Album review: JIM CAPALDI – The Outside Years (4 CD Boxset)

January 12th, 2024 by brianmc

Cherry Red [Release date : 26.01.24]

CD1: Living On The Outside (2001)
CD2: Poor Boy Blue (2004)
CD3: 35 bonus tracks over 2 CDs, most of them unreleased until now.
CD4: ditto

The late Jim Capaldi, most famously a member of internationally successful British rock band, Traffic, and later a solo performer, left behind a significant volume of material.

Living… and Poor… were Capaldi’s last two (of 14) albums before his untimely death in 2006, aged 60.

His talent as a songwriter equalled his ability as a musician, (Sales of songs written or co-written by him passed the 20 million mark some time ago).

Very much his own man, he wrote incisive lyrics that very often consisted of socio-political messaging or insightful examinations of love and conscience. Issues that are as prevalent now as they were back then.

Maybe his later recordings drifted in and out of these subjects, but it couldn’t be clearer from these relatively recent albums that the fire still burned.

“I’m Living on The Outside, nobody pulls my strings”. Sums up the man.

Liberally sprinkled with “above the fold” names, like George Harrison, Steve Winwood, Paul Weller, Gary Moore and others. “You are known by the company you keep” couldn’t be more meaningful. It’s a pretty clear sign that the music will not be bowing to fashion.

His grainy vocals are particularly striking on Living On The Outside’s title track, a rough hewn hymn to commitment and staying power, often in the face of overwhelming odds, that sets up the lyrical theme of the album.

None of the tracks, on either album, realise they’re in a new millennium. From soulful mid seventies’ acoustic pop (I’ve Been Changing) to rocked up, Dylanesque philosophising (Standing In My Light), the man’s eclectic vision never gets weighed down. His music here is still as agile as it is muscular.

Poor Boy Blue is more of a deep dive into eighties’ pop and rock stylings, from the chart aimed romance of ‘California Sunset’ to the poppy, melodic rock immediacy of ‘Secrets In The Dark’, it’s an out of time, out of place series of songs that you can’t help but enjoy, all delivered with such casual confidence that it still sounds relevant today.

That confidence, conviction, call it what you will, carries into Capaldi’s live performances, frequently laced with stories that win him the “great raconteur” reputation.

So many bonus tracks, many taken from live gigs – From his Solo Acoustic gig in Philadelphia in 1999; From The Music Hall, Cologne in 2002; From Bullet Sound Studios in 2001; from The Harold Schmidt Show in 1997.

And of course a raft of studio demos and alternate takes – it’s fun sifting through a fascinating set of “compare and contrast” versions – Two of ‘Low Spark Of The High Heeled Boys’; Two of ‘40,000 Headmen’; Two of ‘Love’s Got A Hold On Me’ (one with George Harrison) and so on.

The liner notes and track by track annotations are some of the most informative you might encounter. They add even more colour to a vivid collection of songs from a unique artist. *****

Review by Brian McGowan

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REVENGIN Decadent Feeling (Wormholedeath)

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