Reminiscing

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Even with Buddy Holly four years in the grave, there were "new" albums of his stuff coming out that were running circles around most of the competition, and Reminiscing was a prime example, a bluesy, hard-rocking, moody assembly of material gathered from across more than two years of Holly's history, from among some of his last finished tracks and demos going all the way back to 1956 and extending up as late as his home-recorded demos of January 1959. Apart from "Wait 'Til the Sun Shines, Nellie" -- which he may well have done as a sentimental favorite -- the main focus of the sound (overdubbed by the Fireballs under the guidance of producer Norman Petty) was rockabilly, sometimes of a very advanced kind. This expanded reissue, courtesy of MCA's British division, features not only excellent sound but is augmented with the presence of seven bonus tracks, including some of the 1956/1957 demos ("Bo Diddley," "Brown Eyed Handsome Man," "Slippin' and Slidin'") that formed the basic tracks for parts of the finished album, coupled with a handful of demos and acetates that were found in the early '80s and turned up originally on the For the First Time Anywhere album. The annotation by Colin Escott is as good as the sound -- and that's very good -- and this release continues the pattern of Holly's catalog generally being treated better in England than America.

© Bruce Eder /TiVo