The BBC archives have been supplying us with unmissable alternative snapshots of our favourite artists' back catalogues since the Strange Fruit label dipped a toe into John Peel's vault in the late 1980s.
Enduring British singer-songwriter JOE JACKSON is the latest artist to get the Archival radio broadcast treatment and his sessions span the 'halcyon' early years from 1979 – 83, charting his voyage from edgy British new waver to urbane, World Music-inclined Englishman in New York.
Jackson burst onto the scene early in 1979, sounding like Elvis Costello's bilious elder brother and rapidly established himself with evergreen hits like 'Is She Really Going Out With Him?' and 'It's Different For Girls'. Understandably, hardcore fans still rate his early brace of classic albums 'Look Sharp' (1979) , 'I'm The Man' and 'Beat Crazy' (both 1980) very highly and 'Live At The BBC' liberally taps into the amphetamine energy of these career-establishing songs.
CD1 opens with the Joe Jackson Band's lone Peel Session from February 1979. It would prove to be a monumental year for Jackson and the four sharp'n'whippy songs featured here are already fully-formed and tetchily fabulous. 'One More Time' and 'Got The Time' are even faster and more wired than their 'Look Sharp' versions; 'Fools In Love' taps into the white-boy reggae moves prevalent at the time, but the cynicism in Jackson's lyrics (“fools in love...are there any creatures more pathetic?”) is palpable. The session is rounded off in fine style courtesy of an early 'I'm The Man'. As bruising and infectious as ever, it's already sounding like a stone classic.
1980s's Rock Goes To College programme gives the band a more comprehensive in-concert platform. Recorded in the glamorous surroundings of Hertfordshire's Hatfield Polytechnic, it was recorded on the back of the band's highly successful first American tour and finds Jackson on suitably lippy and vibrant form, segueing a rant about the American and British media into a vitriolic 'Sunday Papers' for the opening broadside.
Although as frenetic as the Peel session, the band are a tad looser this time, vamping on extended versions of 'Happy Loving Couples' and 'I'm The Man' and re-inventing 'Is She Really Going Out With Him?' around the “bum bum” heartbeat of Graham Maby's bass. Typically, Jackson can't resist baiting the student union crowd, introducing 'Friday' with: “this is not a song about students...it's about people who work for a living.” Ouch! There's nothing snide about “new single” 'It's Different For Girls', though. It's a bittersweet pop anthem par excellence and still sounds box fresh three decades down the line.
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Jackson had undertaken major surgery on his sound between Hatfield and the live set recorded at Hammersmith Odeon in 1982. Gary Sanford's scratchy, scabrous guitar had been dispensed with altogether. Latin percussion, organ and backing vocals filled the spaces and only Graham Maby had been retained from the original band. In the interim, Jackson's 'swing' album 'Jumpin' Jive' and the mature, New York-influenced 'Night & Day' had followed on from 'Beat Crazy': losing and confusing one fan base but picking up a new one instead.
Consequently, both the Hammersmith show and 1983's Sight And Sound show give Jackson a radical makeover. During the Hammersmith show, extended workouts like 'Cancer' and 'Tuxedo Junction' proffer extensive, Latin-flecked grooves, while songs like 'Chinatown' are taxing and complex. Thankfully, 'Breaking Us In Two' proves Jackson's pop pulse is still beating regularly and some of the reconfigured old tunes like 'Fools In Love' sound newly epic and magnificent.
The Sight And Sound show is arguably the better of these two latter outings. There's a further re-alignment of past glories courtesy of an A capella 'Is She Really Going Out With Him?' (Jackson predicting the future success of the Flying Pickets, perhaps?) but 'Look Sharp' and 'Sunday Papers' are pithy and arrogant as ever and 'Stepping Out' is enjoyably pumped and adrenalised. The action concludes in style too, thanks to the 8-minute 'Slow Song': a re-visiting of Northern Sould balladry featuring a great, Roy Budd-style organ solo and one of Jackson's most impassioned vocals. It's a hell of a way to go.
The one thing that might irritate the faithful is the running order. The wisdom of sequencing the Hammersmith show between the Peel session and the incendiary Hatfield outing is questionable as it dilutes the energy somewhat and may cause the hardcore fan to skip quickly to CD2. Overall, though, this is a minor quibble and it can't disguise the fact that Live At The BBC is a marathon treat for all long-term Jackson addicts.
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