It's called Highlights from Crescent City Soul.  I've put a link to American Amazon below, but that should lead you to being able to find it elsewhere.  It's a super fun disc.  

www.amazon.com/Highlights-Crescent-City-Soul-1947-1974/dp/B000002SVV

Another of my favourite box sets...



#8 - The Byrds by The Byrds (1990)




This was the first multi-CD box set I ever bought and, as such, it will always hold a special place in my heart. I had gotten into The Byrds in 1989 and spent the next year or so buying up as many of their albums as I could find on CD. By the time this box set arrived in autumn 1990, I was pretty much obsessed with the band.

The set was released at a time of renewed interesting in the Byrds among critics and young alternative rock fans, due to their influence on hip, modern bands such as R.E.M., the Smiths, the Bangles, the Stone Roses, and a whole raft of lesser-known indie guitar bands. Simply titled The Byrds, this 4x CD set covers the band's Columbia Records period from the 1965 release of "Mr. Tambourine Man" through to their final Columbia album in 1971. It also tacks on two live tracks and four new studio recordings by a reformed 1989-90 version of the band at the end of disc 4.

All of the Byrds big or important singles are here, with a good selection of stand-out album tracks and a wealth of previously unreleased tracks from the archives. Included among these rarities are three songs from the Sweetheart of the Rodeo album that are presented with their "lost" Gram Parsons' lead vocals for the first time. There are a few minor shortcomings in the track listing, however, such as the absence of the band's pre-Columbia single release as "the Beefeaters", or anything from their 1973 Elektra reunion album, but it's still a great introduction to the Byrds for anyone wanting to delve a little deeper than a single disc compilation. The CD remastering is top notch too and this is sonically a fantastic sounding collection.


Here's the Byrds' version of the traditional song "I Know My Rider", which was slated to be a single in 1966, but ultimately remained on the Columbia tape archive shelf…





And here's "The Christian Life", one of the outtakes from the Sweetheart of the Rodeo album that I mentioned earlier, which is presented here with its original Gram Parsons lead vocal for the first time…

I wanted to spend some time absorbing this before I responded, it hits on so much music I have way too little knowledge of. I literally only recognize 4 names on the "featuring" on the cover. Fats Domino and Little Richard of course, but I really only know their most famous songs. Then Aaron Neville and Lee Dorsey who are the only ones I have a little better background with (and definitely enjoy).

Like all of us, I need to pick my spots where I can devote time to new music, but I think I'm going to go ahead with the single disc you mentioned to Confessor, this definitely intrigues me enough to put my toe in the water.

And I could look this up, but since I know you have the answer, Toy Bell is My Ding-a-Ling right?

Thanks! Chuck version is hilarious of course, but had no idea about all the earlier versions (though "Toy Bell" did ring, well, a bell), need to now check them out.

Today's selection:

#7 Paul Simon - Paul Simon 1964/1993



Before I started buying my own albums as a kid, I was always going through my parents' vinyl collection listening to everything they had. They had copies of the 1972 Simon and Garfunkel Greatest Hits album along with Paul Simon's 1977 Greatest Hits, and I listened to both over and over. Eventually I started buying my own albums, and the first few were older material that was mostly the Beatles. But my first "contemporary" purchase was Simon's Graceland, and that album hit me in a big way. It had a lot of catchiness with the upbeat material, I remember even looking for the sheet music for "Boy in the Bubble" as the first song I wanted to try to learn on bass (lots of great bass playing on this album actually) which I was learning on the side along with guitar. And then the softer numbers really seemed magical, especially with Ladysmith Black Mambazo's contributions (I loved that so much it made me interested in their own works).

In 1993, I was mostly buying music on CD at that point, and had moved out of my parents' house for college and couldn't take their old vinyl with me, plus my cassette of Graceland was well worn by this point. So this box set from 1993 was a perfect set to cover much of that old material plus some pockets I had missed along with way. The first disc is about 2/3's Simon and Garfunkel era, the remaining tracks early Simon solo career. The 2nd disc is more solo material prior to Graceland. The 3rd disc has 6 tracks from Graceland and then some later material into the early 90's. Extras include an unreleased track ("Thelma"), a demo version of "Bridge Over Troubled Water", and live track of "Still Crazy After All These Years". "Homeward Bound" and "I Am a Rock" are missing, but overall it's a pretty well done one stop shop of both Simon and Garfunkel and Paul Simon material.

Not to get too off topic here, but I'll also share a little story of why "Bridge Over Troubled Water" has special significance to me. On September 9th of 2001, my wife and I were at the tennis US Open men's final which is in the Queens borough of New York City. It was a beautiful day, but Pete Sampras ended up losing to Lleyton Hewitt in his own house as it were, and so it was a little melancholy train ride back into the city for us. The train back into Manhattan from Queens is above ground as you are heading back in, and you can gets some nice views of the city skyline on the way. I vividly remembering the sun setting and this stunning view of the Twin Towers and it made me smile despite the melancholy we were feeling over the match.

Two days later my wife and I woke up to the horrific event we all know. It took a long time to process, and I don't know that it ever fully will, but I remember that image of the towers coming back from the Open always stuck in my mind, and it symbolized a wish that the world could return to what it was before the insanity and horrible loss of life. Fast forward a year, and my wife went back to the US Open. Art Garfunkel sang "Bridge Over Troubled Water", and something was just so healing about that moment, he had his young son with him as well and somehow that made it extra special as well. So yeah, that song holds a lot of meaning for me.

Ever the iconoclast, Slam will come in with the take that he does not care at all for Paul Simon.  

I will now stand for the stoning.  You have one minute.  

Yeah, this looks really good to me even though I don't have this particular set. Lots of familiar and favorite artists here, Cropper and Dunn was first exposure for me with the Blues Brothers but quickly turned into a pursuit of all their other works. Booker T. absolutely what you said, Albert King I got into early on from a guitar standpoint, I could go on with lots of those names. "Green Onions" is probably one of the catchiest things ever recorded. Great pick.