Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band - Drink Paint Run Run (1972)

Following the release of the classic 'Trout Mask Replica' album in 1969, Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band's (the first time the group were not referred to as 'His' Magic Band) follow-up had to be something special, and 1970's 'Lick My Decals Off, Baby' certainly continued in a similarly experimental vein. Appearing within the most experimental and visionary stage of the group's career, it was their most commercially successful album in the UK, spending twenty weeks on the Albums Chart and peaking at number 20. Art Tripp III, formerly of the Mothers of Invention, played drums and marimba on the record, along with a returning John French, who had been ejected from the group during the 'Trout Mask Replica' sessions. An early promotional music video was made of its title song, alongside a bizarre television commercial that included excerpts from 'Woe-Is-uh-Me-Bop', silent footage of masked Magic Band members using kitchen utensils as musical instruments, and Beefheart kicking over a bowl of what appears to be porridge onto a dividing stripe in the middle of a road. The video was rarely played but was accepted into the Museum of Modern Art, where it has been used in several programs related to music. The next record was just credited to Captain Beefheart, and the atmosphere of 1972's 'The Spotlight Kid' seemed more relaxed and fun. 

The music is simpler and slower than on the group's two previous releases, and this was in part an attempt by Don Van Vliet to become a more appealing commercial proposition, as the band had made virtually no money during the previous two years. The next record was released as by Captain Beefheart And The Magic Band, and 1972's 'Clear Spot' is rightly regarded as a high-point in the band's career. The production credit of Ted Templeman made AllMusic's Ned Raggett consider "why in the world wasn't it more of a commercial success than it was", and while fans of the fully all-out side of Beefheart might find the end result not totally to their taste, those less concerned with continually pushing back the borders enjoyed his unexpected blend of styles, tempered with a new accessibility. And, of course, it included that fantastically strange piece of aggression that was 'Big Eyed Beans From Venus'. While recording these three albums the group laid down many, many instrumental takes, while Van Vliet searched for that perfect recording over which to lay his vocals, and hours worth of them have survived, so here is a selection of the very best. As most of them are instrumentals, I've included a couple of alternate vocal takes of songs that did eventually end up on albums, just to give the album a bit of variety, but these are completely different versions.  

Track listing

01 Suzy Murder Wrist
02 U Bean So Cinquo
03 Drink Paint Run Run
04 Flaming Autograph
05 Love Grip
06 No Flower Shall Grow
07 Sun Zoom Spark (Take 3)
08 Best Batch Yet
19 Seam Crooked Sam (Take 1)
10 Dual & Abdul
11 Dirty Blue Gene
12 Open Pins
13 Semi-Multicoloured Caucasian

Bern Elliott & The Fenmen - I Can Tell (1964)

Bernard Michael Elliott was born in Erith, Kent, on 17 November 1942, and attended Picardy School in Belvedere, before forming his own beat group, which became Bern Elliott and the Bluecaps. After a name change to Bern Elliott and the Fenmen in 1961, the group performed over the next two years in clubs in Hamburg, Germany, and were signed to a recording contract with Decca in early 1963. 'Money' was released by several artists at the time, but Bern Elliott and the Fenmen were unique as a group in registering a UK Singles Chart Top 20 hit with the song in December 1963, with their Merseybeat style belying their southern England roots. However, they did appear on 13 March 1964 episode of the UK television programme Ready Steady Go!, playing their follow-up hit, 'New Orleans'. In May 1964, Elliott parted company with The Fenmen, and utilised The Klan for a short time as his backing group on one release, 'Good Times'/'What Do You Want With My Baby', which was released on Decca in September 1964. The following year Elliott tidied himself up in an effort to become a smoother pop entertainer, and issued two solo efforts, 'Guess Who' and 'Voodoo Woman', neither of which troubled the charts. The Fenmen continued as a band in their own right, issuing further efforts both for Decca and CBS, including 'I've Got Everything You Need, Babe' in 1965 and 'Rejected' in 1966. After the Fenmen themselves disbanded, Wally Allen (aka Wally Waller) and Jon Povey moved on to The Pretty Things, but despite only releasing one EP and a couple of singles before the band members went their separate ways, they had recorded enough material for an album by 1964, and so if Decca had wanted one then it could have sounded like this. 

