Northern soul. ’60s fuzz. Italian occult psychedelia.
I’m into collecting rare rock and roll records that fit into ridiculous genres. In fact, I’ve had pile of obscure rock gems sitting on my Foobar patiently waiting for a little appreciation. I just needed some glue. Luckily, a good friend (Sean Wright) passed along a nice adhesive last year called Mother Nature’s Son, a little-known orchestrated rock album by jazz master Ramsey Lewis. It’s a 10-song set of Beatles covers from 1968, paying homage to what is known as the White Album, but it doesn’t sound anything like the Beatles or an improv live record, but it is both. Instead, these are beautiful, loungey, studio age exotica full of guitar, piano, vibraphone, violin and an early use of the Moog synthesizer (a year later the Beatles would use it extensively on Abbey Road). Also, the album cover is easily one of the awesomest ever, depicting Lewis sitting at a grand piano in a tropical garden feeding rabbits. The record’s version of “Dear Prudence” became the inspiration of Steve.
I thought, if I could find a set of five similarly under-appreciated, rock-inspired sinfoniettas, specifically from the ’60s, I could piece together a retro-themed compilation of seldom-heard songs that should have been classics six decades ago. To give it a modern feel, I started mining for instrumentals that were sampled by famous artists — The Andrew Oldham Orchestra vs. The Verve, Just Brothers vs. Fatboy Slim, the Ray Brown Orchestra vs. Björk. In between, I pasted some of the most neglected hit songs of the last 60 years — gems by The Monitors, Tim Maia, The Status Quo and Rita and the Tiaras. I also wanted to include Gil Bernal’s “The Dogs,” but it’s so rare I couldn’t even find a digital version (and I searched torrents, pay sites and audiophile friends). If you have a digital copy, send it to me (quickly!).
The entire mix actually came together rather quickly, which worried me. Was it obtuse? More importantly, would anyone care about old, obscure bullshit that hadn’t passed the popularity test for the last six decades? I needed a backup plan (a gimmick to sucker listeners in), and Steve was born (which sounds an awful lot like Keith, right?). I would create a ridiculous, cheese-filled mascot (whose karate expertise were only matched by his knowledge of long-lost vinyl) who could bring these rarefied classics to life, and thus, transfer all responsibility away from myself (a continual goal in life). Long live Steve for all projects I’m hesitant about.
The download links are below — in both MP3 and FLAC formats — properly tagged and included with high resolution artwork (in case you’d like to print out the album art).
Steve (MP3 Format)
Steve (FLAC Format)
What is FLAC?
Pro Tips for downloading: The links above take you to a public Google drive. To make it easy, just download the zip file (it contains the entire album and artwork), or download each individual track (but you have to do one at a time).
Track Listing
1. What Does It Take (To Win Your Love) — Jr. Walker & the All Stars
2. Pieces of a Man — David Ruffin
3. Good Times — The Easybeats
4. (Tell Me) Have Your Ever Seen Me — Small Faces
5. The Last Time — The Andrew Oldham Orchestra
6. Time Is Passin’ By — The Monitors
7. You Don’t Have to Be a Tower of Strength — Gloria Lynne
8. Our Day Will Come — Ruby and the Romantics
9. The Real Thing — Russell Morris
10. Go Down Dying — Ray Brown Orchestra
11. Nobody Can Live Forever — Tim Maia
12. If I Could Only Be Sure — Nolan Porter
13. If It’s All the Same to You Babe — Luther Ingram
14. Gone with the Wind Is My Love — Rita and the Tiaras
15. Sliced Tomatoes — Just Brothers
16. Pictures of Matchstick Men — The Status Quo
17. She’s a Soldier Boy — The New Generation
18. Mystic Brew — Ronnie Foster
19. For Once in My Life — Stevie Wonder
20. Could You Would You — Them
21. The First Cut Is the Deepest — P.P. Arnold
22. No Body Like You — Lee Hazlewood and Suzi Jane Hokom
23. High Life — The Blue Things
24. Dear Prudence — Ramsey Lewis
Nemo 