Release Round-Up: Week of March 26

Stephen Stills, Carry On (Rhino)

The “S” in “CSNY” finally gets his own career-spanning box set, a four-disc affair with a couple dozen rare and unreleased tracks and a whole lot of great songs to boot. (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

Gene Clark, Here Tonight: The White Light Demos (Omnivore)

A dozen tracks of early ’70s demos from the former Byrd, which laid the framework for his first album of that decade. (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

Iron Maiden, Maiden England ’88 (UMe)

A quarter-century after Maiden toured behind Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, the original concert video chronicling the tour has been painstakingly remastered and expanded with unreleased performances and treasures from the band’s video vault. A double-disc presentation of the concert is also available on CD and vinyl.

2DVD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
2CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
2LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

Steve Forbert, Alive on Arrival/Jackrabbit Slim: Special Anniversary Edition (Blue Corn Music)

This two-disc set expands the first two albums by the “Romeo’s Tune” troubadour with unreleased outtakes. (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

Wendy & Lisa, Wendy & Lisa: Expanded Edition (Cherry Pop)

Prince may have split up The Revolution, but this 1987 debut LP from two of his most famous collaborators is worth your time. U.K. label Cherry Pop appends a few bonus remixes and new liner notes on this version. (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

Country Joe & The Fish, Electric Music for the Mind and Body (Ace)

Not only available for the first time on CD, but available for the first time since its original release: the original mono and stereo mixes of San Francisco’s first psychedelic long-player on two discs. (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

Tandyn Almer, Along Comes Tandyn (Sundazed)

He penned “Along Comes Mary” for The Association and collaborated with Brian Wilson, but the late Tandyn Almer is only now getting his due with the premiere commercial release of this 1967 demo LP pressed to turn artists on to his precious pop.

CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

Sweet As The Punch: “Along Comes” Songs of Tandyn Almer

If you don’t know the name of Tandyn Almer, you likely do know his Top 10 pop hit “Along Comes Mary,” so memorably recorded by The Association in 1966.  And you just might know two of the songs on which he shared songwriting credit with a certain Brian Wilson, “Marcella” and “Sail On, Sailor.”  But the only commercial release to have carried Almer’s name as artist has long been a 1970 Warner Bros. single, “Degeneration Gap” b/w “Snippin’ the Silver Chord.”  The Sundazed label changes all that with the March 26 release of Along Comes Tandyn on both CD and LP.

Though “Along Comes Mary” represented Almer’s commercial peak, he didn’t exactly disappear.  He was far too unique a songwriter for that; in fact, none other than Leonard Bernstein had interviewed Almer as one of the up-and-coming rock musicians profiled on his 1967 Inside Pop: The Rock Revolution television documentary.  (This was the same program that featured Brian Wilson at the piano, powerfully introducing SMiLE’s “Surf’s Up” to an unsuspecting world.)  Almer, who died on January 8 of this year, lived a quiet life by most accounts.  But it was a colorful one.  He wrote songs recorded by Sagittarius and The Ballroom, once served as a staff songwriter for A&M Records, produced songs for artists including The Purple Gang, and apparently even devised a rather effective waterpipe once described as “the perfect bong.”   In his later years, he contributed songs to Washington, DC’s annual political revue Hexagon, and also wrote “fake books” with arrangements of popular hits.

The fifteen songs on Along Comes Tandyn were written and recorded in Almer’s heyday for a demo LP released by Almer’s music publisher, Davon Music.  The purpose of the album was to garner recordings of the songs from other artists, but the album reveals more of the musical mastery of Almer himself.  Sundazed describes its musical contents as follows: “Included within this demonstration disc is the nasty, buzzing fuzztone and haunting vocals of The Purple Gang’s version of ‘Bring Your Own Self Down,’ the engaging Pop feel of ‘Find Yourself,’ the smooth groove of ‘Anything You Want’ and ‘Victims of Chance’ (recorded as an instrumental by L.A. jazz combo The Afro Blues Quintet), along with the straight-ahead Folk-Rock of ‘About Where Love Is’ and ‘Sunset Strip Soliloquy’ – the latter about the atmosphere which led to the demonstrations of late ’66.”

After the jump: more including the track listing and pre-order links!