By Steve Newton
Ever go hunting around on Amazon for the kind of wicked box sets that you’d kill for, if murder wasn’t such a bad thing?
I’m one of those stubborn old rock freaks who refuses to go digital, and can’t get the most out of music unless I hold it in my hands and look at the artwork and scan the liner notes and stuff.
But just as the price of major concert tickets is through the roof these days–thanks to the greedheads at Live Nation and Ticketmaster–so is the price of the deluxe-edition box sets I most yearn to possess physically and play the shit out of.
Here’s three gems that I’ve spotted that would be particularly welcome in my music collection–as long as that unchecked Lotto 649 ticket in my wallet plays along.
The Allman Brothers Trouble No More: 50th Anniversary Collection Anyone else who’s ever thrilled to the band’s progressive, southern-fried blend of blues, jazz, R&B, and country stylings–driven by the scintillating slide guitar of Duane Allman–may want to consider shelling out for this deluxe vinyl box-set. The 10-LP collection–also available as five CDs or digitally—features 61 Allman Brothers Band studio recordings, live performances, and rarities, and includes seven previously unreleased tracks. $504.92 (CAD) at amazon.ca.
Thin Lizzy Rock Legends A super-deluxe box set featuring 99 Thin Lizzy tracks, 74 of them previously unreleased. The six-CD, one-DVD package was compiled from a collection of newly discovered tapes and boasts numerous demos, radio sessions, live recordings, and rare single edits. The set also includes the hour-long BBC documentary Bad Reputation, tour programs bound into a hard-backed book, Phil Lynott’s poetry, and four prints by Lizzy cover artist Jim Fitzpatrick. $421.13 (CAD) at amazon.ca.
Tom Petty Wildflowers & All the Rest As if Tom Petty’s 1994 Wildflowers album wasn’t good enough in the first place–and with tunes like “You Don’t Know How it Feels” and “It’s Good to Be King”, we reckon it was–then hardcore Petty fans can revel in this seven-LP deluxe edition (also available in other formats). It includes a plethora of unreleased alternative versions and demos of the original’s songs, as well as live tracks recorded by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers from 1995 to 2017. Who else misses Tom real bad? $208.84 (CAD) at amazon.ca.
To hear the audio of my interviews with former members of the Allman Brothers, Thin Lizzy, and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers subscribe to my Patreon page, where you can eavesdrop on over 400 of my uncut, one-on-one conversations with the legends of rock since 1982