Bob Stanley, Compiler

With And This Is Me, Bob Stanley didn’t quite create the UK equivalent of the famed late 1980s Rhino compilation Golden Throats. That effort focused on jaw-dropping 1960s reinterpretations of standards new and old by US actors not up to (or too up to) the task; there’s a bit of that here in turn from the same general era, but it’s more of an amusing sample of novelty cuts, easy listening dollops and one or two moments of ‘huh, this is pretty good,’ as ever presented with Stanley’s informative liner notes with an eye for the bemusing detail, especially helpful for non-UK audiences. There’s plenty of broad non-Received Pronunciation deliveries throughout from figures like Bernard Cribbins and Norman Wisdom, along with a lot of unexpected smoothness like Ian McShane’s loungey country song “Harry Brown” and, in a truly headspinning turn, Oliver Reed with “Lonely For A Girl.” Wild moments happen, but wonderfully so: Max Bygraves doing a jazzy nursery rhyme revamp with “Three Nice Mice”? Stanley Unwin demonstrating his legendary chewing up of English with “Goldilocks”? You know, why not. 

With their amazing compilation State of the Union, Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs turned an eye towards how both early rock and rollers and even older singers had grappled with their times, lyrically, sonically or both, in response. Kicking off with Elvis Presley and the Mac Davis-written attack on religious hypocrites “Clean Up Your Own Back Yard,” there’s plenty of rightly-famed examples to note, such as Dion’s legendary comeback single “Abraham, Martin and John” and “The Train,” a selection from Frank Sinatra’s remarkable divorce concept album Watertown. The rarities are often something else, as with Roy Orbison’s truly bonkers suicide melodrama “Southbound Jericho Parkway” and the Everly Brothers delivering swampy soap opera funk on “Lord Of The Manor.”

In his introductory essay, Bob Stanley argues that freestyle, growing out of the initial electro boom and becoming its own distinct variant of modern 80s r’n’b and dance energy, was simply so rich that what was on this album was merely “a mere taster.” Yet it’s honestly much more than that, perhaps missing only Shannon’s genre-founding “Let The Music Play” and something by either Stevie B or Noel when it comes to being a solid intro, though its women-centered approach suits Stanley’s famed girl group love. Latin Freestyle is a truly exuberant blast of some giddy as hell moments out of the two cities in question, including genre-defining highlights like Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam with Full Force’s slyly cautious “I Wonder If I Take You Home,” Exposé’s hyperdriven blast of desire “Point Of No Return” and the full 12” mix of Company B’s exultant “Fascinated.” Add in further standouts like Stacey Q’s “Two of Hearts” and Lisette Melendez’s “Together Forever” amid enjoyable obscurities and the whole is just gold – the great story Janelle tells Stanley in the liner notes about her local Boston hit “Don’t Be Shy” is worth it alone.

Saint Etienne had come together in the initial runs of acid house, a new wave of remixers and general taking in everything from dub explorations to getting a sense of what Balearic was; they remixed and were remixed themselves and would continue both paths for decades. On Fell From The Sun, Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs aimed to give a particular portrait of that time and place in the UK with a focus on dawn of the 1990s songs at a slower pace, more 98 bpm rather than 120 or higher. It helps kicking off with one of the time’s most legendary efforts, the Orb’s deep echo transmogrification of Primal Scream’s already trippy “Higher Than The Sun,” and from there it’s a woozy and wonderful ramble through a pre-trip-hop space. Stanley and Wiggs contribute an edit of their own “Speedwell” alongside other notable names like One Dove and The Grid. Intriguing rarities make the compilation even richer, like “It Could Not Happen” from American ringers Critical Rhythm and the Aloof’s lengthy moodout “Never Get Out Of The Boat.” Stanley’s always helpful liner notes are some of his most exhaustive here, a fine complement.

