Review: 51 years have now passed since Funkadelic dropped their first two albums, Funkadelic and Free Your Mind and Your Ass Will Follow. The latter album's numerous highlights included 'Funky Dollar Bill', a flash-fried funk-rock masterpiece that's as bonkers as it is low-slung and floor friendly. This anniversary edition of the song, which was released as part of a double A-side single in 1971, combines the pioneering Detroit crew's original vocal version (side A), with a never-before-heard instrumental take from the original recording sessions (B). This is particularly revelatory, as it offers a chance to hear everything that was going on below George Clinton's singing - and trust us, that's a lot! It's genuinely refreshing to hear an alternate take on a such a fantastic funk-rock gem, so we'd recommend giving it a listen.
(I Don't Want To Discuss It) You're My Girl (12:13)
Bad 'n' Ruin (5:45)
It's All Over Now (6:46)
Had Me A Real Good Time (6:56)
(I Know) I'm Losing You (6:51)
Richmond (2:59)
Bad 'n' Ruin (5:23)
Review: John Peel remains the most legendary broadcaster of his generation, and the very many special live shows he was part of with some of the era's most acclaimed artists are widely heralded by fans and critics alike. One of them came in 1971 when the Faces played five songs for a live radio concert that are, on this first section of broadcast material, combined with music from a couple of appearances on Top Of The Pops on the BBC. The set shows real variety with a big and hard cover of '(I Know) I'm Losing You' next to Ronnie Lane's solo acoustic version of 'Richmond'. This LP includes full sleeve notes and recording details.
Review: The long lost 1968 debut album by singer-songwriter Scott Fagan, South Atlantic Blues, comes reissued for the first time in its original artwork, with an iconic portrait of Fagan by famed rock photographer Joel Brodsky, following a widely celebrated 2015 release. Revisiting his mystical, mythical, and deeply soulful masterpiece, this psych-folk gem doffs a Tropicalia hat direct from downtown New York. Fagan's story is worthy of a movie in itself. A swinging hipster who landed in 60s Greenwich folk scene, escaping the abject poverty of his U.S. Virgin Islands upbringing, Fagan found himself mentored by the Brill Building's Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman, and feted as the next big thing. "Forget Rodriguez, forget Searching for Sugar Man," says Sharyn Felder, daughter of the late Doc Pomus, the legendary songwriter who signed Fagan to management in 1964. "Scott was so much more. He was cut from a different cloth." South Atlantic Blues is the perfect soundtrack to this tale, an epic song cycle wrapped around an impassioned love story, driven by Fagan's dense, allusive lyrics, and production by Elmer Jared Gordon (Pearls Before Swine) and rich arrangements by Horace Ott (Nina Simone, Sam Cooke, The Shirelles).
Review: Fairport Convention eventually went on to become folk legends after a very quick rise through the ranks over the course of four full-lengths in just a couple of years. Revered names from British and world music played their part as the school friends set out on their mission to become 'the British Jefferson Airplane'. Unhalfbricking from 1969 is the sound of a band growing in confidence, despite the fact that Ian Matthews left the group during the writing of it. There are three Bob Dylan covers including the Top 30 UK hit single, 'Si Ti Dois Partir,' with plenty of other traditional folk songs and an 11-minute ballad.
Review: Esteemed rock guitarist Andy Fairweather Low first came to prominence in 1967 with a cover version of 'Gin House Blues', Bessie Smith's 1928 original. He then went on to front the psychedelic rock band Amen Corner, marking a surprising shift in genre ambit. With the latter move rendering Low's early bluings relatively obscure, The Last Music Company gladly announce the early blues treads of this master musician's all-pervading influence on music, here with this new selected hits compilation. There are many collaborating musicians indebted to Low, and who yet owe him more than one drink: BB King, Van Morrison, Pete Townsend, Jimi Hendrix, Chris Rea and Kate Bush, to name a few. A longtime sideman in Eric Clapton's band, hence the title, it not only highlights his mastery of blues guitar, but also his under-recognition as a hidden, arch-musician, pillaring the notoriety of others.
Review: Arabic funk, soul and folk specialists Habibi Funk are masters at digging deep to find extremely rare and unreleased music. Even so, their latest offering is particularly obscure. It's a retrospective of 1970s material by a Lebanese singer-songwriter called Roger Fakhr, who put out one self-released tape in the mid 1970s, of which only 200 copies were ever made. Some of those songs feature on this retrospective, but the majority of the material is unreleased tracks from Fakhr's archive. Interestingly, the majority of the music on offer is sung in English rather than Arabic and sits somewhere between American railroad blues, English revivalist folk of the sort popular in the late '60s and early '70s, sun-soaked Californian folk, and gentle folk. A genuinely eye-opening musical treat.
We use cookies to personalise content and ads, to provide social media features and to analyse our traffic. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners who may combine it with other information that you've provided to them or that they've collected from your use of their services.