Review: Vanilla Fudge, “The Complete Atco Singles”

It’s hard to believe that Real Gone Music’s The Complete Atco Singles (RGM-0239, 2014) is the first such overview for Vanilla Fudge. Between 1966 and 1970, the Long Island quartet delivered heavy riff-rock that bridged the gap between psychedelia and the nascent hard rock form that would come to be known as heavy metal, transforming popular songs with a raw, visceral, punch-in-the-gut sound. This tasty, single-disc collection brings together every one of the 18 sides released on the Atco label during the first reign of Fudge and the band’s brief eighties comeback, plus one bonus track. Atco made a specialty of editing the lengthy recordings by Mark Stein (vocals/organ), Carmine Appice (drums), Tim Bogert (bass) and Vinny Martell (guitar) for 45 RPM release. So these palatable, radio-friendly singles have a very different character than the album versions which frequently bookended the core melodies with heavy, bluesy  (and deliciously indulgent) jams. Every track here except the two sides from 1984 is heard in its original mono single mix.

Vanilla Fudge announced itself in 1967 with the forceful but deliberate attack that opens the searing reinvention of “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” from debut album Vanilla Fudge. Light years away from The Supremes’ urgent but smoothly crystalline original from just one year earlier, the Fudge’s dark take on the Holland/Dozier/Holland song wasn’t right for the Summer of Love. Its initial release stalled at No. 67 Pop. But much could, and did, change in one year. When Atco reissued the single in 1968, it reached No. 6. “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” naturally opens Real Gone’s anthology, and if it’s hard to top, the band kept its singles varied with a blend of rearranged covers and psychedelic originals.

The B-side of “Hangin’ On,” “Take Me for a Little While,” is far less radical blue-eyed soul with a powerful punch thanks to the rumble of Appice’s thunderous drums. Its thick, dark sound was brightened by the group’s capable harmony vocals, and you’ll hear frequently hear echoes here of the group’s Long Island brethren like The Rascals and The Hassles. With producers including George “Shadow” Morton, Vanilla Fudge curated quite a collection of diverse material. Their stark, ethereal reading of Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s “The Look of Love” was played straightforward but featured minor lyric changes; more radical was a lengthy version (split into two parts for single release) of Donovan’s “The Season of the Witch.” Morton, no stranger to musical drama thanks to his work with groups such as The Shangri-Las, suggested the song, intuiting that it was a natural for the slow, eerie, and trippy treatment. (Part II of the single features Morton melodramatically intoning “We Never Learn,” a poem by the cult favorite singer-songwriter Essra Mohawk.)

“Season of the Witch” from 1968’s Renaissance is the final single here produced by Morton, who helmed the band’s first three long-players. The group members picked up the production slack for 1969’s From the Beginning, which spawned a fast and furious, amped-up reworking of Jr. Walker and the All-Stars’ “Shotgun.” Especially as edited from over six minutes in length to just two-and-a-half, it’s a pure blast of adrenaline. Lee Hazlewood’s cryptic opus “Some Velvet Morning” followed “Shotgun” on Near the Beginning – and indeed it was back to basics for the group with this slowed-down take on Lee and Nancy’s haunting tale of Phaedra. Though it was unedited for its commercial single release, a promotional DJ single cut “Velvet Morning” down to three minutes, and it’s included here as a bonus track.

There’s more Fudge to chew on after the jump!

Release Round-Up: Week of April 29

Grace Jones, Nightclubbing: Deluxe Edition (Island/UMe)

Pull back up to the bumper with a generously expanded version of the almighty Jones’ most beloved album.

2CD: Amazon U.K.
1CD: Amazon U.S.
2LP:  Amazon U.K. / Amazon U.S.
Blu-Ray Audio: Amazon U.K. / Amazon U.S.

Diana Ross & The Supremes, Sing and Perform Funny Girl: Expanded Edition (Motown Select)

A digital-only expansion of The Supremes’ 1968 album of the Jule Styne-Bob Merrill musical, featuring the original LP alongside a brand-new remix and a pair of live cuts. (Amazon U.S.)

Funny Girl: Original Broadway Cast Recording – 50th Anniversary Edition (Capitol/UMe)

Speaking of which, the original cast album – featuring the one and only Barbra Streisand – is also reissued today as a CD/LP set with a deluxe book! (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys, Riding Your Way — The Lost Transcriptions for Tiffany Music, 1946-1947 / Vanilla Fudge, The Complete ATCO Singles / Rick Wakeman, White Rock / X, Under the Big Black Sun: Expanded & Remastered Edition / Cannonball Adderley, The Black Messiah

The latest Real Gone slate is quite the eclectic one! Read all about it here.

