Donny Hathaway?

Extensions of a Man is quite good if you can get past the smooth sounds - I like them, actually. It has some of his best compositions, like "Flying Easy" and "Some Day We'll All Be Free". "The Slums" is kinda obvious attempt to do a sequel to "The Ghetto", right down to the title, but it works nevertheless.

The live album doesn't somehow have the same effect on me as EOAM and EIE. Maybe it's the lack of horns, plus the recording sound is less-than-great at times. The 12 minute version of "The Ghetto" is a killer though.

However, the more I've listened to Everything Is Everything, the more it has become my favourite soul album ever, alongside Curtis. But I have one question... Does anyone know where "A Dream", the bonus track they've added to the CD comes from? It's a nice tune, but the only information the CD has is that it's "previously unissued". Does anyone know if it's a cover version or a Hathaway original or what?

Love for Extensions of a Man seconded, just got hold of that a couple of months ago. Lovely stuff.

just listening to this the other day and maybe it's just my PRISTINE german pressing but man was it sounding good to me

http://www.kalamu.com/bol/wp-content/content/images/roberta%20&%20donny%20cover.jpg

you can get this on cd now. has some really good stuff on it:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/516h3-shCcL._SS400_.jpg

Wow, I hadn't even heard about that one. Must get it once I have some cash. How does it sound, is it like a proper instrumental score? Because I love the quasi-classical instrumental piece that opens Extensions of a Man.

it's a mix of funky/jazzy instrumental score stuff and vocal stuff. including a duet with margie joseph. it's patchy, but definitely worthwhile for the good stuff. quincy jones probably had more to do with the jazz stuff than donny did.

cd has bonus action too.

I've been meaning to get Donny Hathaway, but it doesn't seem to get quite as good ratings as Everything Is Everything or Extension of a Man. Has anyone here heard it? How does it sound compared to Hathaway's other two studio albums?

his daughters latest album on stax - i think - is actually really good, barring 1 or 2 songs. love her voice.

more thoughts on hathaway solo stuff?

honestly, it's almost all worth hearing.

just discovered hathaway, actually, when warner bros. debuted on emusic. interesting editorial feature on hathaway's self-titled disc.

downloading this stuff now (what?! it's not like hathaway's gonna see any of the money anyway)

hey, that box set looks pretty nice.

Is the box set just a compilation of his three studio albums and the live album, or does it have any extra material? Because I have most of that stuff already, but if the box has some extra, I might be interested in it.

The duo LP is SO good, if you haven't already figured that out in the past three years.

Is the box set just a compilation of his three studio albums and the live album, or does it have any extra material? Because I have most of that stuff already, but if the box has some extra, I might be interested in it.

― Tuomas, Friday, May 7, 2010 2:15 AM (4 days ago) Bookmark

i think it's got some, but not a lot, of "extra" stuff. but it's a cheap way of getting remastered versions of just about everything.

The box set has: everything on the three "real" albums, including CD bonus tracks plus everything from the album "Live," and everything from "In Performance," except for "Nu-Po." It has everything from that other live album which compiled bits of "Live" and "In Performance" and added a few "new" live songs, with the exception of the interview track.

BUT, it does have an alternate live version of "Nu-Po." And it has what I think are two b-sides, "You Were Meant For Me" and "What A Woman Really Needs." And it has a live version of "Love Love Love" and it has demos of "No Other One But You," "The Essence Of Destiny," "Going Down" and "Make It On Your Own." And it has a studio version of "Jealous Guy." And I think there's one track on there from a soundtrack.

There is nothing from the album with Roberta Flack, but you can get that by itself. There may be more material from his shared soundtrack (w/ Quincy Jones) beyond the one track that's on here "Little Ghetto Boy." But you can get that ("Come Back Charleston Blue") on CD as well.

So it's basically everything except the soundtrack and Roberta Flack stuff, plus an interview track and a version of Nu-Po. Pretty great package, and selling fast!

Okay, thanks for the info. Probably won't be getting the box set because the extras don't look interesting enough to spend money on albums I already have, but it certainly looks like a fine way of getting into Donny. Hopefully this'll make more people appreciate him as the great musician he was.

i should buy this box set - -only Hathaway thing I have is the Roberta Flack duet thing.

the box set looks real nice too, it's like we're in the golden age of CD box sets again (which i date to 1998–2004).

(or if you're a purist, 1998–2000)

Just heard this for the first time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9cRvg1jaBk

it's almost too much. Whoa.

I've been thinking of getting some Donny Hathaway albums recently. I guess the box set being discussed here is the one called Someday we'll all be free which came out at the beginning of the year. They've recently brought out one of those Original album series sets which has his first three solo albums plus the two live albums. I quite like these box sets each album gets it's own disc in a cardboard sleeve with the artwork, they're quite neat and it's been a good way of getting into bands back catalogues for just 10 pounds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxUSQC-KAHM

Wow, hadn't heard that version.