New Titles Roundup: Richard X. Heyman, Hilary Scott, The Contraptionists, Richard Pryor

This year continues to see a number of wonderful new studio albums and special previously-unissued live releases.

Artist: Richard X. Heyman

Title: Copious Notes (Turn-Up Records)

You might like if you enjoy: Tommy Keene, Paul McCartney

Tell me more: It's not a surprise that a long list of terrific studio albums are being released this year. During the global pandemic when artists were unable to tour many focused their creative energies on writing and recording new music. Such is the case with Richard X. Heyman's outstanding 14th album Copious Notes, a 12-track set recorded at The Kit Factory, a home studio he shares with his wife Nancy Leigh (she produced, played bass and contributed backing vocals on the album) in New York. Heyman handles lead vocals, acoustic and electric guitars, percussion and keyboards while a handful of guests play horns and strings to enhance the soundscape on the marvelous album.  The parade of tuneful and inspired melodic rock is a constant on the fast-moving set, spanning from the undeniable lead-off cut "Nearly There" and shimmering "Choices We Make" to the gorgeous Baroque pop-flavored "Cedarbrook Park," soulful rocker "Sink Or Swim," driving power pop standouts "The Truth" and "Return To You" along with the lovely chamber pop original "But Our Love." Heyman's songs are further bolstered by his insightful and reflective lyrics that chronicle love, loss and the world around us. Information: richardxheyman.com.

Artist: Hilary Scott

Title: Kaleidoscope (Belltown Records)

You might like if you enjoy: Hilary Scott and The New County Line, Sarah MacLachlan

Tell me more: Singer-songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Hilary Scott has returned with a five-song EP that extends her creative reach beyond the rootsy blues and Americana territory she has championed on previous releases. Kaleidoscope finds Scott exploring pop-rock with the same zeal and authenticity that has marked her approach on past solo titles and her work with The New County Line. Focusing on songs co-written in Nashville during a special songwriting project, Scott's top-tier vocals connect with the approach on the EP, notably on the yearning "Just A Shame," starry-eyed "Almost Home" and on the modern dance track "Free Country." Information: hilaryscott.com.

Artist: The Contraptionists

Title: Working Man's Dread (The Contraptionists)

You might like if you enjoy: The Lone Bellow, Rose's Pawn Shop

Tell me more: Armed with strong lead and harmony vocals and enough multi-instrumental chops to staff a full band, the Contraptionists are a duo featuring Paul Givant and Stephen Andrews. The magic that the roots-minded duo conjure up on Working Man's Dread is no fluke; the two have played music together for nearly a decade in the acclaimed Americana quintet Rose's Pawn Shop. However, the new 11-track project puts an emphasis on a sparse soundscape that comes in the service of Givant's probing songcraft. The majority of songs heard on Working Man's Dread were written by Gibant and developed with Andrews when the do completed a monthly-long tour from California through the Pacific Northwest, Canada and Alaska back in 2018. The wistful "River Lethe," beautiful "Flotation Device," evocative "Murky Floor," genre-blending "Mountains," gorgeous harmonies-filled "Plead," bona fide rocker "Ember Days" and sweeping "Dream Song" are among the memorable original songs on the album. The Contraptionists are scheduled to perform at The Joshua Tree Saloon on Aug. 27. Information: TheContraptionists.com. 

Artist: Richard Pryor

Title: Live at the Comedy Store, 1973 (Omnivore Recordings)

You might like if you enjoy: Richard Pryor

Tell me more: Fans of comedian Richard Pryor will be rewarded on July 23 with the release of Live at the Comedy Store, 1973. The new collection features 14 tracks originally issued in 2013 as a limited-edition promotional audio CD given away with copies of the "No Pryor Restraint: Life in Concert" box set, as well as six additional Comedy Store performances featured as bonus material on several other special collections released in 2000 and 2005. The groundbreaking stand-up comedian tackles a wide range of subjects across the collection, his observations made as he is able expertly give voice to different characters ideally suited to elicit non-stop laughter from the audience. Recorded on Oct. 29, 1973 (in night one of a four-show run at the then relatively-new Comedy Store on Wes Hollywood's Sunset String), Pryor focused on new material in an appearance that was fortunately recorded and is available today. The packaging includes new liner notes from Cory Frye and audio restoration from Grammy winner Michael Graves. Information: OmnivoreRecordings.com.

