Needle Drops — Record Store Day Black Friday Edition
Today is Record Store Day Black Friday. Let The Tonearm be your guide.
Of the 160 or so titles exclusively available at independent music shops as part of the Record Store Day Black Friday event, these are at the top of our shopping list.
We cannot offer previews of these records. Part of their exclusivity is that they are really exclusive. Still, Record Store Day releases often include live albums, alternative and lost studio material, and other items that have circulated unofficially online. We include some of that here so you can see what we're waiting to get our mitts on.
See you in the bins!
B.B. King - Live in France
Archival producer Zev Feldman's Deep Digs Music label announces a remarkable addition to B.B. King's recorded legacy with In France: Live at the 1977 Nancy Jazz Pulsations Festival. The concert recording during King's fifth European tour captures the blues legend at an artistic peak with his seven-piece touring band. The release marks the first time this particular lineup has been documented on record, featuring King's nephew Walter King on tenor saxophone, Cato Walker III on alto saxophone, Eddie Rowe on trumpet, James Toney on organ, Milton Hopkins on guitar, Joe Turner on bass, and Calep Emphrey, Jr. on drums.
The performance occurred at a pivotal moment in King's career, following his breakthrough to mainstream audiences with "The Thrill Is Gone" in 1970 (the take of which on In France is a slow-burning scorcher) and during a period when his live recordings typically featured all-star pickup bands rather than his working group. Judging by the bootlegs floating around, The Nancy Jazz Pulsations set will showcase extended instrumental workouts on "I Need My Baby," "When I'm Wrong," and "Have Faith," with each band member getting their turn in the spotlight. King's guitar work on his Gibson ES-335 "Lucille" particularly shines on his concert staple "Sweet Little Angel" and the Brook Benton ballad "It's Just a Matter of Time."
French music writer Jean Buzelin provides liner notes for the limited two-LP Record Store Day Black Friday release and the subsequent CD edition (out widely December 6). The vinyl pressing features 180-gram records mastered by Matthew Lutthans at the Mastering Lab. At the same time, both formats include photographs from the Nancy performance by Jean-Marc Birraux alongside vintage images from Jean-Pierre Leloir and Ozier Muhammad. This album would be at the top of my picks, even if the list weren't alphabetical.
Dickey Betts & Great Southern - Southern Jam New York 1978
This one has been out on CD and digitally for the better part of a decade and has circulated as a bootleg since the night it aired on WLIR in 1978. Still, as a lifelong Allman Brothers Band fan and of this era of Dickey Betts' solo career, I am ready to plunk down for this one in its first vinyl incarnation.
This concert recording catches Dickey Betts leading his band Great Southern at Long Island's Calderone Concert Hall, mixing solo work with Allman Brothers Band standards. His Great Southern band shows how Betts adapted the twin-guitar sound he pioneered with Duane Allman, now matching lines with "Dangerous" Dan Toler. His signature songs like "Ramblin' Man" (the Allmans' only Top 10 hit, reaching #2 in 1973), "Jessica," and "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed" defined the extended guitar interplay that shaped the early jam band scene.
The sound quality shined on the earlier releases of this pre-FM recording, and if the vinyl is cut well, it promises to sound excellent. Betts fronts a muscular seven-piece band with two drummers and backing vocals, stretching out over 110 minutes. The setlist pulls from his 1977 solo debut, including the epic "Bougainvillea," written with Don Johnson (yes, that one). Pressed on colored vinyl with photos and new notes from Allman Brothers writer Alan Paul, this release will add to Betts' reputation as an architect of Southern rock guitar, justifying his spots on Rolling Stone's greatest guitarists lists (#58 in 2003, #61 in 2011) and the Rock Hall of Fame with the Allmans.
Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson - From South Africa To South Carolina
Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson's 1975 album From South Africa to South Carolina emerged as a powerful musical statement bridging global struggles for justice. This Arista Records release, recorded at D&B Sound in Silver Spring, Maryland, paired Scott-Heron's social commentary with Jackson's musical arrangements, performed by their skilled Midnight Band.
It is a wonder that this record has been out of print, especially given that the album's lead single, "Johannesburg," gained enough radio play to lead to Scott-Heron's December 1975 Saturday Night Live performance (introduced by host Richard Pryor, no less). The nine-minute "Essex" pushed artistic boundaries with its freeform introduction, layered vocals, and Jackson's dynamic flute work.
