Blame it on Dickens?

Rock and roll fans can't help themselves

Not being much of an expert on the publishing business - I once got a royalty check for 14 cents; my share of a book that sold for $25 - I don’t know this for sure. So, this is what we’d call conjecture. A guess.

I’m sure there is a marketing term for it. And I don’t want to know what it is. I do know it works. At least it did with me.

With the move north and all, I recently came upon an entire box of my CDs that I purchased (and honestly, don’t remember buying most of ‘em) when I ALREADY HAD THE ALBUM. In vinyl.

Yes, folks, this is the kind of thing rock and roll fans do and it helps keep the record companies and, we presume the artists (who surely do better than 14 cents on a $25 sale) in cars, houses and drugs.

The reason I bring up Charles Dickens is this. He was a marketing genius along with being one of our greatest writers. He did things like write two novels at the same time, serialize them monthly in newspapers that sold out all over London - why, he had the whole city’s attention, the hands on Big Ben wouldn’t even move until the next installment came out - then, once he was finished with the novels, he’d publish the whole deal - all the stuff he’d already written - and THAT would sell out, too. Or pretty close.

Record companies might have gotten the idea from Charles Dickens. What do you think?

This, in principle, is what the Polydor record company did with Eric Clapton’s (or Derek and The Dominos) “Layla and Assorted Love Songs,” a double album that came out originally in November of 1970. Which, as an Eric Clapton fan, I immediately bought.

Next came a box set of the Layla Sessions, which included the double album as well as studio jams between Clapton and his special recruit for this album, the great Duane Allman. Clapton and Allman in the studio jamming? I had to hear that. What guitar fan wouldn’t? So I bought that. In cassette, I think.

So, in my teaching days, I had music in my classroom all the time and had a CD player. And you never know when you’re going to want to hear “Layla” again. So I bought the double CD. (Which I suspect is my real motive behind having all these “doubles.”)

Next came “Derek and the Dominoes, The Layla Sessions, the 20th Anniversary Edition,” all the same tracks but, uh, “remastered.” The big selling point. Same stuff. And on we go.

Now, I’m not picking on Polydor. All the record companies do this sort of thing. There’s “The Band,” the brown cover classic album on Capitol, which came out in 1969 and the re-release in 2000 that included nice liner notes from Rob Bowman and seven bonus tracks, alternate takes of “Whispering Pines” and “Jemima Surrender,” a new performance of “King Harvest,” and a few other tracks. Of course, I bought it.

Speaking of Eric Clapton, another double dip was “Eric Clapton’s Rainbow Concert” which was a show Clapton, along with Pete Townshend and other notables did in an attempt to get Clapton off heroin to stay, which worked. (Instead, he later took up drinking - and hey, don’t write me: I love Eric Clapton!)

The original album had just six songs and though it was far from his best, understandably, in 1995, Polydor put out a 14-song CD, fleshing out the rest of the show. Bought it. Listening to it now. They opened with “Layla.” Gave it a good try.

Having seen Clapton twice on the tour that followed in 1974, he was weak and had to be helped off the Boston Garden stage at the end of each show. I was just glad the guy was still alive and even if the album he was touring to support, “461 Ocean Boulevard” had some nice songs but not much Clapton flash, hey, we still had him around.

Speaking of The Band, one re-release that I do recommend (and yes, it was in this box, too) is “The Band: Live At The Academy Of Music 1971” the same show that was carved up for their terrific “Rock Of Ages” double album, which had 17 tracks - NOT in the order they were played at the original show. The 2013 re-release added eight Band tracks and, get this, the four encore tracks with one Bob Dylan! And this time, instead of just telling us it was “remastered” (how would we know, really?) they got Bob Clearmountain to remix the album. And he did an amazing job. It sounds fantastic.

And yes, I admit that I bought the “Rock of Ages” double CD once I saw the Dylan cuts. Yes, the Capitol release BEFORE this Bob Clearmountain one. So, if you’re counting - and The Band’s accountants surely were - that’s three times I bought essentially the same material.

Since I’m writing for friends, I trust that my profligate ways with these recordings, whether in CD or vinyl (let’s not discuss cassettes) don’t make me sound like an idiot. There are so many great CDs in this box, I’m sure I’ll be revisiting and writing about many of them, lots of which I haven’t heard in decades. That should be fun.

And, listening to Pete Townshend introduce the band on that January night 53 years ago at the Rainbow: “Eric Clapton on third rhythm guitar,” all that comes to mind is something Bruce Springsteen used to say on stage near the end of his three-hour shows.

His shirt usually ripped open, his bare chest soaked with sweat, Clarence Clemons trying to hold him back, Bruce would look out at the audience, crazed look on his face and scream “I’m just a prisoner of rock and roll.”

I know how you feel, Bruce.

Here’s the box from whence I speak. Lots to look forward to.

When he isn’t buying the same album a second or third time, author John Nogowski has been writing a Substack since May of 2024 and has published several books, including three editions of “Bob Dylan: A Descriptive, Critical Discography and Filmography,” a forthcoming “Neil Young: A Descriptive, Critical Discography and Filmography” due in 2027, two books on baseball - “Diamond Duels” a deep dive into the game’s historic pitcher-hitter matchups, “Last Time Out” a collection of stories about the final games of baseball’s greatest players and “Teaching Huckleberry Finn” a book about his experiences teaching Twain’s classic at a struggling Florida minority high school. They are all available on Amazon.