Robert Kinsler

Rediscovered Recordings Resound In 2021

A diverse range of wonderful rediscovered recordings are highlighted this week...

Collectors will want to pick up the deluxe edition box set of Neil Young & Crazy Horse's 'Way Down In The Rust Bucket,' which chronicles a legendary 1990 concert event. It retails for $99.98 on the New Young Archives website.

Artist: Neil Young & Crazy Horse

Title: Way Down In The Rust Bucket (Reprise)

You might like if you enjoy: Neil Young & Crazy Horse

Tell me more: Clocking in at three hours or so, Neil Young & Crazy Horse's marathon performance across Way Down In The Rust Bucket is truly a stunning showcase for the quartet's power in the service of Young's stellar songcraft. The legendary performance at a small club (The Catalyst) in Santa Cruz, CA on Nov. 13, 1990 celebrated the release of the outstanding Ragged Glory album issued two months before; the entire event was filmed and recorded by Shakey Picture’s LA Johnson. Performing three sets, Young and company unleashed the first-time ever live versions of a slew of Ragged Glory cuts along with an evocative "Danger Bird," the latter a favorite off the 1970 album Zuma. The countrified rocker "Country Home," moody 14-minute "Love to Burn," soaring "Cinnamon Girl" and otherworldly "Over and Over Again" are early standouts. Late concert highlights include the harmonies-adorned "Don't Cry No Tears," fiery "Sedan Delivery," genuinely explosive "Like a Hurricane" and stirring concert-ending "Cortez the Killer." Way Down In The Rust Bucket was released on February 26, 2021 as a 4 LP vinyl box set, a 2 CD set and a deluxe edition box set containing a DVD of the concert, plus 4 vinyl LPs and 2 CDs. At a later date a stand-alone DVD will also be released at NYA — Young’s Archive website. Information: neilyoungarchives.com.

Artist: Todd Rundgren

Titles: A Wizard, A True Star...Live! (Cleopatra Records)

You might like if you enjoy: Todd Rundgren, The Who, Emitt Rhodes, Paul Stanley's Soul Station

Tell me more: Released on colorful rainbow swirl vinyl on March 5, Todd Rundgren's A Wizard, A True Star...Live! is a 2009 concert recording revisiting the artist's groundbreaking genre-bashing 1973 album A Wizard, A True Star! in its entirety. A Wizard, A True Star...Live! was issued on crystal clear DVD and audio CD last year, but the 2LP vinyl release is sure to please fans of the famed musician/producer/singer-songwriter who enjoy collectible vinyl titles. The 2LPs come packaged in a beautiful gatefold jacket featuring images from Rundgren's multi-media concert event captured in Akron, Ohio. The inspired recording shines throughout; the psychedelic-tinged opener "International Feel," wistful "Never Never Land," melodic "You Don't Have To Camp Around," neo-classical "Flamingo," ambitious "Zen Archer" and soulful "Sometimes I Don't Know What To Feel" are surefire standouts on the first LP. The second LP continues the parade of great offerings courtesy of a stellar soul medley, the melancholic trip "I Don't Want To Tie You Down," intoxicating rocker "Is It My Name?" and enthralling closer "Just One Victory." Rundgren's fourth studio album A Wizard, A True Star! mostly ignored the commercial-aimed songwriting found on his previous 1971 effort Something/Anything? and instead frequently focused on heavy experimentation. The results on the original studio set, as well as this terrific live version of the classic are glorious. Information: CleopatraRecords.com.

Artist: Hasaan Ibn Ali

Title: Metaphysics: The Lost Atlantic Album (Omnivore Recordings)

You might like if you enjoy: John Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, Elmo Hope

