A few weeks ago I learned about a new CD out there.
Deliver Me From the Days of Old (Crying Steel Records CSR001) was a bit difficult to get as it is not stocked by the usual CD shops on the net. Even though this is a professional looking CD, it seems that the creators of this CD did not have the rights to publish the recordings contained.
The CD is a collection of all the Berry recordings never transferred to CD before - well, maybe not all, but many. You'll find
Roll 'Em Pete, the Chess recording even missed in the Charly 9-CD set. You'll find the two recordings from the
American Hot Wax soundtrack. There is the complete
Tokyo Session LP and the two extremely rare recordings from the album
The Day of R&B. All the stuff you have in your vinyl collection but never listened to for years.
In addition the CD contains the four songs recorded during the Newport Jazz Festival 1958 which were to be found on a rare Swedish CD before only. And finally they included the two unreleased Chess masters taken from the ARC Music Promotional CD. For details read the corresponding sections of this site.
This is a lot of good stuff. Whoever created this CD really knew about Chuck Berry recordings and what is easy to get and what not. The same holds for the 8-page booklet which has many excellent Berry photos in addition to complete details about the included recordings. They even included cover photos of the original vinyl albums. Very well done!
To my ears some of the vinyl transfers run too fast, maybe ten percent or even more. But what really is a pity is that this CD is not official meaning that you have to hunt for it on record markets. This collection should have deserved better.