Wimoweh (And Other Songs of Freedom and Protest)

In 1961, , long the flagship artist of the tiny independent label, signed to the major label . This did not, as it turned out, mean that he actually left , which retained the right to issue not only previously unreleased recordings dating from before the deal, but also new recordings if didn't deem them sufficiently commercial to constitute competition. Nevertheless, , head of , couldn't have been very pleased at the development, and when issued its first album, a live LP called in August 1961, countered the same month with its own live album, , which turned out to be a cobbled-together set of tracks that had been left off earlier live collections. In 1968, was in a flurry of releasing compilations (the others were , , and ), and this one takes eight of the 12 tracks from the album, re-sequences them, and adds a few other stray tracks ( and ). The recordings also seem to have been re-edited and remixed, with some extra waves of applause overdubbed. Although it contains a couple of 's greatest hits, as well as some interesting performances of spirituals, with such collaborators as thrown in, the album is still a hodgepodge. In fact, it's even more of a hodgepodge than the original version was seven years previously. ~ William Ruhlmann