Rocks In The Attic #151: The Rolling Stones - ‘The Rolling Stones No.2’ (1965)

The first three Stones album are very similar - in that they’re basically a run through of the band’s favourite R&B covers. They manage to inject a bit more of themselves into this, their second attempt, and unlike their debut which only has one original song, this features three Jagger / Richards compositions.

I now can’t listen to Time Is On My Side without thinking of the song’s focus in the Denzel Washington film Fallen. It’s a great song, and takes on a strange, other-worldly feel from its use as an identifier of evil in the film. If Fallen was a truly bad film, I’d be annoyed at its inclusion, but it’s one of those popcorn movies that I’m always glad to watch when it shows on TV.

The Stones pretty much drift through their first album, and most of this one, before putting a foot wrong. Their version of Under The Boardwalk on the second side of ...No.2 really stands out as a misstep, with a weak sound that doesn’t suit the band. This probably comes from an attempt to ape The Drifters’ version as closely as possible, but to me it sounds as wrong as The Beatles’ version of Gerry & The Pacemakers’ How Do You Do It?

Hit: Time Is On My Side

Hidden Gem: I Can’t Be Satisfied

Rocks In The Attic #7: The Beatles - ‘The Beatles At The Hollywood Bowl’ (1977)

I love everything about this album, from the hasty introduction by Ed Sullivan to the constant scream from the fans which never lets up.

It’s a shame this album has never been released on CD - there seems to have been enough pressure for Parlophone to release the LP back in 1977, but this must have been regarded as a mis-step somewhere along the way as it now seems to fit strangely outside the official cannon of Beatles recording.

To my ears, this LP is just as important as any of their studio albums - if only as a historical document of the shows during the height of Beatlemania. The 2009 studio remasters would have been a great opportunity to clean the recording up a little bit more and place it alongside the other albums.

It’s incredibly short at only 33 minutes, but this is in line with the running time of their albums at the time. I love how they start Twist And Shout on the middle-8, and instead of playing the whole song with that section as the starting point, they quickly end it after a minute and twenty seconds, as though they had simply come into the song halfway through.

The liner notes by George Martin add a nice touch, writing a short history of how he was approached to revisit the recordings and produce the record. The only sour point is mention of the current teen heart-throbs of the late 1970s, The Bay City Rollers, courtesy of a comment from Martin’s daughter.

Hit: Twist And Shout

Hidden Gem: Help

Rocks In The Attic #4: Ray Charles - 'Live In Concert' (1965)

I found this record very recently, and it looks like an original. I paid next to nothing for it too. It fits nicely in my collection next to my Dad’s original copy of Modern Sounds In Country And Western Music (1962).

You can sort of understand why liner notes on the back of LPs died out, but they instantly date a record to a simpler time when a journo’s write-up on the back of a record might be enough to entice a record store browser to make a purchase.

There’s not much else to say about this record except that it’s 37 minutes of Ray Charles singing and playing the piano, which means it's 37 minutes of awesomeness. There’s something about Ray Charles that makes him effortless to listen to, and this live performance is a nice snapshot of a more sophisticated time when audiences would listen respectfully, and in awe.

Hit: What’d I Say

Hidden Gem: You Don’t Know M