Top Ten Oldies Reissues: 2008

As a singer blessed with a wonder-of-nature voice who was raised in the ranks of one of rock's most iconic labels, one who suffered unspeakable tragedy, hobnobbed with the greats, then died suddenly after finally getting his place in the pantheon, Roy Orbison's life and career are tailor-made for a box set. This four-disc set benefits from the recent monopolization of the record industry by including material from all of Roy's five tenures; in fact, it includes the very first recordings he ever made, with the Teen Kings and the Wink Westerners, and his last, a 1988 live version of "It's Over" done mere days before his death. (Several reasons to buy this CD now, O fans: his widow Barbara threw their personal tape collection into the mix.)

No one doubts that the late great Bo Diddley helped lay the foundation of rock and roll by taking Chicago blues and doing... well, no one knows exactly what to it. Indeed, it's his very iconoclast nature that has ironically ensured he rarely gets mentioned in the first pantheon of rock architects. This new 2-CD set, therefore, limited to 5000 non-numbered copies, is a good place for anyone to hear the genre's birth pangs, despite the limited edition gimmick. The release of this set makes at least four Bo comps obsolete, and it gets you his less-celebrated and sadly underrated early-Sixties gems like "Road Runner," "500% More Man," and especially "You Can't Judge A Book By The Cover."

This is, of course, the first major celebrity comeback, the TV special that boosted Elvis from has-been status back past popularity to near-immortality, re-establishing the King as a fine interpretive singer, a sexual presence (that black leather suit has practically become an icon all its own), a performer par excellence, and a real musician to boot. That last was especially borne out by the intimate jam session filmed for the special; some still believe it to be the finest set of music he ever played. Taken along with the special that surrounds it, it stands as one of the most amazing career resurrections in entertainment history, and this 40th anniversary edition is the most complete and detailed reissuance yet.

Another winner from the Bear Family label: After chronicling the hit teenybop years of Ricky Nelson's career with an eight-CD omnibus of his complete recordings, dubbed Ricky Nelson: The American Dream, the venerable German label returned with this goodie, another six-disc monster that includes ever single song Rick, minus the Y, recorded from 1963-1969. His last four Top 30 hits are here, but the real story lies in Nelson's groundbreaking foray into country-rock, his covers of everyone from Dylan to Randy Newman, and 20 tracks from the gigs for his 1969 LP Live At The Troubadour, now out of print and extremely hard to track down. Better news still: a third box set covering his "Garden Party" years is on the way.

Stories are the main function of box sets, which almost always move in a straight line: for example, Love Train: The Sound Of Philadelphia is, on the surface, the story of Philadelphia International Records, the label that gave us the smooth, romantic Philly Soul of the O'Jays, Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, The Three Degrees and more. But the confluence of megalabels brought on by globalization cleared the way for this set to dive back into the pre-PIR history of the legendary producers Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff; the result is a story about the birth of a sound, not just a company.

The Kingston Trio had decided to pack it in by 1966, playing one last series of gigs at the Sahara in Lake Tahoe, of which this recently resuscitated live CD was supposed to be the document. The setting's an odd one -- that opening "Tom Dooley" fanfare is straight Vegas -- but the trio maintain their dignity throughout, and the combination of endless touring and their eagerness to please Middle America makes this a significantly entertaining collection: all the hits, no less than three Dylan covers, and four comedy spoken-word pieces by lead John Stewart. The companion disc, Twice Upon A Time, consists of a whole CD of outtakes with almost no overlap and a video of the trio doing right by Dylan's "Tomorrow Is A Long Time."

Redding was at the peak of his performance powers when these live albums were recorded, delivering the goods every single night -- has there ever been a backup band so attuned to their vocalist as Booker T. and the MGs -- so you can't have too many documents of his stage show. An update of the 1967 release Live In Europe, this collection adds an equally incendiary Paris show recorded just four days after the raucous London gig it immortalized. And while some of these tracks have been previously released on Ace Records' 1000 Volts label comps and Stax' own out-of-print Stax Volt in Europe, Vol. 3, the sets have been remastered and placed in their proper running order. Demonstrates just how cathartic live soul can get.

There's no rockabilly on this now-completely-revived set of recordings the master did for the Challenge label in the mid-Sixties, just country, folk-rock, and slightly garagey R&B. But Gene was still vital then, and the session pros backing him up here are top notch, from Glen Campbell, David Gates (later of Bread), and both Seals and Crofts. You could almost make the case that renditions of Carl Belew's "Am I That Easy To Forget" and Merle Haggard's "I Am A Lonesome Fugitive" presaged the country-rock movement to follow: indeed, the title track utilizes the Byrds' original sound to great effect. One of the great unappreciated sessions of the Sixties, and not just by rockabilly fanatics; "Love Is A Bird" should have been his comeback hit.

It seemed like a dream matchup, at least on paper. Take the Four Seasons, who, along with the Beach Boys, were the lone American groups to make consistent, important music during the British Invasion; bring them to the label that had made soul safe for white audiences, and the rest will take care of itself. Right? Not exactly. The summit meeting of Frankie Valli's Italian soul and Motown's marketing genius surprisingly resulted in two flop LPs (one by the Seasons, one solo) and a handful of unjustly ignored singles. But maybe it's not so surprising, at that: both the group and the label were going through identity crises. Still, the music on "The Motown Years" finds the group moving into a fitful but fascinating maturity.

After country, novelty, and even a "bubbling under" disc, Ace UK's excellent Golden Age of American Rock and Roll series of single-disc releases doesn't have much gas left in the tank. Yet somehow, they keep finding fresh approaches to the subject -- and this, a disc dedicated to two-hit wonders and their lesser-known chartbusting followups, is perhaps the coolest move yet. It also gives the very casual Ritchie Valens, Skyliners, or Jody Reynolds fan a chance to discover why their names still get bandied about today. And some artists, then as now, get shortchanged by their destiny: ever wonder how Santo and Johnny could come up with the glorious "Sleep Walk" and fail to make that magic again? They did ("Tear Drop").