Bob Wills: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
Vanilla Fudge: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
Rick Wakeman: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
X: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. (TBD)
Cannonball Adderley: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

Rush, Rush: ReDISCovered Box Set (Mercury/UMe)

A deluxe recreation of the Canadian legends’ first album on vinyl. (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

Cassandra Wilson, Blue Light ‘Til Dawn: 20th Anniversary Edition (Blue Note/UMe)

The neo-blues vocalist’s breakthrough album, featuring stirring interpretations of tracks by Robert Johnson, Van Morrison, Joni Mitchell and others, is reissued with three unreleased live tracks. (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

Taylor Dayne, Can’t Fight Fate / Soul Dancing: Deluxe Editions (Cherry Pop)

The ’80s dance diva’s second and third albums are expanded as two-disc sets with plenty of rare and unreleased remixes and B-sides, plus an all-new remastering for each original album.

Can’t Fight Fate: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
Soul Dancing: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

The Cryan Shames, A Scratch in the Sky: Deluxe Expanded Mono Edition (Now Sounds)

Now Sounds presents the Chicago band’s 1967 sunshine pop-flavored album for the first time on CD in mono, adding a plethora of bonus tracks! Joe’s full review is coming soon! (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

Silver Convention, Save Me / The Salsoul Orchestra, Up the Yellow Brick Road / How High (Big Break Records)

Joe’s full writes-ups on three more Salsoul/BBR reissues are coming soon!

Save Me: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
Up the Yellow Brick Road: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
How High: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

Real Gone Unearths 5th Dimension, Vanilla Fudge and More for Late April

Real Gone Music isn’t letting up, with six heavy-hitting reissues announced for an April 29 release, including compilations for Vanilla Fudge and The 5th Dimension, long-lost recordings by Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys and more!

We’ve already told you about RGM’s plans to release 10 tracks from the band’s famed radio-only “Tiffany Transcriptions” – four of which won’t be available on any other release – as a Record Store Day exclusive. A two-disc, 50-track set of those recordings from 1946-1947 will be available in the label’s latest release batch. So, too, will a single-disc set of Vanilla Fudge’s complete single sides for Atco Records, Yes keyboardist Rick Wakeman’s soundtrack for the 1976 Olympics documentary White Rock, an expansion of punk titans X’s 1982 album Under the Big Black Sun and jazz saxophonist Cannonball Adderley’s long-out-of-print live double album Black Messiah from 1970.

If we can allow our biases to show for just a second, our most anticipated release of this batch is handily The 5th Dimension’s Earthbound: The Complete ABC Recordings. The psychedelic group was best known for their works on Soul City and Bell, of course, but this final album of the original band’s from 1975 is ripe for rediscovery. And what better way to help rediscover this period than with new liner notes from The Second Disc’s own Joe Marchese? These liners, a perfect sequel to Joe’s work for Real Gone’s reissued soundtracks to Together? and Toomorrow and Keith Allison’s forthcoming In Action: The Complete Columbia Sides Plus, include brand-new interviews he conducted with Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis, Jr. – and I’ll say it again: in this writer’s humble opinion, there are fewer writers who’d approach this project with as much professionalism and unencumbered enthusiasm.  This title is now scheduled for June 3, 2014 release.

So make sure you keep your eyes peeled for these new sets, all of which – save Earthbound – are due on April 29. Hit the jump for the full press release and Amazon links!

Baby, It’s Burt: “The Warner Sound” and “The Atlantic Sound” Compile Rare Bacharach Tracks

In his 85th year, Burt Bacharach has kept a pace that would wear out many a younger man.  In addition to performing a number of concert engagements, the Oscar, Grammy and Gershwin Prize-winning composer has released a memoir, continued work on three musical theatre projects, co-written songs with Bernie Taupin and J.D. Souther, and even penned a melody for Japanese singer Ringo Sheena.  Though Bacharach keeps moving forward, numerous releases this year have looked back on his illustrious catalogue.  Universal issued The Art of the Songwriter in 6-CD and 2-CD iterations to coincide with the publication of his memoir, Real Gone Music rescued his three sublime “lost” 1974 productions for Dionne Warwick from obscurity, and Warner Music Japan reissued the near-entirety of Warwick’s Scepter and Warner Bros. tenures under the umbrella of Burt Bacharach 85th Birth Anniversary/Dionne Warwick Debut 50th Anniversary.  Two more titles have recently been added to that Japanese reissue series: The Atlantic Sound of Burt Bacharach and The Warner Sound of Burt Bacharach.  These 2-CD anthologies are both packed with rarities and familiar songs alike for a comprehensive overview of the Maestro’s recordings on the Warner family of labels.

