Big Youth – Natty Universal Dread 1973 1979

Released when Mercury Records was still located in Chicago, IL, back in 1973, the second album from Bachman-Turner Overdrive was the first to break through in a big way. First the hit single "Let It Ride" went Top 25 circa March of 1974, then the anthem "Taking Care of Business" went Top 15 the summer of that year. By October they would top the charts with "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet" from the follow-up LP, 1974's Not Fragile, but their seven chart songs were all made possible by this album and these two songs, "Let It Ride" and "Takin' Care of Business," in particular.

Released when Mercury Records was still located in Chicago, IL, back in 1973, the second album from Bachman-Turner Overdrive was the first to break through in a big way. First the hit single "Let It Ride" went Top 25 circa March of 1974, then the anthem "Taking Care of Business" went Top 15 the summer of that year. By October they would top the charts with "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet" from the follow-up LP, 1974's Not Fragile, but their seven chart songs were all made possible by this album and these two songs, "Let It Ride" and "Takin' Care of Business," in particular.

Low Budget doesn't have a narrative like Preservation or Soap Opera, but Ray Davies cleverly designed the album as a sly satire of the recession and oil crisis that gripped America in the late '70s - thereby satisfying his need to be a wry social commentator while giving American audiences a hook to identify with. It was a clever move that worked; not only did Low Budget become their highest-charting American album (not counting the 1966 Greatest Hits compilation), but it was also a fine set of arena rock, one of the better mainstream hard rock albums of its time. And it certainly was of its time - so much so that many of the concerns and production techniques have dated quite a bit in the decades since its initial release. Nevertheless, that gives the album a certain charm, since it now plays like a time capsule, a snapshot of what hard rock sounded like at the close of the '70s…

This 24-CD box, which dwarfs even most Bear Family sets in scope, is essentially everything Ellington cut for RCA-Victor over a 46-year period. There are gaps, especially after 1946 when he jumped to Columbia, but otherwise, this is all of it. One quickly discovers that, by virtue of its leader's taste, combined with the good sense of RCA-Victor's recording managers, this was a band that did little, if any, wrong on record…

This was the soundtrack to a motion picture documentary of the same name of the 1976 Innsbruck Winter Olympic Games…

Frank Zappa’s two complete Halloween shows in Chicago, recorded on 31 October 1973, are out now as Halloween 73, via Zappa Records/UMe.