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You Heard Them Here First
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Everyone has to start somewhere, even famous rock stars. Not many of them achieved stardom with their first record. That’s the theme of “You Heard Them Here First”, a collection of two-dozen cuts by big name acts, all recorded before anyone knew them from Adam.
Take Arthur Lee, wigged-out lynchpin of the band Love, who in his early dues-paying days briefly fronted an obscure instrumental combo. The MGs were a big noise in Memphis, but few folk in Los Angeles got to hear the L.A.G.s. Now’s your chance. Or Marty Balin, who, long before Jefferson Airplane took off, tried his hand at teen idol-dom, seemingly unaware the world already had a Gene Pitney, a Ricky Nelson and a Bobby Vee. Who knew?
Everyone knows the Righteous Brothers, but not many are familiar with Bill Medley’s previous group the Paramours, blue-eyed Coasters clones extraordinaire. Motown kyboshed the Mynah Byrds’ chances of stardom by cancelling the release of their single; no one knew who Neil Young and Rick James were at the time. Young’s later back-up band Crazy Horse recorded in earlier guises too, amongst them the Rockets, while the Beefeaters osmosed into the Byrds, Ry Cooder and Taj Mahal started out in an unknown group named the Rising Sons and Gram Parsons cut his teeth in the International Submarine Band. Bob Dylan knew a good thing when he heard it and he heard it in Levon & the Hawks, who teamed up with him and changed their name to the Band. The Pigeons found few takers until they slowed things down and re-launched themselves as Vanilla Fudge. Hear all these bands here.
Danny Lee, anyone? We know him now as genius songwriter Dan Penn. What about Link Cromwell? Where would Patti Smith be without Lenny Kaye? How does Mark Robinson grab you? Just a quick listen is all it takes to identify the unmistakeable bass voice of Lee Hazlewood. Nilsson’s first chart record dates from 1969, but he’d been scratching around in the music biz for years by then, writing songs for the Ronettes, singing demos for Little Richard and recording singles under pseudonyms like Bo Pete.
Collectors will tell you it’s invariably the records made by well-known artists before they were famous that are the hardest to find and the most expensive to buy. Expect to fork out over £500 for an original copy of ‘Liza Jane’ by Davie Jones with the King Bees, the fabled first single released by the lad who grew up to David Bowie, for example. By purchasing this CD, you save yourself a small fortune and get pre-fame recordings by Lou Reed, Joe Cocker, Cher, Mike Nesmith, Peter Frampton, J.J. Cale, Warren Zevon and P.F. Sloan thrown in for good measure.
Ace's You Heard Them Here First: First Recordings by Famous or Influential Artists is more of an archaeology project than its companion disc, You Heard It Here First! That compilation featured the first recorded versions of pop, rock, and soul classics that became hits in the hands of other artists, whereas this set unearths the first recordings of superstars, so almost without exception neither the songs nor the names on the back cover of You Heard Them Here First are familiar, but the sounds often are. Some artists are heard in what would later become their familiar settings -- Dan Penn does some wicked Southern soul as Danny Lee on "Stop Calling Me Baby," Gram Parsons' country-rock was fully intact in the International Submarine Band, and the only thing that separates the Byrds from the Beefeaters is their name -- but You Heard Them Here First is at its most fun when it forces listeners to draw their own connections, to hear the incipient glam growl within David Bowie as he's singing "Liza Jane" as Davie Jones or to listen to Lewis Reed's "Your Love" and find Lou Reed testing out vocal phrasing he'd later do during the Velvet Underground's upbeat moments. Although there is a handful of genuinely terrific singles here -- chief among them Neil Young and Rick James in the Mynah Birds kicking out the garage rock "It's My Time," the Band's early incarnation Levon & the Hawks' absolutely terrific "The Stones I Throw," Warren Zevon in Lyme & Cybelle's nifty piece of psychedelic pop "Follow Me," and Joe Cocker's stomping take on the Beatles' "I'll Cry Instead" -- the main pleasure here is hearing great talents finding their voice. Think of it as a graduate class in pop music, one that's illuminating and entertaining, and You Heard Them Here First starts to seem like something pretty close to essential listening even if it doesn't contain many, if any, outright clas
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FILE LIST
Filename
Size
1.Davie Jones With The King Bees-Liza Jane.mp3
2.1 MB
10.The Herd-I Can Fly.mp3
4.5 MB
11.The Pigeons-In The Midnight Hour.mp3
2.9 MB
12.J.J. Cale-Outside Lookin' In.mp3
2.1 MB
13.The Paramours-Prison Break.mp3
2.1 MB
14.Marty Balin-You Made Me Fall.mp3
1.9 MB
15.Arthur Lee & The L.A.G.'s-Rumble-Still-Skins.mp3
