Format Details: Jewel Case
Description
OK, so this CD includes the whole of the Versatile Impressions album, which was their last ABC album and may well not be considered their best work. But this is a whole lot more! In fact the first twelve tracks are vintage Curtis, at the height of his composing and musical powers. Almost all of these titles have not seen the light of day since their first vinyl release and several have never been released at all. This has taken a team of us, using Peter Burns' comprehensive discography, to piece together the various locations for the tapes - and we didn't have to use one disc dub in the end, although it came perilously close for one title! Here's the run-down, all in matrix number order and therefore in recording date order:- 1. Can't You See. This is the one that went down to our mastering rooms for disc dubbing, just before I had a conversation with Peter Burns, who reminded me that this track was originally on the first album The Impressions (CDKEND 126). Peter once owned a copy of this impossible-to-find rarity, sadly since liberated from his collection in the swinging 60s. This set the tape detectives to work to see if by any chance this track was simply left, unlogged, on the original album master. Sure enough, with due diligence by Lynn Kerman at Universal Studios, there it was languishing as track seven on side one of the original master tape, having been bumped down the track listing by It's All Right. This is one of Curtis' finest performances and, in superb stereo, it demonstrates his unique style of guitar playing that can only be reproduced, so the story goes, by re-tuning the guitar to the black notes of the piano. 2. Love Is A Mystery. This comes from another extremely rare album called Shindig which was released to cash in on the famous American TV show. It was supposed to be a live album, and for all I know maybe some of the tracks were, but this one certainly wasn't. We could have used the original stereo master with fake applause from the original album, but we thought you would prefer to hear this without these fake effects, albeit in mono. No stereo mix without the applause was made. 3. Emotions (Won't You Let Me Cry). This is the earlier version of this song which appeared first on a Charly album. We feature a different unissued take here. 4. You'll Want Me Back. 5. Never Too Much Love. 6. Never Could You Be. 7. (Man Oh Man) I Want To Go Back. 8. This Must End. 9. I Need A Love. 10. You've Got Me Runnin'. 11. We're Rolling On Parts 1&2. When I worked up at EMI in the mid-60s, my colleague Rod Duncombe, then ABC label manager, enlisted my help in compiling a follow-up to the Impressions' Big Sixteen album. We included the most obvious A-sides that weren't on the first album and this left some room to indulge ourselves with some rare B-sides and even a previously unissued title that turned up disguised as I Need You. We've gone better than Big Sixteen Vol 2 here and added two more rarities. As it happens, master tapes f
Tracklisting
Z.Z. Hill
Wilson Pickett
Willie Bollinger / Willie Walker
William Bell
William Bell
Wee Willie Walker
Warren Raye & The Infernal Blues Machine
Walter Jackson
The Impressions
The Impressions
The Impressions
The Impressions
