Agree! I got in for 50 cents in a cut-out bin in 1975 before I knew the history behind it. For me, it has an atmosphere that flashes me back to the time and place when I first heard it, so for that, it's a pleasant listening experience, and there are some good songs. Whether it was deliberate or just randomly sequenced, despite the out of sync overdubs, "Black Night", "White Snow", and "Cool Summer" as the last 3 songs on Side 1 form sort of a "nature trilogy" of the type of songs that John Denver would be writing some years later.
Beck's Golden Feelings was reissued on CD without permission. Only 2000 were made before he put a stop to it.
Those throwaway tracks are hilarious, though. Jokey as they are, some of them actually contain early examples of the type of vocal improvisations he would develop later. I always heard "Ringworm" as a spoof of "TB Sheets" (Like "I wrote a song about one disease. How about another one?"). Van knew exactly what he was doing when he made that tape to give them the "album" they said he owed them. Lucky for him, they let him out of his contract before they listened to the recordings. However, the last laugh was on Van. He probably never dreamed at the time that those piss-takes would actually be released.
Sebastian was under MGM by contract. He had no say over his material to Reprise until it was timed out. Coppum' n Robbum' was what he called the deal he signed in 1965. He even signed off his publishing for some stupid amount. Koppelman was brilliant, Mr. Rubin too.
Doesn't that fall into the same category as Muddy Waters' Electric Mud? - ie, management/label-sponsored projects with a view to connecting a veteran artist to the 'stoner' crowd who were fans of the artists they themselves had inspired? Neither the Wolf nor Waters enjoyed the experience, but they showed willing. I've not heard the Wolf album but I like Electric Mud quite a bit.
A variation on this: when Alanis Morissette got big with Jagged Little Pill, she took legal action to prevent her early-nineties Canadian teenybopper albums from being released in the United States.
I'd have to check my Wolf and Waters biographies to confirm, but I believe that's basically true. Target the younger generation with both releases.
I think ChangesTwo was at least partially authorised as he did do a video for its lead single, 'Wild Is The Wind' in 1982.
Who would have thunk that 'You Say France and I'll Whistle' would end up on It's Too Late To Stop Now ?
The backing tracks were ones that he'd been part of, but the sessions with the imposter were done without his knowledge. Check the comments on the YouTube video...the guy who sang actually tells the whole story.
Thanks for the heads-up - that was very interesting reading. You'd have to think he knew that he was suppsed to imitate Mac's vocal style. Trip is a fascinating label, apparently it had mob involvement. They also released fake Hendrix albums.
Not exactly against his will, but the sessions and the release of the finished results were against his wishes. He went along with it reluctantly. He made no secret of the fact that he didn't like it, but the record execs who decided to advertise the fact on the cover soon realized what a mistake it was since the album was not a big seller. Most of his fan base probably said, "Well, if Wolf doesn't even like it, why should I?" Someone at Chess admitted the faux pas by saying, "You can't say the artist doesn't like the album."
Yeah, that's thing, Wolf went along with it because he probably felt it could further hus career, so it was indeed not released against his will. There's so many myths around this album so it would be good to see an interview with him where he comments on the album. I don't know if he ever did comment on it publicly. Obviously the cover was a publicity stunt that didn't really work, but it could have. Wolf followed this up with another album (Message To The Young) in the same style- lots of wah wah and fuzz guitars - so he seemingly went along with the same thing again without objection. Now, this is not the best of Howlin' Wolf, but it's a fine album in itself imo, with cutting edge musicians like Pete Cosey who went on to play with Miles Davis.
Indeed. While Electric Mud is a great album on its own terms they did force the issue a bit on the Wolf album perhaps. Memorably, someone commented that it's the only blues album in existence where "harp" actually means concert harp and not harmonica.
