Riley Riley Wood and Waggett

Issued by underground imprint RCA Neon in mid-1971, the Shape Of The Rain album by Riley Riley Wood and Waggett sold poorly at the time despite glowing reviews from the British music weeklies. A surging collision of Beatlesesque writing and harmonies and Byrds-like jingle-jangle guitars, sadly it would take another couple of decades before the LP was finally disinterred by a new generation of record collectors.

Half-a-century after its original release, that lost jewel of an album finally gets the attention it deserves as the cornerstone of Grapefruit’s definitive new 3-CD anthology of a criminally neglected late Sixties / early Seventies British band. In addition to that 1971 album, our release features a post-LP single, a clutch of studio demos, taped rehearsals and alternative versions as well as more than a dozen previously-unissued demos of material for an aborted second album.

Recorded in 1972 by band leader and chief vocalist/songwriter Keith Riley, these songs are a staggering new find, occupying similar musical territory to newly-solo McCartney, Badfinger man Pete Ham’s home demos, and Chris Bell’s post-Big Star work. The release also features some incendiary Shape Of The Rain live recordings, including a 50-minute show from May 1970 that stands as a rare and enthralling document of a West Coast-influenced English psychedelic band captured in full and glorious flow at the turn of the decade.

Boasting a 24-page booklet that includes numerous rare photos as well as a new history of the band, this expanded, four-hour edition of Riley Riley Wood and Waggett features approximately two hours of previously unreleased music. It’s a fascinating overview of a band that, with the right handling, could surely have joined the likes of Badfinger, The Raspberries, and Big Star as early Seventies proto-power pop avatars of an immediately post-Beatles new dawn.