RICHARD THOMPSON and AL STEWART - strange double album packages for the USA

In order to dissolve any doubt about the release of these two double albums...

[The two pictures above: "GUITAR, VOCAL - A collection of unreleased and rare material 1967- 1976" ]

The double album "Guitar, Vocal" gathers a couple of Fairport songs ("Time will show the wiser" and "Throwaway steet puzzle") both already officially published. In addition, we have a group of unissued/alternate/live songs, etc. spanning Thompson's career till 1976. So we have again some Fairport numbers, some by Thompson solo, or accompanied by his live band, or in couple with Linda. Among the tracks, the famous "Poor will & the jolly hangman", refused at the time of "Full house" (shame because I would have much more rather traded it for the extremely boring "Flowers of the forest"!) and later included (for its first official release) on Fairport's "Live at the LA Troubadour 1970" LP, on Help, issued 1975. Therefore, whoever is interested in these rare/live/unreleased songs, must have this "Guitar, Vocal" double album.
**************************************************************

The two pictures below: "LIVE (more or less)"

*************************************
About the "Live (more or less)", we start with an excerpt of the liner notes: "One of 1974's best albums never really reached these shores but it finally does here."  It's sadly true, the album we refer to is "I want to see the bright lights tonight", for me the most beautiful ever done by Richard & Linda Thompson, published by Island (see cover fotos). How odd to imagine that such a great album was not officially released in the USA, only two years later Island thought to fill the gap (better late then never).
 Therefore, the first of these two discs is the exact reprint of "I wanna see the bright lights...", and the second is a selection of rare/live/unreleased material, taken from the "Guitar, Vocal" album.
So if you already have the "I wanna see the bright lights" album, and you only look for all that those rarities, you'd better want to search for "Guitar, vocal", the double "Live" is not for you, as obviously, for reasons of space, it can't be complete.
=====================================
the two pictures below:
"I WANT TO SEE THE BRIGHT LIGHTS TONIGHT"
(Island, 1974)

For collectors: don't forget that the first edition included an inner bag with lyrics, as you can see.

***************************************************

A similar operation was done by RCA/Janus in America and Canada for Al Stewart: on the wake of the gigantic success of "Year of the cat" in 1977, they thought to make a belated release of one of his best albums, his second "Love chronicles", originally published in UK by CBS, in 1969. 

****************************

[the next three pictures: "Love chronicles", the first original UK edition on CBS, 1969]

They hastened to make a double album, "The early years", a package where one disc was the exact reprint of "Love chronicles" and the other disc was an anthology of Al Stewart's CBS period between 1967 and 1970.

This double album was released in UK by RCA as a single LP, as a simple anthology of CBS material.

Your  COUNTESS  V