Average White Band: Show Your Hand / How Sweet Can You Get / Average White Band auf 2 CDs

* Edsel is proud to announce the acquisition of the licence to issue the complete Average White Band catalogue of albums released from 1973 to 1982. We will be issuing all twelve albums in four 2 CD slip-cased sets, all overseen by AWB’s Alan Gorrie, Hamish Stuart and Onnie McIntyre, featuring memorabilia from their own collections and fully annotated.

* Playing their own brand of soul, the Average White Band rocketed to fame and fortune in late 1974 with their absolute classic eponymous second album (usually known as the “White Album”) and the accompanying single “Pick Up The Pieces”, an instantly recognisable and perennial classic, and a staple of ‘gold’ radio stations around the world. Both the album and single reached #1 on the US pop charts – in the UK, both reached # 6.

* This package starts with the band’s first album “Show Your Hand”, originally released on MCA in 1973 and never previously issued on CD in Europe. The album is expanded to feature eight bonus tracks, seven of which are previously unreleased. The first three of these date from the band’s first ever session together in Denmark Street in 1971, the remainder from a session at Island’s studios later the same year. The eighth bonus track is the rare non-album single “How Can You Go Home?” (also making its CD debut).

* The second disc commences with what was intended to be the band’s second album for MCA, “How Sweet Can You Get?”. However MCA rejected it, and it was only ever issued as part of a “White Album” package many years later. We have now created its intended sleeve for the first time for this special release.

* Producer Arif Mardin heard the songs, signed the band to Atlantic Records and set about re-recording eight of the songs along with two new compositions. The resulting album “Average White Band” was issued in September 1974 and was sitting at the top of the charts by Christmas (along with “Pick Up The Pieces”), going on to spend a whole year in the listings.