Friday, January 28, 2022

The Alan Price Set - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: 1966-1967

I've got a ton of BBC material to process and post here. I'm not doing them in any special order, just kind of randomly picking from the pile. Thanks to these BBC recordings, I'm learning about some artists that I'd never paid much attention to before. 

A good example of that is Alan Price. He was the organ player for the Animals, and is responsible for the famous organ sound on "The House of the Rising Sun." But not long after that, in 1965, he left the band for a solo career. It turns out he was a capable lead singer (with a voice that sounds a bit like Eric Burdon's of the Animals) and a sometimes songwriter, so it was easy to see why he went solo. He went on to have some hits in Britain into the early 1970s. But he didn't make an impact in the US, and since I'm American, I'd pretty much missed his solo career.

These BBC recordings are good for highlights of his early solo career. There are versions of all of his hits from that time, plus album tracks and some songs I don't think he released. I don't know his music well enough to name every song done exclusively for the BBC, but I checked and confirmed that at least these ones are exclusive: "Baby Work Out," "When a Man Loves a Woman," "Shake," "I Take What I Want," "Said I Wasn't Gonna Tell Nobody," "Goin' Out of My Head," "Knock on Wood," and "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood." That's half the songs here! Most of those are famous soul songs.

You'll note some of the songs have "[Edit]" in their titles. That's the usual problem of BBC DJs talking over the music. I applied the usual solution of using the audio editing software X-Minus to wipe the vocals clean while keeping the underlying music.

Some of these are from a rare archival album, and others are unreleased. But the sound quality is excellent and essentially the same either way.

This album is 42 minutes long. I have enough material for a second volume, which will be coming soon.

01 I Put a Spell on You (Alan Price Set)
02 Baby Work Out (Alan Price Set)
03 The Walk [Edit] (Alan Price Set)
04 Hi-Lili Hi-Lo (Alan Price Set)
05 Take Me Home [Edit] (Alan Price Set)
06 When a Man Loves a Woman (Alan Price Set)
07 Shake [Edit] (Alan Price Set)
08 I Can't Turn You Loose [Edit] (Alan Price Set)
09 Tickle Me (Alan Price Set)
10 I Take What I Want [Edit] (Alan Price Set)
11 Critic's Choice [Instrumental] (Alan Price Set)
12 Said I Wasn't Gonna Tell Nobody [Edit] (Alan Price Set)
13 Goin' Out of My Head [Edit] (Alan Price Set)
14 Knock on Wood [Edit] (Alan Price Set)
15 Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood [Edit] (Alan Price Set)
16 The House That Jack Built (Alan Price Set)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16373052/ALANPRCE1966-1967BBSssonsVlum1_atse.zip.html

The album cover pictures Alan Price in 1966. I don't know the details though.

6 comments:

  1. Thanks - Can you reveal the original source for some of these? I'd like to hear them unedited as they originally appeared on the BBC.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I don't have an exact source for the unreleased stuff. I just searched for "Alan Price BBC" on SoulseekQT and they came up. Not as any album per se, but just part of a huge collection of BBC stuff.

      For the officially released ones, as the mp3 tags say, those come from: The House That Jack Built: The Complete 60's Sessions.

      Delete
    2. The original source for tracks from BBC Transcription Services Top Of The Pops found here:
      http://allmusic-wingsofdream.blogspot.com/search?q=Alan+Price+Set+BBC

      Delete
    3. Yeah, those are some examples. Unfortunately, I don't think Price is popular enough for there to be bootlegs just of his stuff. At least, I haven't seen any. But there are huge collections of BBC stuff taken from original transcription reels, and there are some of his songs on them every now and then.

      Delete
  2. Thanks! I got to know Alan Price thru his music for the movie O Lucky Man -- some of the catchiest and most cynical pop songs you'll ever hear!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I bought the soundtrack back in the mid 70's and played it to death. It wasn't till the 80's that I figured out he was the guy from the Animals. I still love that album, played it last night. I was gonna play the BBC album (the Randy Newman song caught my eye) but when I opened up my Alan Price folder, the first thing I saw was O Lucky Man.

      Delete