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Hey there Sorry Staters! Thanks for checking us out this week. We hope we find you well? It’s been another full and exciting week here at Sorry State. We continued to put more of the great records from our recent big collection purchase into your hands. Folks have been loving all these nice clean promo copies, especially all the copies still in the shrink with the hype stickers. You’d need a time machine to go back and find fresher looking copies. Still plenty more being added to the shop bins and our online stores.
This week saw the delivery of test pressings for the second Fugitive Bubble record, and we are all buzzing. It sounds great. Nice job, guys. Judging by responses from customers hearing it in the store, we think it should be a hit with a lot of you out there. Fingers crossed.
I was happy to finally get my hands on a copy of the Alvilda record, which has proved to be a hot nugget. Congratulations to the band and their label Static Shock on the hit. If you are still needing a copy for yourself, I believe we have secured more, and they should be with us soon. Keep an eye out and click on the notification update button by the record description on our webstore so you don’t miss out.
My personal listening has again been taken up with checking out more of the jazz albums we purchased in that big collection. This week I added a box of Pablo Jazz titles to our inventory, and although these 70s era jazz dates aren’t considered as desirable as some others, there is plenty of gold to be mined in these records. I am a huge Dizzy Gillespie fan and he cut some great progressive records for Pablo. He was an originator of the fusion of jazz with Afro-Cuban sounds and thirty-plus years later, he was still ahead of the curve. I have long been aware of how hip and funky Dizzy was in the 70s. His records on Perception are terrific, but for whatever reason I hadn’t heard all these later 1970s recordings. I’d highly recommend checking out one called Bahiana and another titled Afro-Cuban Jazz Moods. Both are terrific and feature wonderful playing from Dizzy and the assembled musicians. John Scott and I played one in the store that featured Dizzy alongside Lalo Schifrin, the wonderful pianist and composer from Argentina who has a resume as long as both my arms, but will be recognized as being the composer of soundtracks to films such as Bullitt, Dirty Harry, Enter The Dragon and for the original theme to TV show Starsky And Hutch. He has a ton of good records that typically incorporate Latin rhythms and styles, and he often gets funky. The one we listened to is called Free Ride and it was cut in early 1977. Worth checking out.
A lot of the best stuff we get at the store comes from the discerning taste of you, our friends, who will occasionally sell or trade with us. This week several interesting pieces came to us this way, and I thought I would stray from my jazz picks and talk about one record I had to pluck from a collection I was processing. It’s a repress of a record called Yes It Is, by Rockin’ Horse, that was originally released in the UK back in 1971 on Philips. This repress was done by a Spanish label a few years back. I can’t comment on how legit or not it may be, but they did a decent enough job, and it sounds fine. No extra bells and whistles, just a close repro of the original.
I was aware of this record from a CD reissue about twenty years ago and because by that time I was a fan of the main players and artists behind the album, namely Jimmy Campbell and Billy Kinsley. Both are from Liverpool and are rightfully considered legendary among those who dig 60s Merseybeat, Pop and Psych. Billy Kinsley is best known for being a member of the Merseybeats and then with band mate Tony Crane in The Merseys, who had a hit with the song Sorrow, later covered by David Bowie. Jimmy Campbell began with the beat group The Kirkbys, named after their locale in Merseyside. They put out a cracking song called It’s A Crime that demands top dollar on the collector’s circuit. I made do with a repro at DJ gigs in the past and always enjoyed spinning it out. Campbell later formed a psych group called The 23rd Turnoff, again a nod to their hometown. When driving up north on the M-6, Liverpool was the 23rd turnoff. Get it? Anyway, they released a nice pop-sike single called Michael Angelo that should have been a hit and a whole bunch of other songs that didn’t see the light of day until years later. There are a few different LP, CD and 7” EPs out there that gather up all these recordings. I have a CD which is cool, but it would be nice to pick up one or two of these other versions as there are improved fidelity and alternates on one or two songs.
Jimmy and Billy formed Rockin’ Horse in 1971 and put a band together to record just this one album. Label Philips also issued two singles. The group was purely a studio creation. Kinsley had been working for Apple Records, recording with Jackie Lomax and George Harrison, and was keeping busy recording cover versions of hit songs for the popular Top Of The Pops budget series of albums. The idea behind Rockin’ Horse was to say goodbye to the mop top sixties and usher in a more rocking seventies.
The album has been described as a continuation of the sound of Abbey Road and Let It Be by The Beatles and a missing link between Badfinger, The Aerovons and the power pop sounds of later 1970s groups. It certainly has that vibe, and if that’s what floats your boat you’ll find plenty to like here. I know the term power pop can turn some people off, but there is enough pedigree and good songwriting to make this an enjoyable listen. I’m obviously biased to begin with, having known and liked the artists previously, and am not afraid to say I like The Beatles and Badfinger and the like. But it really is a decent record. Naturally, it sunk without trace on release and its creators had already moved on to other ventures. Jimmy and Billy were part of the backing band for Chuck Berry’s European tour and then began working on their separate projects. Kinsley formed Liverpool Express and had success, particularly in South America.
Campbell released more solo albums. He had previously recorded an acoustic folk record at the tail end of the 60s for the Fontana label and after Rockin’ Horse had a couple of good ones on Vertigo and again Philips. I remember whilst working in the store in New York a guy selling us a box of sealed copies of Jimmy’s album Half Baked, which was cool. I like the song Green Eyed American Actress from that record, which has a bit more of a groove to it compared to the more folky and pop sounds of the rest of the album.
Whilst looking online for information about Rockin’ Horse. I discovered that an unreleased song called Lonely Norman had been issued as a reissue single recently. It’s a good tune and features Eddy Grant of The Equals on lead guitar. I shall have to find myself a copy of that at some point, I think. Meanwhile, there is plenty to enjoy for me on the album. Opener Biggest Gossip In Town is a great Beatlesque pop song. Closer Julian The Hooligan is a cool rocking one, and the love song Don’t You Think I Ever Cry is terrific also. Honestly, there isn’t a duff tune on the whole record. Jimmy Campbell writes most of the songs, with Billy Kinsley penning the remaining, making it an all-original song affair.
I’ve added a few YouTube links to some tunes for you to check them out. It doesn’t appear that the whole album is available, although I could be wrong. Regardless, these four songs should give you all you need to know and a decent taste of what to find on the rest of the album should you care.
Thanks for reading and a big thank you to Jordan who sold us his copy. I’m going to have to snag this copy, but it seems like the reissues are cheap and easy to find, although an original might set you back a little more.
Cheers - Dom