Various - 40 Years: Volume One: Classic Hits

by Nicky Crewe

published: 29 / 7 / 2014

Various - 40 Years: Volume One: Classic Hits

Label: Charly Records
Format: CD

Inspirational sampler CD to celebrate their fortieth anniversary from reissue label Charly Records, which includes tracks among others from Curtis Mayfield, the Small Faces, Chris Farlowe and the 13th Floor Elevators

Review

Charly Records is celebrating forty years of specialising in reissues, and this sampler CD represents an amazing back catalogue of associations with partner labels. Back in the day sampler albums played a significant role in my record collection. I still have my copies of 'Chess Golden Decade', 'Rock Machine Turns You On' and 'I Love You'. A sampler gives you a taste of a genre, offers the unpredictability of someone else’s choices, and inspires you to look further. When I requested this CD to review, I asked myself where does a compilation of compilation albums fit in this Spotify and shuffle world? One way of answering this conundrum is to tell you where it fits in my world. Bobby Womack’s 'Across 110th Street' takes me back to my discovery of this amazing soul singer. I still have a vinyl copy of 'Looking For A Love'. Curtis Mayfield’s 'Super Fly' reminds me of how grateful I am to have seen him live at The International in Manchester in the early 1980s, thanks to promoter Roger Eagle. His song 'Move On Up' kept me sane through a difficult time in my late teens. The Small Faces' 'Itchycoo Park' transports me back to the package tour when I saw them, fell in love with Steve Marriott and met my first ever boyfriend. I can still see Chris Farlowe singing 'Out of Time' on 'Ready Steady Go', likewise the Yardbirds and 'For Your Love'. Years later I got to sing 'Out of Time' myself, live in Tangier (it’s a longish story). The 13th Floor Elevators and 'You’re Going to Miss Me' reminds me of watching Roky Erickson at the Green Man festival in 2009, psychedelic rock resounding in the Brecon Beacons. The Shangri-Las' 'Leader of the Pack' has to be Radio Luxembourg playing on a transistor radio underneath my pillow. Nina Simone’s 'My Baby Just Cares For Me' is timeless. Her music seems to have always been part of the soundtrack of my life. Hank Mizell’s 'Jungle Rock', Carl Perkins’ 'Blue Suede Shoes' and Jerry Lee Lewis’s 'Great Balls of Fire' transport me back to my days in a 1970s rock’n’roll revival group. John Lee Hooker’s 'Boom Boom 'is about discovering rhythm and blues, and Johnny Cash’s 'I Walk the Line' helped me to appreciate that country music was more than I had originally given it credit for. Bob Marley’s 'Sun is Shining' took me back to seeing him and the Wailers on their first tour of the UK, and summed up the heatwave under way as I listened to this CD. Funkadelic’s 'One Nation Under A Groov'e had me dancing, not in the streets, but in my garden. Feet didn’t fail me, dancing out of my constrictions. They are the ones who got away, I keep missing seeing them live, but there’s still time. Maybe not another forty years. Thanks for the memories, Charly.