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.
This 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