The Analog Kid blog has been featuring out-of-print ’80s albums on “The Lost Boys” series for quite a while, and now it’s time for the ’70s to join the party! “Lost In The Flood: Hard-To-Find ’70s Albums” will give you the chance to listen to some great music from the ’70s that can no longer be easily acquired on-line or at your local record store (especially since many of you probably no longer even HAVE a local record store!).
Neil Diamond began his recording career with Bang Records in the mid-’60s, and all of his famous early singles (“Solitary Man,” “Kentucky Woman,” and “Cherry Cherry” among them) were released by the label. By 1968, Neil had moved on to greener pastures with Uni/MCA (and, eventually, Columbia), but that didn’t stop Bang from capitalizing on Diamond’s new-found stardom. The label released multiple compilations without Neil’s involvement in the early ’70s, and one of those albums was 1973’s Double Gold.
Double Gold was released at the height of Diamond’s post-Hot August Night fame, and it’s actually a really nice collection of the majority of his Bang recordings. It even contains two songs that never appeared on a Diamond album for Bang: “Crooked Street” and “Shot Down.” Both are likely demo recordings that were never intended to be released, and Diamond certainly wasn’t happy about their inclusion. These two songs were excluded from the 2011 compilation Neil Diamond: The Bang Years 1966-1968, and neither track has ever been officially released on CD.
The rest of Double Gold features the best stereo versions of songs from Neil’s two Bang albums (1966’s The Feel Of Neil Diamond and 1967’s Just For You). The Bang Years compilation from 2011 sounds fantastic, but it features the original mono mixes rather than the stereo tracks. Many of these mixes are quite different from their mono counterparts, and in some cases even the vocal track is different. Double Gold will certainly never see the light of day on CD, so I have done my best to properly transfer these classic recordings to digital for you. If you’re a Neil fan like I am, I’ve got the feeling that you’re going to die when you hear them…
Neil Diamond: Double Gold
Bang Records, 1973
Vinyl rip courtesy of the Analog Kid
1. “I’m A Believer” (Diamond)
2. “Monday, Monday” (Phillips)
3. “The Long Way Home” (Diamond)
4. “I’ll Come Running” (Diamond)
5. “Red Red Wine” (Diamond)
6. “Solitary Man” (Diamond)
7. “New Orleans” (Royster/Guide)
8. “Cherry Cherry” (Diamond)
9. “Some Day Baby” (Diamond)
10. “Girl You’ll Be A woman Soon” (Diamond)
11. “Shilo” (Diamond)
12. “Do It” (Diamond)
13. “Oh No No (I Got The Feeling)” (Diamond)
14. “Love To Love – Trio Music” (Diamond)
15. “Thank The Lord For The Night Time” (Diamond)
Thank The Lord For The Night Time
16. “Kentucky Woman” (Diamond)
17. “The Boat That I Row” (Diamond)
18. “You Got To Me” (Diamond)
19. “You’ll Forget” (Diamond)
20. “Crooked Street” (Diamond)
21. “Shot Down” (Diamond)
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Bonus Tracks!
The first rule of The Analog Kid blog is that if you write about a song on the Analog Kid blog, you share the song on the Analog Kid blog.
Neil Diamond: “Hanky Panky” (Barry/Greenwich)
Neil Diamond: “Red Rubber Ball” (Simon/Woodley)
Neil Diamond: “La Bamba” (Traditional)
Neil Diamond: “The Time Is Now” (Diamond)
From the album The Bang Years: 1966-1968
Columbia Records, 2011
Note: the four bonus tracks are the only four songs that Neil Diamond recorded for Bang that do not appear on Double Gold. So yeah, this post contains every single solitary song that Neil released on Bang Records. Neat, eh?
The Analog Kid 
I have been looking for this on CD for over a decade! And now… here it is, all digitized and ready to download.
I don’t know if you have any idea how much this means to me… Maybe you do.
Either way, THANK YOU so very much!!!
You are very welcome!
I have about 12 of Neil Diamond albums from the seventies in storage, including the Double Gold, but I don’t think I gave the Bang Years. Are any of his albums from the seventies selling to collectors?
The Bang records are worth a little something if they’re in really good shape (especially the first 2 studio albums). There are millions of copies of those ’70s LPs on Uni/MCA and Columbia, so they don’t really fetch much on the open market.
any download of this gem?
If you right-click each blue song link and then select “Save Link As,” you should be able to accomplish your task…
You are my new hero, Analog Kid. I had this double album as a child, and have always wanted to hear it again. Every song on it is, yes, a “gem”.
I have the double album 70s studio analog records
MP3 rather than lossless i.e. FLAC? Finally have a chance to capture this collection’s quality of the material (the whole point of the exercise?) and its dumbed down with compromised audio quality. It would have been soooo easy to leave lossless in FLAC and nearly nothing in size difference, then allow those who don’t care if its lossy convert it themselves…amazing fail here, but its your place. Just bought it on eBay in mint- condition for $8, shipped. Will rip to FLAC and in 4-5 days be where this should have been in the first place. Sigh…but the solution is near 😉
I’d like to put this one on my BLOG but will get a higher bit rate version from my sources.