Melanie "Gather Me" Gatefold LP (1971)
Details: This is a used copy of the US pressing of Melanie [Safka]'s 8th album in a gatefold design with a full-color lyric insert. Safka's track "Brand New Key," has been covered by everyone from Cher, Dolly Parton, and Macy Gray, to Katharine McPhee and punk band The Dollyrots. The album cover has some splitting at the top of the album (middle) and the bottom has shelf-wear from being stored. Even though the cover is graded VG, it still looks great and the album and insert are in NM condition.
Description: "Gather Me is a 1971 album released by Melanie and featuring the US Billboard Hot 100 Singles Chart #1 song "Brand New Key" (a novelty hit which also reached the #1 chart position in Canada, New Zealand and Australia between November 1971 and March 1972). The album also features the singles "Some Day I'll Be a Farmer" and the Top 40 hit "Ring the Living Bell". The album was certified Gold in the U.S. and was arranged by Roger Kellaway."
"After the release of The Good Book in early 1971, Melanie Safka and her producer (and then-husband) Peter Schekeryk left Buddah Records to form their own label, Neighborhood Records, and the new freedom seemed to do her a world of good -- Gather Me, released later the same year, is one of her most accomplished and confident albums, a set that allowed Melanie the room to indulge her lyrical obsessions while Schekeryk created superb musical accompaniment from her simple but forceful melodies. The epochal "Ring the Living Bell" is a pocket suite that takes a skeletal lyrical conceit and gives it flight through sheer belief while Schekeryk's arrangement, reinforced with gospel-style vocal backing, makes this accomplishment all the more impressive. "Railroad," "Little Bit of Me," and "Steppin'" display a lyrical maturity and subtle strength that marked a real step forward for Melanie as a songwriter, and "Some Say (I Got Devil)" is an emotionally devastating tale of a pregnant teenager who clearly has no idea what she should do. Melanie's habit of overplaying her hand as a vocalist is thankfully in retreat on Gather Me, which finds her in full control of her instrument and communicating a wide palette of emotions without becoming melodramatic. And if "Brand New Key" comes across like a silly novelty tune in this context, it's a playful and engaging one, and Melanie sounds like she's having fun putting Freudian symbolism within the grasp of AM radio. Gather Me may well be Melanie's finest album, capturing her at the height of her skills as a writer and singer, and it has stood the test of time better than the majority of her work." - Spychedelic Sally blog
Grade: VG (Cover/Insert) / NM (Record)
TRACK LISTING SIDE A:
1. Little Bit Of Me
2. What Wondrous Love
3. Steppin'
4. Brand New Key
5. Ring Around The Moon
(5) Ring The Living Bell
5a. Shine the Living Light (Chant)
5b. Ring The Living Bell
5c. Shine The Living Light (Chant Reprise)
TRACK LISTING SIDE B:
1. Railroad
2. Kansas
3. Some Say (I Got Devil)
4. Center Of The Circle
5. Some Day I'll Be A Farmer
6. Baby Day
7. Tell Me Why