The Warner Sound of Burt Bacharach is the more wide-ranging compilation of the two, drawing on recordings made not just for Warner Bros. Records but for Valiant, Festival, Elektra, Reprise, Scepter, and foreign labels like Italy’s CDG and Sweden’s Metronome.  This 2-CD set is arranged chronologically, with the first CD covering 1962 (Dionne Warwick’s “Don’t Make Me Over,” her only appearance on the set) to 1978 (Nicolette Larson’s “Mexican Divorce”), and the second taking in 1981 (Christopher Cross’ Oscar-winning chart-topper “Arthur’s Theme”) to 2004 (Tamia and Gerald Levert’s “Close to You”).

On the Elektra label, Love scored a hit with “My Little Red Book,” presented here in its mono single version.  The composer didn’t care for the band’s melodic liberties, but the Sunset Strip rockers’ version is today better known than the Manfred Mann original.  From the Reprise catalogue, you’ll hear the great arranger Marty Paich with a swinging instrumental version of “Promise Her Anything,” a genuine Bacharach and David rocker originally recorded by Tom Jones.  Trini Lopez’s groovy “Made in Paris” is also heard in its mono single version.  Morgana King is sultry on a Don Costa arrangement of “Walk On By.”  Buddy Greco delivers a hip “What the World Needs Now,” and Tiny Tim makes the same song his own.  Ella Fitzgerald puts her stamp on “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again,” produced like Tiny Tim’s “World” by Richard Perry.  Another production great, Wall of Sound architect Jack Nitzsche, brings a touch of class to the Paris Sisters’ dreamy “Long After Tonight is All Over.”

Numerous tracks on the first CD come from the worldwide Warner vaults.  The two stars of the original Italian production of Promises, Promises – Catherine Spaak and Johnny Dorelli – are heard in their beautiful, low-key performance of “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again” as released on the CDG label.  The Sweden Metronome label yields Svante Thuresson’s “This Guy’s In Love with You,” Siw Malmkvist’s “I Say a Little Prayer,” and one of the strangest songs in Bacharach and David’s entire catalogue, “Cross Town Bus” as sung by the Gals and Pals in English.  Australia’s Festival label – the original home of the Bee Gees – has been tapped for Noeleen Batley’s “Forgive Me (For Giving You Such a Bad Time)” and Jeff Phillips’ “Baby It’s You.”  The treasures on the Warner Bros. label proper are just as eclectic, from Liberace’s gentle “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head” to The Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band’s torrid “I Wake Up Crying.”  Harpers Bizarre’s “Me Japanese Boy (I Love You),” with an atmospheric Nick DeCaro arrangement, is another highlight.  The Everly Brothers truncated Bacharach’s melody to “Trains and Boats and Planes” but their harmony blend is at its peak in a 1967 recording.

The second disc of The Warner Sound emphasizes latter-day R&B as Bacharach branched out with a variety of lyricists.  Chaka Khan is heard on “Stronger Than Before” by Bacharach and Carole Bayer Sager;  Earth Wind and Fire on “Two Hearts” co-written with Philip Bailey and Maurice White; Tevin Campbell on “Don’t Say Goodbye Girl” co-written with Narada Michael Walden and Sally Jo Dakota; and Randy Crawford on “Tell It To Your Heart” from Bacharach and Tonio K.  Mari Ijima’s original version of “Is There Anybody Out There” – penned by Bacharach, John Bettis, James Ingram and Puff Johnson – is a welcome surprise; the song was recorded in 2012 by Dionne Warwick on her Now album.  Ingram is also heard with “Sing for the Children.”  On the 1993 track, co-producer/arranger Thom Bell channeled Bacharach’s classic flugelhorn sound to great effect.  Old favorites are also revisited and reinterpreted on this disc via Everything But the Girl’s “Alfie,” The Pretenders’ “The Windows of the World,” Linda Ronstadt’s “Anyone Who Had a Heart,” Anita Baker’s “The Look of Love,” guitarist Earl Klugh’s “Any Old Time of Day” and frequent Bacharach collaborator Elvis Costello’s “Please Stay.”  With big hits (“Arthur’s Theme”) alongside rarely-anthologized gems (the George Duke-produced “Let Me Be the One” performed by Marilyn Scott), there’s something for everybody here.

