Here Comes the Meter Man

 (3 customer reviews)

As you can tell from Amazon's audio samples, what we have here is a compilation of:

* The Meters's three LPs for Josie Records, "Meters," "Look-Ka Py Py" and "Struttin'" (without the bonus tracks, which were included on the Sundazed reissues of those three albums back in 1999.) For some reason, the tracks from the "Struttin'" LP are presented out of their original sequence.

* Eight non-LP Josie sides (which previously appeared on Sundazed's "Zony Mash" compilation)

* Cyril Neville's two Josie sides (which feature backing by the Meters) and

* Art Neville's four Sansu sides (which are, in actuality, the first known Meters recordings.)

It is the Sansu sides that are likely to be of most interest to devout Meters fans since "Bo Diddley - Part 1" and "Bo Diddley - Part 2" have never been issued on CD before (although "Part 1" has been available as a digital download from Amazon's mp3 store for a few years now.) Unfortunately, the...Read more

I've always wanted to check out the Meters, as I love the singles I've heard. I opted for this set rather than the 2 disc set on Rhino, because I wasn't that excited about the Reprise stuff, and this had all the material they released on Josie in 1969-70, most of it purely instrumental. I'm now thinking I made the wrong decision. The actual material is all good enough, but two discs of mainly instrumental gets a bit wearing over the course of a single listening. But my main criticism is the sound and liner notes. I have several of these songs on other compilations, and the sound here is much thinner, lacking both lower and upper register, while the midrange is brittle. Also, the liner notes are just not that articulate. I'm sure I'd have been more pleased with the Rhino double disc. I know that the sound and notes would have been sublime, and perhaps the Reprise years would have been a relief after 26 songs from the Josie years. Again, nothing wrong with these songs, but...Read more

As the other reviewers have noted, the sound on this set is substandard like most of Charly's releases. The sound on the WEA Germany CD of The Meters has far more depth and detail. I have heard remastered 78s with better audio range. Charly and Mr Young have no respect for this seminal music.