The record's later reissue through Scott-Heron's Rumal-Gia label added live recordings from Madison Square Garden's No Nukes concert and Blues Alley in Washington DC, including an extended version of "Johannesburg" that captured the band's live energy, and those are included here. In these times, Scott-Heron's voice is one we need to revisit.
Jazz Sabbath - The 1968 Tapes
Adam Wakeman takes on the persona of Milton Keanes for Jazz Sabbath The 1968 Tapes, recasting eight Black Sabbath songs as 1960s jazz numbers. The mono recording, pressed on Coke Bottle Clear vinyl for Record Store Day Black Friday, transforms songs like "Into The Void," "Electric Funeral," and "War Pigs." Beyond the standard tracks, the package offers special RSD mixes, adds "Hole in the Sky" as a bonus cut, and includes a CD copy. Oh my.
The project builds on a playful fiction: these jazz versions supposedly came first, predating the metal recordings. Wakeman, who played keys and guitar in what is referred to in-universe as "that other band" (Black Sabbath) and Ozzy Osbourne's band, strips these songs to their bones and rebuilds them in the style of British jazz circa 1968.
MF DOOM - Operation: Doomsday 25th Anniversary
MF DOOM's Operation: Doomsday, released in October 1999, emerged from the ashes of personal loss and music industry disillusionment. After the death of his brother and bandmate Subroc and the collapse of his group KMD, Daniel Dumile vanished from hip-hop, only to resurface wearing a mask and armed with a radically new sound.
The album's production revealed DOOM's gift for musical mayhem. He flipped forgotten records into gold - speeding up Sade vocals, chopping Beatles violin parts, and weaving in snippets of Fantastic Four cartoons. Even the Scooby-Doo theme became sinister in his hands. The beats merged dusty soul samples with neck-snapping drums, creating a familiar but very alien sound.
Rather than follow standard song structures, DOOM lets verses spill across bar lines, and choruses fade into dialogue fragments. He assembled a crew of kindred spirits in the Monsta Island Czars, including MF Grimm and Kurious, who shared his left-field sensibilities. Their appearances added different textures to DOOM's increasingly abstract rhyme style.
The record sent ripples through hip-hop that still spread today. I still remember being told, almost forced, to listen to it. Artists like Tyler, The Creator, and Earl Sweatshirt used Operation: Doomsday as a blueprint for following your weird. The album's DIY spirit and crackly, unpolished sound opened new paths for underground producers.
For DOOM himself, it kicked off his most fertile period. Between 2003 and 2004, he dropped a string of classics that cemented his legend. But Operation: Doomsday was where the mask first went on - where hip-hop's supervillain origin story began.
And the CD edition comes in a longbox.
Sun Ra - Lights on a Satellite: Live at the Left Bank
A 1978 live recording from Baltimore's Famous Ballroom reveals Sun Ra's 30-piece Arkestra at its peak. At this Left Bank Jazz Society concert, Ra and his Myth Science Cosmo Swing Arkestra moved between jazz standards and cosmic exploration, playing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and launching into outer space with synthesizer-driven pieces like "Thunder of Drums."
The recording, mastered from original tapes by Resonance Records, promised to deliver what made Sun Ra's shows unique - the full spectacle of dancers, multiple drummers, and vocalists creating what drummer/archivist Michael D. Anderson calls "a complete musical vision." The setlist drew connections across jazz history: Ra's arrangement of Tadd Dameron's "Lady Bird" traced bebop's evolution. At the same time, his compositions pushed toward future sounds, including his synthesizer and Dale Williams' electric guitar. As saxophonist Gary Bartz notes, Ra showed how musicians could "study sounds, period" rather than limiting themselves to one style. Ra himself has said, "Sound has no genre.'
The package includes notes by critic J.D. Considine, who witnessed the original show, so that will be amazing. Also included are insights from current Arkestra bandleader Marshall Allen and pianist Craig Taborn on Ra's lasting mark on experimental music.
The complete list of Record Store Black Friday titles is available here.
More recommendations:
Lawrence Peryer,
Lawrence Peryer
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