Sailors Luck (1933) Raoul Walsh, James Dunn, Sally Eilers, Victor Jory, Comedy

A double-disc set that draws from all of the phases of Joe Walsh's career, with the notable exception of The Eagles, Look What I Did! features almost every worthwhile song the guitarist ever recorded, even though it does contain pure dreck like "I.L.B.T.s," which is also known as "I Like Big Tits".

Present Tense was born out of two very specific desires. First, saxophonist James Carter wanted a precise recorded portrait of where he was at as a musician, aesthetically and technically. Second was producer Michael Cuscuna's dead-on assertion that Carter, for all his instrumental and aesthetic virtuosity, had never been represented well on tape. Carter's inability to resist overdoing it on virtually everything he records (ten-minute solos in standards, etc.) makes that point inarguable. Cuscuna proves to be the perfect producer - as both ally and foil - and reins Carter in to benefit the recording as a whole. The band on Present Tense is solid: the young trumpeter and fellow Detroiter Dwight Adams, pianist D.D. Jackson, bassist James Genus, and drummer Victor Lewis round out the quintet, with percussionist Eli Fountain and guitarist Rodney Jones playing on three cuts each…

The James Walsh Gypsy Band is kind of the outfit to go to if you're looking for some blue-eyed soul but, just like Ned Doheny and his sublime reissue on Numero, the band never fully came out of its shell and they were limited to just one album on RCA Victor, 1998's self-tiled LP…until now. I've Got The Feelin' was recorded a year later, in 1979, at the legendary Muscle Shoal Studios, but it never made it out onto the shelves apart from a seriously limited CDR run. Norway's Preservation has thankfully done the right thing by pressing it up on vinyl, and the opening title track is as just as wonderful as the first time we heard - a true soul masterpiece with a clear LA influence. "Looks Like You Got Down In Love" is a funkier, more soulful version of Credence at their deepest, while other highlights include the supremely majestic "It's Over Now", and the tear-jerking "Alabama Eyes". It's a road album, the sort you want to really take in properly. Recommended.