Create a "Bear Family" style box set

In honor of my 1,000th post(!), I've decided to do my very own (pretend) mega-deluxe box set, "Bear Family" style. (This is assuming I become Supreme Being of the Universe, of course). My choice:

"Elvis Presley: In His Lifetime: The Singles 1954-1977"


Every 45 and 78 rprm A & B side released during his time here on Earth -using the version/mix released on vinyl, mono or stereo (even fold-downs). What is different about mine versus the many collections already out there you ask? Well, I'll use my powers to time travel, in order to do my own transfers to digital right as the originals themselves were mastered. No need to worry about the correct tape or machine being used. Whether the board was tube or SS, Dolby or no Dolby, it'll be that way on my set too. Of course the usual hardcover book will be included, with E's own thoughts about the selections. How many discs? Doesn't matter, as many as needed.

What about the EP, movie and other oddball tracks? That'll be another set, sometime in the future.

Please feel free to list your own collections, the way you want them done!

 

Bear Family New Riders Of The Purple Sage 10 Cee Dee Columbia Complete Box Set
Complete Columbia Output
Live Concert Recordings
All Outakes/Alternates
Early Demos with Garcia
Full Hardcover Discography/Biography
Bonus DVD Concert Footage!

 

Nuggets (in stereo whenever possible, 1st time mixes a plus); The Yardbirds - every dadgummed note they released; The Sonics (although Ace is revamping their Sonics comp, and is using the 2 track session tapes - stereo whenever possible) - all the Etiquette and Jerden stuff; The Chocolate Watchband (this would need a monster truck sized book) - better stop to wipe the keyboard off!

 

"The Cameo-Parkway Box." Including every chart hit by every act on these labels. Separate discs in the box for Chubby Checker, Bobby Rydell, ? & the Mysterians, and the Orlons.

 

The "Apple Records Box" with all the singles and the LPs that haven't been released on cd yet.

That I would love to see.

mud-

 

Jimbo,

I concur - that would special and so, so long overdue.

Wonder if we will ever see it?

Bob

 

A real Rolling Stones singles collection would be nice, although this time it would be up to the present day (i.e. Decca + RSR material).

 

Another one....

The Kinks Story ..... I'm surprised that these guys haven't had a boxset on any label much less Bear.

mud-

 

Mike, it's your box, put both on!

 

Me too.

Since EMI lost interest in the Apple reissue program, they might as well turn the project over to Bear Family, who could probably do a better job.

 

John, I wonder if Bear would approach them? It'd be a perfect project for Bear.

mud-

 

A pal of mine with an extensive collection of Kinks 45's made me an excellent 4 disc set with this line up. He used all 45's and EP's and promos for the most part, although I'm not sure where Took My Baby Home came from. This Strange Effect, from an EP, had several seconds faded out to fit on the disc.

Disc One (MONO)

1. Long Tall Sally
2. You Do Something To Me
3. You Still Want Me
4. Took My Baby Home(STEREO)
5. You Really Got Me
6. It's All Right
7. I Gotta Move
8. All Day And All Of The Night
9. Tired Of Waiting
10. Come On
11. Everybody's Gonna Be Happy
12. Set Me Free
13. I Need You
14. Who'll Be The Next In Line
15. Never Met A Girl Like You
16. Such A Shame
17. A Well Respected Man
18. Till The End Of The Day
19. Sitting On My Sofa
20. Dedicated Follower Of Fashion
21. Harry Rag
22. I'm Not Like Everybody Else
23. Two Sisters
24. Autumn Almanac
25. Polly
26. Lola
27. Plastic Man
28. Did You See His Name
29. This Is Where I Belong
30. Tell Me Now, So I'll Know

Disc Two (MONO)

1. Where Have All The Goodtimes Gone
2. Sunny Afternoon
3. See My Friends
4. Big Black Smoke
5. Dead End Street
6. Mr. Pleasant
7. Waterloo Sunset
8. Act NiceAnd Genteel
9. Death Of A Clown
10. Love Me Till The Sun Shines
11. David Watts
12. Funny Face
13. Susanna's Still Alive
14. Wonderboy
15. Picture Book
16. Village Green Preservation Society
17. Do You Remember Walter
18. Days
19. She's Got Everything
20. Shangri-La
21. This Man He Weeps Tonight
22. Victoria
23. Drivin'
24. Mindless Child Of Motherhood
25. This Strange Effect


