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JUST SOME RANDOM GHOST MALL MUSIC NOTES

Double Album Album collections time - or as I like to call it the Nice Pair Syndrome
Keith Emerson With The Nice (Mercury, 1972 comprising Five Bridges Suite and Elegy)
Cat Stevens - Matthew and Son and New Masters (Deram, 1971 from albums released in 1967 and 68)

I have been going through my collection recently and noticed a hell of a lot of trends going through it. Double Album Sets of Old Albums or Nice Pair Syndrome comes to mind. I was thinking of doing a journal called Make Mine a Double celebrating that glorious era where the record companies wasted a lot of money and vinyl in trying to sell off the remaining stock of some of their back catalog once one of the musicians that they used to have made it big in the Album Rock world. The Nice is a band not many have remembered in the States except if you like me are so crazy into the Immediate Story, but once you say Keith Emerson was in it, the interest picks up a little although of course the worldwide interest is still pretty good today. That was what Mercury did when they sold off the remaining stock of Elegy and Five Bridges Suite (well, at least Elegy as 5 Bridges was given the new name) under the name Keith Emerson WithThe Nice. It was sold in several markets to some success although not too much in The States and today you're lucky to find it alongside the later ELP albums that hit the cutouts or, if in a better area, the very albums that made ELP's name in the used bins.



For those who like those classic concert clips, here's the classic version of "America" that was performed in an excellent extended live version on Elegy, but sadly it's not easy to find on the Tube, so here's a Swedish clip from 1968.


Very little is mentioned about the band on Keith Emerson and The Nice, but they possibly figured that you're buying it for the name and not the band. Sad, but The Nice were good and deserving of their legend.

Oh yeah. they were subject to craploads of re-issues and "Greatest Hits" releases that mainly were re-pressings of the first album with altered track listings and songs dropped off for a single.


While Cat Stevens was winning the hearts of post-hippies with songs like "Oh Very Young", Deram/Decca decided to get some Retro Money with their pressing of Matthew and Son and New Masters. While he did make a few chart hits in The UK, over in The States he was not as known beyond those who followed the British charts. In other words, this was possibly the first time Mainstream America hear this much-covered song which was not even a single for it's writer (it was a hit for PP Arnold in '68...DAMN, another Immediate connection in this post!)...in the live footage, you will see a young Cat without all of the hippie mystic mumbo jumbo and just rocking out as a short time teen idol, the side that The US rarely heard.




It was possibly safe not to show the track listing on the double album product in The States avoiding those "I Never Heard of This" complaints that will turn into a No Sale/Not Interested response, as there was hardly any songs a common American even heard. Kind of gives it that sense of mystery of what they were going to get - Cat in Swinging London trying to be a hip hit songwriter and actually achieving it a couple of times on these two albums before he changed his tune for The 70's.

In fact, Matthew and Son was a very small chart album in The US, peaking at #197 through this release in 1971. On it's original release, New Masters tanked in The UK following the debut's Top 10 position.

As for US singles, "I Love My Dog" was #118 in '66, "Matthew" was #115 in '67, and "Kitty" missed all together in '68. They were all UK hits. Father and Son was recently sung by Ronan Keating for a charity single in The UK for the Band Aid Trust featuring backing vocals from Stevens, now known as Yusuf Islam, who has been releasing recordings under the name for quite a while.

Here's a "Very Young" Cat Stevens...Damn I have to stop it with the bad puns! On the debut, another "Very Young" studio musician was on Bass...John Paul Jones later of Led Zeppelin!


Here's Cat giving it the Scott for this performance!



A little more on these kinds of albums, plus a little more insight on both of these in a later post, but I have to get this thing moving again or it will be back in that state of limbo that was it was for the last few months. More later!!!