VARIOUS – Earls Closet: The Lost Archive of Earl McGrath 1970-1980 – 2LP – 180g Clear Vinyl

2LP – Indies Exclusive Limited Edition 180g Clear Vinyl housed in Gatefold Sleeve with 20 Page Booklet.

Earl was a wonderful man with a great eye for new and innovative art. And such an amusing companion, too. Mick Jagger

Earl McGrath was the ultimate 70s jet setter, an art collector and comic bon vivant who stumbled into the record business between legendary parties in New York and LA and discovered Daryl Hall and John Oates and then Jim Carroll. Atlantic founder Ahmet Ertegun gave Earl his own label, Clean Records, in 1970; Mick Jagger hired him to run Rolling Stones Records in 1977.

Friend to Joan Didion, Andy Warhol, and a galaxy of luminaries, Earl was an inveterate tastemaker. Actor Harrison Ford, who before Star Wars fame was Earls handyman and pot dealer, called him the last of a breed, one of the last great gentlemen and bohemians.

After Earl died in 2016, journalist Joe Hagan, author of the critically-acclaimed Sticky Fingers, the biography of Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner, discovered a trove of rare and unheard tapes in Earls apartment in New Yorkliterally inside his closet. I asked for a step ladder and the first box I pulled off the shelf was a master tape of Some Girls, the Stones album, says Hagan.

Now Light in the Attic Records proudly presents Earls Closet, a double album of the treasures discovered inside, including unheard music by Daryl Hall and John Oates, David Johansen, Terry Allen, Delbert McClinton, Warhol Superstar Ultra Violet, Detroit sax legend Norma Jean Bell, Jim Carroll and an eclectic cast of undiscovered artists who once vied for fame and gloryfolk, rock, country, funk and R&B gems that virtually no one has heard in decades. Whether its the almost-famous power pop of Shadow from Detroit, or the Delfonics-style soul of the Blood Brothers Six, Earls Closet retraces the dreams of artists who once sent demos to Earl McGrath.

At once an archival mixtape, a secret history and a journey into the heart of an era, Earls Closet features a deep booklet of documents, images and ephemera from Earls archive, expansive liner notes by Joe Hagan, who tracked down and interviewed the artists, and astonishing photographs by Earls late wife, the Italian countess Camilla Pecci-Blunt McGrath.

Tracklist:

1. Delbert & Glen – Two More Bottles of Wine
2. Daryl Hall & John Oates – Baby Come Closer
3. Terry Allen – Gonna California
4. Kazoo Singers – Only Yourself to Lose
5. Michael McCarty – Christopher
6. Jim Hurt – Dixie Darling
7. Mark Rodney – California
8. Country – Killer
9. Daryl Hall & John Oates – Dry in the Sun 02:52
10. Shadow – Oh La La
11. Terry Allen – Cocaine Cowboy
12. Ultra Violet – How Do You Do (Children of the Most High)
13. Johnny Angel – Invisible Lady
14. Shadow – I See My Days Go By
15. Blood Brothers Six – Where Have All the Flowers Gone
16. Len and Betsy Greene – Salt Showers
17. Paul Potash – Holy Commotion
18. Jabor – Sail Away
19. David Johansen – Funky But Chic
20. Norma Jean Bell – Just Look-Ah What You’ll Be Missing
21. The Jim Carroll Band – Tension
22. Little Whisper and the Rumors – Waiting for Me