In Case You Missed It: Don’t Forget Glass Tiger’s Expanded Debut, New Compilation

The band themselves likely wouldn’t want it any other way, so we won’t forget to tell you about some relatively recent catalogue projects that just arrived up north from rock band Glass Tiger.

The Canadian rockers shot to fame in the mid-’80s with the irresistibly catchy “Don’t Forget Me (When I’m Gone).” With a synth-horn-fueled hook that could make the most stoic musician bop along, a dollop of perfect pop-rock production from co-writer Jim Vallance and an edgy vocal cameo from fellow Northern light Bryan Adams, “Don’t Forget Me” is one of the decade’s best buried treasures, topping the Canadian charts and peaking in the U.S. at No. 2. The album which held it, 1986’s The Thin Red Line, also yielded sizable North American hits in “Someday” and “I Will Be There,” Top 40 hits in America and Canada alike. Additionally, the band were nominated for a Best New Artist Grammy Award and won five Juno Awards in 1986 and 1987.

While the band’s subsequent albums, Diamond Sun (1988) and Simple Mission (1991) never held America’s attention as well as “Don’t Forget Me,” they were smash hits in their native country; Simple Mission spun off four Top 10 hits alone, including Top 5 tune “Animal Heart.” After a solo career, lead singer Alan Frew reunited with his bandmates (save for original drummer Michael Hanson) in the 2000s, and Glass Tiger remains a strong Canadian live act.

The group, partnering with EMI Canada, has taken 2012 to both look back and forward with two new catalogue titles. The first is a deluxe anniversary edition of The Thin Red Line, featuring new artwork and a bonus disc of archival B-sides, remixes and unreleased demos. Some of that material, including a new, stripped-down version of the title track, appears on Then…NOW…Next, a new Glass Tiger compilation featuring singles from the band’s three Capitol albums, two tracks from lead singer Alan Frew’s 1994 solo disc Hold On and four new tracks, including Frew’s solo acoustic take on The Beatles’ “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away.”

The deluxe Thin Red Line snuck up on us back in June, while Then…NOW…Next hit stores this Tuesday, August 21. Hit the jump to order both of them and check out the track lists!

The Spinners’ Rare Motown Sides Can Be “Truly Yours” On New Compilation, Reviewed Here!

It’s a shame the way The Spinners’ Motown catalogue has been overlooked in the CD era, and quite frankly, for all time.  The group exploded in popularity under the aegis of producer/arranger/composer Thom Bell at Atlantic Records in 1972, with their first three singles all hitting No. 1 R&B and Top 20 Pop (two went Top 10 Pop).  But The Spinners had been making sweet music since 1954 and recording since at least 1961, and made Motown their home since the folding of Harvey Fuqua’s Tri-Phi Records in 1963.  Now, the earliest days of the beloved soul group is chronicled thanks to the latest release in Kent Records’ splendid, ongoing Motown series, with Truly Yours: Their First Motown Album with Bonus Tracks.

Truly Yours is, in fact, an expanded edition of The Spinners’ debut long-player for Motown, 1967’s The Original Spinners.  Despite the release date, its songs dated back as far as 1961, and was a compendium of the group’s work up through that date.  The Original Spinners has never been on CD before, and Kent has generously expanded it with fourteen bonus tracks, more than doubling the original twelve-song line-up.  Ten of these fourteen songs are previously unissued.  This isn’t the complete early Spinners; compiler and annotator Keith Hughes notes that over 30 unreleased tracks were whittled down to the fourteen selected for this disc.  Perhaps the rest will emerge on an expanded edition of The Spinners’ second and final Motown album, 1970’s 2nd Time Around?

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, however.  The 26 tracks here from tenor Bobby (sometimes spelled “Bobbie”) Smith, tenor Chico Edwards, baritone Henry Fambrough, bass Pervis Jackson and tenor Billy Henderson are essential to any soul collector.  (Fambrough and Smith, for the record, still perform as part of The Spinners today.)  The Original Spinners, and therefore this disc, contains all eight sides from the Spinners’ first four singles, plus the original 1961 Tri-Phi label recording “That’s What Girls Are Made For” and three “new” songs.  When Harvey Fuqua and then-wife Gwen Gordy closed Tri-Phi and migrated to her brother Berry’s Motown family, The Spinners were among the acts selected by Berry to join the roster.

We’ll be around, right after the jump!