Track listing

01 Money
02 Be My Girl
03 Everybody Needs A Little Love
04 Good Times

05 (Do The) Mashed Potato
06 Chills
07 New Orleans
08 Please Mr. Postman
09 Talking About You
10 Nobody But Me
11 What Do You Want With My Baby
12 I Can Tell
13 Shake Sherry Shake
14 Little Egypt
15 Shop Around

Grouper - False Horizon (2016)

Grouper is the solo project of musician, artist and producer Liz Harris, who was born on 15 July 1980 in Northern California, and who grew up around the San Francisco Bay area, in a Fourth Way commune there which was inspired by the philosophy of George Gurdjieff. The community was known as "The Group", which would later serve as some inspiration for the moniker Grouper. After finishing at university with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, Harris briefly moved to Los Angeles, where she worked with Mayo Thompson at Patrick Painter. Her first album was an eponymous self-released full-length CD-R, followed later that year by 'Way Their Crept' on Free Porcupine Society Records. In 2008 she released 'Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill', which turned out to be her breakthrough album, with AllMusic reviewer Heather Phares praising it for showing more musical range than Harris' previous work, and for "letting more melody, more structured songs, and even a few phrases emerge from the ether", while Pitchfork gave it 8.2 stars, calling the work "an arresting album of pastoral psychedelic pop". Harris has continued to release albums since then which challenge the listener, including one consisting of two parts: 'A I A: Dream Loss' and 'A I A: Alien Observer', and a pair of longform tape collage pieces which originally took shape for commissioned performances in New York and Berkeley. Her 2014 release 'Ruins' is relatively stripped-down, with just piano, voice and field recordings, and while being only 22 minutes long, 2018's 'Grid Of Points' garnered generally positive reviews. On 27 July 27 2021, Harris announced a new Grouper album, 'Shade', and released its first single 'Unclean Mind', and to trace how she got to that point, from her self-released CD-R to her 12th official album on the respected Kranky label, here is a collection of her non-album singles and other rarities, recorded between 2007 and 2016, and spanning her career from her ambient instrumentals to her singer/songwriter phase.   

Track listing

01 Quiet Eyes
02 Everyone In Turn
03 Hold
04 Water People
05 Hollow Tone
06 I'm Clean Now
07 Sick
08 Cassiopeia
09 Headache
10 Moving Machine
11 False Horizon
12 Demona

Spooky Tooth - Ceremony (1969)

Spooky Tooth's 1969 album 'Ceremony: An Electronic Mass' must be one of the most divisive records ever released. Despite the project being instigated by Gary Wright, it is considered by him to have ended the band's career, and has been described by others as being "one of the great screw-ups in rock history". Spooky Tooth wrote and recorded six tracks, and then sent them over to Pierre Henry to add his music concrete contributions to them, which generally involved him hitting anvils with pipes, grunting over the music, or adding three minutes of cacophonous bells to the end of 'Prayer'. As Wright describes it, "...we did a project that wasn't our album. It was with this French electronic music composer named Pierre Henry. We just told the label, 'You know this is his album, not our album. We'll play on it just like musicians.' And then when the album was finished, they said, 'Oh no no — it's great. We're gonna release this as your next album.' We said, 'You can't do that. It doesn't have anything to do with the direction of 'Spooky Two' and it will ruin our career.' And that's exactly what happened". Wright was so unhappy with this decision that he left the band following the release of the album. Following a comment by Unknown on the 'Atom Heart Mother' post, I looked into removing Pierre Henry's contributions from the album, and although some of them were too deeply embedded to remove completely, you can now hear some really fine music from the band coming through, with great guitar work and strong arrangements. This could have been a great Christian rock album if it had been released as a purely Spooky Tooth record, and at the moment this is the closest that we'll get to hearing that concept. 

