Back Street Crawler - Deluxe Edition

Paul Kossoff
17 Mar 2008
The Bottom Line:

Time Away at full length and May You Never mystery solved.

"Digitally remastered from the original analogue tapes. Contains 15 previously unreleased tracks, sleevenotes and rare unseen photopgraphs."

Track 3 on CD1 and tracks 4, 5 and 6 on CD2 are all from the John Martyn session for the unreleased single version of May You Never. They were recorded on 15 September 1971 with band members Paul Kossoff (guitar), John Martyn (guitar), Tetsu Yamauchi (bass) and Simon Kirke (drums). May You Never was produced by John Martyn, the rest of these tracks by John Martyn and Paul Kossoff. Engineers were Tony Platt and Ron Nevison.
An original 18 minute remix of one section of Time Away (Time Spent) was done on 9 November 1972, engineered by Tony Platt. This version first appeared on the 5 CD box set Songs Of Yesterday.
Later on Paul Kossoff literally cut out one section of this quarter inch mix tape, using it for his solo album Back Street Crawler.

JM track chronology
date recording time release date
15 sep 1971 Time Away (complete jam) 38:19 Back Street Crawler Deluxe 17 Mar 2008
15 Sep 1971
09 Nov 1972 (remix)
Time Spent 18:19 Songs Of Yesterday 15 May 2000
15 Sep 1971
09 nov 1972 (remix)
Time Away 5:40 Back Street Crawler 16 Nov 1973
15 Sep 1971 May You Never #1
(with Paul Kossoff)
4:22 Back Street Crawler Deluxe
Record Store Day single
17 Mar 2008
19 Apr 2014
19 Nov 1971 May You Never #2 (other line-up) 2:46 Single
Record Store Day single
19 Nov 1971
19 Apr 2014
Track details
CD1
nr title time comment
01 Tuesday Morning 17:39 This is the original Back Street Crawler album.
02 I'm Ready 2.25
03 Time Away 5:48
04 Molton Gold1 5:51
05 Back Street Crawler (Don't Need You No More) 4:10
06 Tuesday Morning (Early take #1) 4:30 Well, an early take.
07 Tuesday Morning (Early take #2) 12:18 Rather long take.
08 Tuesday Morning Blues 5:37 Bluesy jam. Two notes.
09 Tuesday Morning Groove 6:51 With an organ.
10 Tuesday Morning Boogie 4:19 And a grand piano.
11 Tuesday Morning Piano Jam 7:47 Harmless rock track.
Track details
CD2
nr title time comment
01 I'm Ready (Take 4) 5:43 Weak vocal. Strong band.
02 The Lady Is A Tramp 1:24 Anachronistic intermezzo.
03 I'm Ready (Take 10 - full version) 6:14 Ready.
04 May You Never (Unreleased early single version) 4:22 Unknown version; only one with Paul Kossoff participating. Soft rock with Koss doodling.
05 Leslie Jam 3:30 John does some funky acoustic.
06 Time Away (The complete jam) 38:19 First complete release of tape.
07 Molton Gold (Burnin') #1 5:53 Powerful but not quite finished yet.
08 Molton Gold (Burnin') #2 6:09 Almost ready.
09 Back Street Crawler (Don't Need You No More)
(Single guitar track #14 version)
4:31 Bit hollow sound.

sitenotes:
1 Molton Gold is a strange spelling as the original name of the track was Molten Gold.

pictureThis picture is from the booklet and gives nice testimony to Paul Kossoff's appreciation of John. Judged by the poster on the right wall...

Excerpt from the liner notes
"It would appear Kossoff started to pull things together on November 9, 1972, when a mix of an inspired jam he'd had with John Martyn was prepared. This eventually became listed as 'Time Away' on Kossoff's album but had actually been recorded during a session for Martyn's 'May You Never' way back on September 15, 1971. These sessions, arranged to record the song for a proposed single, were never used and Martyn eventually re-recorded the song for single release with other musicians. The original tapes actually reveal an interesting if slightly 'unfinished' version of the proposed single, mixed here for the first time. The band also recorded a couple of jams, and both are released here in their entirety for the first time."
"It is only recently these master multi-track reels have been discovered, and fortunately five of the original seven survive. Kossoff is astounding here and it is interesting to hear him playing around with the 'Tuesday Morning' riff - the earliest known reference to it appears at the end of the first jam."
- David Clayton

Carriers: 
2CD: Universal Island 5306082