''This is what was supposed to happen to Country and Western music'' - Seymour Stein, Sire Records (1985)In 1982, I met a 20-year-old vocalist named Kathy Lang in Edmonton, Canada. Within a few weeks of hearing her sing for the first time I offered to be her manager and Bumstead Productions became her management and recording company. This arrangement marked the beginning of a 15-year rollercoaster of international tours, multi-platinum album sales, accolades, awards and crisis management. This 2 disc set is a collection of select recordings and videos from an intense period of touring and recording that followed from 1983 through late 1985. It features songs from the 1984 Bumstead Records debut album, a truly western experience by k.d. lang and the reclines along with rare or previously unreleased recordings and videos from the ''Bumstead years''. All music has been digitally re-mastered, the videos have been digitally enhanced and the physical release is available in eco-friendly packaging.
Lang grew up in the farming community of Consort, Alberta (pop. 650). ''Yes, I was one of the eccentrics in town, but I was also very athletic and involved in school, so it was mixed. I started playing classical piano and eventually moved to guitar... Growing up in a small place has definitely had a bearing on how I relate to an audience. You know everyone in a prairie town, and it has something to do with openness - the prairies have helped me to appreciate minimalism.'' Then in 1982, one Kathy Dawn Lang sauntered into a recording studio in Edmonton to audition for the job as lead vocalist in a band patterned after Bob Will's Texas Playboys. The job was hers in a matter of minutes. ''Mind you, anyone who can sing that well lying on the studio floor or draped over the grand piano should be incredible standing up,'' an observer to the auditions remarked. That particular band was short-lived: a dozen rehearsals and one gig. But all 600 folks who witnessed the one gig reacted to Lang's voice like they knew she was not going to be relegated to obscurity for long. Six months later, k.d. and her band, the reclines, were setting Prairie clubs on their collective ears with packed houses and line-ups night after night. Lang, 23, became a hometown star in Edmonton, when she abandoned a satirical folk act and dared to give country music a physical - and metaphysical jolt. But her style is about as easy to nail down as a bowl of jello. She describes it as, ''a hootenanny wingding, daddy-o of a good time.'' This woman is hot - a powerful voice with a marvelous range - that in any given song can go from soft, bad rasp (Peggy-Lee-like), to a clear raunchy rock n' roll (Elvis Costello-like). On stage she's a dervish, a shivering bag of antics. She's a manic dancer, full of jerky movements and pretend slips and slides, one minute standing on a ringside table, the next lying on the stage floor, the next just standing there, arms above her head, hips swiveling in a take-off of Elvis Presley.
The 2 disc set is a sought after collection that includes:
-6 rare and previously unreleased recordings and 3 videos
-Friday Dance Promenade & Damned Old Dog (1983 debut single)
-a truly western experience (1984 debut album)
