(2022) Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera - Long Nights of Summer [FLAC]

      (2022) Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera -Long Nights of Summer  





Review:

First-ever complete career anthology of late ’60s UK psychedelic band Elmer Gantry’s Velvet Opera. Mono and stereo versions of 1968 debut album plus their post-Elmer follow-up LP, several studio out-takes and numerous BBC radio session tracks. In the spring of 1967, London mod/soul act The Five Proud Walkers staged a musical volte-face after supporting underground sensations The Pink Floyd. They duly re-emerged that summer as irrepressible psychedelic adventurers Elmer Gantry’s Velvet Opera, making an immediate splash with debut single ‘Flames’, which appeared on popular CBS label sampler ‘The Rock Machine Turns You On’ and was added to the set-list of many young British bands including the embryonic Led Zeppelin. ‘Flames’ was sufficiently successful to justify a debut LP, a strikingly original offering that remains one of the freshest, most consistently entertaining albums to emerge from the British psychedelic scene. Charismatic frontman Elmer and guitarist Colin Forster then left, with rhythm section John Ford and Richard Hudson joined by singer Johnny Joyce and guitarist Paul Brett for a second Velvet Opera album, the more Folk/Blues-oriented ‘Ride a Hustler’s Dream’. The band split in early 1970 when the Hudson-Ford partnership joined Strawbs, although original guitarist Forster briefly revived the name later that year for a one-off single with his former Tintern Abbey colleague David MacTavish.The first-ever complete EGVO and VO anthology, ‘Long Nights of Summer’ naturally includes both albums as well as a US promo-only mono mix of that incendiary debut LP that now makes its first-ever CD appearance. Also including numerous studio out-takes, demo versions, non-LP singles and a revelatory 50 minutes of BBC session tracks (the bulk of which have never been released before). — cherryred.co.uk





   





Track List:

Disc 1:

01 - Intro

02 - Mother Writes

03 - Mary Jane

04 - I Was Cool

05 - Walter Sly Meets Bill Bailey

06 - Air

07 - Lookin' for a Happy Life

08 - Flames

09 - What's the Point of Leaving

10 - Long Nights of Summer

11 - Dream Starts

12 - Reactions of a Young Man

13 - Now She's Gone

14 - Flames (Single Version)

15 - Salisbury Plain

16 - Mary Jane (Single Version)

17 - Dreamy

18 - Volcano

19 - A Quick 'B'

20 - Talk of the Devil

21 - And I Remember

22 - To Be with You

23 - The Painter

24 - Salisbury Plain (Extended Demo)

25 - Flames (Demo Version)



Disc 2:

01 - Intro (Promo-Only Mono)

02 - Mother Writes (Promo-Only Mono)

03 - Mary Jane (Promo-Only Mono)

04 - I Was Cool (Promo-Only Mono)

05 - Walter Sly Meets Bill Bailey (Promo-Only Mono)

06 - Air (Promo-Only Mono)

07 - Lookin' for a Happy Life (Promo-Only Mono)

08 - Flames (Promo-Only Mono)

09 - What's the Point of Leaving (Promo-Only Mono)

10 - Long Nights of Summer (Promo-Only Mono)

11 - Dream Starts (Promo-Only Mono)

12 - Reactions of a Young Man (Promo-Only Mono)

13 - Now She's Gone (Promo-Only Mono)

14 - Dream Starts (Live, BBC Radio One Top Gear Session, 26 November 1967)

15 - Reactions of a Young Man (Live, BBC Radio One Top Gear Session, 26 November 1967)

16 - Flames (Live, BBC Radio One Top Gear Session, 26 November 1967)

17 - Mother Writes (Live, BBC Radio One Top Gear Session, 26 November 1967)

18 - Mary Jane (Live, BBC Radio One Saturday Club Session, 27 January 1968)

19 - Flames (Live, BBC Radio One Saturday Club Session, 27 January 1968)

20 - I Feel Like I'm Fixing to Die Rag (Live, BBC Radio One Top Gear Session, 19 May 1968)

21 - Mary Jane (Live, BBC Radio One Top Gear Session, 19 May 1968)

22 - Dreamy (Live, BBC Radio One Top Gear Session, 19 May 1968)

23 - Air (Live, BBC Radio One Top Gear Session, 19 May 1968)

24 - All Along the Watchtower (Live, BBC Top of the Pops Radio Show, 5 July 1968)

25 - Mary Jane (Live, BBC Top of the Pops Radio Show, 5 July 1968)

26 - Something Else (Live, BBC Top of the Pops Radio Show, 5 July 1968)

27 - Flames (Live, BBC Radio One Saturday Club Session, 1968)

28 - All Along the Watchtower (Live, BBC Radio One Saturday Club Session, 1968)



Disc 3:

01 - Ride a Hustler's Dream

02 - Statesboro Blues

03 - Money By

04 - Black Jack Davy

05 - Raise the Light

06 - Raga

07 - Anna Dance Square

08 - Depression

09 - Don't You Realise

10 - Warm Day in July

11 - Eleanor Rigby

12 - Anna Dance Square (Single Version)

13 - Don't You Realise (Single Version)

14 - She Keeps Giving Me These Feelings

15 - There's a Hole in My Pocket

16 - Statesboro Blues (Live, BBC Radio One David Symonds Show, 8 June 1970)

17 - Water Wheel (Live, BBC Radio One David Symonds Show, 8 June 1970)

18 - She Keeps Giving Me These Feelings (Live, BBC Radio One Club Session, 4 January 1971)





Media Report:

Genre: rock

Country: UK

Format: FLAC

Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec, 16-bit PCM

Bit rate mode: Variable

Channel(s): 2 channels

Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz

Bit depth: 16 bits





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