Lindisfarne
Brand New Day – The Mercury Years 1978-1979
(Cherry Red)
★★★

THIS easy-on-the-ear late 1970s retrospective brings together the three albums that Lindisfarne recorded for the Mercury label after re-forming in 1976. 

The Geordie folk-rockers’ career had lost much of its early momentum after they had suffered several line-up changes a few years previously, but the return of the group’s original members swiftly rejuvenated their fortunes, and the release of their euphoric live set Magic in the Air in 1978 helped to reacquaint listeners with much-loved old favourites such as Fog On The Tyne, Meet Me On The Corner and We Can Swing Together. 

The highly listenable follow-ups, Back and Fourth and The News are also given an airing here alongside a generous helping of demos, out takes and live tracks culled from their live show at Newcastle City Hall in 1979.

Gene Clark
The Lost Studio Recordings 1964-1982
(Wienerworld)
★★★

BYRDS’ founder member Gene Clark didn’t enjoy too much commercial success after his departure from the band in early 1966, but his subsequent solo work did enjoy a great deal of critical acclaim, most notably 1974’s No Other, which is widely recognised as an unconventional classic of the singer-songwriter genre. 

This fascinating anthology spans the length and breadth of Clark’s performing career as it serves up a series of hitherto unreleased offerings from the archives, showcasing a batch of folksy pre-Byrds tracks from 1964 alongside several tuneful gems drawn from his reunion with former bandmates Chris Hillman and Michael Clarke almost two decades later, including a fine new version of his classic I’ll Feel A Whole Lot Better. 

Gene Clark completists should find it a well-nigh indispensable purchase and the contents are certainly well worth an hour or so of anyone’s time.

Albert King
New Orleans Heat
(Charly Records)
★★★★

THE vinyl revival continues with the rerelease of this splendid 1978 album, which paired highly influential singer-guitarist Albert King with the great New Orleans producer Albert Toussaint. 

The track listing alternates between new material, including Toussaint’s own Get Out Of My Life Woman and impressive revamps of several King classics led by Born Under A Bad Sign and I Get Evil, with the influence of New Orleans funk unexpectedly kept to a minimum despite the presence in Albert’s backing line-up of masters of the genre such as The Meters’ Leo Nocentelli and George Porter Jnr. 

The finished product may not have made too much of an impression on the record-buying public when it first saw the light of day almost half a century ago but the robustly memorable contents have withstood the passage of time surprisingly well.