Georgie Fame is nothing short of a national treasure and while lesser talents are lavished with accolades and awards, the veteran from Leigh, Lancashire is sadly neglected by the mainstream who may just about know that he enjoyed three number one hits in the 60s, and that seems to be that! Proper music fans know that there’s a mighty lot more to Georgie’s oeuvre than those pop hits. They’ll know that in those heady days of the 60s he was a mod hero delivering (with the wonderful Blue Flames) his unique take on soul, R&B, blue beat and jazz. They’ll also know that in latter years he developed into a purveyor of quality jazz – delivering it via series of acclaimed albums and sell out shows. Many might think that in between those two poles Mr F endured a fallow period with not a lot happening. Well, to some extent, that’s true. For sure, the hits dried up, but he never stopped working – touring and recording – with many of those recordings now in-demand from serious collectors.
Now here’s the background to this wonderful new GF collection. After his hit making days at Columbia, our man recorded for CBS, Reprise and Island before penning a contract with UK label Pye/Piccadilly where he released three albums and it’s those three sets – ‘Right Now!’, ‘That’s What Friends Are For’ and ‘Closing The Gap’ that make up this new 2CD pack from archive specialists BGO Records.
Across the 31 tracks you can hear why Georgie Fame has so many long standing fans. His voice is unique and as a true musician he has an uncanny knack of crafting clever, catchy songs and of selecting other people’s songs across all sorts of genres to cover in his own very special way. And one of those covers is one of the highlights of this package. It’s a rather lovely version of Willie Nelson’s country chestnut, ‘Funny How Time Slips Away’. It has to be one of George’s favourite songs. Prior to this Pye version he’d recorded it twice, basing those versions on cult Chicago soul man, Joe Hinton’s take. Here though you can enjoy a totally different arrangement that’s just as irresistible as his two previous versions.
Amongst the other covers you can enjoy here are takes on Stevie Wonder’s ‘Don’t You Worry About A Thing’ and ‘Too Shy To Say’, Bill Withers’ ‘Lovely day’ and Billy Stewart’s ‘Sitting In The Park’ (another song he’d previously recorded and like ‘Funny…’ given a fresh arrangement).
There are plenty of highlights too amongst Georgie’s own songs – things like the lithe ‘Little Samba’ and the touching ‘Eros Hotel’ . The song appears twice in the collection. It appears on ‘Right Now!’ and also on ‘Closing The Gap’ where it enjoys a different arrangement – Jamaican producer Lloyd Charmers garnishes it with a vague Caribbean touch. Indeed the whole Charmers-helmed ‘Closing The Gap’ is (as you’d guess) heavily reggae -inflected. Apparently, it’s one of Georgie’s least favourite albums but it does yield some treasures though I’m not sure about the cover of ‘Uptight’!
That said, this release fills a gap in what’s available on Brit soul and jazz’s national treasure and with sleeve note from my esteemed SJF colleague Charles Waring you know you’re getting a quality package!
(BB) 4/5
