Status Quo: Thirsty Work deluxe edition

"Thirsty Work - The Re-Filled Edition"

This is how I christened the deluxe edition. Alas, it turned out that the glass is maybe not half empty, but only half full. Let me explain.

When I threw together lots of ideas for how the later Status Quo albums could be reissued, I firmly had the 2-CD template in mind. For a start, the deluxe digipacks only have space for two discs. "Never Too Late" was an exception, but still. "Ain't Complaining" (which accommodated the third disc by having it shoved into a pocket of the cardboard) was not possible without including 3 CDs, since the b-sides and 12" mixes took up almost an entire disc, and it seemed a given to include the live gig from the BBC too. Encouraged by this, I supplied the powers that be with a 3 CD tracklisting for "Rock 'Til You Drop", and two alternative versions of "Perfect Remedy" – one 2 CDs, one 3 CDs – the latter was OK'd, with some changes. (The digipacks also are laid out accordingly, like "Never Too Late" was.) I really should've done the same for "Thirsty Work" but I was possibly afraid that there might not be interest in 3 CDs covering that album. With hindsight, a stupid idea, but I thought it'd be best to just cover live versions of the new songs and be done with that.

I was also blissfully unaware of the fact that the whole Royal Albert Hall concert existed in professional sound quality. This would've also smoothed over the fact that live versions of "One Man Band" and "Rock 'Til You Drop" are now sadly missing from the "Rock 'Til You Drop" deluxe edition, as I explained in my previous post, as those songs were still in the set in 1994. Including it in full would've led to some problems though: Quo only played "Restless" from the new album at that point - "Going Nowhere", "Soft in the Head", "Rude Awakening Time" and "Queenie" all slipped into the set some months later. So how could you cover those songs AND include the full Albert Hall gig? The only possible solution would've been adding yet another CD (unlikely) or shoving some bonus tracks onto disc 1 (which might've worked out, but so far the deluxe editions have avoided this – I even had to point out that disc 1 of "Rock 'Til You Drop" should reproduce the CD, not the LP...).

That's not to say that there wouldn't have been better options. Sadly, I figured it out way too late, when my drafts were already OK'd. It would've been good to include the full Stockholm broadcast (60 minutes) on a third CD, then add a couple of rarely played live songs in various versions ("What You're Proposing", "One Man Band", "Queenie", "Rock 'Til You Drop", "Restless") to disc 2 and 3. Now that would've been an all-around interesting set, even for people who aren't so hot about "Thirsty Work".

What was also dropped (and accounts for the free space left) is the four songs with Manchester United. Those weren't necessary, but I thought they would be an interesting addition. Apart from the original singles, these tracks have only been released on the 4-CD edition of "Pictures - 40 Years of Hits", and that only included the two a-sides, not the respective b-sides. It's worth pointing out that "Come On You Reds" actually gave Quo their second (and last) UK #1 hit, twenty years after "Down Down"… despite there being a lot of football fans in England that support other teams! Of course, both "Come On You Reds" and "We're Gonna Do It Again" are re-workings of existing Quo hits ("Burning Bridges" and "Again and Again"), which helped their success.

All is not lost though, we're still missing a reissue of "Live Alive Quo" and I've long suggested reissuing it in a similar box set style as the box set version of the 1976 Live! album. This could contain the full 1994 gig (across two discs) and/or Knebworth 1990.

I also realized that while I'm relatively (relatively!) good at thinking like a fan, I was certainly not approaching things from a marketing perspective. Although it might be annoying for devoted fans, the sad fact is that a casual buyer is much more likely to pick up a CD if it contains a couple of the "greatest hits", i.e. "Rockin' All Over the World", "Caroline", "Whatever You Want" or "In the Army Now". Of course, the deluxe editions of "Ain't Complaining" (four versions of RAOTW!), "Perfect Remedy" and "Rock 'Til You Drop" tick those boxes, even if almost by accident. (I'm also not sure how many of these deluxe editions actually make it into stores. I've not seen many of them – in fact, I had to order virtually all of these online.) But as I said before, it's a Catch-22 – or to be more bluntly, like doing a puzzle… knowing fully well that a) you have too many pieces and b) some of the pieces might simply turn to dust after you've already completed the puzzle!!

