This remaster was originally issued on Cherry Red's Rev-Ola imprint in 2008. Now it's being reissued on the Cherry Red label itself.

Description
A deceptive one this! Originally planned as a Dave Mason solo album, it is certainly one of his finest and coupling him with Cass Elliot was an utter stroke of genius, as she goes from being “just” producer and backing vocalist to being the shining guest star of the album.

Cass provides excellent background vocals on her non-lead songs alongside sister Leah Kunkel making up an impressive harmony stack. The album is propelled by Mason’s superb songwriting talents and tracks such as ‘On and On’, ‘Walk to the Point’, and several others bear this out. His guitar playing is some of his finest recorded work, especially the epic ‘Glittering Façade’, where he layers acoustic and electric guitars to a scintillating effect.

Elliot’s ‘Here We Go Again’ showcases her ability as an outstanding lead vocalist, showing just what a star we lost. Paul Harris provides some excellent keyboard and string arrangements providing a glimpse of fine work that was to follow in Stephen Stills’ Manassas. The rest of the stellar backing crew outdo themselves. A highly underrated album, but in the end, one of the finest of the 1970s. And one with a shockingly modern soundscape.

** Beautifully remastered by Norman Blake!
** Suitably in-depth liner notes and lovely design by Pepperbox!
** A must for all fans of 1970s rock, pop, singer/songwriters and, to be honest, all good music!

Tracklist
1. Walk To The Point
2. On And On
3. To Be Free
4. Here We Go Again
5. Pleasing You
6. Sit And Wonder
7. Something To Make You Happy
8. Too Much Truth, Too Much Love
9. Next To You
10. Glittering Façade

Amazon USA
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07KLJDSJG/?tag=imwan-20

Amazon UK
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07KLJDSJG/?tag=imwan-21

This is a very hard to CD to find. Very welcomed reissue for sure.

lots of dave mason stuff is hard to find.

So true (and so wrong).

Bump: Added the cover image to the first post.

I'm fortunate to have the original MCA cd. I'm usually disappointed more often than not with Cherry Red's mastering.

I found a Japanese used copy at my indie a few years back, damm near fell over.

Cool. I did buy a Japan CD for Dave Mason is Alive, which came out right after this.

Love to see a box set for him, he so deserves it. You and Renny would be right behind me on line.

He actually pretty much lost me after Split Coconut & the CBS live album. I'm mostly into his MCA/ABC period, the first couple on CBS (& of course Traffic).

Hmm, I feel pretty much the opposite. I love Cherry Red and I buy a lot of their output every year. But I do collect very different music than you, for the most part.

In the case of this specific release, since it's a reissue of a remaster we can check that previous pressing for reviews:

Amazon USA
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0018RWDLS/?tag=imwan-20

Amazon UK
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0018RWDLS/?tag=imwan-21

Skimming the customer comments at both Amazon sites, it looks like the negative reviews were about listeners not liking the songs (rather than the remastering of those songs). Cass Elliot's inclusion on the album seriously divided Dave Mason fans.

I had mixed feelings about that also. But for years it was the only way to get one of Mason's best songs, "Walk To The Point" on cd.

Re Cherry Red: the 3 bad ones that come to mind quickly are:

The 2 cd Bow Wow Wow has awful mastering (I bought it). Amazon.UK reviews for the recent 3 cd seem to say it's at least as bad. These weren't loud, they just used really low quality source material.

The Dan Reed Network debut was pretty compressed & split the first 2 tracks (which are joined on the original cd)

Didn't get either of those. All of the Cherry Red titles I've bought this year have been varying degrees of excellent. Whatever people they have working in that area (power pop, mod, psych, indie guitar groups ... that kind of stuff) do good work.

I've also gotten a few of their prog rock titles and been happy with those too, but Rick can speak more authoritatively on those. (I just "dabble" in prog. )

I picked up a used copy of this just this past summer for $8...I've really enjoyed it and think Mason and Elliott sounded good together.

What pressing did you get? Was it the Rev-Ola CD (which will be a reissue of) or a different one?

It's the Rev-Ola CD from 2008. I think it sounds fine, but I'm judging this on very much non high-end sound system.

Thanks, Momo.

i was pretty much a completist with dave mason, buying the japanese editions years ago when they first became available. i stopped keeping up recently after a couple or 3 live albums that were all basically the exact same album with a different tune stack.

those old japanese CD;s still sound wonderful.

Somebody needs to re-release the live album with Capaldi. That one is hard to find it seems.

Never mind. Just found a copy and bought it!