The history of how the UK has taken in American sounds and styles reaches back well into the Victorian era and likely further back, so arguably when rock and roll first filtered over in the 1950s it was simply the latest turn in a long story, with the country’s jazz veterans probably thinking back to their own youth in the 1920s. As Bob Stanley argues in his enthusiastic but perfectly self-aware essay, though, for all that any number of the tracks featured on Britain Learns to Rock! exhibit a true second-hand naivete, it’s still showcasing the building blocks of the explosion of sounds yet to come across the decades. Organized chronologically and covering 1953 to 1958, it’s a steady progression of showcasing jazz and big band chancers, crooners trying to stay in touch, a truly homegrown skiffle scene interjecting its energy – the famed Lonnie Donegan turns up twice – and the stable of heartthrobs overseen by Larry Parnes and often recorded by Joe Meek. When the disc concludes with a solid one-two of Vince Taylor’s “Right Behind You Baby” and Cliff Richard’s “Move It,” the future is fully in the offing.

UK glam rock in its early to mid 1970s heyday was so hugely popular and influential when it came to its flagship artists and acts, becoming a beloved touchstone for decades at home and beyond, that it took 2003’s Velvet Tinmine, rereleased with a slightly different tracklist in 2009, to demonstrate, Nuggets-style, that there were also a fair amount of interesting never-quite-wases as well. Compiled and annotated by a troika of musician/writer obsessives, Philip King, Bob Stanley and Mark Stafford, Velvet Tinmine brought the concept of ‘junkshop glam’ into the discourse, the album’s title a funnily appropriate riff on both the David Bowie song “Velvet Goldmine” and the Todd Haynes glam fantasia that followed some decades later. In either edition it kicks off with a real monster: the aggro-Sweet, finger-snapping and heavy-stomping “Rebels Rule” by the brilliantly named Iron Virgin. After that it’s a happy slumgullion of plenty of familiar elements that all do seem like they should have been hits, however secondhand: shriekalong lyrics, blaring synths alongside the drums and retro-50s moves, and big-sounding production even if on often smaller budgets. The excellent liner notes talk about a slew of names that would gain more attention later, like producer Martin Rushent and cult musicians like Martin Newell and Simon Fisher Turner, as well as honestly tragically-fated figures like the Bowie disciple Brett Smiley.

This particular compilation was put together by Bob Stanley and Jason Wood but, in a gentle surprise for any Stanley-led effort, it’s Wood who writes the lead essay here, talking about how their joint goal, growing out of a record listening session, was “a mood and tone rather than something entirely concrete.” Riffing on the circumstances of David Bowie’s mid-70s relocation to Europe and the resultant albums growing out the impact of any number of bands and acts of the time and place on him, Cafe Exil is an enjoyable melange of exploratory efforts by such musicians leaning into realm of electronic experimentation in particular. That it leads with an ad hoc library group, Rubba, and concludes with the visionary electronic duo Cluster gives a sense of what’s at play. Unsurprisingly there’s a swathe of German acts featured such as Popul Vuh, Faust and Michael Rother, but the sense is truly pan-European and beyond in many ways, including the Jan Hammer Group’s spacey groove “Don’t You Know,” English guitarist Steve Hillage’s “Octave Doctors” and the peripatetic Annette Peacock with the funk poetry of “Pony.”

Mario’s Cafe is a legit London legend for more than a few folks, a small but well loved spot in Kentish Town known for its breakfasts and lunches since the very late 1980s, located near enough concert venues that music fans and journalists formed a lot of the initial clientele. That very much included the three core members of Saint Etienne, itself then newly founded. The trio had initially released a song called “Mario’s Cafe” on So Tough, then in 2004 put together a really fun mix disc on the Sanctuary label dedicated to it. Bob Stanley’s liner notes celebrate unpretentious cafes in general and the group’s tendency to have band meetings in them, while the songs reflect a day’s wandering through London caffs old and new and possible songs of choice reflecting the city’s all-over-the-map moods, with a general ear towards a broad 60s/70s sound. Tony Hatch’s instrumental “Man Alive” kicks off things with jazz-tinged pop flair but everyone from Honey Cone to King Tubby to the Kinks to the Chairmen of the Board serve up a soundtrack to an imagined bite, sip and chat, on your own or with friends. And why not indeed?