Of course, it doesn't help when you rely on dodgy sources. In this case I'm unfortunately partially responsible for two typos on the outer package, which embarrasses me a lot. If you find them, you get the chance to win an imaginary bottle of whatever that is on the cover…! It's also something I've been thinking about a lot recently. Maybe I should have never gotten involved at all? Undoubtedly, there are other Quo fans who could've done a better job. It does make me feel like I'm out of my depth. On the other hand I'm glad that some things have come out pretty well (the Ain't Complaining deluxe edition is perhaps the best example) and that I could also push some projects that are rather dear to Quo fans (including one that might come out later this year, if all works well).

So, the deluxe edition of "Thirsty Work" still has advantages over the 2006 remaster. Two non-album b-sides (one being a Leonard Cohen cover!) that didn't fit on the 2006 reissue, four alternate versions/mixes of album tracks, and four live recordings of "Thirsty Work" songs (alas, "Queenie" couldn't be salvaged). That's ten new bonus tracks, and if you only have the original album, you can add the five bonus tracks that already appeared on the 2006 remaster. Just as with "Rock 'Til You Drop", Status Quo actually recorded enough music for a double LP (84 minutes!), but curiously elected to cram almost an hour of songs onto one vinyl 12", in the exact same order as the CD, and use the rest as b-sides.

Needless to say, if you don't like the album… this isn't for you. But although it's definitely not without weak spots, I think "Thirsty Work" might actually be underrated. It shows the band trying out some new ideas, some successful, some others not so much. (Andy Bown's synth sounds are sometimes really not so beneficial to the overall experience.) The album was extremely long for a vinyl LP (almost an hour!) and it would've been good to throw off some of the inferior tracks. Alas, given that "Sherri Don't Fail Me Now" and "Restless" were released as singles (both poor choices IMO, and not representative of the album as a whole) I think it would've once again led to the better cuts dropping off as b-sides.

An interesting tidbit: The so-called acoustic mix of "I Didn't Mean It" (which still contains a lot of electric guitars), alongside the earlier Steve Wright radio session (once earmarked for the deluxe edition of "Perfect Remedy"), had been Quo's only concession to the MTV Unplugged craze of the 90s. Quo unplugged? No way! Unthinkable! Well, it just took until 2014, and then all things went "Aquostic", so much that the band even claimed to stop working as an electric band and to continue only acoustically. Even then, I thought that was a load of bollocks, and it turns out I was right…

(I actually wanted to link the version from Aquostic II but couldn't find it on YouTube!)

On a sad note, Bernard "Bernie" Frost, Francis' main songwriting partner during this period (actually from 1978 'til 1999), died on August 4, 2019. He co-wrote a lot of songs across these three albums – if I'm not mistaken, it's a whopping 22 tracks! This set of deluxe editions is dedicated to him. It's especially poignant because "Sorry", the last track on "Thirsty Work" and recorded by Demis Roussos (backed by Rossi/Frost) many years earlier, was written for Bernie's wife Sylvia, whose grief over Bernard's demise is shared by Quo fans all over the world. So long, Bernard…

Status Quo: Rock 'Til You Drop deluxe edition

"Rock 'Til You Drop - The World Record Edition"

As has been said before, "Rock 'Til You Drop" was advertised with one of David Walker's brilliant marketing campaigns, which included Quo setting a new world record by playing four concerts in four different cities in one day! Hence the title, and the band were really ready to drop by the time of the final one. But at least the concert marathon earned them a place in the Guinness Book of World Records, and helped to return Quo back to the charts (it helped that the album was much stronger than "Perfect Remedy", of course). All four gigs were recorded and a VHS containing excerpts from the live event, as well as a documentary about it, was released. Ideally, this should have finally been released on DVD for this reissue but it seems that DVDs are a perennial weak spot of deluxe editions (I'm not ruling out the possibility of something coming out as a separate DVD or Blu-Ray at some point though…). Instead, the third disc serves up a pretty good audio representation of the live event. It's not to be taken for granted that this CD has turned out as good as it has – I have to thank Luke for insisting upon improving the disc to a point when it couldn't be improved anymore! The CD now contains every song that was performed by Quo on 21st September 1991, sequenced in a way that approximates the live setlists in chronological order while representing all four gigs roughly by an equal amount. In essence, it's an expanded version of the VHS. Since Quo played two different setlists on the day (even a band as notorious for playing a static set like this wouldn't play the exact same set four times in one day!), it's physically impossible to recreate concert order, but I did try to merge both setlists together. If you want to program your CD player or arrange a playlist, this alternate order is at the end of the post.

