Rick James Coming Into Your Life Again
Just a day after readying a deluxe edition of Meet the Supremes for the world, Hip-O Select comes through with a pair of out-of-print Rick James titles. Fire It Up (1979) and Garden of Love (1980) are both making their way to CD (the latter being pressed on CD for the first time) with a few bonus tracks. The original artwork will be replicated for each and complemented with liner notes by Yale music professor Michael Veal.
Links are here and here and full song specs are below.
Rick James – Fire It Up (originally released as Gordy G8-990M1, 1979)
- Fire It Up
- Love Gun
- Lovin’ You is a Pleasure
- Love in the Night
- Come into My Life
- Stormy Love
- When Love is Gone
- Love Gun (Extended Version) (12″ promo A-side – Motown PR-60, 1979) **
Rick James – Garden of Love (originally released as Gordy G8-995M1, 1980) **
- Big Time
- Don’t Give Up on Love
- Island Lady
- Gettin’ It On (in the Sunshine)
- Summer Love
- Mary Go Round
- Gettin’ It On (in the Sunshine) (Reprise) +
- Big Time (Extended M+M Mix) *
- Gypsy Girl (Demo) * ^
* previously unreleased
** previously unreleased on CD
+ newly extended version
^ this demo later became “Teardrops,” from Throwin’ Down (1982)
The Second Disc 
Don’t know why even Hip-O are saying that “Fire It Up” has never appeared on CD “in the US” as this album has most definitely never been released on CD anywhere. The only copies in existence are bootlegs currently being offered on Ebay by seller the.bet . They are pressed (silver) cds and the booklet is nice, even including the song lyrics, but the sound quality is not up to scratch. The seller is now offering bootleg copies of Garden of Love as well.
Anyway, I can’t wait for these truly remastered titles, been waiting for years for these. Here’s hoping Hip-O will release more Rick james product!
Rick
March 23, 2010 at 16:13