|
Do
you remember any of these titles?
Fill Your Head With Rock, Bumpers, You Can All Join In, Nice Enough
To Eat, El Pea, Vertigo Annual, Picnic……
If so, then of course, you’ll know that they are all titles of various
artist sampler LPs released around 1970. Each one featured a collection
of tracks by bands, songwriters and singers and so enabled the young rock
fan to ‘sample’ what was on offer from one particular label
whether it be CBS, Island, Harvest…
No
doubt, many people reading this will still have their vinyl copies of
these albums and play them occasionally.
For those who don’t… well, if you were there at the time, I’m
sure the memories will come flooding back.
Take
Nice Enough To Eat. Remember the shortbread lettering on the sleeve
and of course the multi-flavoured musical menu offered on the album itself?
And the artists…which included household names such as Free and Traffic
alongside the likes of Heavy Jelly and Dr. Strangely Strange. Such incredibly
colourful track orders became so wonderfully familiar after all those
listens.
Then, as well as the albums themselves, there are memories of that period
from which they came. The late night or early morning record sessions.
The sense that those of you in the room were sharing an alternative listening
experience to those outside.
Of
course each of us have our own distinctive memories attached to such things
but there are still those that are commonly shared. I’m sure many,
for instance, will find these memories of a certain record shop owner
I spoke to recently rather familiar.
As he recalled, purchasing a new LP was quite an event in those days.
Buying a record was far more expensive than going to a gig which may have
cost something like ‘six bob’ (or 30p) so your choice of album
purchase had to be made with considerable discretion. If you’d got
home and found the LP to be a disappointing listen then you were crestfallen
to say the least having spent the last thirty bob you’d see for a
while.
SO…the sampler was a gift to a young music fan as there was more
hope of something decent among the wide variety of styles on offer. In
defiance of the record company’s original purpose for the sampler,
many consumers were happy enough with that one purchase rather than going
on to buy the other albums from the which the individual tracks were culled.
But
other than record fairs and flea markets, where can you find these things
nowadays?
Is it just me? Or am I right in thinking there’s no glossily-laminated
repackaged remastered CD of Fill Your Head With Rock available
on the high street shelves (OR Bumpers for that matter…OR
Picnic). It appears those times have gone for good according to
the industry. And yet, surely that marketing potential is being missed.
What’s
more…
Recently, I did a search for samplers from this period on the internet
and, from the pretty meagre result that came up, I was surprised to find
little more than information on pricings, track listings and catalogue
data.
Where were the anecdotes? The affectionate recollections and nostalgic
revisitations?
Ok…maybe there are one or two comments here and there on record collecting
forums and other unexpected places eg. reviews of a recent Island compilation
which prompted one person to exclaim ‘re-release Bumpers!’.
But not much else.
SO…seeing
as what I searched for didn’t come up, I thought I’d write something
like it myself.
On subsequent pages I’ve chosen my pick of the albums from the above
list and pondered over album sleeves, track orders and individual tracks
from sampler albums which together form a unique category in rock album
history which, for the sake of convenience, I’ve decided to call…
The Various Artist Sampler LPs of 1970.
IF
YOU CAME HERE TO FIND CATALOGUE INFO AND DATA, IT ISN’T HERE!
I hope instead you can enjoy my indulgent trip down memory lane and maybe
share some of those memories with me.
First
up then….let’s take a look at a CBS sampler from 1970 which
I’m sure you’ll remember well….
Fill Your Head With Rock.
©2006
David Sanderson
|