But although it's just a "sampler" of the four nights, the CD is an amazing listening experience. Quo were really in great form (well, mostly), and the recordings capture that brilliantly. In my humble opinion, this is one of the highlights of the entire deluxe series! Having two songs that Quo almost never played live, in pristine audio quality (the mixing is much better than on the VHS release), is an extra bonus, even if they're "just" covers (Wilbert Harrison's "Let's Work Together", made famous by Canned Heat, and "Price of Love" by The Everly Brothers, a song Quo themselves had already recorded in 1969, and that had already been played live as a snippet in the Roadhouse Medley on the 1989 tour).

This leaves us with disc 2, which opens with five non-LP studio recordings (the RTYD sessions produced a lot of material!). It's worth pointing out that neither of them appeared on the 2006 remaster of the album, simply because that replicated the original CD… and that was already full with the six tracks that weren't on the LP. This says nothing about their quality; any of the four non-album tracks could've been on the album and replaced the unnecessary re-recording of "Tommy" or some other album tracks. "Heavy Daze" and "Better Times" are still semi-rarities, as the "Fakin' the Blues" CD single was withdrawn and the two tracks only saw a reissue on the 4CD box set "Rockers Rollin'" from 2001. You may remember the riff from "Better Times" being played in front of "Rain" in 1987…labelled (partially due to my fault) as ZZ Top's "La Grange" on the "In the Army Now" 2CD. On the other hand, the riffs are almost identical, so there. (Apparently this was also already tried out during the "Perfect Remedy" sessions but the recording remains unreleased, as does a rehearsal of Fleetwood Mac's "Don't Stop" which eventually became the title track of the 1996 covers album.)

Then there is a medley of Quo's four greatest hits (Caroline, Down Down, Whatever You Want and Rockin' All Over the World) that was released on the "Rock 'Til You Drop" single and used for radio and TV promo purposes. Of course, there have been "mixes" before like the "Christmas Cake Mix" or those bizarre Spanish promo versions of "Anniversary Waltz" but this is an actual new recording by the 1991 line-up. It wouldn't be the last time that Quo re-recorded those songs: Apart from "Down Down" (which later got an update as "Prices Are Down" for the Australian Coles ad), all of them were redone for the 2003 album "Riffs". "Whatever You Want" also had a 1998 re-recording and "Rockin' All Over the World" was already remade in 1988 for the US market and the Sport Aid benefit campaign (as "Running All Over the World" – see the deluxe edition of "Ain't Complaining").

The deluxe editions have been a bit undecided when it comes to single edits, and they've often been left off in favour of more interesting versions (especially 12" mixes in the case of "In the Army Now" and "Ain't Complaining"). In this case, they should all be there. Except an edit of "Forty-Five Hundred Times" that appeared on the "Rock 'Til You Drop" single and later the compilation "The Other Side of Status Quo" + the 7" versions of "The Anniversary Waltz", which really could've fit here… as I said in the post on "Perfect Remedy", they're on several compilations, but still… at the time I was compiling first drafts, I thought they wouldn't fit on disc 2! There IS a live version of "Part 1", which may seem superfluous since there's a better sounding version from the live event. Even though this has the benefit of Rick's voice sounding much better (he was really done at the end of the gig marathon), you may wonder why it's here at all. The answer is that it's a holdover from an early draft that wasn't dropped!

Compiling these reissues can be like a Catch-22, especially from a fan's/outsider's perspective… you never know what's going to work and what not, and usually tracks drop off during the making. Unfortunately it's much easier to drop a track than to add one, as it means the whole disc has to be "cleared" again (Universal's internal regulations). On the other hand, it doesn't make much sense either to supply lists that break the limit of one CD – because if everything gets OK'd, what do you do with the tracks that don't fit on the disc?

