News

High Moon Records, the label behind the recent releases of Love’s Black Beauty and Gene Clark’s Two Sides to Every Story, has announced its next title.  On November 27, High Moon will reissue Love’s 1974 album Reel to Real as a newly-expanded Deluxe Edition in the following formats:

• Expanded CD packaged in a deluxe custom digipak with a full-color, 32-page booklet;
• LP pressed on high-quality RTI vinyl with full-color, 28-page LP-sized booklet;
• LP includes download card for high-quality album plus bonus tracks; and
• Digital Download includes full-color, 26-page PDF booklet.

Reel to Real was the first album from Arthur Lee’s groundbreaking rock band since 1970’s Blue Thumb album False Start.   Originally released on Robert Stigwood’s RSO label and produced by Skip Taylor, it featured Lee alongside his Black Beauty band (drummer Joe Blocker, guitarist Melvan Whittington, and bassist Robert Rozelle) and presented a more soulful side of the frontman.  He wrote or co-wrote every track on the album other than a cover of William DeVaughn’s “Be Thankful for What You Got.”  Long the rarest item in the Love catalogue, Reel to Real has never previously been available on CD.  Sweetening the pot, High Moon’s upcoming deluxe edition will feature 12 bonus tracks, 11 of which are previously unreleased.

These bonus cuts encompass alternate takes and mixes, live-in-studio rehearsals, and four newly-discovered Arthur Lee originals: “Do It Yourself,” “I Gotta Remember,” “Somebody” and “You Gotta Feel It.”  Other bonus track highlights include an extended, alternate mix of “Busted Feet,” the single mix of “You Said You Would,” and an impromptu studio rehearsal of Forever Changes outtake “Wonder People (I Do Wonder).”

The album has been remastered from the original tapes, and the CD features a 32-page booklet with a new essay by David Fricke of Rolling Stone as well as a number of candid, previously unpublished photos.   The CD edition is due on November 27, while the LP is scheduled for release on February 19, 2016.  Both editions are currently available for pre-order at the links below!

Love, Reel to Real (RSO SO 4804, 1974 – reissued High Moon Records, 2015)

CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. TBD
LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. TBD

1. Time Is Like A River
2. Stop The Music
3. Who Are You?
4. Good Old Fashion Dream
5. Which Witch Is Which
6. With A Little Energy
7. Singing Cowboy
8. Be Thankful For What You Got
9. You Said You Would
10. Busted Feet
11. Everybody’s Gotta Live
12. Do It Yourself [Outtake]
13. I Gotta Remember [Outtake]
14. Somebody [Outtake]
15. You Gotta Feel It [Outtake]
16. With A Little Energy [Alternate Mix]
17. Busted Feet [Alternate Mix]
18. You Said You Would [Single Mix] (RSO single SO-506, 1974)
19. Stop The Music [Alternate Take]
20. Graveyard Hop [Studio Rehearsal]
21. Singing Cowboy [Alternate Take]
22. Everybody’s Gotta Live [Electric Version]
23. Wonder People (I Do Wonder) [Studio Rehearsal]

Tracks 12-23 are previously unreleased except Track 18 as indicated above