Track listing

01 Have Mercy
02 Jubilation
03 Confession
03 Prayer
05 Offering
06 Hosanna

The Attack - Art Attack (1968)

The Attack were founded by Richard Shirman and Gerry Henderson, who were originally in a group called the Soul System, whom, for the best part of a year, had a very unstable line-up. In early 1966, the remnants of the crumbling group were joined by Bob Hodges on organ, David John (Davy O'List under alter ego) on guitar, and Alan Whitehead on drums. They soon came to the attention of entrepreneur Don Arden, who then signed them to Decca and changed their name to The Attack. Their debut single was released in January 1967, and was an extremely anglicized cover of 'Try It', an American hit for both the Standells and Ohio Express, whose versions were exemplar of the sneering garage sound. However, The Attack's powerful vocals, pop art guitar, and the underbelly of a warm Hammond created a similar atmosphere to the Small Faces, the Birds, and the Creation. Shortly after the single was released, Davy O'List was handpicked by Andrew Loog Oldham to join the Nice, who were to act as the backing band for newly acquired American soul singer P.P. Arnold, and so he quit the group in late February. Meanwhile, Shirman, a regular visitor to the London clubs, had been keeping a watchful eye on a young guitarist he had seen jamming with Jimmy Page, and so John Du Cann was introduced into the group. 

As a follow-up to 'Try It', a version of 'Hi-Ho Silver Lining' was then released, but Jeff Beck got the hit first in Britain in 1967. The third 45, 'Created By Clive'/'Colour Of My Mind', backed a foppish sub-Kinks-style number with a fairly groovy mod-psych tune penned by DuCann. Bassist Kenny Harold and guitarist Geoff Richardson left shortly after the disappointment of the 'Created By Clive' single, leaving Du Cann as the only guitarist, and Jim Avery was drafted in on bass, with Plug still on drums. Their next single was to be be the excellent 'Magic In The Air', but Decca refused to release it on the grounds that it was too heavy, and so Plug and Avery left the ranks to be replaced by Roger Deane on bass and Keith Hodge on drums. The final single, released in early 1968, was 'Neville Thumbcatch', a fruity mod-pop tune with spoken narration, like a lesser counterpart to Cream's 'Pressed Rat And Warthog', and Decca's deal with the Attack expired after that single, with a projected fifth 45, 'Freedom For You'/'Feel Like Flying', remaining unreleased. This led to the break-up of the group, with Du Cann going on to form Andromeda, and later to join Atomic Rooster in the 70's. The Attack have been well-served with compilations of their material, but as so often happens with these anthologies, the label try to cram in every single thing that they could track down by the band, whether good, bad or indifferent, and The Attack are the perfect example of the need for some judicious pruning of their material in order to present them in the best light. Their singles 'Hi-Ho Silver Lining', 'Created By Clive', and 'Neville Thumbcatch' are not representative of the band's powerful mod sound, and so they need to be excised in favour of scorching rockers like 'Any More Than I Do', and so here is the album that they should have released in 1968, which shows what a great band they really were. 

Track listing 

01 Any More Than I Do
02 Go Your Way
03 Colour Of My Mind
04 Strange House
05 Come On Up
06 Magic In The Air
07 Feel Like Flying
08 Lady Orange Peel
09 Too Old
10 Freedom For You
11 Anything
12 Mr Pinnodmy's Dilemma
13 Try It
14 We Didn't Know

Jhené Aiko - My Name Is Jhené (2003)