So that's the reason why disc 2 is so short. Regretfully, I have to take some responsibility for that. I wanted to represent the RTYD album as well as possible: Across various occasions, Quo played no less than eight tracks off the album. Two were played at the live event and are thankfully represented on disc 3.

Five songs were played on the actual tour, although not at every concert. The idea was to get the best-sounding audience recording of these tracks. Alas, it couldn't be found. An early test disc still had "Like a Zombie", "One Man Band", "Fakin' the Blues" and "No Problems", recorded live in Blackpool. Not in keeping with the latter title, we were already missing a live version of "Rock 'Til You Drop" even though I had included one in my draft, but for some reason the test disc actually contained the short intro tape that Quo played at the event. This is now on disc 3 but as I said, it's just a shortened studio version that was played over the PA. Not a live recording. There are good (not audience) live recordings of the track as well as "One Man Band". It's hard even for me now to reconstruct what exactly went wrong.

The Blackpool tapes were technically poor quality, but not any less listenable than the recordings appended to the deluxe editions of "Hello!" or "Quo" (both of which were before my involvement with the series), and they showed a band on fire and an absolutely hilarious Rossi announcement. Sadly, they were all dropped, and no replacement versions were sought, even though I did have a note in my draft pointing out that there are multiple good-sounding live versions of "One Man Band"… just not from the 1991 tour. Unusually for Quo, the song stayed in the setlist for a relatively long time (at least until 1995). With hindsight, I should've included that song in my draft for the "Thirsty Work" deluxe too, just in case. You live and learn…  or maybe not, since the same issue had already arisen on "In the Army Now". Sigh.

You may have been doing your maths and notice that I was speaking of eight songs played live. Well, the other elusive one is "Can't Give You More", a song that originally comes from the 1977 album "Rockin' All Over the World" (a pretty stunning extended version appeared in the guise of John Eden's remix – if you don't have the RAOTW deluxe yet, get it immediately!!) and was one of a handful of re-recordings done by Quo for the "Rock 'Til You Drop" album. This one actually had a reason for its existence, as it was supposed to be used in an advertising campaign for a French mineral water ("Eau Eau Eau" - you get it? Oh well...), but even though this didn't happen, the song did see a single release and was a modest hit. (In 1985, Bob Young had already recorded his country-influenced version, which also started with the "oh oh oh oh" chorus, but that's another topic.) In order to promote the single, Quo appeared at some TV stations in France and actually performed the song (plus some other such as "Whatever You Want") live, including a guitar solo!

I thought (and still think) that this would be a worthwhile addition to the album, and a good way to wrap up disc 2. It was included on the aforementioned test disc, but had some dropouts and wasn't amazing sonically. By the time I had managed to track down a better sounding recording, it was dropped. Le sigh c'est moi.

Of course, a point could be made that disc 1 offers more value than any other "first discs" in the series so far. Indeed, an early version of the tracklisting had only the ten original LP tracks on disc 1! I thought, at the time, that that would be a right ol' waste of space, especially with all the stuff I wanted to include on disc 2… if only I'd known! But I didn't see the point in making an album that had always been a long CD into a replica of the vinyl, just for the sake of vinyl revivalism. The epic re-recording of "Forty-Five Hundred Times" (twelve minutes of madness!) does feel like a proper ending of the album, having it in the middle of disc 2 would've defeated the point. Interestingly enough though: If you count the CD bonus tracks (11-16) and the four non-album b-sides, you end up with 50 minutes of material – more than the "main album"! Quo were productive in 1991, no doubt. Even without the covers and remakes, it's still about an hour of new music.  (The Thirsty Work sessions were similarly productive, giving us about 86 minutes of music!) The new liner notes reveal that the band actually toyed with the idea of recording two albums from the 1991 sessions, á la "Just Supposin'"/"Never Too Late" a decade earlier.

Anyway – whichever way you spin it, the 3-CD release of "Rock 'Til You Drop" is still a very worthwhile release highlighting a great "return to form" album for Quo. I just think disc 2 could've been better.

When I first came across a Quo forum, a deluxe edition of Rock 'Til You Drop was one of the hot topics. When I later got in touch with "master-of-all-reissues" Steve Hammonds and started to send him some of my dream deluxe edition lists, I really wanted the series to continue beyond the classic years, mainly in order to reach RTYD.

