Reissue label Raven Records-Australia

Good to hear they're staying afloat in some capacity. Last week I ordered their hard-to-find Dallas Frazier twofer, The R&B Sessions.

 

I am aware of these twofers.

 

I love this label. The Gene Clark/Byrds comp is outstanding as is the Joe South. If nothing else they shine a light on some wonderful talent.

 

I agree that it's essential. This was my first Raven cd, and I was ecstatic when I saw these 2 lps on cd. I thought the sound was pretty bad. I have the original lps, and haven't listened to them in a while. It might be that the masters sounded that bad. These were recorded in '75/'76 at Chip Young's studio. Possibly the recording was not great. It's a shame too, because the material is absolutely great.

 

From reading the thread, Raven was reportedly going under, then not going under. I still see no changes, so that was a false glimmer of hope.

 

Yeah I checked it a couple of days ago and it's still not up and running. C'mon guys, it's a loooong two weeks!

 

I'd be curious to learn if and what product changes will be implemented by the new Raven. With the large number of quality releases in their catalog, the label's re-launch will be no easy task and could take much longer than anticipated. As a dedicated longtime customer, my only request from the label is that they continue to release all of their titles as silver pressed replicated CDs.

 

I’m hoping they get it up sooner than later as I had stuff I was planning to order before it went down.

 

I for one have enjoyed their various Bobby Bare reissues, with plenty of bonus tracks. His music isn´t easy to come by, apart from the hits, and they gave him album re-releases worthy of his stature.

 

yeah us Aussie's have put out some good comp's over the years

 

hopefully we don't screw it up, but eh? don't hold ya breath ha!

 

Their website still hasn't changed. It's still up, which might give some hope for the future. But for the last few months it's still in rebuilding stage, with no development whatsoever. And everywhere I try to order a Raven release it's 'temporarily out of stock'. Here's hoping that they will stay afloat.

 

Just a heads up if anyone's after the Mink Deville Raven CD's, I picked up a brand new sealed Cabretta/Return to Magenta from this online Australian record store, cost me about £14 including postage and delivery only took a week, they've also got Le Chat Blue and Coup De Grace/Where Angels Fear to Tread. You know of them @Rick Bartlett?

https://www.redeye.com.au

 

Hey Killer, yes, these guys have been around forever! I havn't used them in years, but they had a lot of
rarity items, even 'station promo' discs, bootlegs once upon a time, and just all kinds of stuff.
Posters, memorabilia. I found their prices fluctuated a bit from reasonable to expensive, but eh?
I'm talking about a time pre-internet too go options were very limited.
I must go over and check them out again.

 

Forgot to give an update on the Dallas Frazier CD after it arrived. Great stuff, very reminiscent of what Charlie Rich was doing around the same time. In fact, Rich recorded a number of Frazier's songs including "Mohair Sam", "She's a Yum-Yum", and "Just a Little Bit of You". It's great that Raven bothered to include pertinent B-sides, which you don't always see with twofer reissues. Well worth hunting down.

 

I just found a new copy of that for normal money, exciting!

 

It's sad news that they are winding down.I've known Kevin and Peter since the late 1970's..I haven't spoken to Kevin for a couple of years so I'll call him this week to see whats up.Kevin and Peter are very nice guys......Glenn left along time ago...like maybe early this century...You can tell by the fact that there are no liner notes from him in years..The Beatniks was a poor seller for them and they lost money on the project..When they reissued some of their earlier titles, they usually upgraded the sound where possible...for example the latter cd version of the twilights ( with a green cover) has "Young girl" and "9:50" from the tape source...whereas on the orange version and the emi lp version, it was from the 7" single...It was getting harder for them to get permission from Companies to release product.and quite often the record company wanted higher royalty rates, or just said "no"..Even when they got permission from say MCA,they were hit with the "sorry we can't locate the tapes" problem, which they thought might be due to the fire they had years ago...it took nearly 2 years to get Jerry Jeff Walker's "It's a good night for singing"/"Contrary to Ordinary" cd package available because of that very problem.

 

Raven Records always put together nice compilations, often with better and more thorough track selections than the domestic American CDs. Pressing quality of their CDs during the 1990s was occasionally suspect - I've come across more examples of degraded, unplayable Raven CDs from that era than all other labels put together. I would rip a Raven CD the minute I bought it, for fear it would go bad at some point.

 

I have the Australian Readers Digest Everlys 6 LP set from way back. Nothing else was that good.

 

I've got some good news ! Raven are continuing..Peter is going to run it with his wife....it might take a little while to sort through stuff but it the website will soon work for us all.

 

Thanks for the update Ricky! That's great news.

I wonder if they actually still have old stock that will be sold, or if it's all new reissues?

 

I wonder that, too. I still need to get the Bobbie Gentry Patchwork/Fancy twofer, and it seems impossible to find now.

 

I would probably pick up the UNDER SUSPICION set by Delbert McClinton. I put it off for years, trying to find a good deal. Now the prices are extreme.

 

a catalogue reissue would be fantastic. so many great titles are OOP, hard to find and expensive.
I should have picked up heaps more titles, I thought they'd be around forever....
Wrong!

 

I did a quick recce and found that I had more Raven releases than expected. The previously mentioned Velvet Underground set and Sandy Denny attic recordings as well as double CD sets from Paul Revere and the Raiders and The Saints. A pretty good range of recordings.

Hopefully they will not be the last purchases.