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Can you hear the grass grow? Continuing its series of reissues dedicated to the Birmingham rockers The Move, Cherry Red's Esoteric Recordings imprint has just issued a CD/DVD collection that chronicles the band's many facets and iterations between 1966 and 1972. Magnetic Waves of Sound: The Best of The Move, featuring 21 tracks on CD and a further 21 live performances and promotional films on DVD, is certainly not the group's first anthology, but it's doubtless among the finest.
Over the course of just four studio albums - all but one of which, 1971's Message from the Country, has been reissued and expanded by Esoteric - the band made a dizzying number of transformations. Pop-psychedelia, mod soul, hard riff-rock, country, cabaret, folk, and rockabilly were all part of The Move's repertoire. The band went through five line-ups, with singer/songwriter/guitarist Roy Wood and drummer/vocalist Bev Bevan the two constants; Wood and Bevan would, of course, go on to form the original Electric Light Orchestra with Jeff Lynne, the Idle Race leader who joined The Move in 1970. Lead singer Carl Wayne's 1966-1970 yielded the lion's share of the group's hits, while the seemingly rotating bass chair went from Chris "Ace" Kefford to Trevor Burton to Rick Price before the Wood/Lynne/Bevan triumvirate abandoned a permanent bass slot for The Move's final incarnation.
All ten of the band's U.K. charting singles are here, from 1966's Tchaikovsky-quoting "Night of Fear" through 1972's fifties retro-style "California Man," as well as "Do Ya," The Move's only U.S. hit. (It was famously re-recorded by Electric Light Orchestra for 1976's A New World Record.) A healthy selection of B-sides and album tracks are peppered throughout the set, as well. All of the tracks showcase not only the band's great stylistic diversity but the strength of Roy Wood's melodic pop sensibility. Though The Move could rock (the harsher sound of "Hello Susie" is still jarring in this chronological context), their singles were more often than not compact pop creations, including the controversial "Flowers in the Rain" (subject of a High Court lawsuit that forced Wood to forfeit all of his royalties, then and now, from the composition), the urgent "Fire Brigade," shimmering "(Here We Go Round) The Lemon Tree" and baroque "Blackberry Way." Move records were reliably filled with lush harmonies and unusual, dramatic instrumentation, sometimes courtesy of then-assistant producer Tony Visconti. Indeed, The Move were progressive before the word had entered the rock lexicon.
The final tracks on the CD portion of Magnetic Waves of Sound, culled from the Message from the Country era, were recorded as Lynne, Wood, and Bevan created Electric Light Orchestra. As such, they complement the debut of ELO (the band's only album with Wood (though he played, uncredited, on a couple of tracks from ELO 2). "Ella James" was selected as the first single from Message, though it was quickly withdrawn and replaced with the jauntier "Tonight," which was more redolent of the "classic" Move sound. The brisk, breezy "China Town" has Wood and Lynne trading vocals, with the latter already bringing a Beatles influence into the band and Wood bringing his best George Harrison-esque slide lines.
The second disc of this set - The Move on the Air: TV Broadcasts 1967-1970 - is an essential part of this package but could easily stand on its own, with 21 clips on DVD. Note that this disc is region-free/NTSC, playable everywhere. The image is largely sharp and detailed on these clips, and the audio equally fine. The centerpiece is a ten-song set from The BBC's Colour Me Pop (in color, naturally) recorded on January 4, 1969 featuring not only hits like "I Can Hear the Grass Grow," "Flowers in the Rain," and "Blackberry Way" but also covers such as Tom Paxton's "The Last Thing on My Mind," Carole King and Gerry Goffin's "Goin' Back," and the Louvin Brothers' "Christian Life." Three songs from this set are lip-synched, while the remainder showcases the four-piece band after Chris "Ace" Kefford's departure in its potent live prime. Other strong, primal performances have been culled from broadcasts of Top of the Pops and Germany's Beat Beat Beat and Beat Club.
Magnetic Waves of Sound is housed in a digipak containing both a fold-out poster and a 20-page booklet featuring a new essay by Mark Paytress as well as credits, a chart of the band line-ups, and discography. Ben Wiseman has remastered, and sound quality is identical to the remasters, and comparable for the tracks new to this series. The first eleven tracks on the CD are happily all presented in their original mono mixes. This set is a fine addition to Esoteric's stellar program dedicated to the underrated Brumbeat band.
