Most
famously, initial (and hastily withdrawn) pressings of The Beatles’ Revolver
album featured a different mix of the closing track, Tomorrow Never Knows. Oddly enough, this substitution went
unnoticed for over thirty years after the album’s release in 1966.
Original
copies of Brian Eno & David Byrne’s album My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts
featured a track – Qu’ran – that included chants lifted from the Qur’an. The track was quietly removed from subsequent
pressings following complaints from received from Islamic organisations.
The closing
song on John Fogerty’s 1985 album Centerfield - Zanz Kant Danz - was re-titled
and re-recorded. It became Vanz Kant
Danz, so as to avoid a legal action from Saul Zaentz, owner of Fantasy Records, Fogerty’s old label. Fogerty’s
relationship with Zaentz was a fractious one at best, it is thought by some
that the closing song on side one of the album – Mr Greed – is also dedicated
to his former label boss.
Original
pressings of Van Morrison’s Moondance feature a distinctly different mix of
Into The Mystic.
Frank
Zappa’s 1976 double live album Zappa In New York was withdrawn and reissued
minus Punky’s Whips – a frankly slanderous (but highly amusing) skit on the
somewhat effeminate appearance of guitarist Punky Meadows from American rock
band, Angel.
“Jew me, sue me, everybody do meKick me, kike me, don't you black or white me.”
Jackson
countered by stating that some of his
best friends were Jewish.
Mark
Murphy’s 1961 debut for the Riverside label was perhaps the first major turning
point in his long recording career. His
two albums for American Decca and three for Capitol were recorded along typical
record label easy-listening lifestyle templates, the finish products designed
to sit alongside what Sinatra and Nat Cole were doing at the time.
Time has been kind to this album.
In Norbert Warner’s fanzine Mark Times, Rah was regularly voted top
album in the Murphy discography. No
collection of jazz vocal albums is complete without it. Although Rah does not
sound altogether contemporary, neither does it sound terribly dated. Meanwhile, it doesn’t actually sound like any
other record that I can think of.
Two particular tracks caught the attention of songwriters, publishers
and their respective lawyers. Rodgers
& Hammerstein’s My Favorite Things contained three new verses and a chorus
written by Mark: -
“John Coltrane talkin’
Miles and Gil blowin’
Mulligan’s walkin’
The Hi-Los hi-lowin’
Ray Charles and Basie and Garner with strings
These are a few of my favorite things
Anita in motion and Peggy Lee groovin’
Atlantic Ocean how Cannonball’s movin’
Day John and Annie when Monterey swings
These are a few of my favorite things
Memories of Billie the soul and the heartache
Sessions at daybreak in which I can partake
Old Ernie Wilkins he sure gives you wings
These are a few of my favorite things
When some square goofs
When the blues come
When I’m feelin’ bad
I simply remember my favorite things
And then I don’t feel so bad”
It is worth noting that this version of the song was recorded only two
years after the debut of the original Broadway production of The Sound of Music,
and four years before the release of the film.
I can’t verify the date at which when the lawyers were called in, but
perhaps that was some time after the success of the movie? I think that we should be told.
Meanwhile, the closing track, Sammy Fain Irving Kahal’s I’ll Be Seeing
You was similarly embellished.
“I’ll be seeing you
In all the familiar faces
Of the horses at the races
All year through
In that damp café
The parking lot across the way
That beat up carousel
Where we used to sell cheap Muscatel
Well I’ll be seeing you
In all them mouldy pizza pies
In every pair of bloodshot eyes
And even if Ma Perkins dies
I’ll see you in the line-up dear
And when they point at you
I’ll be looking at my shoe
But I’ll be seeing you
Much later for you baby!”
The LP was withdrawn and reissued with an edited version of My
Favorite Things and without I’ll Be Seeing You.
In the 1980s, Milestone records reissued the LP with both versions of Favorite Things and
I’ll be seeing you restored to its rightful place.
This 13-track version of the LP, thanks once again to the lawyers, had
a very short shelf life and is now extremely hard to come by. As far as I can tell, none of the compact
disc editions have included the two contentious songs. In 2008, Concord records (owners of the
Fantasy/Riverside back catalogue) issued a download-only version 15-track of
the album that included four extra songs – A & B sides of two singles that
were released the following year – Why Don’t You Do Right?/Fly Me To The Moon
& Come & Get Me/Love. None of
these four songs (however collectible) are essential to the content of the
original album; they sound totally out-of-place.
Keepnews version is on Spotify and iTunes, it sounds great. There’s no
excuse not to stream or pay to download this record. Genuine CDs (on the
Original Jazz Classics label) are now not so easy to come by. But Rah is now technically out of copyright
and phony versions of the album are cropping up all over the internet.
Versions on labels such as Disconforme, Fresh Sound, American
Jazz Classics, President, Universe Remasterings, All Time Records (and numerous
others) are unlicensed bootlegs. Buyer,
most definitely, beware.
Here are the
two offending songs. These have been
ripped from a mint Japanese copy of the 1980s reissue of the Rah album on the
Milestone label. You can’t buy this music – have it on me.
Tracks
8. My
Favorite Things
12. I’ll Be
Seeing You
