The Beginning of Doves

There have been so many past reissues of this album that one could readily be forgiven for simply yawning and retreating as yet another one hoves into view. Forgiven, but not justified. For the first time since a clutch of incomplete demos and outtakes were unearthed from Marc Bolan's mid-'60s vault in 1972, and sent into the world as the (hastily withdrawn) Hard on Love album, the compilers haven't simply recycled the 20 solo and T. Rex cuts that made up the original track listing, they have also scoured both private and record company collections for a full picture of every track Bolan recorded during 1966-1967 and, for the first time, brought his early years into the same vivid focus as his later career. The 20 songs that comprised the original Hard on Love/Beginning of Doves album, plus the "Perfumed Garden" bonus track appended to Retroactive's 1998 remastering, are now joined by a further 16 performances, including both alternate takes and previously unreleased songs. Even more impressively, the original album's jumble of solo and band performances has been rearranged into something approaching chronological order, and remastered to almost unrecognizable standards. Tracks one through four represent both sides of the 1966 "Hippy Gumbo" single, the projected follow-up "Jasper C. Debussy," and a version of "Lilac Hand of Menthol Dan" recorded during Bolan's brief tenure with John's Children, but remixed and overdubbed for subsequent use as a solo demo. These great-sounding tapes are followed by 14 largely unaccompanied demos recorded by Bolan and producer Simon Napier-Bell during one breathless 50-minute session at London's Kingsway Studios in October 1966 -- four are previously uncollected. One then leaps ahead to the following fall, and 13 songs taped over two separate demo sessions by Bolan and his T. Rex partner Steve Peregrine-Took -- again, four of the performances are new to this edition; five if you include an unadulterated version of the "Heartbreak Hotel"-inspired "Sally Was an Angel." Previous versions have always merged it with a noticeably riotous John's Children rendering of the same song. The final eight tracks offer the aforementioned alternate takes and working versions of songs drawn from the various sessions -- nothing especially dramatic emerges among them, although that is hardly surprising. The rest of the album has already delivered sufficient unexpected joys and delights to satisfy the most completist Bolan fan. ~ Dave Thompson|