another vital new component of the release is a beautifully-realised book featuring Jon Savage’s newly-written and extensively-researched notes, and many rare and exclusive illustrations plus material from the archive of the band’s only surviving member, Kenney Jones. A thing of beauty, the earbook set it is widely available for around £45, although Amazon, who are increasingly out of step recently, have it priced, rather oddly, at £78.06. Written and produced by The Small Faces’ vocalist Steve Marriott and bassist Ronnie Lane, the album starts with the brief but powerful title track, an instrumental. Thereafter, the short, pithy songs are soulfully delivered by Marriott, with the obvious highlight being the set’s only single, the mighty Lazy Sunday, which manages to be both psychedelic and a Cockney knees-up at the same time. Several of the tracks on the second half of the album are linked by an amusing narrative from ‘Professor’ Stanley Unwin, whose unique, comic gobbledegook version of English seems perfectly at home in this setting. The album’s reputation has only grown over the years, with the likes of Paul Weller and Liam Gallagher feting it, Mojo magazine adjudging it ‘one of the great English rock LPs’ and The Guardian describing it as a ‘groundbreaker’, while readers of Q voted it into fifth place in the magazine’s Top 100 Greatest British Albums Ever poll.
Marianne Faithfull
Come And Stay With Me: The UK 45s 1964-1969 (Ace CDTOP 1531)
Her voice eventually became elegantly wasted and deeper but when Marianne Faithfull started her recording career in 1964 it was a delicate, filigree instrument. It remained more or less that way for the period covered by this compilation, which simply anthologises the A and B-sides of the 10 singles she cut for Decca during that period and adds the two unique tracks from her EP, Go Away From My World. Like the original singles, all tracks here are in mono. Faithfull had six hits during the period, most notably her haunting rendition of The Rolling Stones’ As Tears Go By, Jackie DeShannon’s Come And Stay With Me and John D. Loudermilk’s This Little Bird. As welcome as these are within the context of this album, it is more interesting and revealing to hear I’d Like To Dial Your Number, a pleasant, self-penned flip; producer Mike Leander’s jazzy That’s Right Baby; and the lengthy and controversial Sister Morphine, which, as its title suggests addresses the issue of drug addiction. The only track that really doesn’t work is her 1964 recording of The House Of The Rising Sun. A No.1 hit for the Animals, that is also available in excellent versions by Nina Simone and Bob Dylan, to name but two, it draws a poor vocal from Marianne, which may or may not be why she subsequently recorded it again for her 1965 album Come My Way in a version that was half as long, twice as well sung and very jazzy. A fine compilation, it is accompanied by a chunky booklet that includes a 6,000 word essay and copious illustrations.
Zapp
The New Zapp IV U/Vibe (Robinsongs WROBIN 35CDD)
An influential and talented electro-funk quartet fronted by Roger Troutman, Zapp scored three straight Top 40 albums in America immediately before the two which are paired on this expanded 2 CD set which comprises 1985’s The New Zapp IV U and 1989’s Vibe. Although neither album managed to match the success of their early work stateside, they were popular in the UK, particularly The New Zapp IV U, which provided their only two UK hits, It Doesn’t Really Matter and Computer Love. The latter track in particular is a classic. Sampled by numerous rap acts subsequently, it has a sinewy groove and vocals from Shirley Murdock and Gap Band stalwart Charlie Wilson alongside Troutman’s vocoder punctuations. Nothing on Vibe quite matched up to Computer Love but it is still a fun(k) album, with solid grooves aplenty, and a surprisingly striking and restrained cover of Smokey Robinson’s gorgeous Ooh Baby Baby. Incidentally, an earlier Robinsongs release squeezed the first three Zapp albums – Zapp I, Zapp II and Zapp III – onto a 2 CD set (WROBIN 10CDD).
