Paul Young - Tomb Of Memories - The CBS Years 1982 - 1994

This is my latest purchase. I first read about this release back in June and pre ordered it and it seemed ages away before it was released. All of a sudden Friday 21st of August came and this box set dropped on the mat! It is a box set compiled of singles, album tracks alternative mixes and the odd unreleased track with a few live faves added for a complete mix.

It is quite a good compilation with his most famous stuff being on the first two discs with the lesser known single and album tracks on the last two discs. The last two discs may be made of less familiar stuff to the occasional Paul Young fan but they are still pretty good songs. The first 500 ordered off the Sony site were autographed by the man himself!

The Byrds - Mr Tambourine Man

This is a special post for me. Last week (July 29th) I turned 50! Yep, half century has landed and I'm just the same old me as usual, don't think that will ever change! This single by The Byrds was number one here in the UK the week I was born. This single originally written by Bob Dylan and came off his Another Side Of Bob Dylan album. Originally Bob's version ran for about 5 minutes, but to enable the band to receive radio play in America, they recorded the song to run for about two and a half minutes. This worked as the song reached number one in America and the UK in July 1965, not bad for a debut single!

The song, with it's 12 string Rickenbacker jangly guitar song played by Jim McGuinn was the only member of the band to play on the single after the producer thought the band weren't up to playing on the song at that point. They all sang on the single and later recordings featured all the members of the band. They say the sound of The Byrds is the sound which defined Folk Rock, with that signature jangly guitar sound.

To me when I hear this song, it sends me back to being a 7 year old child going to my friend Amanda's house and her Mum playing this single quite a lot of times. I just fell for those jangly 12 string guitar sounds which I still love hearing today. This is a real classic single which defined the times, a real pocket of history when you listen to it. Here's the single!

Mott The Hoople - Roll Away The Stone

Mott The Hoople were on a roll after the hit single All The Young Dudes from 1972. Before the single was released, the band were about to break up when David Bowie offered them that track, success finally came fast. After several other singles hitting various places in the charts, the band released this classic single written by Ian Hunter and released in November 1973 at the height of Glam Rock and climbed to number 8 in the charts. Over the next couple of years the band continued to have success here and in America but the band imploded by 1975 after constant line up changes and Ian Hunter finally walking out of the band to go solo. At least they left us with some great tracks. Here's the single!

Judas Priest - Unleashed In The East

Venturing into heavy metal, this was the first metal album I really listened to and it just blew me away. The sheer power from the music, the amazing vocals of Rob Halford and those awesome twin guitars of KK Downing and Glen Tipton made this album make me want to listen to more of this Heavy Metal that was slowly making noise in the charts amongst the new wave and punk bands.

Unleashed In The East, or Unleashed In The Studio as it is sometimes is known, is a very polished live album, that's why it has a maybe unfair extra title as it does sounds like a heavily overdubbed live album. Everything on the album sounds so clear, but Rob Halford has said that it is a totally live album but he had to overdub his vocals in a live setting as the original concert vocals (which were recorded from 2 shows in Japan) had been damaged. There are a couple of really good covers on this album, Fleetwood Mac's Green Manalishi and a great version of Joan Baez Diamonds And Rust featuring Rob's soaring high vocals and the trademark twin guitars. Released in 1979 the album hit the UK Top 10 and started Judas Priest on a world wide domination of the metal scene.