Adam Faith - Faith Alive! (1965/2019)

Concert albums dating from the prime years of the British Invasion are rare the Beatles tried and failed at least twice to get what producer George Martin felt was needed for such a record; the Rolling Stones likewise never got their unadulterated concert sound down on tape for public consumption for more than ten minutes at a time, and most of the competition similarly never tried or didn't succeed in this endeavor, at least until a little later when the crowds had calmed down slightly. And then there's Faith Alive, the sole exception to this gap in the music's history, cut by Adam Faith and his backing band, the Roulettes, on Sunday, April 25, 1965, at EMI's Studio No. 1 in the presence of an audience of indeterminate size. EMI had previously gone this route with Cliff Richard & the Shadows in February of 1959 and yielded a classic, and the results weren't much less impressive this time out. This is a very fine record, a loud and buoyant yet finely played performance with a good representation of the band as well as the singer, all captured about as well as any rock & roll concert album of its era -- Faith and the group rip their way not only through their own repertory, including "Look Out Baby," "Talk About Love," and "You Can't Blame Him," but also songs by the Beatles ("I Wanna Be Your Man"), Tommy Tucker ("High Heel Sneakers"), and Elvis Presley ("Heartbreak Hotel"). Nothing here is a revelation, though it's all good, solid (and occasionally inventive) playing and a very charismatic performance by Faith. It also marked the end of his embrace of the British Invasion sound, and is, thus, an even more valuable document of its era and its artists.