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Superfly

If I have an album by a particular artist on vinyl, I'll generally try to get any others of theirs I want on vinyl too; or if I have one CD of someone's music, I'll typically aim to get more CDs when I choose to explore their work further. But not always. Having been given a vinyl copy of Curtis, Mr. Mayfield's excellent debut solo album, last Christmas, and having much enjoyed playing it, getting a copy of Superfly seemed to an obvious next step.

Trying to find a vinyl copy of Superfly for less than £30, however, proved difficult. I placed orders on Discogs twice for copies that seemed to be marginally below the going rate, only for both orders to be cancelled on me. Meanwhile there was no shortage of CD versions of it on offer, for a quarter of that price or less, and ulimately I gave up on the idea of format uniformity, saving myself some money and hassle by buying one of those. I ended up with a copy of the 2002 "special edition" on Charly Records which comes with a bonus disc of additional material. 

It did not disappoint. I'd previously heard at least four of its tracks: the knockout opening combination of 'Little Child Runnin' Wild', 'Pusherman' & 'Freddie's Dead', and also the title track. Of the others, only 'No Thing On Me (Cocaine Song)' seemed to me not quite up to the same standard. The alternate versions on the other disc were unexpectedly interesting too, though I doubt I'll re-visit those nearly as often as the album proper.

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