Jhené Aiko Efuru Chilombo was born on 16 March 1988 in Los Angeles, California, but the family moved to Baldwin Hills when their home burned down when she was seven. She embarked on her musical career contributing vocals to several B2K releases, as well as performing on a song on the soundtrack of the 2002 film 'The Master Of Disguise'. During this time she was known as the cousin of B2K's rapper, Lil' Fizz, though she is not actually related to him, and it was actually a marketing tool suggested by her labels Sony, The Ultimate Group and Epic Records, to promote her through B2K and attract an audience. She also appeared in numerous music videos including O'Ryan's debut video 'Take It Slow', B2K's debut video 'Uh Huh', and Morgan Smith's 2004 video 'Blow Ya Whistle', as well as having songs featured on the soundtracks of 'Barbershop', 'You Got Served', 'The Proud Family', and 'Byou'. In 2003, when she was just 15 years old, she released a video for her single 'No L.O.V.E', and she was set to release her debut album, then-titled 'My Name Is Jhené', later that year, but it was never released due to tension at the record label Epic, which ultimately led to Aiko asking to be released from her contract. Once the labels agreed to her request she went back to school to continue her education, and it was to be four years before she made a return to music in 2007, and another four before she released any new music. By this time her cancelled album was behind her, as she was now 23 years old, and a record made when she was 15 would not be an accurate representation of her music, but it's certainly a fine example of her early work, and so here it is for you to hear.

Track listing

01 My Name Is Jhené
02 Pain
03 No L.O.V.E.
04 Boy
05 What I Need
06 Down 4 U, Part II (feat. Lil' Fizz)
07 Won't Play The Game
08 Cherry Pie (Interlude)
09 Angel
10 Wanna Be
11 Deja Vu
12 Don't Walk Away
13 You Got Nerve
14 Dog (feat. Lil' Fizz)
15 Promise Ring
16 Rowdy
17 You Don't Know (feat. Needa S.)

The Dodos - Photo Album (1966)

One of the 1966 albums by the Dodos is entitled 'Photo Album', and it features twelve tracks, including six singles, and as always, all the singles are different to the album versions. The Dodos believed in quality and value for their fans! The album shows the boys progressions into their psychedelic phase, with such classics as 'The March Of The Lonely', 'Round About Way', and of course the epic closing number, 'One More Time (For Those In The Back)'. That doesn't mean they sacrificed melody, as shown by such numbers as 'Moon in Your Eyes', 'Outta Sight (Outta Mind)', and 'It Hurts'. All throughout, it's classic Dodos song-writing, but a bit more mature than their 1965 albums, and with a wider palate of colours to work with.

Track listing

01 Hot Fuzz
02 Round About Way
03 Moon In Your Eyes
04 Your Mother Said No
05 Tight Spaces
06 The March Of The Lonely
07 It Hurts
08 Anything That Isn't You
09 Big Ben
10 Outta Sight (Outta Time)
11 Night On The Sound
12 One More Time (For Those In The Back) 

Mike Solof - Off The Beatle Track - Episode 152 (2020)

I think its time for another dip into Mike Solof's Beatles-related radio shows, and this one is a bit different, as it doesn't feature The Beatles, but a band who many people seriously thought were The Beatles when their self-titled album appeared in 1976. With hindsight it's hard to believe that we ever really though that this was the reformed Beatles, for some unknown reason releasing a record under a pseudonym, but Mike's in depth investigation follows the clues, and it's a really enjoyable listen.

Track listing

01 Episode 152 - Klaatu: The Other Beatles

  

The Glass Menagerie - Run To The Sun (1969)

