[2022-07-22] Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera "Long Nights Of Summer: The Anthology" 3CD set (Grapefruit UK)

Linda · **Posted:** Sun May 15, 2022 12:39 pm

Amazon USA
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09ZY93DM1/?tag=imwan-20

Amazon UK
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09ZY93DM1/?tag=imwan-21

Description
• First-ever complete career anthology of highly-regarded late 60s UK psychedelic band Elmer Gantry’s Velvet Opera

• Mono and stereo versions of much-loved 1968 debut album plus their post-Elmer follow-up LP, several studio out-takes and numerous BBC radio session tracks

In the spring of 1967, London Mod/Soul act The Five Proud Walkers staged a musical volte-face after supporting underground sensations The Pink Floyd.

They duly re-emerged that summer as irrepressible psychedelic adventurers Elmer Gantry’s Velvet Opera, making an immediate splash with debut single ‘Flames’, which appeared on popular CBS label sampler ‘The Rock Machine Turns You On’ and was added to the set-list of many young British bands including the embryonic Led Zeppelin.

‘Flames’ was sufficiently successful to justify a debut LP, a strikingly original offering that remains one of the freshest, most consistently entertaining albums to emerge from the British psychedelic scene.

Charismatic frontman Elmer and guitarist Colin Forster then left, with rhythm section John Ford and Richard Hudson joined by singer Johnny Joyce and guitarist Paul Brett for a second Velvet Opera album, the more Folk/Blues-oriented ‘Ride A Hustler’s Dream’.

The band split in early 1970 when the Hudson-Ford partnership joined Strawbs, although original guitarist Forster briefly revived the name later that year for a one-off single with his former Tintern Abbey colleague David MacTavish.

The first-ever complete EGVO and VO anthology, ‘Long Nights Of Summer’ naturally includes both albums as well as a US promo-only mono mix of that incendiary debut LP that now makes its first-ever CD appearance.

Also including numerous studio out-takes, demo versions, non-LP singles and a revelatory 50 minutes of BBC session tracks (the bulk of which have never been released before), ‘Long Nights Of Summer’ features a new 6000 word essay on the band and many rare images.

It’s the final word on a legendary late 60s British underground band.

Tracklist
[CD1]
1. Intro
2. Mother Writes
3. Mary Jane
4. I Was Cool
5. Walter Sly Meets Bill Bailey
6. Air
7. Lookin’ For A Happy Life
8. Flames
9. What’s The Point Of Leaving
10. Long Nights Of Summer
11. Dream Starts
12. Reactions Of A Young Man
13. Now She’s Gone
Bonus Tracks:
14. Flames (single version)
15. Salisbury Plain
16. Mary Jane (single version)
17. Dreamy
18. Volcano
19. A Quick ‘B’
20. Talk Of The Devil
21. And I Remember
22. To Be With You
23. The Painter
24. Salisbury Plain (extended demo version)
25. Flames (demo version)

1-13 The album Elmer Gantry’s Velvet Opera, Direction S 8-63300, stereo, released July 1968
14-15 Single, Direction 58-3083, released November 1967
16-17 Single, Direction 58-3481, released May 1968
18-19 Single, Direction 58-3924, released January 1969
20-21 1967 studio out-takes
22 1968 studio out-take
23 1968 studio out-take, proposed Elmer Gantry solo single
24-25 Early acetate demo versions, recorded mid-1967

[CD2]
1. Intro
2. Mother Writes
3. Mary Jane
4. I Was Cool
5. Walter Sly Meets Bill Bailey
6. Air
7. Lookin’ For A Happy Life
8. Flames
9. What’s The Point Of Leaving
10. Long Nights Of Summer
11. Dream Starts
12. Reactions Of A Young Man
13. Now She’s Gone
Bonus Tracks:
14. Dream Starts (BBC session)
15. Reactions Of A Young Man (BBC session)
16. Flames (BBC session)
17. Mother Writes (BBC session)
18. Mary Jane (BBC session)
19. Flames (BBC session)
20. I Feel Like I’m Fixing To Die Rag (BBC session)
21. Mary Jane (BBC session)
22. Dreamy (BBC session)
23. Air (BBC session)
24. All Along The Watchtower (BBC session)
25. Mary Jane (BBC session)
26. Something Else (BBC session)
27. Flames (BBC session)
28. All Along The Watchtower (BBC session)

1-13 The album Elmer Gantry’s Velvet Opera, US Epic BN 26415, promo-only mono, released October 1968
14-17 BBC Radio One Top Gear session, recorded 3 November 1967, transmitted 26 November 1967
18-19 BBC Radio One Saturday Club session, recorded 16 January 1968, transmitted 27 January 1968
20-23 BBC Radio One Top Gear session, recorded 22 April 1968, transmitted 19 May 1968
24-26 BBC Top of the Pops radio show transcription disc #188, recorded May 1968, transmitted 5 July 1968
27-28 BBC Radio One Saturday Club session, mid-1968

[CD3]
1. Ride A Hustler’s Dream
2. Statesboro Blues
3. Money By
4. Black Jack Davy
5. Raise The Light
6. Raga
7. Anna Dance Square
8. Depression
9. Don’t You Realise
10. Warm Day In July
11. Eleanor Rigby
Bonus Tracks:
12. Anna Dance Square (single version)
13. Don’t You Realise (single version)
14. She Keeps Giving Me These Feelings
15. There’s A Hole In My Pocket
16. Statesboro Blues (BBC session)
17. Water Wheel (BBC session)
18. She Keeps Giving Me These Feelings (BBC session)

1-11 The album Ride A Hustler’s Dream, CBS S-63692, stereo, released September 1969
12-13 Single, CBS 4189, mono, released May 1969
14-15 Single, Spark SRL 1045, released November 1970
16-17 BBC Radio One David Symonds Show, recorded 21 May 1970, transmitted 8 June 1970
18 BBC Radio One Club, recorded 24 November 1970, transmitted 4 January 1971

Packshot (click for full size):

[2022-07-22] Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera "Long Nights Of Summer: The Anthology" 3CD set (Grapefruit UK)

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