Classics: The Early Years

Classics: The Early Years is a compilation album by Neil Diamond released in 1983 featuring the early recordings he made for Bang Records in 1966 and 1967. After CBS acquired the Bang Records catalogue, the twelve best recordings were reissued on this album. Columbia gave Diamond control of the Bang masters of his recordings. The original copyright notice of this album read "(C) and (P)1983 Neil Diamond and CBS Inc." This compilation has a different track lineup compared to the 1968 Bang compilation album titled Neil Diamond's Greatest Hits which contains two cover songs. All the songs in this album are original Diamond compositions and substitutes "I'm A Believer" (which The Monkees covered) and "Shilo" in place of the Gary U.S. Bonds hit "New Orleans" and the Tommy James and the Shondells hit "Hanky Panky."

Contents

• Neil diamond kentucky woman w lyrics
• Track listing
• Songs
• References

Only a few tracks are in true stereo. Later Neil Diamond compilations contained the mono versions, which makes this album the only source for the stereo versions of his Bang Records releases. The only true stereo version of "Kentucky Woman" was released in 1978 by Frog King records on the album Early Classics.

In 1994 Bang Records (?) released "The Complete Bang Recordings" on CD (BCD0217). Of the 30 tracks, 23 are in stereo of one form or another ( true stereo,over dubbed or remixed).

One track is from UNI Records (The UNI version of Shilo). Kentucky Woman is one of the mono tracks.