In August 1967 guitarist John Kendall and bassist John Medley left their band The Truth and teamed up with three ex-members of The Raging Storms, being Lou Stonebridge on vocals, Keith O'Connell on organ and Bill Atkinson in drums. Inspired by the new wave of progressive and psychedelic rock, they started out as a covers band, playing material by Blood, Sweat & Tears, The Doors, Traffic, The Lovin' Spoonful, and Jefferson Airplane, and they quickly gained a reputation and a strong following, and in 1968 they signed a deal with Pye Records. After they moved to London, O'Connell left the group to join Geno Washington's Ram Jam Band, and so Stonebridge took over on organ as well as vocals. Their fist single for Pye was a cover of The Rolling Stones' 'She's A Rainbow', which was released in April 1968, and they followed that in June with another cover, this time tackling The Lovin' Spoonful's 'You Didn't Have To Be So Nice'. For their third single they covered Harry Nilsson's I Said Goodbye To Me', and backed it with a John Medley original in 'Frederick Jordan', but despite all three records containing some excellent music, and enjoying decent airplay, none of them were hits. The band continued to build up a popular live following through constant touring, broadcasts on John Peel's 'Top Gear' radio show, and regular appearances at clubs like The Marquee. In 1969 the band moved to the Polydor Record label, where they released two singles, 'Have You Forgotten Who You Are' and 'Do My Thing Myself', and they also recorded an album, which was never released, possibly due to the lack of success of the singles. By the end of 1969, both Kendall and Medley felt that they were getting nowhere with the group and so left, and the remaining members recruited Tony Dangerfield as the new bassist, and they continued for another year as a three-piece, before finally folding in 1970. The unreleased album has never surfaced, but we can have a guess at what might have been included on it, and as some of their radio sessions have survived, we know the sort of material that they were playing in 1969, and so here is my attempt to piece together what a Glass Menagerie album could have sounded like if it had appeared in 1969. 

Track listing

01 I Said Goodbye To Me
02 That's When I Start To Love Her
03 Watching The World Pass By
04 Life Is Getting It Together
05 Have You Forgotten Who You Are
06 Chequebook Girl
07 Do You Ever Think
08 Let's All Run To The Sun
09 Frederick Jordan
10 Run Out Of Time
11 Do My Thing Myself
12 Putting It Off Till Another Day
13 She Came From Hell

This album is the perfect companion to a recent post on the albumsthatshouldexist site, as it includes all their singles, alongside a few sessions for the BBC.  

The 13th Floor Elevators - Bull Of The Woods (1969)

While the 13th Floor Elevators' debut album caught them as they were still buzzing with the excitement of their musical journey through inner space, and 'Easter Everywhere' found them exploring the possibilities of the recording studio as well as their own creative process, their final studio set, 1969's 'Bull Of The Woods', documented a band that was running out of steam. Legal problems were dogging the Elevators and preventing them from touring, they were justifiably unhappy with their record company, lead vocalist Roky Erickson was beginning to buckle under the group's steady diet of LSD, and lyricist and founder Tommy Hall was growing tired of the demands of the group after the difficult process of writing 'Easter Everywhere'. The album project commenced shortly after the completion of 'Easter Everywhere', and featured two bass players, with the 1968 line-up of Roky Erickson, Stacy Sutherland, Tommy Hall, Danny Thomas, and Duke Davis, with Ronnie Leatherman replacing Davis on some tracks. Only four songs feature Roky Erickson and Duke Davis, with the remaining seven tracks featuring only Sutherland, Thomas, and Leatherman, and so as a consequence, guitarist Stacy Sutherland became the de facto leader of the group during this period, writing most of the songs and singing lead on several numbers, and in his hands the 13th Floor Elevators were a very different band. Sutherland's compositions are more languid and pastoral than the material that dominated the first two albums, and while there's still a psychedelic undertow, Sutherland's music was gentler and his lyrics more solidly grounded in the real world than what he created in tandem with Erickson and Hall. At the same time, the record also showcases Sutherland's consistent strength as a guitarist, and his fluid lead lines and melodies rooted in country and blues figures are Texas psychedelic music at its purest and most refreshing, after the psychic roller coaster of the 13th Floor Elevators' first two albums. Unfortunately, the sessions for the album were recorded quickly, and producer Ray Rush overdubbed an incongruous horn section on several numbers at the insistence of International Artists Records, but even in compromised form, 'Bull Of The Woods' is a testament to Stacy Sutherland's talents and his often overlooked role in one of America's truly visionary rock bands. This version removes that overdubbed horn section, although as it was only present on a few of the tracks then this isn't a radical upgrade, but it's certainly worth a listen if you're a fan of the group. 

