Rick Nelson, Mark Lindsay, McGough and McGear (with Hendrix and McCartney!) Are Real Gone In February

With another month comes another slate of rare music on both CD and vinyl from one of the real up-and-comers in the reissue biz, Real Gone Music!  The label’s February centerpieces just might be Rick Nelson’s The Complete Epic Recordings and Mark Lindsay’s The Complete Columbia Singles, but those two releases are being joined by titles from Sean (T.S.) Bonniwell, McGough and McGear, Eddie Hazel and the girls of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller’s Red Bird label on CD, plus Hank Thompson on vinyl!  The titles will arrive in two waves, on February 21 and February 28.

The Complete Columbia Singles of Mark Lindsay follows a similar 2010 Collectors’ Choice Music release for Paul Revere and the Raiders, the band with which Lindsay made his name as both lead vocalist and saxophonist!  Lindsay’s solo collection will include every A- and B-side released on Columbia (including the smash hit “Arizona”), plus a previously unissued rendition of Tim Hardin’s “Reason to Believe,” originally planned as the flip of the singer’s debut single.  The first five tracks are in mono, and the balance in stereo, and the songs are presented in chronological order.  Ed Osborne contributes new liner notes, drawing on interviews with Lindsay, songwriter Jerry Fuller, arranger Artie Butler and singer Tom Bahler.  The Complete Columbia Singles arrives February 28.

On the complete albums front, Real Gone is also compiling Rick Nelson’s Epic Records period.  Although Nelson recorded three albums’ worth of material at Epic, only one LP was released during the singer’s lifetime, 1977’s Intakes.  Musical renaissance man Al Kooper produced the intended follow-up, Back to Vienna, but the album collected dust on the Epic shelf, while Rockabilly Renaissance – a commercial prospect if there ever was one, with Nelson returning to his musical roots – was posthumously overdubbed.  Although the original albums have all seen the light of day in the compact disc age, The Complete Epic Recordings, due out February 28, will mark the American debut of 11 of its 41 tracks.  James Ritz has produced and written the liner notes, while Rockabilly Renaissance was restored to its original format by Bear Family’s Richard Weize.

With Paul McCartney releasing his latest studio album, Kisses on the Bottom, in time for Valentine’s Day in February, it might also be a good month to spread the love to Macca’s younger brother Mike, a.k.a. Mike McGear.  Roger McGough and Mike McGear were two-thirds of the Scaffold, the comedy/rock band remembered for U.K. No. 4 hit “Thank U Very Much” and chart-topper “Lily the Pink.”   The duo’s eponymous 1967 album on the Parlophone label welcomed a “Who’s Who” of rock royalty: John Mayall, Spencer Davis, Paul Samwell-Smith, Graham Nash, brother Paul, and even Jimi Hendrix, whose searing guitar lights up two tracks!  McGough & McGear makes its long-overdue American CD debut, with new liner notes by Richie Unterberger, on February 21.

Hit the jump for more releases from Eddie Hazel, Sean Bonniwell and Hank Thompson, plus the girls of Leiber and Stoller’s Red Bird Records label!