It’s not quite the first proper 60s UK girl group and women pop singer compilation effort – the Malcolm Baumgart and Mick Patrick-overseen Here Come The Girls series kicked things off in 1990 – but 1994’s Dream Babes Volume One was absolutely an early landmark when it came to digging deeper into the wake of famed names like Dusty Springfield, Marianne Faithfull and their peers. It was also Bob Stanley’s first formal effort as a compiler and liner note writer and his emphasis on depth of research and imaginative range was evident from the start. The specific focus of this first volume was work released on EMI Records across the decade, though the selections aren’t themselves arranged chronologically. Starting with the strong lovebirds and prying neighbors lament “They Talk About Us” by Cindy Williams, the collection clearly showcases the massive impact Phil Spector, Bacharach/David and Motown had in particular on the UK pop scene. Other standouts include the perky breeze of “Cry to Me” by the Track and “Am I Dreaming?” itself, delivered with sassy panache by the mononymic (and non-US) Tiffany.

Bob Stanley’s look at melancholic orchestrated art pop from the UK from the indicated era is a bit unusual due to a very strangely specific circumstance. There’s actually two almost entirely different compilations by this name, with the first originally surfacing on the Sanctuary label in 2007 shortly before said label’s sudden collapse, rendering it an instant rarity. Years later, rather than arranging for a rerelease of it on Ace, Stanley kept the title but often substituted other tracks from its featured acts on a new version, as well as adding some wholly new names. In its second edition, Tea & Symphony easily confirms Stanley’s argument in the liner notes for Paul McCartney’s impact on the sound as such; Ray Brooks’s opening “Pictures” may be a lament for a lost pet but the sound is all wistful singalong elegance. The entirety is a perfect quiet-Sunday-afternoon listen, but standouts include the Brian Wilson-tinged “When The City Sleeps” by Bombadil, Colin Blunstone’s lovely post-Zombies hit “Say You Don’t Mind,” Honeybus’s “I Can’t Let Maggie Go” and Vigrass & Osbourne’s shimmering “Forever Autumn.”

To say that the classically-trained Bell had an impact on American popular music deeply understates; along with his fellow Philadelphians Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, he was an architect of said Philly soul sound, claiming the mantle from Detroit and Memphis for a new decade. Bob Stanley’s initial compilation showcasing Bell’s oeuvre, Ready or Not, not only includes a remarkable sample of highlights but benefits not simply from his usual skill with liner notes but new interview comments from Bell throughout, adding further details and context to his work in songwriting and orchestration. Early efforts working with Archie Bell and the Drells and helping create the Delfonics set the stage, but it’s efforts like Dusty Springfield’s soaring “I Wanna Be A Free Girl,” his first collaboration with key lyricist Linda Creed, and the brilliant “Back Stabbers” by the O’Jays and “Could It Be I’m Falling In Love” by the Spinners that understandably shine brightest. Meantime, rarities like the Intruders’ “Do You Remember Yesterday” and Lesley Gore’s “Look The Other Way” further demonstrate his deep range.

Bob Stanley’s various compilation efforts have often been primarily conceptual rather than immediately focused on a particular sound or style; one of his strongest such efforts done in partnership with Pete Wiggs, which ended up starting a new open-ended series of releases, was English Weather. Prefaced by a story from Stanley about being caught in a Newcastle record store against some rain and finding himself taken by some suggestions from the clerk, the stated focus was UK semi-prog/semi-psych acts with “collars turned to the wind of 1970 and the end of the Aquarian dream.” In truth the date ranges here go from 1969 to 1976, but the bulk fits that time and space, with more familiar performers like Caravan, John Cale, Daevid Allen and Camel featured with appropriately moody (though not always quiet) energy. It’s the obscurities and deeper dives that really flesh it out further, including captivating library music cuts from the Roger Webb Sound and Alan Parker & Alan Hawkshaw, downbeat rock vibes from Bill Fay and The Way We Live, and an atmospheric rarity by Pilot under the name Scotch Mist.