Track listing

01 Livin' On
02 Barnyard Blues
03 Til Then
04 Never Another
05 Rose And The Thorn
06 Down By The River
07 Scarlet And Gold
08 Street Song
09 Dr. Doom
10 With You
11 May The Circle Remain Unbroken

The Human Expression - Optical Sound (1967)

The Human Expression formed in 1966, with the members coming from Westminster, California, and Tustin, California.  Jim Quarles and Jim Foster began writing songs for the new band, and they started performing in local venues and school dances to create a more cohesive unit. After rehearsing for six months, they went to a recording studio and cut the demo recordings for their first single, eventually securing a recording contract with Los Angeles-based Accent Records. Although 'Every Night' was chosen as the A-side, the original flip, 'Readin' Your Will', was replaced with a song that is probably their best known recording, 'Love At Psychedelic Velocity'. Two more original compositions made up the second single, 'Optical Sound'/'Calm Me Down', but perhaps due to the slow sales of the band's own songs, their manager brought demos of two songs by then-unknown songwriter Mars Bonfire to the band to consider for their third single. They selected 'Sweet Child Of Nothingness' for their third release, to be backed with another original composition 'I Don't Need Nobody', turning down 'Born To Be Wild' in the process, as Quarles was not impressed with the song. Before the third single was released, lead guitarist Martin Eshleman injured his hand, when Tom Hamilton accidentally slammed a door on it, leaving Eshleman with severed tendons, forcing him to leave the band. Although a new guitarist was brought in, Quarles left almost immediately, and the band then fell apart. By that time they had recorded enough material to put together an album of their single sides plus a few demos, and so here is the best of The Human Expression from 1967.

Track listing

01 Love At Psychedelic Velocity
02 Outside Of It All
03 Every Night
04 Calm Me Down
05 Optical Sound
06 Your Mind Works In Reverse
07 Who Is Burning
08 Readin' Your Will
09 I Don't Need Nobody
10 You Need Lovin' Too
11 Sweet Child Of Nothingness
12 Following Me

Tweet - Love, Tweet (2008)

Charlene Keys was born on 21 January 1971), and is better known by the stage name Tweet. In the early 90's she Tweet joined the female trio Sugah, which comprised Tweet, Susan Weems, and Rolita White, and they were part of Devante Swing's Swing Mob collective. While there, she met Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott, with whom she formed a close friendship' leading to her appearing on Missy Elliott's platinum-selling third album, 'Miss E... So Addictive', being featured on one track and providing background vocals to another four. In March 2002 she released her debut solo single, 'Oops (Oh My)', which was produced by Timbaland and features guest vocals by Missy Elliott, and which hit number one on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs. In April 2002, Tweet released her debut album Southern 'Hummingbird', which featured Missy Elliott, Bilal, and Ms. Jade, and it reached number three on the Billboard 200 chart. In 2002 she appeared as a guest vocalist on a number of albums, including those from Trina, Meshell Ndegeocello, Karen Clark Sheard, Ms. Jade, and Whitney Houston. This continued throughout 2003, with appearance on records by Madonna, Monica, and Mark Ronson, and she also began recording songs for her follow-up to 'Southern Hummingbird'. The album was supposed to be released in early 2004, but was pushed back when Tweet moved from Elektra Entertainment Group to Atlantic Records, but she did release the single 'Turn Da Lights Off' that year, which was produced by Missy Elliott and Kwamé. In March 2005 her second album appeared, and 'It's Me Again' peaked at #17 on the Billboard album charts, before quickly falling out of the charts. 

