Various Artists - Earl’s Closet: The Lost Archive of Earl McGrath, 1970-1980

Earl's Closet: The Lost Archive of Earl McGrath, 1970-1980

Previously unreleased tracks from Daryl Hall and John Oates, David Johansen, Delbert McClinton, Norma Jean Bell and others

Extensive booklet w/ unseen photos, ephemera and label history

Restored and remastered audio by Grammy-nominated engineer Johhn Baldiwn

180-gram gatefold double LP pressed on opaque red vinyl

Liner notes by journalist Joe Hagan with exclusive interviews

"Earl was a wonderful man with a great eye for new and innovative art. And such an amusing companion, too." — Mick Jagger

Earl McGrath was the ultimate '70s jet setter, an art collector and comic bon vivant who stumbled into the record business between legendary parties in New York and LA and discovered Daryl Hall and John Oates and then Jim Carroll. Atlantic founder Ahmet Ertegun gave Earl his own label, Clean Records, in 1970; Mick Jagger hired him to run Rolling Stones Records in 1977.

Friend to Joan Didion, Andy Warhol, and a galaxy of luminaries, Earl was an inveterate tastemaker. Actor Harrison Ford, who before Star Wars fame was Earl's handyman and pot dealer, called him "the last of a breed, one of the last great gentlemen and bohemians."

After Earl died in 2016, journalist Joe Hagan, author of the critically-acclaimed Sticky Fingers, the biography of Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner, discovered a trove of rare and unheard tapes in Earl's apartment in New York-literally inside his closet. "I asked for a step ladder and the first box I pulled off the shelf was a master tape of Some Girls, the Stones album," says Hagan.

Now Light in the Attic Records proudly presents Earl's Closet, a double album of the treasures discovered inside, including unheard music by Daryl Hall and John Oates, David Johansen, Terry Allen, Delbert McClinton, Warhol "Superstar" Ultra Violet, Detroit sax legend Norma Jean Bell, Jim Carroll and an eclectic cast of undiscovered artists who once vied for fame and glory-folk, rock, country, funk and R&B gems that virtually no one has heard in decades. Whether it's the almost-famous power pop of Shadow from Detroit, or the Delfonics-style soul of the Blood Brothers Six, Earl's Closet retraces the dreams of artists who once sent demos to Earl McGrath. Longtime Light in the Attic-affiliated reissue producer Pat Thomas assisted Hagan in tracking down the artists and finalizing the paperwork.

At once an archival mixtape, a secret history and a journey into the heart of an era, Earl's Closet features a deep booklet of documents, images and ephemera from Earl's archive, expansive liner notes by Joe Hagan, who tracked down and interviewed the artists, and astonishing photographs by Earl's late wife, the Italian countess Camilla Pecci-Blunt McGrath.

 

 

1. Two More Bottles of Wine – Delbert & Glen

2. Baby Come Closer – Daryl Hall and John Oates

3. Gonna California – Terry Allen

4. Only Yourself to Lose - Kazoo Singers

5. Christopher – Michael McCarty

6. Dixie Darling – Jim Hurt

7. California – Mark Rodney

8. Killer - Country (Fondiler & Snow)

9. Dry in the Sun – Daryl Hall and John Oates

10. Oh La La - Shadow

11. Cocaine Cowboy – Terry Allen

12. How Do You Do (Children of the Most High) – Ultra Violet

13. Invisible Lady – Johnny Angel (Johnny Angelino)

14. I See My Days Go By - Shadow

15. Where Have All the Flowers Gone? – Blood Brothers Six

16. Salt Showers – Len and Betsy Greene

17. Holy Commotion – Paul Potash

18. Sail Away - Jabor

19. Funky But Chic – David Johansen

20. Just Look-ah What You'll Be Missing – Norma Jean Bell

21. Tension – The Jim Carroll Band

22. Waiting for Me – Little Whisper and the Rumors

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