The original British bands tended to follow in the footsteps
of either The Beatles or the Stones. The Beatles led the parade of sweet pop
harmonizers, such as The Hollies and The Searchers. The Stones led the gang of
thuggish R&B shouters, such as The Animals and The Pretty Things. Arriving
later on the scene, The Move seemed to follow The Who with their eccentric
blend of weird song topics performed with cute melodies and bashing beats. They
even picked up on The Who’s violent stage act, taking it to absurd extremes by
smashing TVs and junked cars with sledgehammers while dressed as gangsters. The
Move were hardly poseurs, though, and with brilliant songwriter Roy Wood
steering the ship, The Move moved beyond the terrific Who-like singles of their
early career to more progressive forms that had all the humor and cheekiness
critics complained were missing from those Yes albums.
The Move’s first album was basically a riff on their zany
early singles with some great (Eddie Cochran’s “Weekend”) and not-so-great
(“Zing Went the Strings of My Heart”) covers filling it out. Released after
some delay, Move must have sounded a
bit out of step with the mid-1968 rock scene and its move away from psychedelia
toward Dylan and The Band’s more rustic country-rock. Today it sounds like one
of the year’s freshest albums.
Perhaps “John Wesley Harding” and “All Along the Watchtower” were more
“artful,” but they sure weren’t as fun as “(Here We Go Round) The Lemon Tree”
and “Flowers in the Rain”. Come to think of it, those Dylan songs may not have
even been as artful as “Cherry Blossom Clinic”.
That track became even artier when The Move recut it for
their second LP. Shazam is one of
prog’s wackiest records. It throws a big custard pie in the face of charges
that progressive rock is nothing but po-faced mathematics. The revamped and
expanded “Cherry Blossom Clinic” takes bizarre detours, turning familiar Bach, Dukas,
and Tchaikovsky tunes into cartoon confetti. Singer Carl Wayne takes breaks to
chat with passersby throughout the record. The Move makes
heavy metal hay with pop (Frankie Laine’s “Don’t Make My Baby Blue”) and folk
(Tom Paxton’s “The Last Thing on My Mind”) standards King Crimson would not
have touched with a twenty-foot Frippertronics stick.
Move and Shazam are both terrific albums, but The
Move was always at its most comfy making singles, so deluxe editions of these
LPs are necessary to tell the whole story. Salvo Records did that in 2007 with
a terrific double-disc edition of Move
and an expanded single disc one of Shazam.
Nine years later, Esoteric is expanding those expansions even more expansively
with a triple-disc Move and a
double-disc Shazam.
There is not a dramatic difference between the sound on Salvo’s discs and Esoteric’s new remasters, which utilize the same analogue tapes the 2007 editions did. That
still means they sound very good, and the extensive bonus material makes an
upgrade well worthwhile. Like the Salvo discs, Esoteric’s include contemporary
singles, and it’s a fabulous crop with such essential Movements as “Night of
Fear”, “I Can Hear the Grass Grow”, “Blackberry Way”, and “Curly”. Salvo made
one big blunder in that department by only including a new stereo remix of
“Wild Tiger Woman” on Shazam, but
Esoteric corrects that by including the original mono single mix along with the
stereo variation. Move includes the 1968
mono and 2007 stereo mixes of all the album’s tracks save a cover of Moby
Grape’s “Hey Grandma”, and unlike Esoteric’s jumbled “New Movements”
presentation, it plays out in the same running order as the original album. It
also includes exclusive alternate mixes of “Disturbance” and “Fire Brigade”,
which features prominent piano, and a whole disc of BBC sessions. Most valuable
is a selection of eight folky and modish originals and soul covers cut in the studio
or for radio almost a year before their first single was issued. Five are
making their debut on this set.
Shazam contains such
exclusive material as the abridged single edit of “Hello Susie”, the
full-length version of “Omnibus”, an alternate mix of “Beautiful Daughter”, and
the backing track of an acoustic-based rocker called “Second Class (She’s Too
Good for Me)”. There’s also another disc of ferocious BBC sessions. The Move’s
eclectic taste in covers of songs made famous by Neil Diamond, Jackie Wilson, Big
Brother and the Holding Company, The Beach Boys, The Byrds, Little Anthony and
the Imperials, Dion, etc. reflects their own gonzo fusion of sugary pop, hard
rock, cabaret, and doo-wop. Oddly, it lacks the Italian language version of “A
Certain Something” previously issued on The
Best of The Move, but only Italian fans and the craziest completists should
have a legitimate beef about that one flaw.