She then broke away from her manager, Mona Scott, and Violator Management, and signed with Mathew Knowles of Music World, leading to her departing from Missy Elliott's Goldmind Inc. camp and signing to Jheryl Busby and Mike City's record label, Umbrella Recordings. There, she began recording material for her third album, along with producers Nisan Stewart, Warryn Campbell and Novel. Initially titled 'Love, Tweet', the album was preceded by the buzz single 'Good Bye My Dear', a collaboration with rapper T.I., it was expected to be released on 8 April 2008. The release of lead single 'Anymore' failed to materialize, however, and after a couple of years she grew tired of Umbrella's lack of promotion and ongoing delays to her releases, and so she left them and signed to MC Lyte's record label DuBose Music Group. In June 2012 she began posting previously unreleased material from the 'It's Me Again' and 'Love, Tweet' recording sessions on her new website, as a part of her weekly SoundCloud-hosted special, Tweet Tuesdays, and in 2013 DuBose did finally release her 'Simply Tweet' EP, which was recorded live with a full band. In July 2015, Tweet confirmed that she had signed with the independent eOne Music label, and her third album 'Charlene', was released in 2016, confirming that 'Love, Tweet' would never appear. This post is therefore made up of the tracks that she posted from both of her early album sessions, most of which would probably have appeared on the 'Love, Tweet' album, had it appeared in 2008 as intended. 

Track listing

01 I Just Wanna  
02 Remedy 
03 Everything  
04 Cruisin' 
05 Alone 
06 Trouble  
07 Anymore 
08 Love Again 
09 My Dear (feat. T.I.) 
10 I Admit It  
11 Real Lady 
12 Can't Live Without You (feat. Novel)  
13 See Ya
14 Whisper
15 Give It To Ya  

Mick Taylor - Special (1988)

In December 1974 Mick Taylor announced that he was leaving the Rolling Stones, coming as a shock to both the band and their fans. The Stones were due to start recording a new album in Munich, and the entire band was reportedly angry at Taylor for leaving at such short notice. After his resignation from the Stones, Taylor was invited by Jack Bruce to form a new band with keyboardist Carla Bley and drummer Bruce Gary, and in 1975 the band began rehearsals in London with tour dates scheduled for later that year. The group toured Europe, with a sound leaning more toward jazz, including a performance at the Dutch Pinkpop Festival, but disbanded the following year. In the summer of 1977, Taylor collaborated with Pierre Moerlen's Gong for the album 'Expresso II', released in 1978, and after that he began writing new songs and recruiting musicians for a solo album, working on projects with Miller Anderson, Alan Merrill and others. In 1977 Taylor signed a solo recording deal with Columbia Records, and his debut solo album, titled 'Mick Taylor', was finally released by Columbia Records in 1979 and reached No. 119 on the Billboard charts in early August. In 1981 he toured Europe and the United States with Alvin Lee of Ten Years After, sharing the bill with Black Sabbath, and he spent most of 1982 and 1983 on the road with John Mayall, for the "Reunion Tour" with John McVie of Fleetwood Mac and Colin Allen. 

It was to be another five years before Taylor ventured into the studio to record his second solo album, when in the spring of 1988 he gathered together Shayne Fontaine on second guitar, Wilbur Bascomb on bass and Bernhard Purdie on drums, and recorded nine new pieces. However, most of these songs never saw the light of day when the album was put on hold. although a few of them had been played live. The title track 'Special' is solid rocker with catchy slide guitar playing, while Bob Dylan's 'Blind Willie McTell' is heard for the first time in a studio version, with the song developing faster than Dylan's recorded version, but still with a great guitar solo that carries it away. 'Separately' was originally written by Keith Richards and Mick Taylor for the 'Goat's Head Soup' sessions in Jamaica, but is presented here with lyrics that were presumably written afterwards by Taylor himself. 'Red Shoes' is a Max Middleton composition that could have easily appeared on a late 70's Jeff Beck album, and the album closes with the emotionally charged instrumental 'Soliloquy'. It's not known why Taylor decided not to publish these songs in 1988 or shortly after, and fans had to wait another two years to get a proper second studio album, with 1990's 'Stranger In This Town', but we can now hear what Taylor was up to a couple of years before that came out.

Track listing

01 Special 
02 Going To Mexico 
03 Red Shoes 
04 Blind Willie McTell 
05 Separately 
06 The Blue Note Shuffle 
07 Downtown Broadway 
08 Soliloquy