Layla & Other Assorted Unreleased Songs Remaster (Extract Factory EXT 003)
(61:20): Layla, Nobody Knows You When You Are Down and Out, Key to the Highway, Little Wing, Nobody Knows You When You Are Down and Out, It’s Too Late, Got to Get Better in a Little While, Son of Apache, Snake Lake Blues, High, Untitled Instrumental, One More Chance
Derek & The Dominos’ Layla and Other Assorted Love Songswas such a brilliant, yet short lived project, which certainly deserved the three disc box set treatment in 1990 for its twentieth anniversary. It presented the greatness of this outfit as a jamming band. Several years later Layla & Other Assorted Unreleased Songs (Yellow Dog Records YD 040) surfaced with even more unreleased outtakes from the two official Derek & The Domino’s releases (Layla and Live at the Fillmore) and tracks from the unfinished second album.
Extract Factory have re-released the old Yellow Dog title. The sound quality is still excellent and the relevancy of the outtakes make this remain an essential Eric Clapton title for the collection.
The first two tracks are from the studio album. “Layla” is complete but is out of tune, and “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down And Out” is an alternate mix compared to the commercial version with a false start.
Following are three live tracks from the Fillmore East shows in New York on October 23rd, 1970. “Key To The Highway,” “Little Wing” and “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down And Out” are all professionally mixed, but were not included on the original In Concert LP released in 1973. A year after Yellow Dog released this disc, Polydor updated the live album and issued the 2CD Live At The Fillmore on February 22, 1994. These three songs were included, but the three on Yellow Dog are from October 23rd. Polydor utilized “Key To The Highway” and “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down And Out” from October 24th.
Two songs, “It’s Too Late, She’s Gone” and “Got To Get Better In A Little While” come from “The Johnny Cash Show.” This was taped on November 5th, 1970 at the Ryman Auditiorium in Nashville. Derek & The Dominos also played “Blues Power” and jammed with Carl Perkins on “Matchbox” but they aren’t included.
The final five tracks come from the sessions for the aborted second album in April to May, 1971. All are instrumentals and are in various states of development. “Son Of Apache,” with it’s vague American Indian sounding melody, is the more adventurous of the lot. The others are variations upon basic blues chords and melodies.
Extract Factory use high quality inserts (as they do with all their releases) and makes available a title that is still valuable and worth having.
