Closing Time: Morello Reissues Lacy J. Dalton’s Final Two Columbia Albums

Continuing its reissue series drawn from her catalogue, Cherry Red’s Morello Records has recently released a twofer collecting Lacy J. Dalton’s Highway Diner and Blue Eyed Blues.  Dalton’s tenure at Columbia spanned eight albums and two greatest hits compilation between 1980 and 1987.  Morello has previously collected Dalton’s middle period at the label with twofer of Takin’ It Easy and 16th Avenue (Morello Records CD MRLL33).  This release closes out her time at the label with her final two albums under the Columbia banner.

Lacy J. Dalton was born as Jill Byrem in 1948 in Pennsylvania.   Following her musical muse, she eventually ended up in San Francisco in the latter part of the 1960s performing psychedelic rock with a band known as Office.  She married the band’s manager, becoming Jill Croston, but he sadly died in an accident.  Deciding to reinvent herself as a country singer, Croston adopted the name Lacy J. Dalton.  Her demo was heard by Billy Sherrill, the influential country producer who had worked with George Jones and Tammy Wynette.  He liked what he heard and Dalton was signed to Columbia Records in 1979.

Dalton’s first single was “Crazy Blue Eyes” which hit No. 17 on the U.S. Country charts.  The song was included on her eponymous debut which also featured two additional Top 20 Country hits:  “The Tennessee Waltz” and “Losing Kind of Love.”  Adding to her strong start at Columbia, she was also named “Best New Female Vocalist” at the 1979 Country Music Association Awards.  Dalton hit the country Top 10 for the first time with the No. 7 placing title track off of Hard Times from 1980 and achieved her highest charting Country single at No. 2 with 1982’s “Takin’ It Easy” off the album of the same name.

By the time of 1986’s Highway Diner, Dalton had decided to go back to her roots and add more rock and R&B to her music, similar to Bonnie Raitt.  The album was produced by Walt Aldridge (writer of Ronnie Milsap’s “(There’s) No Getting Over Me” and Earl Thomas Conley’s “Holding Her and Loving You”) and recoded at the venerable Fame Recording Studio in Alabama.   “Working Class Man” and “This Ol’ Town” were released as singles and peaked at No. 16 and No. 33 on the Country charts.  The album itself got to No. 32 on the Country LP charts.

Dalton’s last album for Columbia was 1987’s Blue Eyed Blues.  Following a pattern for many end-of- contract affairs, the album mixed new tracks with previously released material.  The new material consisted of the two songs “Have I Got a Heart For You” and “I’ll Love Them Whatever They Are.”  Four tracks were included from her previous albums (“Blue Eyed Blues,” Hillbilly Girl With the Blues,” “16th Avenue” and “My Old Yellow Car”). Duets with Bobby Bare, George Jones, David Allan Coe and Earl Scruggs rounded out the LP.  These songs had originally appeared on albums and singles by the duet partners.

Continue Lacy’s story after the jump!  Plus: the track listing with discography and order links!

Let’s Pretend: Edsel Unveils Deluxe Multi-Disc Reissues For Pretenders’ Catalogue

Edsel isn’t just playing pretend.  On February 16, 2015, the Demon Music Group label will reissue all eight albums from The Pretenders as originally released by the Warner Bros. family of labels between 1979 and 1999 as deluxe editions.  (Or: that’s to say 8/10, or 4/5, of the entire Pretenders discography!  Only two albums have arrived since 1999, in 2002 and 2008.)  Every one of the eight titles is housed in a digipak, with six of the titles as 2-CD/1-DVD sets and two as 1-CD/1-DVD sets.

These “everything but the kitchen sink” reissues will bring together B-sides, live tracks, soundtrack one-off recordings (for films including The Living Daylights, Fever Pitch, G.I. Jane, Indecent Proposal and Boys on the Side), demos, promotional videos and BBC-TV appearances (most of which have never been commercially released) for the English-American band founded in 1978 by Chrissie Hynde, James Honeyman-Scott, Pete Farndon and Martin Chambers.  The DVDs feature 30 rare BBC performances, 21 promo videos and the complete 18-track Isle of View concert. The material first issued on Rhino’s expanded reissues of the group’s first four albums has been included, as have rare tracks from the Pirate Radio box set.  The Pretenders made their first splash in February 1979 with their debut single, a cover of Ray Davies’ “Stop Your Sobbing” produced by Nick Lowe. By the time their Chris Thomas-helmed debut LP arrived in January 1980, the band’s third single “Brass in Pocket” was on its way to No. 1 in the United Kingdom.  The album would reach that plateau as well.  (It reached the Top 15 of the U.S. Pop chart, and the album made the Top 10.)

After the jump, we have more details including the complete track listings for all eight multi-disc sets and pre-order links!