Disc Three (STEREO)

1. Starstruck(MONO)
2. Brainwashed(MONO)
3. Berkely Mews(MONO)
4. Animals In The Zoo(MONO)
5. Apeman(MONO)
6. 20th Century Man(MONO)
7. Supersonic Rocketship
8. You Don;t Know My Name
9. Celluloid Heroes
10. One Of The Survivors
11. Sitting In The Midday Sun
12. Sweet Lady Genevieve
13. Here comes Flash
14. Mirror Of Love
15. Preservation
16. Salvation Road
17. You Can't Stop The Music
18. Starmaker
19. I'm In Disgrace
20. The Hard Way
21. No More Looking Back
22. Scrapheap City(Alt. Version,MONO)

Disc Four (STEREO)
1. Sleepwalker
2. Juke Box Music
3. Black Messiah
4. Misfits
5. Rock 'n' Roll Fantasy
6. Artificial Light
7. Catch Me Now I'm Falling
8. Gallon Of Gas
9. Low Budget
10. Superman
11. Moving Pictures
12. Attitude
13. Destroyer
14. Better Things
15. State Of Confusion
16. Heart Of Gold
17. Come Dancing
18. Good Day
19. Art Lover(Live)

 

The COMPLETE RECORDINGS OF IKE & TINA TURNER, covering Ike's first revue recordings with Tina's vocals, to the point Tina left him. If necessary, the studio and live recordings could be seperate boxes.

Because Ike believed in getting the money up front and signing away the rights, this crucial R&B catalog is in disarray, cross-licensed across a multitude of no-name labels, often with indifferent mastering, zero liner notes, and lots of overlapping material. It may be worst CD catalog of any major artist.

Considering that lots of small labels have licensed these recordings from whoever owns them, this wish may actually be do-able. Bear? S&P?

 

LA Times - March 16, 2003

POP MUSIC
A record junkie's habit
* With a true fan's zeal, Richard Weize puts out exhaustive collections on his Bear Family label.

By Robert Hilburn, Times Staff Writer

Two questions are likely to come to mind the first time you pick up a boxed set from the Bear Family label in a record store -- say, the 12-disc, four-pound package that contains everything country singer Lefty Frizzell recorded over three decades, false starts and all.

The first question: Who would be crazy enough to spend $250 for more than 13 hours of music from a man whose own record label's "best of" package is only two discs?

The second: Who would be crazy enough to put the set on the market in the first place?

Frizzell was a contemporary of Hank Williams in the '50s, a great singer whose "syllable-stretching" vocal style was a blueprint for Merle Haggard and scores of others. His 1959 recording of the moody "Long Black Veil" was such a favorite of the Band that it included its version on the celebrated 1968 album "Music From Big Pink."

For all his influence, though, Frizzell is little more than a cult figure today. The two-disc "best of" set released in 1997 by Columbia Records sold only 35 copies in the U.S. during one recent week.

So back to the original question: Who would be crazy enough to buy this package?

It turns out that about 3,000 people have over the last 15 or so years. But you get the feeling that Bear Family Records' Richard Weize wouldn't care if no one did.

"I'm crazy, I'm a fanatic, I know it," says the burly, bearded founder of the German label during a recent visit to Los Angeles, where he's working on new sets featuring Tex Ritter and Gene Autry. "I don't just want the hits, but everything, so that I have a definitive portrait of an artist.

"There was a boxed set we did recently that was 12 CDs, one DVD and a 514-page book. It's so heavy most people can't even carry it. We don't worry about the cost or whether it's practical. Neither me nor my partner are into money. If I won $10 million from the lottery tomorrow, I would just make more records."

True enough.

Weize isn't so much a businessman as an ultimate fan -- someone who creates his own fantasy albums, filling them with everything about the artist he can find in the record company vaults, including tracks that were out of print or never released.

He is another example of how one person with a burning vision can make an enormous difference in the record business. Besides giving us these invaluable documentaries on some landmark musicians, the Bear Family sets have most certainly inspired other labels, including such admired retrospective specialists as Sony Legacy, Universal Music and Rhino, to do some of their most ambitious retrospective packages.

The company's releases aren't eligible for a Grammy because the albums are available in this country only in import editions, which is good news for U.S. labels, because Bear Family would probably dominate the competition most years in such categories as best historical album and best recording packages.

