How To Tell if a 1970s Audio Cassette is an Original or a Reproduction

If you sneak a glance at the above photo, you’ll see four audio cassettes, all of which purport to be from the 1970s. Three of them actually were produced in the 1970s, but one wasn’t. Can you spot the later reproduction?…

Gary Moore – After the War Cassette

Life is full of mystery. How did the Universe form, and what was there before the Universe?… Is there intelligent life out on some distant planet?… Why did heavy metal’s life not expire on the day This is Spinal Tap was released?

By the standards of all reason and logic, the hapless spoof metal band Spinal Tap, and their pant-wettingly hilarious mockery of the genre, should have consigned ’80s metal to history’s great waste basket in early 1984. I mean, how much more embarrassing could one movie be for a genre of music?… And the answer is: none. None more embarrassing. If that reference doesn’t make any sense to you, by the way, you need to watch the movie.

Jeff Healey – See The Light Audio Cassette

When Gary Moore dumped heavy metal at the end of the 1980s, and ripped into a blistering, firebrand explosion of blues, there were two camps of observer. In camp one, those who said: “Whoa! Where the Hell did that come from???!“… And in camp two, those who said: “Jeff Healey.”

If you listen to Confidence Man on Healey’s 1988 debut album – See The Light – you hear an almost perfectly mapped template for what became Moore’s trademark blues repertoire a short time later. Not to detract in any way from Gary Moore. But would he have found that exciting new territory without the groundwork of Jeff Healey? Play the whole of See The Light, and you’ll find it very hard to imagine that Moore’s seismic shift in style wasn’t pretty singularly inspired by this amazing album – especially given the timing of the events.

See The Light is not only a scorching document of the late ‘eighties rebirth of blues – it’s also a really interesting mine of trivia. For starters, there are some highly notable additions to Healey’s own bass/drums backing duo of Joe Rockman and Tom Stephen. Original Heartbreakers keyboardist Benmont Tench appears on several songs. I can sense your eyebrows raising already. Also featured are the eminent percussionist Bobbye Hall, and a decidely luminous backing vocal duo of Separate Lives chart-topper Marilyn Martin and former Eagle Timothy B Schmit… And assisting on guitar, early ‘eighties Robert Plant associate Robbie Blunt. For a group that had only formed in December 1985, that was some guest list by 1988.