Early 80s synthpop and synth-informed rock had increasingly become a subject of fascination, reissues and new appreciation as the 21st century went forward, with an increasingly plugged-in and online music world newly reconsidering what both the possibilities and limitations of its generation of keyboards resulted in. The UK-focused The Tears of Technology, another compilation effort by the stalwart duo of Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs, was per Stanley’s liner notes aiming to consider that general approach through the lens of gentle melancholy and contemplation, where even something seemingly peppy like the obscure single “Grey Skies” by Turquoise Days had a serene sorrow playing out. Plenty of famed names take bows with some of their most austerely beautiful songs, as with Soft Cell and “Youth,” O.M.D.’s “Sealand” and Chris and Cosey’s “October (Love Song).” But some of the best treasures result from the more unknown acts, such as Illustration’s nervously elegant “Tidal Flow,” the nervous pace of the Electronic Circus’s “Direct Lines” and Patrik Fitzgerald’s Bowiesque poetry on “Personal Loss.”

Saint Etienne and the Charlatans have long had a connection thanks to Tim Burgess guesting on the former band’s great single “I Was Born On Christmas Day,” though as Bob Stanley notes the connection goes back even further to when he interviewed Burgess when the latter’s band was making an initial splash. Perhaps little surprise that the equally music obsessed Burgess ended up partnering with Stanley for a delightful comp riffing on Burgess’s Tim Peaks Diner, a traveling installment on the UK festival circuit that’s part coffee shop, part general hangout, part small stage venue. With liner notes featuring the two discussing their selections, it’s a great non-chronological trip ranging from the post-punk music legends Young Marble Giants to the Cornish-language work of former Pipettes member Gwenno and back again, with a gentle ear towards what a Manchester-area version of a David Lynch TV series of note would sound like. Appropriately, many (but by no means all) selections are from Burgess’s Lancashire home region, including songs by Durutti Column, Blue Orchids and the Stockholm Monsters.

Nick Drake’s reputation is now fully entrenched, but while his vocal-and-guitar-only work on Pink Moon is rightly valorized, it’s equally true that his Cambridge classmate and friend Robert Kirby’s sensitive, subtle string arrangements on Drake’s first two albums were no less compelling an approach. Bob Stanley used Drake’s “Introduction” as a launching point – accentuated by the Five Leaves Left-nodding album art and title – for When the Day is Done, an overview looking at Kirby’s 1970s creations in that field for a wide variety of folk artists and beyond following his initial breakout efforts for Drake and Vashti Bunyan, often working with artists produced by Joe Boyd and Sandy Roberton. Kirby’s ear for elegant, softly sad music almost turns the collection into a solo album with a series of guest singers, while at the same time the sheer range is remarkable, from John Cale’s dramatic “I Keep A Close Watch” and Dana Gillespie’s fraught “What Memories We Make” to the serenely beautiful rambles of “It’s My Own Way” by Gillian McPherson and “Dancing At Whitsun” by Tim Hart and Maddy Pryor.

“A few familiar names, the odd TV theme, a barrel load of riches.” So begin the liner notes from Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs for this two CD effort, an entry in a series of UK compilations from the mid-2000s that featured various DJs and bands creating their own versions of a representative mixtape, or more accurately a mix CDr given the era of release. It’s a real delight of, indeed, a trip, absolutely capturing Saint Etienne’s ear for glossy meta artpop, with their approach of random drop-in film and TV samples as desired on display here in turn. The first disc is meant as one for parties, dancefloors and gatherings, with classic figures like the Isley Brothers mixing it up with intriguing rarities like Nancy Priddy’s “You’ve Come This Way Before,” Lalo Schifrin’s funked-up remake of “Jaws” and the Shaft wannabe vibe of Brinkley and Parker’s “Pander Man.” The second disc aims for chill vibes and “a good Merlot on a November night,” often contemplative and sometimes quietly unsettling as with Mandy More’s dramatic “If Not By Fire” and the conclusion, John Barry’s early 1970s Ibsen adaptation theme “A Doll’s House.”

