Rarebird's Rock and Roll Nest

For Record Store Day 2019, the Detroit soul label Revilot Records issued a 10-inch EP with six tracks from The Parliaments, the George Clinton-led ‘60’s doo wop quintet which later evolved into Clinton’s ‘70’s funk collectives known as Parliament and Funkadelic (among other variations). The EP, titled Baby I Owe You Something Good , was limited to 2,000 copies. Side A contained three tracks taken from the group’s ‘60’s doo wop singles, all of which were later redone by Clinton’s ‘70’s variations of the Parliaments. These tracks are decidedly more straightforward and more innocent soul recordings than Clinton’s later psychedelic funk experiments, but they are good early displays of his unique talents. “All Your Goodies Are Gone” was originally released as a single in 1967 (Revilot RV 211); it was later rerecorded by Parliament for their 1974 album Up For The Down Stroke . Although this earlier doo wop version is less stylized, it has the edge in terms of real emotion. It’s an excell

For Record Store Day 2019, John Hiatt (the 66-year-old veteran singer-songwriter from Indiana) and his daughter Lilly Hiatt (who is a 35-year-old alt-country recording artist) recorded a 7-inch split-single limited to 450 copies. On the A-side, John covered Lilly’s song “All Kinds Of People”, which originally appeared on her 2017 album Trinity Lane . On the B-side, Lilly covered her father’s song “You Must Go”, from his 1995 album Walk On . When you hear the elder Hiatt sing his daughter’s song “All Kinds Of People”, it’s hard to believe it’s not his own composition. The heartbroken lyrics about losing a true lover who is bound for the ocean (sort of a first-person variation on the Looking Glass song “Brandy”) have an emotional depth and a sense of down-to-earth realism that seemingly run in the family. John’s gentle guitar-and-harmonica arrangement, in which he is accompanied only by drummer Kenneth Blevins, also makes the song sound very much like it is one of his own creations.

Swervedriver, the reunited English shoegaze band of the ‘90’s, released a 12-inch single on Record Store Day 2019. Pressed in the clearest and most transparent vinyl I’ve ever seen, this disc featured previously unreleased covers of two songs from 1967: Gene Clark’s “Think I’m Gonna Feel Better” and the Supremes hit “Reflections”. The single was limited to 1,500 copies. Although this 45-rpm single is 12 inches wide, the two songs would easily fit on a normal 7-inch single, at least one that was pressed in plain black vinyl. I have not been able to find recording dates for the unearthed tracks, either in the packaging or online. But judging from the sound, they were more likely to have been recorded during Swervedriver’s original ‘90’s run than during more recent times. “Think I’m Gonna Feel Better” was originally a song that Gene Clark recorded with the Gosdin Brothers in 1967, not to be confused with his ’65 Byrds classic “I’ll Feel A Whole Lot Better”. Clark’s original was a jan