The sets are the Rolls-Royce of recordings -- comprehensive collections, great sound quality, often rare, breathtaking cover photos and handsomely illustrated booklets that outline an artist's career in loving detail. Rather than shrink the boxed sets to CD size, the sets remain LP-size, giving them a sense of grandeur. It's not uncommon in large record stores to see fans ogling them the same way car lovers eye the latest models on a showroom floor.

It's not even out of the question that some artists would be more flattered to have their own Bear Family boxed set than a Grammy.

Bear Family has released a ton of single-disc albums, but its specialty is the sets such as "Let the Good Times Roll," an eight-CD collection devoted to R&B star Louis Jordan, or the four Jerry Lee Lewis sets (ranging from eight to 11 discs or records each) covering various portions of the country and rock star's colorful career.

Because Weize started out making sets only on his favorite artists, the Bear Family roster is a select fraternity. There are a lot of boxed sets devoted to celebrated country, rock and R&B artists from the '50s, but others salute obscure ones, including Jimmie Driftwood (best known for writing "The Battle of New Orleans") and the Collins Kids (a Los Angeles rockabilly duo from the '50s). Weize's continuing love of the music he heard during his youth explains why you also find some boxed sets devoted to such distinctly non-rock performers as Connie Francis, Harry Belafonte and Doris Day.

There have been whispers in the record business that Weize doesn't pay royalties -- possibly started by artists who see these lavish boxed sets and think he must make a fortune from them. But Weize licenses the material for the discs from record labels around the world and insists he pays royalties to those labels -- though he says he can't guarantee that money ever finds its way back to the U.S. artists. Sales of the sets range from a few hundred to the 2,500 to 3,000 range. The break-even point varies depending on the ambitiousness of the set, but Weize estimates he has broken even (or better) on about two-thirds of the boxes.

"Richard is an honorable businessman," says Lou Robin, the manager of Johnny Cash, whose career is saluted by several Bear Family sets. "His records are a labor of love. If your only goal was making money, you'd never put out most of these eight- and nine-disc sets. But they are pieces of history."

The soundtrack of his life

Weize, 57, likes to say he was born with a sense of history. The foundation of his family house near Braunschweig, Germany, was built in 850, and his parents, who ran a bookshop, instilled in him the importance of preserving books.

He fell in love with rock 'n' roll as a boy after hearing Bill Haley's "Rock Around the Clock."

His allegiance later switched to country after he discovered Jim Reeves and Don Gibson. (As you might expect, Bear Family relives those early memories with a five-disc Haley set and multiple sets on Gibson and Reeves.)

To help support his music addiction, the teenage Weize ordered records directly from a U.S. wholesaler, using his family's bookstore letterhead. He then resold them for 10% above his cost, which meant he was able to keep one record for every 10 he sold.

He and partner Hermann Knuelle still help subsidize Bear Family albums through a $5-million a year record import business, which brings recordings from around the world to Germany.

"This is my life," he says, and everything about him supports the statement. Weize certainly doesn't spend much on wardrobe or expense account meals. On this evening, he is wearing faded overalls, and his dinner choice is an old-fashioned Studio City coffee shop, where signs on the booths remind you there will be a minimum charge of $2 per person.

Weize, who has five children from two marriages, says he spends three or four months a year on the road, personally overseeing the transfer of music from tapes to make sure he is getting the best quality available. Oddly, he sometimes finds better source material in Holland or Germany than in the U.S., where the recordings were actually made. He has more than 200 albums in various stages of planning.

One of the label's most ambitious recent releases -- a set titled "Beyond Recall" -- documents music made and distributed in Germany during the 1930s under an agreement between Berlin's Jewish Cultural League and the government. Back then, the recordings could be sold only to Jewish customers, Weize says. The set contains classical music, Yiddish comedians and German cabaret. Weize, who is not Jewish, says he felt a responsibility to bring this rare material together "for what my parents and the likes did."

The veteran record man loves to talk about his albums and favorite artists, but there is a touch of melancholy about him. He worries that the pop world is losing interest in much of the music he loves.

"At one time, I thought I was saving these things and they would be around forever," he says glumly. "With people copying DVDs more and young people not much interested in history, I don't know if anyone will carry on this tradition. That makes me sad. But I've certainly lived my dream. I made the albums I wanted to hear."