The Move, Magnetic Waves of Sound: The Best of The Move (Esoteric ECLEC 25554, 2017) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)
CD
- Night of Fear (Deram DM 109-A, 1966) (*)
- I Can Hear the Grass Grow (Deram DM 117-A, 1967) (*)
- Wave the Flag and Stop the Train (Deram DM 117-B, 1967) (*)
- Kilroy Was Here (from Move, Regal Zonophone LRZ 1002, 1968) (*)
- (Here We Go Round) The Lemon Tree (from Move, Regal Zonophone LRZ 1002, 1968) (*)
- Walk Upon the Water (from Move, Regal Zonophone LRZ 1002, 1968) (*)
- Flowers in the Rain (Regal Zonophone RZ 3001-A, 1967) (*)
- Fire Brigade (Regal Zonophone RZ 3005-A, 1968) (*)
- Wild Tiger Woman (Regal Zonophone RZ 3012-A, 1968) (*)
- Blackberry Way (Regal Zonophone RZ 3015-A, 1968) (*)
- Curly (Regal Zonophone RZ 3021-A, 1969) (*)
- Hello Susie (from Shazam, Regal Zonophone SLRZ 1012, 1970)
- Cherry Blossom Clinic (Revisited) (from Shazam, Regal Zonophone SLRZ 1012, 1970)
- Brontosaurus (Regal Zonophone RZ 3026-A, 1970)
- When Alice Comes Back to the Farm (Fly Records BUG 2, 1970)
- What? (from Looking On, Fly Records FLY 1, 1970)
- Ella James (Harvest HAR 5036-A, 1971)
- Tonight (Harvest HAR 5038-A, 1971)
- China Town (Harvest HAR 5043-A, 1971)
- California Man (Harvest HAR 5050-A, 1972)
- Do Ya? (Harvest HAR 5086-A, 1972)
DVD
- I Can Hear the Grass Grow (Promotional Film)
HR TV Germany Beat Beat Beat - June 26, 1967
- Walk Upon the Water
- I Can Hear the Grass Grow
- Night of Fear
BBC Top of the Pops - February 15, 1968
- Fire Brigade
BBC Colour Me Pop - January 4, 1969
- I Can Hear the Grass Grow
- Beautiful Daughter
- Christian Life
- Flowers in the Rain
- The Last Thing on My Mind
- Wild Tiger Woman
- Goin' Back
- Fire Brigade
- Something
- Blackberry Way
Radio Bremen TV Germany Beat Club - February 1968
- Fire Brigade
Radio Bremen TV Germany Beat Club - August 1968
- Wild Tiger Woman
Radio Bremen TV Germany Beat Club - January 1969
- Blackberry Way
Radio Bremen TV Germany Beat Club - August 1969
- Curly
Radio Bremen TV Germany Beat Club - April 1970
- Brontosaurus
Radio Bremen TV Germany Beat Club - December 1970
- When Alice Comes Back to the Farm
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"Magnetic Waves of Sound" is a very nice collection. When the hit singles aren't enough to fill an entire CD on their own, one can always quibble about the choice of B-sides and album tracks that round out the running order, but Esoteric's choices are defensible (although maybe a little heavy on the first album at the expense of later offerings). The compilation is a good primer for U.S. audiences that haven't had as much exposure to the Move. The liner notes contain a concise history of the band which touches most of the important bases but, oddly, never mentions bassist Rick Price. (It discusses Trevor Burton's departure but doesn't name his replacement.) Price is credited elsewhere, in a list of the band's five lineups.
The DVD is a treat as well, if people don't mind repetition of some songs ("I Can Hear the Grass Grow" and "Fire Brigade" appear three times each), but I wish they hadn't stopped at 1970. The band recorded a few songs from their final album for "Beat Club," which aren't included here even though Esoteric was clearly able to license other "Beat Club" performances. And the
Not sure what that last "And the" was about. Ghosts, probably. Sorry.
Why on earth would the compilers of the DVD mess with the original aspect ratio? Truly idiotic.
Maybe they were scared consumers would see the original unaltered 4:3 ratio and get turned off by the letterboxing? I wouldn't be surprised if this was the mentality here, but either way it's stupid. At least they didn't crop the image instead because in that case you'd lose visual information.
Even though the image will still look terrible here, at least all the info is intact. But that just makes me wonder what kind of stretching they used, if they just used the standard method, or if they used the method that leaves the center intact but stretches out the sides, because then you couldn't just simply convert it back to 4:3 since the center will now look too narrow.
Maybe US copies are different - I ordered mine directly from Esoteric from the UK - but I've watched the DVD and I didn't see any problem with the aspect ratio. The videos are all in period-appropriate 4:3, with vertical black bars to the left and right. The image is neither cropped nor stretched.
Thanks for pointing this out, Steve. All copies are the same; it seems that some U.K. buyers have had a similar issue with the aspect ratios based on Amazon commentary. I will investigate further and amend the above accordingly.
The remaining "Beat Club" performances can be obtained on the DVD "The Move-The Lost Performances" from Gonzo Multimedia. Gonzo is the label formerly known as "Voiceprint".
I've got that DVD, but it would have been nice to have all the videos in one place instead of having to switch discs for the last three songs. Plus, I recently checked Gonzo's web site and they aren't listing that DVD anymore, so it may be out of print.
Unlike the mimed 1960s "Beat Club" performances, the omitted songs are performed live and so there are interesting variations from the studio cuts. It doesn't spoil the new DVD for me, but I'm left wondering why they stopped at 1970 when there were some solid performances from the band's final incarnation. Possibly it's because none of the songs were hit singles.