Tell me more: Los Angeles-based Omnivore Recordings continues to champion rare and rediscovered recordings. Look (and listen!) no further than Metaphysics: The Lost Atlantic Album, a never-before-issued 1965 recording featuring jazz pianist Hasaan Ibn Ali. The story of the recording is almost as amazing as the dazzling jazzscape that plays out via the talents of virtuoso keyboardist Ali, tenor saxophonist Odean Pope, bassist Art Davis and drummer Kalil Madi. Prior to the release of Metaphysics on March 5, Ali was seemingly destined to be known only for The Max Roach Trio Featuring the Legendary Hasaan, a 1964 recording that lifted the Philadelphia-based Ali out of obscurity.  Indeed, when Atlantic invited Ali to record again in August and September of 1965, the subsequent step in mixing the sessions was halted because of a narcotics possession that resulted in Ali's incarceration. Thirteen years later, the master tape was destroyed in an Atlantic Records warehouse in Long Branch, N.J. Fast forward to 2018 and the discovery of a tape copy of the long-lost reference acetates of the 1965 sessions; listening to the work of Grammy Award-winning engineer Michael Graves on the restored Metaphysics is to be immersed in the astonishing playing of Ali (who sadly died in 1981). Ali's original compositions are beautiful even while challenging the listener at every turn. Detailed liner notes shed additional light on Ali as well as the other musicians who accompany him on this magical rediscovery. Information: OmnivoreRecordings.com.

Artist: Richard Pryor

Titles: Richard Pryor; 'Craps' (After Hours) (Omnivore Recordings)

You might like if you enjoy: Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy

Tell me more: The widely-acknowledged #1 stand-up comic of all time, Richard Pryor kept audiences laughing on stage and screen in a career spanning from the early '60s to his death at the age of 65 in late 2005. Now Omnivore Recordings has released restored and expanded editions of the late artist's first two albums. Richard Pryor (originally released in 1968) and 'Craps' (After Hours) (first issued in 1971) showcase the Peoria, Illinois native early in his career and reveal how brilliant his style remains more than 50 years later. His style of comedy is halarious and decidedly edgy whether eliciting laughing attacks from club goers with tales of black superheroes, impressing girls, life in prison, religion and race or sex, drug use and a comedic take on all things in life with his ability to play multiple characters — all delivered with rapid-fire improvisational precision. Richard Pryor was recorded live at the Troubadour in West Hollywood, with a second disc featuring 21 tracks recorded at several different comedy clubs that were included in the out-of-print Evolution/Revolution: The Early Years (1966-1974). 

The second Pryor release, 'Craps' (After Hours)' shows a slightly more polished Pryor, his comedy as keyed up as ever. The detailed liner notes on this collection are particularly helpful in understanding how Pryor "evolved from 19670s nighlub comedian to being the voice of his generation." Larry Karaszewski continues: "The performances capture the moment where Richard Pryor stopped being polite. Where he took off his suit and tie and gloves. Where Pryor began to reflect what was happening in the streets and in the counterculture." Information: OmnivoreRecordings.com.

Robert Kinsler

Richard Pryor's first two albums - 'Richard Pryor' and 'Craps' (After Hours) - restored and expanded by Omnivore Recordings

I once was honored to see the late great Richard Pryor come on stage in a surprise and unannounced performance at a comedy club in Hollywood back in the mid-1980s. A true comedy legend, this is very exciting news...

Richard Pryor's first two albums - Richard Pryor and 'Craps' (After Hours) - restored and expanded by Omnivore Recordings, coming on Friday, Feb. 26, 2021

New editions of legendary comic's early albums contain 25 bonus tracks, including outtakes and sketches

Both packages have new liner notes from Scott Saul, author of "Becoming Richard Pryor"; 'Craps' (After Hours) features an introduction from award-winning writer Larry Karaszewski (Dolemite Is My Name)

Naming him the #1 stand-up comic of all time, Rolling Stone wrote of Richard Pryor: “Pryor was untouchable ... If [George] Carlin is the brain and conscience of comedy, Pryor is its guts and heart, and it’s unlikely the man referred to as the ‘Picasso of our profession’ — by no less than Jerry Seinfeld — will ever be topped.”

 

On February 26, 2021, Omnivore Recordings will release expanded editions of Pryor’s first two recordings, Richard Pryor and ‘Craps’ (After Hours). Both will be available on CD and Digital.

 

Scott Saul, author of Becoming Richard Pryor, wrote in his liner notes for the Richard Pryor reissue: “What you hold in your hands is something precious: both the landmark debut that was, and the piece of cultural dynamite that might have been. In its original form, Richard Pryor alerted the world that Pryor had stepped out of Bill Cosby’s long shadow and developed a style — surreal, nervy, improvisational — that was all his own.”