Thanks to any number of comps and series, Bob Stanley had made his mark as being one of the premier girl-group-and-related fiends in the UK over some decades. As some of his reissue work started taking more in-depth looks at the time when Saint Etienne itself was firing up, he deftly combined both strands into the pure joy of New Jill Swing, a really fun dive into American r’n’b sounds from the era of Teddy Riley’s hip-hop-tinged reign. Riley himself takes a bow at the start thanks to the inclusion of his remix of SWV’s “I’m So Into You,” but the comp as a whole showcases a balance between delightfully passionate singing from a swathe of groups and solo performers and equally skilled producers and remixers like LA Reid & Babyface, Full Force and Jermaine Dupri. No such comp would be complete without the mighty En Vogue, appearing with a remix of their early single “Lies,” while veteran performers like Joyce Irby and Miki Howard proved adept with the style. But it’s the up-and-comers, whether stars like Karyn White and Xscape or bubbling-under lights like Nuttin’ Nyce, which give this lovely comp its biggest kicks.

Of the many Bob Stanley-overseen compilations over the years, London A to Z 1962-1973 might be one of the most joyfully random in spirit, if not the most. The London A to Z itself was, by default, the largest and most famous of a series of compact map books produced for cities in the UK from the 1930s onward. With that as a hook and a general time period in place, Stanley assembled a series of songs all specifically titled after a particular geographic location, tube station or building in the city, an asynchronous aural and geographic ramble across the decade plus’s styles and sounds, with a general folk/rock feel. Kicking off with an early John Barry number, “Cutty Sark,” late night jazz and on-the-verge-of-James-Bond thrills, it too flows like an easy stroll through the city (though geographically it hops all over the place – then again, that’s the joy of just sitting back and taking the trip this way). Among the many delights: Cilla Black’s salute to a departing landmark, “London Bridge,” the Tony Visconti-arranged “Kew Gardens” by Ralph McTell, and a young Marianne Faithfull covering Donovan’s “Sunny Goodge Street.”

Framed as the sonic afterechoes of the notable French political uprising of 1968 crossed with a looser sense of genre experimentation between previously rigid borders, Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs’s overview of late 1960s and early to mid 1970s semi-experimental French pop casts a fairly wide net chronologically. (Of course, there’s also the extra factor of any lyrics not being understandable to non-francophones, your reviewer included among them.) But given how this time has been often summed up in US/UK circles as maybe a Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin-only zone, Paris In The Spring absolutely serves as a fine introduction to a striking series of performers and songs in a generally moodier, shadowy mode. Both those artists understandably appear, of course, but beyond that it’s everything from striking instrumental pieces by François De Roubaix and Karl Heinz Schäfer to established singers like Nino Ferrer, Françoise Hardy, Brigitte Fontaine and Bernard Lavilliers staking out more adventurous sounds. Stanley’s liner notes, as usual, provide thorough, quite excellent details and context.

Partly due to Bob Stanley being born on the holiday itself, Saint Etienne were far from strangers to Christmas songs old and new – they released a variety of them over the years, including a great collaboration with Tim Burgess called, of course, “I Was Born On Christmas Day.” But besides their own collection of such efforts, A Glimpse Of Stocking, they put together a very specific holiday compilation with 2014’s Songs For A London Winter, emphasizing 1950s and early 1960s tracks from the UK in specific, an intentionally non-American nostalgia soundtrack.

The result is a romp through warm, sprightly holiday pop sounds of the era, with figures like Alma Cogan and Cleo Laine, who delivers a fun number in “Blow Blow Thou Winter Wind,” rubbing up against pre-Beatles teen idols such as Adam Faith and Billy Fury. The John Barry Seven’s “Get Lost Jack Frost” even gives a tiny dollop of rock and roll. (Stanley’s liner notes as ever provide amazing context: who’d know the smooth voiced dude from Nina and Frederick on “Christmas Time in London Town” would die in a Philippines drug-connected murder?)