 

I've made CD-r's of the first two albums. When I get a nice UK MONO Roger The Engineer, I'll finish the job.
I added the studio version of "I'm a Man" to the first album, because it bothered me having two versions of the song on Rave-up.

I didn't do Five Live Yardbirds separately, because Rave Up was such a big album to me, I just added the tracks that weren't use on the original Rave Up. I added Shape of things and its b-side, and steeled blues from the b of Heart full of soul.

You know, actually Roger the Engineer was the first real Yardbirds album. This is everything before that.

Five Live was live, For Your Love was a collection of singles and EP tracks, Rave Up was two new recordings with singles, EP tracks and several Five Live Tracks.

FOR YOUR LOVE (MONO)
1. For Your Love
2. I'm Not Talking
3. Putty (In Your Hands)
4. I Ain't Got You
5. Got To Hurry
6. I Ain't Done Wrong
7. I Wish You Would
8. A Certain Girl
9. Sweet Music
10. Good Morning Little Schoolgirls
11. My Girl Sloopy
12. I'm A Man (45 Version)

HAVING A RAVE-UP WITH THE YARDBIRDS MONO)
1. Shape Of Things (45)
2. Mr You're A Better Man Than I
3. Evil Hearted You
4. Still I'm Sad
5. Heart Full Of Soul
6. New York City Blues (45 b-side)
7. Train Kept A Rollin'
8. Too Much Monkey Business (live)
9. Got Love If You Want It (live)
10. Smokestack Lightning (live)
11. Good Morning Little Schoolgirl (live)
12. Respectable (live)
13. Five Long Years (live)
14. Pretty Girl (live)
15. Louise (live)
16. I'm A Man (live)
17. Here 'Tis (live)
18. Steeled Blues (45 b-side)


I just copied and pasted this stuff from my label maker files.

 

Start with that kooky King of Fuh by Brute Force and work on out... Has anybody here ever heard that tune???

 

It's rather amazing that such a ridiculous record was even issued. I suppose it had to be the pun that made someone at Apple laugh.

Chris

 

Nah, Rhino done did that already... I'd take mono if no stereo were available, or have both if there were big differences in the mixes; I'd eliminate several of the tracks that didn't really need to be there (ala Louie, Louie) replace them with more screamin' garage greats (see my avatar for one), and I'd give ol' Bob Irwin a bigger thank you in the liners...

 

Although Bear Family did issue CDs of Gordon Lightfoot's UA catalog, such a boxed set that has his entire UA and Reprise catalogs, plus the many rarities that exist.

 

That's the idea Bradley, think big. Sounds like my kinda collection!

 

Doug Sahm - all the SDQ and solo stuff.
Wynonie Harris

 

Due to Gordon's knack at making consistently excellent albums for the most part and a lot of the rarities are just as good as what's on the albums.

 

An extensive box set of Slash Records containing key album tracks, 7, 12 inch mixes, b sides, and of course outtakes from X, Los Lobos, Rank And File, Bodeans, Del Feugos, etc., would be nice.

Maybe Bear Family could even handle the "Rank And File" catalogue which has not seen the light of day on CD. Depending on how much material they unearth it could be a 2 or 3 CD set. It was recently mentioned that all of the artists who were on Slash are on CD somewhere except Rank And File.

 

Yeaaaaahhhh!!!!!!!

 

Today's Music Today: The Stiff Box -- Every A and B side from this important British label.

U2 A and B -- every single, from Ireland, England and the US, A and B side, starting from the beginning and including all the B-sides. A bonus disc would contain extra remixes, so that the main discs would not become redundant.

XTC A and B -- same thing for this band.

The Beach Boys: Singles A and B -- I've already done two CD-Rs of this set, which contain almost all their single sides from the Capitol years (1962-70). I started with "Surfin'" and "Luau" and continued, A and B, in order, right up to "Cottonfields" (I had to omit "The Nearest Faraway Place" because of space restrictions -- not a great loss, though). The next task is to take this into the Brother/Reprise years and into the second go-around at Capitol.

Elton John: All the Singles -- Again, it would include A and B sides, starting with "I've Been Loving You" and going right up to the 1990s. Many of the 1980s non-LP B-sides and A-side edits remain unavailable on CD. Again, all the 12-inch remixes that are redundant can be put on a "bonus disc."

The Complete Buddy Holly -- a CD version of the famous vinyl box set, including things that have been discovered since the original landmark box was released.