The Blues Project - Reunion - Live In Central Park

I always have this one blasting out on my sun porch stereo, including right now, as I came in to the office to type this out. It's one of my favourite albums of all time, and by far, their best.

I would really, really love a re-master of this, with the way-ward "Flute Thing" added, and anything else from the shows. Even the three shows done on the mini-tour, and even if the 6 days of rehearsals were taped, those too.

While the original mix is so out of whack, you love it just for that, but it would really benefit a remix. I think it would add a entirely new dimension to it.

Let me know what ya'll think...

 

It's my favourite BP album too.
Haven't spinned it for quite a while, will check it out asap.
Only have the Repertoire CD.
I'd appreciate any "extended" version of this album.

 

Reunion in Central Park has to be among the rare few good "reunion" albums ever released. It's almost like the engaging, but somewhat weak-sounding band on Projections spent six years learning their instruments, and learning how to, er...project. Which, in a way, is exactly what they had been doing. My only quarrel with it is that it really is a dead-end. The band was finished, and as good as the album is, it really relies on what was ancient material by then. As a last hurrah, it's great. As part of the rock continuum, it is barely a footnote. However, I am glad it exists, because what was best about the Blues Project does not survive on their studio albums.

If you don't mind, I would like to use your Blues Project thread as a (rare) opportunity to be perhaps the first person on the planet to offer praise for the universally-hated Blues Project album of 1972, which preceded this one. This album is so despised, it has never received a proper reissue after going out of print more than 40 years ago (it was part of a lousy sounding two-fer with Lazarus, the preceding album, also largely disliked and long out-of-print). I admit it isn't a great album, although it isn't awful, and reminds me a bit of the Band. The return of Tommy Flanders returns some vocal strength to the band, and there's nothing really wrong with the playing.

The universal dismissal of this album means the world at large has never heard what I consider to be the best cover of a Tim Hardin song ever, one that significantly improves the original by adding a simple-but-effective chorus the original lacked. I dig the bass too, which threatens to fall into a hole around 2:30, and digs itself out at the last second... I don't know how this can be on an album that is truly 'awful'.

The Blues Project - Danville Dame (1972)

 

I would love to have the full concert also. Who has the master tapes?

 

A good set indeed, but what really brought my attention to the band was their performance at Monterey Pop Festival in 1967. It was actually only one song - "Wake Me, Shake Me", which was included in the 4-disc festival box set (mislabelled as "Flute Song" on my 1997 edition), but the rendition was red hot.

However, to my surprise I found a YouTube video shot at that performance and the song is played there much, much slower, devoid of the manic energy heard on the audio disc, so I am not sure anymore which version reflects the reality.



And here is an amusing collection of Blues Project album reviews:

http://only-solitaire.blogspot.com.es/search/label/Blues Project

The author juxtaposes Blues Project with Yardbirds, which is an interesting comparison that reinforces the parallelisms between the blues "rediscovery" (or the appropriation like some want to view it) by white rock musicians in the US and the UK.

Indeed there were quite a few common features shared by both camps: Paul Butterfield and John Mayall as principal bandleaders, Mike Bloomfield and Eric Clapton as lead guitar heroes, Allman Brothers Band and Fleetwood Mac as collective improvisation groups, Johnny Winter and Alvin Lee as fast guns, and Canned Heat and Savoy Brown as jazzy boogie masters. The only British element I cannot find an counterpart in the US is Free - the blues poets.

 

Hmm never heard "Reunion", but I love "Projections".

 

great great band. projections is one of my favorites. I recall grace slick saying when she first saw them in s.f. in 66 that it was a factor in her leaving the great society. she was amazed that folks could play like that. I'm sure the butterfield blues band had a similar effect. she wanted to grow musically and the great society wasn't going anywhere.

 

Projections is one of my favorite albums by anyone.

 

I hope you have the Sundazed CD, it's a beauty.

 

I would assume Al does, since it was on his label he had Skynyrd on, and it was MCA's basically "thank you" for all he'd done bringing them and making them tons of dough with Skynyrd. I've never asked him, maybe I should. He has told me there will never be a reissue, or complete album release of the final 1994 reunion, because of Steve Katz.

 

I highly recommend it. It's highly available on vinyl. Get a good clean copy and crank it, I doubt you'll be dismayed.

 

How is the SHM CD?

 

I'd actually forgotten this.

from Al Kooper's biography "Backstage Passes & Backstabbing Bastards"

"By time we got to the last show in our hometown New York's Central Park,a lot of the spontaneity was gone. But the audience was fantastic. When I edited the album,I used most of the Washington performances,taking the introductions and applause from the Central Park show. Besides , the title Reunion in an Indoor Venue in Washington,DC would not be as catchy as Reunion in Central Park." - Al Kooper

 

I didn't even know there was one, good call! Thanks!

 

That version of WMSM from Monterey is flat-out KILLER. It's like punk rock before its time.

 

I'd like to know how it sounds

 

http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threa...deluxe-shm-mini-lp-issues-coming-6-26.317471/


There's some info on the SHM of Reunion in Central Park in posts 5 and 11 of this thread:

http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threa...deluxe-shm-mini-lp-issues-coming-6-26.317471/

 

I like that.
I never picked that album up mostly because it looked so inconsequential. And Pickwick? Eesh. But that's a cool version of a GREAT song. It's on my radar now.

 

In the meantime, while we are waiting for a deluxe edition of the reunion show , a new (grey-zone) live release has been just announced - "Live At The Matrix, Sept 1966", with the following track list:

Disc 1:
1. Louisiana Blues
2. Steve’s Song
3. I Can’t Keep From Crying Sometimes
4. Caress Me Baby
5. Flute Thing
6. Wake Me Shake Me
7. The Way My Baby Walks
8. Love Will Endure
9. Jelly Jelly

Disc 2:
1. Cheryl’s Going Home
2. You Can’t Catch Me
3. Shake That Thing
4. Catch The Wind
5. You Can’t Judge A Book
6. Flute Thing
7. Hoochie Coochie Man
8. If You Don’t Come Back

http://www.spincds.com/live-in-1970-limited-edition-1000-deluxe-4cd-set-digi-pack-43226

 

Live at the Cafe Au Go Go, Howard Solomons place, is the one to get.
Tim Hardin didnt write Danville Dame.

 

So glad I stumbled on this thread! I like BP but had never realized the Reunion album was so worth getting.

Around age eight, I heard "Live at Town Hall", and have been in-love with "(Electric) Flute Thing" and that album's version of "Wake Me Shake Me" ever since! Danny Kalb's guitar work on the latter is still some of the most exciting stuff I've ever heard. Around 1981 I bought a Japanese pressing, which I still have. (Yes, I now know that it's kind of a "fake live album", but no matter.)

 

I'm playing Reunion in Central Park right now. Great album. I don't mind too much that the performances were actually not from Central Park and that Al Kooper sweetened the live tracks in the studio. Be sure to get the double lp original release (on the yellow Sounds of the South label). MCA reissued this in the late 80s as a single lp.