Rick Nelson s short, late- 70s tenure at the Epic label was an exceptionally creative and productive period for him, but you wouldn t know it by what has been released, especially in this country. He recorded three albums worth of material, but only one, 1977 s Intakes, was released during his lifetime; the tracks he laid down the next year met a much less kind fate. The first, the Al Kooper-produced Back to Vienna, was never released as an album at all; the next, originally titled Rockabilly Renaissance, a startling return to his rockabilly roots and a forerunner to the cow-punk and alt-country movements to come, was released in 1986, the year following his death, in watereddown, overdubbed form as The Memphis Sessions. Some of the unreleased material leaked out on the 18-track 1993 CD release Stay Young the Epic Recordings, but much of his work for Epic remained buried in the vaults witness the fact that 11 of these 41 tracks see their first American release right here (and another 12 tracks make their American CD debut)! In fact, NONE of these three albums has ever been on CD in this country, and, even better, Memphis Sessions has been remixed under Richard Weize s supervision to eliminate the posthumous studio dubbing that adulterated Rick s original vision. Produced and annotated by renowned Rick Nelson expert James Ritz and featuring photos from the period, Rick Nelson: The Complete Epic Recordings offers a long-overdue look at a neglected period of a true rock legend s career