T. Rex - "Billy Super Duper"

 

At the time of his death in 1977, Marc Bolan was working on several new songs. But there’s no way of knowing whether any of them would have ended up on his next T. Rex album. He apparently left behind no notes, although there are references to the working title of Jack Daniels.

Over the years, there have been attempts, both official and unofficial (see Uncle Dan’s version), to create an album from leftover tracks. The primary version was a 1982 release titled Billy Super Duper that included seven songs recorded in 1977, one from 1976, two from 1975 and one from way back in 1972, and some of the tracks featured new overdubs to make them more fleshed-out tunes. Beyond that, there have been gobs of posthumously released albums with demos, alternate takes and pretty much every note Bolan ever recorded. The truth is, Bolin recorded so many demos between 1975-77, there’s no telling what he might have released had he lived longer.

SIDE A

1. 21^st Century Stance

2. Billy Super Duper

3. Shy Boy

4. Mellow Love

5. Endless Sleep

6. Brain Police

7. Write Me a Song

 

SIDE B

1. 20^th Century Baby

2. Hot George

3. Foxy Boy

4. Love Drunk

5. Depth Charge

6. Messing with the Mystic

7. Sing Me a Song

Looking over some of the last songs he recorded, I was struck by how several titles were similar and wondered if I couldn’t arrange a track list that created a concept album with the two sides of the album kind of mirroring each other. Bolan had attempted to create a concept album in 1975 titled Billy Super Duper, but apparently discarded the concept because his last two albums in 1976 and 1977 didn’t include any reference to it.

For this, I took 10 of the 12 songs featured on the 1982 Billy Super Duper release. It appears that at least seven of them were recorded in 1977 before the overdubs were done. I also included “Endless Sleep,” which Bolan performed on his 1977 TV series. I then added two tracks that are probably from 1976: “Write Me a Song” and the very similar “Sing Me a Song.” And finally, I included “Messing with the Mystic.” Although it’s a demo, the sound quality is pretty good, although not great. But I felt that title-wise it kind of matched up with "Brain Police."

So we end up with "21st Century Stance" paired with "20th Century Baby," "Billy Super Duper" matched with "Hot George," "Shy Boy" mirroring "Foxy Boy," and so on.

The result is a nice 14-track album, with Side A clocking in at just under 20 minutes and Side B at about 18½ minutes. It’s the kind of album where at first glance and listen, there is a concept, but on closer examination, there really isn’t.

Besides the 1982 Billy Super Duper, my source for these tracks was Marc Bolan & T. Rex Unchained: Unreleased Recordings 1972 -1977.

In deciding on an album title, I felt that calling it Jack Daniels would have been just asking for a lawsuit and a title his record company likely would have rejected (plus I didn't think it had anything to do with the "concept" I'm attempting). So, I went with Billy Super Duper. For cover art, I found this image online and redid the wording.

I tried to put together a YouTube playlist for this album, as I've done for other blog entries this year, but unfortunately, some songs can't be found there. Oh well.