The Wizard of Is

Performer: Pearls Before Swine
Producer: Pat Thomas (Compilation); Patrick Roques (Compilation)
Distributor: City Hall

Notes: Includes previously unreleased material, demos, out-takes, live recordings. Pearls Before Swine: Tom Rapp (vocals, guitar); Elisabeth Rapp (vocals); David Wolfert (guitar); Harry Orlove (electric guitar, banjo); Bill Rollins (cello, double bass); Art Ellis (flute); Morris Brown (bass guitar); Wayne Harley. Liner Note Author: Tom Rapp. San Francisco's Water Records has certainly done right by Tom Rapp and Pearls Before Swine. Not only has the label reissued its Warner Bros. recordings in their entirety individually and as a box set, it has now come up with this 44-track, two-disc collection of rarities and live recordings from 1967-1976. This is a mighty artifact indeed. The first disc contains all sorts of demos and strange little live recordings. Some were made at home by the first edition of the band with Elisabeth Rapp and Wayne Harley, some are solo (including a stunningly beautiful original recording of "Butterflies"), some are with later incarnations, some are with notable musicians like David Bromberg ("City of Gold" and "Mary, Mary"), and some are Nashville session demos. There is also a slew of cover version demos, including highly original readings of Bob Dylan's "Oh Sister," Randy Newman's "Sail Away," Joni Mitchell's "Real Good for Free," the Spector and Bates classic "There's No Other (Like My Baby)," Leonard Cohen's "Suzanne," and even Jacques Brel's "Love, You're Not Alone," along with poems by Shakespeare, W.H. Auden, and Sara Teasdale that Rapp set to music. Disc two features live recordings from a Goddard College show featured in its entirety as well as a Netherlands Radio performance and a performance from the Choate School in 1972. There is also a cut -- "Lesson of the 60s" -- recorded at Terrastock in 1999. Fans will no doubt find a treasure trove of material here; some exists on bootlegs, but it's awesome to have the cleaned-up quality of the material available officially. The sound, given the wildly varying nature of the tapes, is surprisingly good and the music is truly inspired. Rapp gave listeners no dregs here; this is a fascinating and compelling collection of tapes from the catalog of a genuine musical enigma. ~ Thom Jurek

Primarily the vehicle for singer/guitarist Tom Rapp, 1960s psyche-folk ensemble Pearls Before Swine were one the few non-jazz acts to record for the venerable New York City label ESP-Disk. Rapp's blend of revolutionary politics, surreal lyrical imagery, and an often numinous take on various folk forms relegated the artist to the outer reaches of the pop map. He made the jump to a major label in 1969 and recorded under the PBS moniker and his own name, but stopped playing music in the mid '70s to concentrate on civil rights law. Rapp was coaxed back to the stage in the early 2000s by a legion of new underground musicians deeply indebted to his music.

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