Tickle Me: Edsel Reissues The Alan Price Set’s Decca Recordings, Featuring Early Randy Newman Songs

July 25, 2017 By Joe Marchese — 1 Comment

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Alan Price’s early accomplishments with The Animals would have been enough to ensure the keyboardist-composer-arranger’s place in the rock and roll pantheon, but happily, Price’s solo work has endured just as strongly over the years.  Price publicly announced his departure from the group on May 5, 1965, and just a few months later in September, he introduced his new band, The Alan Price Set.  Edsel has recently restored the early recordings of The Alan Price Set into print on a 3-CD collection, Twice the Price: The Decca Recordings.

This collection brings together the band’s two Decca LPs – 1966’s The Price to Play and 1967’s A Price on His Head – as well as 19 non-LP single sides spanning the period of 1965-1969.  For these albums, Price largely eschewed the harder-rocking, garage-style sound of The Animals in favor of an amalgam of rhythm and blues and pop.  Hence, the group’s first A-side was a revival of the Burt Bacharach/Bob Hilliard soul favorite “Any Day Now (My Wild Beautiful Bird),” and that was followed by Screaming Jay Hawkins’ “I Put a Spell on You” which harkened back to The Animals’ definitive reinvention of “The House of the Rising Sun.”  Price would follow the soul/R&B template for The Set’s debut The Price to Play.  (Coincidentally or not, the post-Price line-up of The Animals had recorded their own version of “Spell” just days earlier.)  Price’s eclectic streak was reflected in his third and fourth A-sides: a revival of the 1962 movie tune “Hi Lili, Hi Lo” from Lili, and the standard “Willow Weep for Me.”

The Price to Play (Disc One of this set) included “Hi Lili, Hi Lo” (which isn’t repeated among the singles) as well as hits from the American soul capitals of Motown (“Ain’t That Peculiar,” “Loving You is Sweeter Than Ever”) and Stax (“I Can’t Turn you Loose”) plus songs from The Brill Building (Goffin, King and Phil Spector’s majestic “For Once in My Life”) and beyond (Van McCoy’s “Getting Mighty Crowded,” Don Covay’s “Mercy. Mercy,” a dance medley of “Barefootin’,” “Let’s Go Baby” and “Land of 1,000 Dances”).

His sophomore album, though, signaled a dramatic shift in repertoire from soul & R&B stompers.  Price had become entranced by the music of young Randy Newman, and as he reflected to Goldmine in 1995, “It wasn’t until I discovered Randy Newman that I felt confident enough to write personal songs.”  And so, 1967’s A Price on His Head primarily consisted of songs by freshly-minted songwriter Price, and the budding Mr. Newman (who had yet to release his own, seminal first album).  From the soon-to-be-classic Newman songbook, Price plucked “Come and Dance with Me,” “So Long, Dad,” “No One Ever Hurt This Bad” (a song to which Blood, Sweat and Tears owes some debt for the melody of “Spinning Wheel”), “Tickle Me,” “Living Without You,” “Happyland,” and “The Biggest Night of Her Life.”  Joining these seven songs were four Price originals influenced by Newman, plus another Goffin and King composition (the dramatic “On This Side of Goodbye”) and a Bob Dylan cover, “To Ramona.”   Another Randy Newman tune, the wonderfully satirical and tuneful “Simon Smith and the Amazing Dancing Bear,” became a No. 4 hit single for Price.

“Simon Smith” is found on Disc Three of this collection along with 18 other singles including the unique mix of “Tickle Me.”  (Other than “Tickle Me,” the flip of “Simon Smith,” singles included on albums are not present on the singles disc.)  Two more Newman songs, “Love Story” and “My Old Kentucky Home,” formed his penultimate Decca single in 1968.  Price’s own “The House That Jack Built” was another No. 4 hit single, and he showcased his jazz prowess with a calypso-flavored revival of Sonny Rollins’ “Don’t Stop the Carnival,” which went to No. 13 on the U.K. Singles Chart.  Before 1969 was out, though, Price had tired of the band grind, and made the decision to strike out as a solo artist.  Disc Three of this collection ends with his solo debut for Decca’s Deram subsidiary, “The Trimdon Grange Explosion” b/w “Falling in Love Again.”  Soon, he was onto new endeavors, collaborating with Georgie Fame, penning film soundtracks and stage musicals, and even reuniting with The Animals, while maintaining a fiercely independent streak as a solo artist on various labels.

Despite its title, Twice the Price offers an abundance of music at a low price; it restores these albums and singles into print following a long absence.  (Sanctuary’s 2005 2-CD release The House That Jack Built also featured this material, but additionally included a number of The Alan Price Set’s BBC performances recorded in 1966 and 1967.)  Edsel’s collection has been remastered by Phil Kinrade at Alchemy, and includes a 16-page booklet with John Tobler’s new liner notes.  It’s available at the links below!