After the jump: check out The Atlantic Sound of Burt Bacharach!  Plus: track listings with discography and order links for both titles!

Out of the Shadow(s): Morton’s Story Features Shangri-Las, Vanilla Fudge, New York Dolls

A scrappy street fighter with a knack for teenage melodrama, George “Shadow” Morton lived with a “self-invented mythology,” in the words of Jerry Leiber.  But his work with The Shangri-Las, Janis Ian, The New York Dolls and many more solidified Morton’s place as a real-life “leader of the pack.”  Ace’s new anthology Sophisticated Boom Boom: The Shadow Morton Story (CDTOP 1369) brings the songwriter and producer out of the shadow and into the (spot)light.

In a 1968 Time Magazine blurb:, Morton once claimed, “I am the greatest producer in the business.  I am also an egomaniac.”  But whether it was ego or a pure creative spark driving him, Morton was responsible for some of the most vivid records to emerge out of the 1960s.  Expertly compiled and annotated by Mick Patrick, Sophisticated Boom Boom plucks 24 tracks from Morton’s career as a producer, a songwriter or both.  Presented chronologically and accompanied by nearly 40 pages of Patrick’s liner notes, this is the definitive account of the man’s musical history.

Think of Shadow Morton and the group that usually comes to mind is the Shangri-Las, so it’s no surprise that four tracks from the Mary Weiss-led quartet feature here.  What is surprising, however, is that “Leader of the Pack” isn’t one of them.  The 1964 No. 1 hit – perhaps the epitome of the “death disc” – forever established the Shangri-Las as the toughest gals in town with a series of remarkable records for Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller’s Red Bird label.  With spoken introductions, sound effects, dramatic vocals and a rather foreboding atmosphere, The Shangri-Las’ records as produced and written by Morton were true mini-movies.

So although Patrick opted to leave out that crucial part of The Shadow Morton Story, the sweeping, melodramatic style of Morton and the girls is represented with the equally-powerful “Remember (Walkin’ in the Sand)” (heard here in a previously unissued alternate version), ebullient “Give Him a Great Big Kiss,” lesser-known Mercury side “I’ll Never Learn,” and the Red Bird record that perhaps was the team’s zenith: “Past, Present and Future.”  This unusual psychodrama recited by Mary Weiss over a Beethoven-inspired backdrop of theatrical strings unsurprisingly stalled at No. 59 on the U.S. Pop chart, but today stands apart for its completely singular quality.  In the liner notes, Billy Joel offers memories of playing on the session for “Remember (Walkin’ in the Sand).”

There’s more on Shadow after the jump, including the complete track listing with discography and order link!

Hot Fudge Sundae!

Their repertoire was pretty standard for the late 1960s: a Lennon/McCartney tune here, a Bacharach and David song there, a Motown cover for good measure, even “The Windmills of Your Mind.”  But similarities ended there between Vanilla Fudge and their MOR-covering contemporaries.  Over the course of five albums for the Atco label, the Fudge brought a psychedelic touch to the gestating sound of so-called “heavy rock” with blues-drenched, extended takes on familiar songs.

Shadow Morton, famed producer of The Shangri-Las’ “Leader of the Pack,” masterminded the foursome which consisted of Carmine Appice on drums, Tim Bogert on bass, Vince Martell on lead guitar and Mark Stein on organ.  While the group only existed between 1966 and 1969, disbanding at the dawn of a new decade, the Vanilla Fudge sound was influential to many adventurous bands that followed.  Their legacy is celebrated with the May 3 release of Rhino Handmade’s Box of Fudge.  And it sure looks delicious…

Containing 41 tracks over 4 discs (yes, their recordings were often that long, easily hitting the 10- or even 20-minute mark!), Box of Fudge offers key album tracks and singles together with unreleased material from both the studio and the concert stage.  The band’s short-lived 1980s reunion is even represented by 2 tracks.  The unreleased performances account for over a third of the box set, totaling 15 tracks.  The box is foil-wrapped, and looks like another unique set from the Rhino factory.  (As usual for Handmade releases, it’s only available through Rhino directly.)  Intrigued by trippy covers of the Supremes, Curtis Mayfield, Nancy Sinatra and even Sonny and Cher?  The 41 candies comprising the Box of Fudge can be found after the jump!