New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Alan Price's Savaloy Dip, set for January 15, 2016 release on Omnivore Recordings, is one of pop music history's great lost albums. It was recorded as a full-length clearly intended for official release, accidentally issued for a nanosecond (on 8-track!) and then recalled — the circumstances behind its fate murky to this very day.
The tale of the tape, as sleuthed out thus far: In 1974, the 32-year-old founder/keyboardist of the Animals and arranger of "House of the Rising Sun" was rather on a roll. He'd built a solo career that included commercial hits (in the U.K.), earned a reputation as a canny song-crafter strongly influenced by Randy Newman, and had written the soundtrack for a successful film (O Lucky Man!,
Lindsay Anderson's 1973 comedy starring Malcolm McDowell). Price's movie score drew nothing but raves. With praise like this, anticipation was in the air, greater expectations on the wind — from both clued-in music heads and Price's record label, Warner Bros.
The March 18, 1974 issue of Warners' house organ, the weekly Circular magazine, teases Price's "forthcoming album," which is described as "every bit as good as O Lucky Man!" But the LP that arrived was Between Today and Yesterday, not Savaloy Dip. Somewhere after the release of O Lucky Man! — it hit stores in the summer of '73, same time as Tony Joe White's Home Made Ice
Cream and Van Morrison's Hard Nose the Highway — and spring of '74 is the brief space within which Savaloy Dip breathed.
Warners A&R VP Lenny Waronker couldn't recollect why, but for some reason Savaloy Dip, scheduled to be the follow-up to O Lucky Man!, was scotched. To complicate matters, a few 8-track versions of the album were pressed (at Ampex's Elk Grove Village, Ill. plant) and distributed before being recalled. Price salvaged one track from the project, "Between Today and Yesterday," as the centerpiece for his subsequent album.
Omnivore is proud to present the first ever, non 8-track release of a great lost album, Savaloy Dip!
Track Listing:
1.Smells Like Lemon, Tastes Like Wine
2.Willie the
Queen
3.You Won't Get Me
4.Poor Jimmy
5.Savaloy Dip
6.Keep on Doin' It
7.Country Life
8.Passin' Us By
9.Over and Over Again
10. And So Goodbye
11. Between Today and Yesterday
