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LP + 7"
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DC 049LP
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2012 repress. LP version with bonus 7"; one of the great Drag City releases (and one of the great American music solo albums) finally on vinyl again. "In 1970, Mayo Thompson (once-and-future leader of The Red Krayola) recorded an album entitled Corky's Debt To His Father. Walt Andrus' Texas Revolution label released the record -- but just barely, selling a few hundred LPs with no promotion to speak of. The copies that made it into shops became the treasured objects of taste-makers around the globe -- which made Corky's Debt To His Father an influential record down the years. As punk rock, new wave, post-punk and all the rest came along, it was inevitable that this lost classic of independent music would be discovered by a wider audience. In 1988, the album was reissued on the UK Glass Records imprint but went out-of-print again in short order. Then in 1994, Drag City brought Corky's Debt To His Father back to the USA, as well as to the CD format for the first time. Additionally, a third pressing of the vinyl was made. The CD has been a perennial favorite ever since -- but after just a few months of robust sales, the LP artwork and jackets were destroyed in a fire, thus putting the end to the life of Corky's Debt To His Father on vinyl once again. Wrapped in a jacket that recalls the halcyon days of solid LP dominance, this new pressing comes with a 7" single featuring the instrumental 'Woof,' which was recorded at the same sessions but not released until The Red Krayola's 2004 compilation CD Singles. The B-side of this single is a never-before heard take on John Cage's '4'33"' played by fellow traveller Sergei McUgly."
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CD
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DC 049CD
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Originally reissued by Drag City in 1994. "Mayo Thompson's until now ultra-rare solo album. The album was produced in Houston, Texas in 1970 by Thompson, Frank Davis and Roger 'Rocket' Romano for the short-lived but nonetheless legendary Texas Revolution label of Walt Andrus. Though pressed and advertised in the pages of Rolling Stone, the demise of the label meant the album went largely undistributed until the mid 1980s when Glass Records (London) gave it its first proper release. Coming as the sun set on the first psychedelic rock era, Corky's Debt evokes the early days of acoustic blues, but is already in the maelstrom from which punk rock would emerge just a few years later. The set features innovative performances by some of Houston's finest musicians of the time playing eleven songs by Thompson -- one with Frederick Barthelme, with whom he started The Red Crayola. They represent a broad range of expressive manners and forms. Made to stand with the finest comparable work of the period, Corky's Debt shows Thompson at his most accessible. Unique ballads, blues, rock and love songs flow one to another with style, grace and intensity, and the handling of diverse popular-music idioms and language that characterize his more widely known work in The Red Crayola are also to be found. The line between genius and madness is very thin. The line between a million dollars and nothing is also very thin. Had Corky's Debt been heard back then, today, if someone mentioned Astral Weeks, you might say, 'It does?' The beat lives on."
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