The Alan Price Set, Twice the Price: The Decca Recordings (Edsel EDSX 3033, 2017) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

CD 1: The Price to Play (Decca LK 4839, 1966)

  1. Barefootin’/Let’s Go Baby/Land of 1,000 Dances
  2. Just Once in My Life
  3. Goin’ Down Slow
  4. Getting Mighty Crowded
  5. Honky Tonk
  6. Move On Drifter
  7. Mercy, Mercy
  8. Loving You is Sweeter Than Ever
  9. Ain’t That Peculiar
  10. I Can’t Turn You Loose
  11. Critic’s Choice
  12. Hi-Lili, Hi-Lo

CD 2: A Price on His Head (Decca LK 4907, 1967)

  1. The House That Jack Built
  2. She’s Got Another Pair of Shoes
  3. Come and Dance with Me
  4. On This Side of Goodbye
  5. So Long Dad
  6. No One Ever Hurt This Bad
  7. Don’t Do That Again
  8. Tickle Me
  9. Grim Fairy Tale
  10. Living Without You
  11. Happy Land
  12. To Ramona
  13. Biggest Night of Her Life

CD 3: Singles As and Bs

  1. Any Day Now (My Wild Beautiful Bird)
  2. Never Be Sick on a Sunday
  3. I Put a Spell on You
  4. Iechyd-da
  5. Take Me Home
  6. Willow Weep for Me
  7. Yours Until Tomorrow
  8. Simon Smith and His Amazing Dancing Bear
  9. Tickle Me (Single Version)
  10. Who Cares
  11. Shame
  12. Don’t Stop the Carnival
  13. The Time Has Come
  14. When I Was a Cowboy
  15. Tappy Tortoise
  16. Love Story
  17. My Old Kentucky Home
  18. The Trimdon Grange Explosion
  19. Falling in Love Again

Tracks 1-2 from Decca F 12217, 1965
Tracks 3-4 from Decca F 12367, 1965
Track 6 from Decca F 12442, 1966
Tracks 7-8 from Decca F 12518, 1966
Track 9 from Decca F 12570, 1967
Track 10 from Decca F 12641, 1967
Track 11 from Decca F 12691, 1967
Tracks 12-13 from Decca F 12731, 1968
Tracks 14-15 from Decca F 12774, 1968
Tracks 16-17 from Decca F 12808, 1968
Tracks 18-19 from Deram DM 263, 1969

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Joe Marchese
Joe Marchese

JOE MARCHESE (Editor) joined The Second Disc shortly after its launch in early 2010, and has since penned daily news and reviews about classic music of all genres. In 2015, Joe formed the Second Disc Records label. Celebrating the great songwriters, producers and artists who created the sound of American popular song and beyond, Second Disc Records, in conjunction with labels including Real Gone Music and Cherry Red Records, has released newly-curated collections produced and annotated by Joe from iconic artists such as Dionne Warwick, Diana Ross and The Supremes, Smokey Robinson and The Miracles, The Spinners, Johnny Mathis, Bobby Darin, Meat Loaf, Laura Nyro, Melissa Manchester, Liza Minnelli, Darlene Love, Al Stewart, Michael Nesmith, and many others.

Joe has written liner notes, produced, or contributed to over 200 reissues from a diverse array of artists, among them America, JD Souther, Nat "King" Cole, Paul Williams, Lesley Gore, Dusty Springfield, BJ Thomas, The 5th Dimension, Burt Bacharach, The Mamas and the Papas, Carpenters, Perry Como, Rod McKuen, Doris Day, Jackie DeShannon, Petula Clark, Robert Goulet, and Andy Williams.

Over the past two decades, Joe has also worked in a variety of capacities on and off Broadway as well as at some of the premier theatres in the U.S., including Lincoln Center Theater, George Street Playhouse, Paper Mill Playhouse, Long Wharf Theatre, and the York Theatre Company. He has felt privileged to work on productions alongside artists such as the late Jack Klugman, Eli Wallach, Arthur Laurents, Betty Comden and Adolph Green. In 2009, Joe began contributing theatre and music reviews to the print publication The Sondheim Review, and in 2012, he joined the staff of The Digital Bits as a regular contributor writing about film and television on DVD and Blu-ray.

Joe currently resides in the suburbs of New York City.

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1 thought on “Tickle Me: Edsel Reissues The Alan Price Set’s Decca Recordings, Featuring Early Randy Newman Songs”

  1. Magnus Hägermyr

    As a fan of both The Animals and Randy Newman this edition is definetly on my shopping list. Remastered and nice priced too! (But I wouldn’t mind those BBC-sessions though).

    Reply

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