 

Richard Pryor, originally released in 1968, featured cover art (shot by legendary photographer Henry Diltz) that should have let the buyer know this was not your average comedy record. Pryor was at a career crossroads that year, when the album was recorded at the Troubadour in West Hollywood. He’d already become a regular on The Merv Griffin Show and The Ed Sullivan Show, and was signed to the same agency that handled the Beatles and the Supremes. But it wasn’t just his love of artistic freedom that pulled him toward what many looked at as defiance. Pryor wanted to not only change comedy, but how we look at ourselves and those around us.

 

Richard Pryor’s original eight tracks make up the first disc of this new edition, while the second disc contains 21 tracks from the out-of-print Evolution/Revolution: The Early Years (1966-1974) collection — originally co-compiled by producer Reggie Collins, who helms this new set along with Jennifer Lee Pryorand Grammy®-winning producer Cheryl Pawelski. Remastering is by Grammy®-winner Michael Graves.

 

In his introduction to the ‘Craps’ (After Hours) package by Larry Karaszewski (Golden Globe^® and Emmy^®-winning co-writer of Dolemite Is My Name, The People vs. Larry Flynt, American Crime Story, and more) writes: “This fascinating collection chronicles how Richard Pryor evolved from 1960s nightclub comedian to being the voice of his generation. The performances capture the moment where Richard Pryor stopped being polite. Where he took off his suit and tie and gloves. Where Pryor began to reflect what was happening in the streets and in the counterculture.”

Originally released in 1971, ‘Craps’ (After Hours) arrived on a new label, Laff Records. It also came from a tumultuous time in Pryor’s personal life. But this new arrangement and Pryor’s need to create saw him — for the first time since his earliest days in Peoria — performing in nightclubs that drew an almost entirely black audience. In these lively black clubs, he could say anything he wanted. and those parts of himself that had been buried, by shame or censorship, could now serve as his creative fuel.

 

The original 32 tracks from ‘Craps’ (After Hours) are now teamed with four bonus tracks from the out-of-print Evolution/Revolution: The Early Years (1966-1974) and No Pryor Restraint: Life In Concertcollections. Production and remastering credits are the same as for Richard Pryor.

 

Track listings:

Richard Pryor

DISC 1

1. Super Nigger
2. Girls
3. Farting
4. Prison Play
5. T.V. Panel Show
6. Smells
7. Army Life
8. Frankenstein

DISC 2

1. Peoria [Bonus Track]
2. Improv, Pt. 1 [Bonus Track]
3. Heart & Brain [Bonus Track]
4. Taxi Cabs & Subways [Bonus Track]
5. Playboy Club [Bonus Track]
6. Rumpelstiltskin [Bonus Track]
7. Slippin’ In Poo Poo [Bonus Track]

8. Birth Control [Bonus Track]
9. Nigger Babies [Bonus Track]
10. Faith Healer [Bonus Track]
11. Black Power [Bonus Track]
12. I Feel [Bonus Track]
13. Jail [Bonus Track]
14. Directions [Bonus Track]
15. Movie Stars In The Bathroom
16. War Movies [Bonus Track]
17. The Army [Bonus Track]
18. Hippy Dippys [Bonus Track]
19. Hank’s Place [Bonus Track]
20. Improv, Pt. 2 [Bonus Track]
21. Mankind [Bonus Track]

 

Craps (After Hours):

DISC 1

1. Gettin’ High
2. F**k From Memory

3. Big Tits
4. Gettin’ Some
5. The President
6. Ass-Hole
7. The Line-Up
8. Masturbating
9. Religion
10. Black Preachers

11. Being Born
12. Blow Our Image

13. Blackjack
14. I Spy Cops
15. Sugar Ray
16. White Folks
17. Indians
18. Ass Wupin’
19. Get A Dollar
20. Pres’ Black Baby
21. Dope
22. Wino Panthers
23. After Hours
24. 280 Pound Ass
25. Crap Game
26. Insurance Man
27. Black And Proud
28. Gettin’ The Nut
29. F**k The Faggot
30. Jackin’ Off
31. Snappin’ Pussy
32. Fartin’
33. Whorehouse, Pt. 1 [Bonus Track]
34. Whorehouse, Pt. 2 [Bonus Track]
35. Wino & Junkie (Alternate Version) [Bonus Track]
36. Attica (Behind Those Walls) [Bonus Track]

Pre-sale links:

http://omnivorerecordings.com/shop/richard-pryor-richard-pryor/
http://omnivorerecordings.com/shop/richard-pryor-craps-after-hours/