Every fall, to give music lovers a few gift ideas during this jolliest time of the year, I review a pile of recent box sets. Releases like this are rarely geared to the casual listener, and it’s hard to gauge their success using commercial metrics—as sales of physical media continue to decline, expensive multidisc collections become increasingly niche oriented. I’ve tried to cast a broad net here, including not only folkloric compilations whose musicians are by and large known only to their friends and relatives but also a giant set by long-running hit makers the Isley Brothers. Most of these would make good gifts not for the average consumer but rather for the sort of person who’d be happy to listen to Bob Dylan rehearse and develop various versions of “Like a Rolling Stone” for the space of entire disc. If you choose wisely, you can make someone—but not just anyone—very happy.
Bob DylanThe Cutting Edge 1965-1966: The Bootleg Series Vol. 12 (Columbia/Legacy) $149.98
It’s great to have the group’s classics together in one place. There’s the 1971 album Givin’ It Back, where the Isleys remade Vietnam-era protest songs such as “Ohio” and “Machine Gun” in their own creamy, expansive style. The 1973 gem 3 + 3 includes their most famous hit, “That Lady” (it stings that I think of Swiffer when I hear it, thanks to those commercials), as well as an indelible cover of “Summer Breeze.” And the title track of the 1983 quiet-storm masterpiece Between the Sheets has been sampled by Notorious B.I.G. (for “Big Poppa”) as well as by Jay Z, Common, Da Brat, Whitney Houston, Usher, and countless others.
Playing a hard-rocking take on American R&B, London band the Small Faces quickly became teen heartthrobs during their short stint on the Decca label from 1965 till ’67. Lead songwriters Steve Marriott and Ronnie “Plonk” Lane churned out hooky gems inspired by singers the group covered—Sam Cooke, Don Covay, Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye—and Marriott’s wailing, extroverted voice, which clearly had a big impact on Robert Plant, consistently stole the show. After rebelling against manipulative manager and A&R man Don Arden and severing ties with him and with Decca, the Small Faces signed with the Immediate label, run by former Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham. They set out to realize their creative ambitions, moving away from a bald emulation of soul toward something more original, and in ’67 they racked up their biggest American hit with “Itchycoo Park.” The band’s drive for self-invention reached its apotheosis on the 1968 concept album Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake.
Various artistsFolksongs of Another America: Field Recordings From the Upper Midwest, 1937-1946 (University of Wisconsin/Dust-to-Digital) $60
The set includes a 28-page LP-size booklet with short bios of the musicians and annotations for the obscure and familiar songs they perform. Freeman, Faurot, fellow owner Richard Nevins, and onetime employee Barry Poss (who went on to found influential bluegrass imprint Sugar Hill) contribute concise memories of the label’s history. As much as I love old-time music, I’m no expert, and I hadn’t heard of most of the players here—I knew only fiddler Benton Flippen, guitarist E.C. Ball, and Carter Family scions Joe and Janette Carter. These 113 tracks—a few by fiery bluegrass bands, but most featuring just one or two folks, demonstrating a passionate, soulful homespun virtuosity—sound as alive and electric as almost anything I’ve heard in 2015.
