 |
||
 | ||
 Real Audio™ sound clips on The Penguinappear courtesy of Rock.com. | ||
The first CD has a slow blues song in which Jeremy plays piano and sings lead vocals while Peter Green plays lead guitar. "Long Grey Mare" has a lead guitar rather than a harp.
The second CD has two previously unreleased songs from the Boston Tea Party Club-- "Black Magic Woman" and "Jumping At Shadows"; the remainder is from a BBC Radio Broadacst (perhaps the April 9, 1970 recording).
Submit your own review-- click here! Average Reviewer Rating:
Number of Show Biz Blues (2001) Reviews: 2
second CD = amazing
Reviewer: Anonymous, June 28, 2003 I'd buy this album simply for the second live CD. The sound quality is fantastic for something recorded over 30 years ago. Green's playing is electric as well, esp. jumping at shadows. In fact I'd buy this just for the bass jam on the green manalishi. Pure genius
Less explosive than Vaudeville but just as impressive
Reviewer: John Fitzgerald, Human resources staff database assistant July 19, 2001 This collection does seem a little less varied than the "Vaudeville years" set but there's still
lots of fun stuff here. Disc one is studio recordings while disc 2 is all live. Disc one starts
out with three Peter B's unreleased recordings. "Soul dressing" ominously sounds like
what could be an early version of Green's "In the skies" title track, thematically speaking,
"Outrage" is a rather pulsating instrumental tune typical of what they themselves had
described their music as "cool blue pop" while the version of "If you want to be happy"
that appears here is slightly smoother than the single version but just as enjoyable. "I have
to laugh" ironically, is Jeremy's most interesting moment here. The first few seconds of
the song may lead one to think that he's about to launch into another one of his Elvis
sendups but then, when it kicks in, it sounds more like a straightforward slow blues with
Peter on lead guitar which must rank as one of Jeremy's most surprisingly serious
recordings available. "Mind of my own" is a rocking Danny Kirwan shuffle which will get
you going and there's some suspenseful twists to Peter's "Fast talking woman blues" (a.k.a.
"Drifting") which is a little more forceful here than it was on "The vaudeville years" and
the slow, violin driven "Leaving town blues" breathes some new life from this already
great country blues song. The other more familiar numbers are great too, I just thought I'd
touch on a few surprises here. Disc two begins with yet two more unreleased recordings
from the Boston Tea Party tapes which stand up just as well as all of the previously
released ones have. The rest of the disc has been bootlegged on many live tapes in the past
as these are from the April 9, 1970 BBC radio concert special. Two and a half ("Green
manalishi" was edited) of which have appeared on one of the Mac's earliest bootlegs "Merely a
portmanteau", but it's good they are now properly presented works. "Rattlesnake shake" supersedes the "Live at the BBC" tape as it includes the "Underway" section not present on the "Live at the BBC" disc set tape. Although better in that respect, it may disappoint some that the jam ends at the conclusion of "Underway" whereas the Tea party versions continued on to the final speedy jam section which one must assume was discarded from the structure of the tune by this point. It's still as enjoyable as all other recorded versions of the song though. "The green manalishi" features Peter's six string bass with wah wah petal works to adventurous effect and
"Coming you way" & "Twist and shout" sprawl out successfully to become nasty rockers.
Once again, nothing bad is here, those are just some high points of mention. I slightly
prefer "The vaudeville years" as I find it's eclectic mix (which is more present on there)
very exciting and sound quality of the material is marginally preferable on "The vaudeville
years" but you won't go wrong if you pick up this one to purchase instead first.
Information and album cover supplied by Mario Pirrone and Pete Grant. Transcribed to HTML by Marty Adelson.
 You can download a free Real Audio player or obtain help. It is possible that the Real Audio™ sound clips provided on this page are a different version from that appearing on the actual album. |