To finally have it in my hands is a surreal feeling. To admit that it isn't as good as it could have been, though, and even partially due to my fault, is very painful for me.

With hindsight, I'd have suggested a much better disc 2:

1. Dead in the Water 3:50
2. Mysteries from the Ball 3:48
3. Heavy Daze 4:12
4. Better Times 3:26
5. (Brit Awards) Medley 3:56

6. The Anniversary Waltz Part 1 (7" Version) 5:32
7. The Anniversary Waltz Part 2 (7" Version) 5:29

8. Can't Give You More (Single Edit) 3:59
9. Fakin' the Blues (Single Edit) 3:16
10. Forty-Five Hundred Times (B-Side Edit) 6:24
11. Can't Give You More (Promo Edit) 3:05

12. Don't Stop (1991 version) [supposedly tried out during the RTYD sessions, but it's not clear whether a recording of this exists]

13. Like a Zombie (Live 1991) [Blackpool or Glasgow…probably wouldn't get through either way, sadly; there are only four audience recordings of this great song]
14. One Man Band (Live at Royal Albert Hall 1994, Skanderborg or Brasov 1995)
15. Fakin' the Blues (Live 1991/1992) [Wembley, Peterborough, Gothenburg, Borlänge?]

16. No Problems (Live 1991/1992) [Wembley, Peterborough, Gothenburg, Borlänge?]

17. Rock 'Til You Drop (Live in Madrid 1992, or Royal Albert Hall 1994)

18. Can't Give You More (Live at Paris TV 1992) 4:37 [if a better sounding source could be found]

"Anniversary Waltz" is a bit of a Janus-headed single. The 7" edit was released on the 2006 remaster of "Perfect Remedy" but the single also paved the way for "Rock 'Til You Drop", not just because it included a short snippet of Wilbert Harrison's "Let's Work Together" as well as the (already recorded by Quo) Dion track "The Wanderer". The whole sound and production are more in line with RTYD.

The problem remains... there are no professional recordings of "One Man Band" (or the other RTYD tracks) that fit the album's timeframe. There ARE bootlegs that have better rating in the bootleg indices than the Blackpool tracks that were on first test discs, though –  Wembley (3 nights in December 1991), Petersborough, Borlänge (January 1992), Dornbirn (March 1992), Hannover (April 1992), Östervåla (July 1992), Glasgow, Wembley (December 1992), Telford (November 1993), Brighton (December 1993)... not that I've heard all of them! Rock 'Til You Drop was also played at most of these gigs, and as mentioned above exists as a FM broadcast from Madrid.

To finish, here's the "smashed together" setlist that you may want to try out for an alternate listening experience of disc 3:

5 - Rock 'til You Drop (Intro) [2nd gig, Glasgow]

6 - Down Down [2nd gig, Glasgow]

1 - Paper Plane [1st gig, Sheffield]

7 - Roll Over Lay Down [2nd gig, Glasgow]

9 - Little Lady [3rd gig, Birmingham]

2 - Price of Love [1st gig, Sheffield]

8 - Let's Work Together [2nd gig, Glasgow]

12 - Burning Bridges [4th gig, Wembley]

3 - Mystery Medley [1st gig, Sheffield]

4 - Rain [1st gig, Sheffield]

10 - Whatever You Want [3rd gig, Birmingham]

11- In the Army Now [3rd gig, Birmingham]

13 - Rockin' All Over the World [4th gig, Wembley]

14 - The Anniversary Waltz [4th gig, Wembley]

15 - Rock 'n' Roll Music/Sweet Soul Music/Bye Bye Johnny [4th gig, Wembley]

One "error" that also originated with me is the titling of "Encore Medley". This was always only meant as an internal reference and didn't take up as much space in a spreadsheet as "Rock and Roll Music / Sweet Soul Music / Bye Bye Johnny" would've taken. It wasn't totally wrong, as usually this combination of tracks was the last encore at a Quo gig (and, without "Sweet Soul Music", stayed in the set until very recently)... only not during this event, where it ended the set. And of course they didn't do any encores!

We end with Luke's preview videos: