The Rise of High Moon Records

a boutique reissue record label you may not have heard of

©Harvey Kubernik 2025

George Baer Wallace and the late J.D. Martignon founded High Moon Records in 2010 as an exclusive outlet for the music they loved most. Martignon, a French record dealer who had previously created Midnight Records—a label and a store— was one of the key players in New York City's 1980s underground music scene. He passed away in 2016.

“When JD and I were coming up with names for the record label we had a few to consider,” Wallace remembered in a High Moon-centric interview I conducted in 2024. “High Noon Records was one, but it had close associations to a movie of the same name. One other name we discussed was My Flash on You Records, an homage to a song on the debut Love LP.”

George and JD had a long and expanding wish list of titles that needed to be properly illuminated. Always at the top of that list was Black Beauty, Arthur Lee and Love’s unreleased masterpiece from 1973. Although it had existed as poorly sourced bootlegs for years, High Moon Records’ mission was to finally give the lost record the proper distribution in December 2012 it deserved.

“High Moon Records is working in the same lines as Light in the Attic, but is also approximately analogous to Mosaic Records, the boutique jazz label run by the late Michael Cuscuna,” writer, poet and deejay Dr. James Cushing suggested.

“These three labels share an assumption and a mission. The assumption is that the history of popular music is still in process, and that this history will show that overlooked artists like Love (High Moon), Karen Dalton (Light in the Attic), or Herbie Nichols (Mosaic) have as much to offer as The Doors, Judy Collins or Thelonious Monk. The mission is to preserve (or in some cases unearth) this forgotten music, so that the historical record maybe set straight. 

“These labels exist because rock and jazz are old enough to have a substantial past within which some names become prominent and some obscure. This interest in the past is partly mere boomer nostalgia, but more importantly, it's a reaction against the perceived aesthetic poverty of the present era.

“High Moon looks back to a time when music simply had a larger role in the culture than it does today, when it must compete with social media and online gaming.”  

George Wallace was born in 1970 in New York City at Lennox Hill Hospital. His mother Lois Wallace, was a Vassar College graduate and literary agent and father George, a lawyer who with a Master’s degree in History from Yale.

“My father started at GP Putnam’s Sons Publishing and went to Holt (where he) became editor in chief. My mother started at Putnam’s as an assistant to Harvey Ginsberg, onetime senior editor at William Morrow and Company and Harold Olber, and went to the William Morris Agency. By 1966 at age 26 she became head of the William Morris Literary Department. She represented Eric Segal, who wrote the screenplay for the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine. At her suggestion she convinced Segal to write the novel Love Story.

“My parents were fans of Cole Porter and Irving Berlin and my dad loved opera. The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper... was played around the house.”

Young George attended Dalton Day School, a progressive high school in New York.  “I’ve always loved music since a kid, danced around with my nannies. I was Danny Zuko in an all-male version of Grease.” After 8th grade, Wallace transferred to Choate Rosemary boarding school in Connecticut. “I became a big fan of the Grateful Dead,” Wallace reminisced.  “I don’t like the word gateway, but they paved the way for me to discover so much music and records, and the majority of the sounds I was now hearing were from the west coast, largely San Francisco.

“I did make an attempt to enroll at U.C. Santa Cruz,” he admitted, “but could not get in. I did feel the draw and allure of the music from the west coast. Initially Northern California. And I went to San Francisco State University. Majored in History and a minor in English. At San Francisco State University I literally lived near the former site of Bill Graham’s Fillmore on Post and Steiner. I have watched The Grateful Dead Movie from 1977 probably 100 times,” George proudly confessed.

During his San Francisco residency, George discovered Moby Grape, followed by Hot Tuna, and he became aware of the landmark music venues, the Avalon Ballroom and the Matrix Club. Wallace then found and heard the sounds of Los Angeles and Hollywood of the mid to the late ‘60s bands like The Doors, The Byrds and The Flying Burrito Brothers.

“I soon learned, it was like I found a hidden cage with all this music from Southern California and stumbled upon the secret music of Los Angeles. “At age ten I loved The Monkees. Then it was Buffalo Springfield, Doors, Sons of Adam, Love, Gene Clark, Gram Parsons, Neil Young, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, all the while still digging the music of San Francisco. This is a world that pretty much is before the internet and it was word of mouth and traditional newspapers and some music magazines.”

Wallace subsequently transferred to another Bay area school, Menlo College, earning a Master’s Degree in Humanities. “I wanted to be a filmmaker. My father explained to me I could do that after grad school at NYU where I studied film.”

After graduation, Wallace had an internship at PBS-TV working on the acclaimed American Masters series on the Lou Reed, Willa Cather and Georgia O’Keefe profiles, and location scouting and various office functions. A highlight of his tenure at American Masters was serving as researcher and assistant editor on the Ella Fitzgerald feature. He also assisted film editor Charlotte Zwerling.

Wallace interned at Tribeca Productions under Robert De Niro and Jane Rosenthal and was hired on various films, including director Kimberly Pierce’s Boys Don’t Cry. George then joined the VH-1 News department writing narrative, interstitial banter for the on-air video deejays, and had a stint under Bill Flanagan at the network who developedLegends. “There are a handful of musicians I actively collect and want to support their work,” Wallace explained.

“Skip Spence, Alex Chilton, Townes Van Zandt, Moby Grape, Ace of Cups, Gram Parsons, Love, The Flying Burrito Brothers, The Byrds and their various permutations. No one sounds like any of those bands.

“I also sort of realized there is no other country like America, where guys who liked bluegrass, jug band, jazz and pop music could bring us the Grateful Dead and The Sons of Adam. I think the bohemian elements of both San Francisco and Los Angeles informed these rock bands.”

A calling for an expedition in music, was obvious. A seminal moment in George Bear Wallace’s life occurred in 1995. “I was sort of familiar with the group Love and started to read about bandleader Arthur Lee. Their first four albums really made a big impact on me.

    “I read about Arthur Lee and Love in the New York press. I didn’t care if they were a mixed-race band (did anyone?_ed.). To me it was raceless music. It was species music that was filtered through Arthur Lee’s own unique perspective. I then went to see Arthur and his group in person.

“I loved his recordings, voice, and lyrics already. In a live setting I had never heard anyone sing like that. It was the way he stretched out his lyrics. I could feel the pre-thought but still improvisation in his words and the music the band created. Every little nuance made an impact. It was the vocals, the tonality of his vision in each phase of Love. That’s what happens when you really fall for someone’s music and get inspired by it. It was distinct and fresh. There was nothing like it. One of a kind. There were revelatory chord changes. It went to a place where language sort of fails. It hits the mind and body. It’s addictive,” exclaimed George. 

To Wallace, the Love catalog and witnessing three Arthur Lee shows in New York were a guidepost to his own future. Going beyond record collecting and bringing his passion into the lives of consumers.

Black Beauty, the never-before-released outing by Arthur Lee's band Love is available as a TrueSound Audiophile CD packaged in a hardbound eco-book and as a 180-gram LP packaged in a tip-on sleeve. The deluxe CD comes with a 64-page photo-filled booklet.

Arthur Lee photo: © Michael Putland

Both formats come with bonus tracks featuring live performances, two unreleased Lee studio cuts and an unearthed Arthur Lee interview from 1974. Recorded in 1973 for the ambitious new label Buffalo Records, the album remained unreleased when the company folded.

Finally, after many decades, High Moon delivered Arthur’s wish that Black Beauty be heard by music fans worldwide. Black Beauty made it's first-ever official release in any configuration, anywhere!

With its potent eclectic collection of songs, the album gives Love fans a rare glimpse into a previously-undocumented phase of Lee's career, while new ears get to discover the unique genius that is the music of Arthur Lee and Love. The marvelous liner notes are written by esteemed journalist and author Ben Edmonds. 

“Black Beauty is as eclectic and eccentric as any of Love’s best.” – MOJO magazine  

“History shows the retail release of posthumous albums can range from the depth of sleaze to the heights of respect,” theorized Dr. James Cushing 

“I remember commercially released ‘Hendrix albums’ on which the great man neither sings nor plays, yet The Cry of Love is a brilliant collection of songs. High Moon Records’ respect for Lee and his legacy is indisputable. Their handling of Black Beauty was proof of that.

“And we’d come up with variations on the same answer: there’s a mystery inherent in art on this level that resists analysis. Whitney Baillett called jazz ‘the sound of surprise,’ and there is that elusive jazz element in Lee’s characteristic musical gestures. 

 “Let’s not forget that Lee and Love were also in the right place at the right time, so that their work could be preserved and distributed. That ‘right time’ was the cultural revolution of 1965-80, which we are still coming to terms with. Both the promise and the tragedy of that time in in their music.”

After spending considerable time exploring the High Moon catalogue, it was important to do a deep dive of their terrific retail endeavors and learn about the passion and efforts behind these albums that should be additions to your record collection.  Wallace and his High Moon team have done a wonderful job preparing and distributing sonic gems often forgotten, neglected and underserved when initially issued on LP.

In 2025, we can look forward to the Marth 28th release of High Moon’s deluxe reissue of the Bob Crewe-produced Lotti Golden Motor-Cycle 1969 debut album on Atlantic Records.

 The label hails the return of  NYC singer-songwriter-producer Golden’s Motor-Cycle on CD and vinyl LP, joined by lavish, 32-page LP and 48-page CD books with extensive liner notes on the astonishing story of  how a 17-year-old Lotti Golden came to make an album as singular and audacious as Motor-Cycle, exclusive essays by Richard Hell and David Toop, and a wealth of archival photos, including more than 30 never-before-seen photographs by pioneering rock photographer, Baron Wolman. Along with the original album track listing, the Motor-Cycle CD includes the rarely heard Atlantic single 'Sock It to Me Baby/It’s Your Thing' b/w 'Annabelle with Bells (Home Made Girl)'. Golden penned every song on Motor-Cycle, except for one tune with Bob Crewe (TrackingAngle review coming shortly_ed.).

I interviewed Crewe May, 1975 for the UK music periodical Melody Maker.

We discussed his songwriting collaborations. Bob had hits with the Four Seasons, Diane Renay, Lesley Gore, Labelle, Bobby Darin, the Rays, Freddy Cannon, Herman’s Hermits, the Walker Brothers, Frankie Valli, and Monti Rock III, among others. 

“I try and get the most from al the artists I work with,” he underlined. “That’s the secret of how someone who doesn’t have the big voice or the big facility can get a unique sound and make the record sound like it belongs to them. I write from experience. How else can you do it? I like to write for certain people. Sometimes you come up with a song that doesn’t have anybody’s name on it.”     

Golden’s 1969 endeavor and 2025 return to retail outlets has earned advance praise: “An extraordinary song suite provoked by a teenager’s six months immersed in New York’s late-’60s underground…visionary, hypnagogic” -– UNCUT 9/10 Reissue of The Month - February, 2025

“The LP features big downtown production and Golden’s awesome vocals – she can really belt. Imagine if Ronnie Spector made a bonafide psych LP later in the ‘60s and that gives you some idea.” – POPSIKE

Out in late January 2025 was the Jeannie Piersol anthology The Nest, available on CD, LP and Digital formats. For fans of Jefferson Airplane, The Great!! Society!!, and Rotary Connection, The Nest is more than a curiosity—it’s a revelation. Piersol’s voice and vision finally step out of the shadows, offering a fresh perspective on the golden age of psychedelic rock.

  With her hip hybrid of rock, soul and Indian flavors, Jeannie Piersol is one of the enigmas of the 1960s San Francisco psychedelic music scene. The singer emerged from the same community just south of San Francisco that nurtured the principals of the Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead, Big Brother and other leading lights of Bay Area’s future rock meritocracy.

Close friends with Grace Slick and her brother-in-law Darby Slick, Piersol was a founding member of their pioneering band The Great! Society — originally sharing lead vocals with Grace — before leaving to front her own groups, The Yellow Brick Road and Hair, both of whom worked the clubs and ballrooms of the emerging San Francisco circuit, including such iconic venues as The Matrix, The Fillmore and the Avalon Ballroom. The Nest is the first-ever anthology from the long-lost 1960’s San Francisco psychedelic siren Piersol.

The 12-track collection is accompanied by an extensively illustrated 20-page booklet with a 7500-word essay from compilation producer Alec Palao (featuring exclusive interviews with Piersol and many of her musical collaborators), plus lavish artwork, never-before-seen photos, memorabilia, and more. 

The Nest gathers her Chess Cadet Concept label singles alongside outtakes, demos, and live recordings from San Francisco’s Matrix nightclub, capturing the raw energy of Piersol’s bands in their prime. In 2025, Shindig! magazine hailed Piersol’s artifact as “sizzling soul-rock and exotic psychedelia…beautifully packaged and exhaustively annotated.”

Originally released in 1968, Piersol’s single "Gladys," cut at the Chess studios in Chicago, incorporates backing vocals by singer Minnie Riperton, drums by Earth, Wind & Fire founder Maurice White, Phil Upchurch on guitar, orchestral arrangements by Charles Stepney (Rotary Connection, Billy Stewart, Ramsey Lewis), arranged and produced by Darby Slick with music supervision by Marshall Chess.

I interviewed record producer Marshall in 2010. The son of Phil Chess, and nephew of Leonard Chess, who founded the immortal record label.   

Marshall discussed the bio-regional aspects heard on Jeannie Piersol’s visit to the Chess studios.  

“We had fabulous engineers,” recalled Marshall. “Ron Malo and Malcolm Chism. They were the two best engineers. Ron came from Detroit. He had worked on Motown studios and he was a big part. Before Ron, we had these two Weiner brothers, who actually built the studio. It was a basic classic studio design, with the echo chamber in the basement, very small control room.

“One of the secrets of the Chess studio was not the studio but our mastering. We had a little mastering room with a lathe. Eventually we had a Neumann lathe. The first one was an American one. We did our own mastering and had these Electrovoice speakers on the wall.

“Curtis Mayfield and Charles Stepney are the two major geniuses of Chicago. Not just arrangers. Brilliant geniuses. I loved them!    

 “All I ever knew about Minnie was that she had that fuckin’ great high C note vocal sound. She had a great set of lungs. That’s what I wanted to hear. That’s how it all began. Minnie and I were close friends. We were the same age. Maurice White is the drummer on Billy Stewart’s ‘Summertime.’ I saw genius in him,” Chess predicted.  

 There’s a video for “Gladys," a new transfer of the original 16mm film, originally directed and produced by Ray Andersen in 1968. Ray and his wife Joan founded The Holy See, producing groundbreaking light shows at San Francisco's Fillmore Auditorium in the late '60s. Andersen employed some of Holy See's hypnotic visuals as backgrounds in the promotional film.  

 In 2025, Alec Palao emailed me about Jeannie Piersol. “The idea of a full length devoted to Ms. Piersol would have been unthinkable until I unexpectedly came across more material that featured her, both amongst the live recordings from The Matrix tapes and within the remarkable personal stash of SF documentarian - and all-round character - Ray Anderson, who was friends with Jeannie and her husband Bill. Nobody was more surprised than the Piersols that a such a satisfying album could be created out of the handful of extant tracks.

“I like to describe her to the uninitiated as a ‘soulful Grace (Slick),’ but in truth her sound and her style has a lot more going for it, especially with the progressive material that Darby wrote for her. Jeannie is one of those artists who is wonderfully nonchalant about her long-forgotten etchings but recognizes that she could have easily had a fulsome career, had she desired it.”

   I have a soft spot in my heart for Arthur Lee and Love’s 1974 LP Reel to Real initially out on RSO Records and reissued by High Moon in 2018. I saw the band at the Troubadour club in West Hollywood in the mid-seventies and interviewed Arthur for the defunct Melody Maker.  

George Baer Wallace and J.D. Martingnon made Love’s ’74 RSO studio record available on CD/Digital for the first time and now back on LP after more than 40 years! 

This beautifully packaged, deluxe reissue of the ’74 album features vibrant, remastered audio from the original tapes, a 32-page booklet with an essay by David Fricke, and a trove of candid, unpublished photos.

The album features Arthur’s Black Beauty band: drummer Joe Blocker, guitarist Melvan Whittington, and bassist Robert Rozelle — who Lee referred to as “cats who can play funky and rock” — augmented by guitar-ace John Sterling and cameo appearances by guitarists Harvey Mandel and “Buzzy” Feiten.

Bonus tracks include 11 previously-unreleased tracks from the original sessions, including alternate takes and mixes, live-in-studio rehearsals, and 4 newly-discovered Arthur Lee originals: “Do It Yourself,” “I Gotta Remember,” “Somebody,” and “You Gotta Feel It.”

Gene Clark served as The Byrds chief songwriter in the mid-sixties, penning some of their most essential songs, including “Feel a Whole Lot Better,” “Eight Miles High” and “You Showed Me.” Two Sides To Every Story, the criminally long out-of-print solo album from founding Byrds member, Clark, finally returned to vinyl. 35 years after its 1977 release on RSO.  High Moon Records re-mastered, 180-gram audiophile vinyl LP is presented in rich and crisp audio fidelity on this beautifully-crafted Gene Clark classic.

The album was produced by Thomas Jefferson Kaye. Singer Emmylou Harris, banjo-virtuoso Douglas Dillard (The Byrds, Dillard & Clark), Country violin legend Byron Berline, guitarist Jeff “Skunk” Baxter (Doobie Brothers, Steely Dan, Joni Mitchell), and pedal-steel ace Al Perkins (Flying Burrito Brothers, Bob Dylan, Rolling Stones) contribute to Clark’s album.

In 2023, record collectors, author Jan Henderson and myself were thrilled by the High Moon edition of The Sons of Adam’s Saturday’s Sons: The Complete Recordings 1964-1966, the first-ever comprehensive anthology of the fabled 1960s L.A. band. All formats – including a gatefold 2 LP set, CD, or digital download –feature remastered recordings, along with deluxe packaging, extensive liner notes, lavish artwork, never-before-seen photos, and more.  I saw the band in 1966 or early ’67 on Sunset Blvd. at The Hullabaloo Club in Hollywood, so did Henderson, who also caught them at Gazzarri's in 1967.

In 2025 Henderson emailed me.

“There were a lot of memorable bands in these two short years. Sons of Adam was one of them. We were also mesmerized by October Country, Yellow Pages, and The Eastside Kids; with headlining acts the Iron Butterfly, and Love. There hasn't been anything to compete with these dynamic bands before or since.”

I learned a lot more about the Sons of Adam when I devoured a retrospective on the group by Greg Prevost and Mike Stax in an article in the January 2014 issue of Shindig! 

The duo wrote, “From late ’65 until early ’67, the Sons of Adam were one of the most happening bands on the Sunset Strip, playing to packed houses at clubs like Gazzarri’s, Bito Lido’s and the Whisky A Go Go. They had the right sound, the right image, and some of the most talented musicians on the scene. They even had their share of lucky breaks, including an appearance in a major Hollywood movie and a deal with Decca Records. Arthur Lee even gave them one of his songs. Yet somehow the Sons of Adam never managed to lift themselves out of the Hollywood club scene and into the major leagues. Today they’re mostly remembered as the band Michael Stuart was in before he joined Love, or the band Randy Holden was in before joining Blue Cheer. What’s too often overlooked is that the Sons have a proud legacy of their own: three enormously great 45 releases, and a story that is long overdue to be told.”

Saturday’s Sons: The Complete Recordings 1964-1966 gathers The Sons of Adam’s complete studio output – spanning rare 45s, outtakes, and demo recordings – including material from their early incarnation as The Fender IV as well as their groovy 1966 single, “Feathered Fish,” donated to the band by Lee.

In addition, Saturday’s Sons: The Complete Recordings 1964-1966 includes a definitive 15,000-word chronicle of the group’s unfulfilled reach for the brass ring by compilation producer Alec Palao, featuring the full cooperation of the band members and associates, and showcasing a stunning range of rare photos, poster art, and other previously unseen images.

  “The Sons of Adam is likely the one project within my so-called career as a ‘reissue specialist’ with the longest trajectory,” Palao described in a 2024 email. “From inception to fruition, it took a full 25 years. I already knew the group's singles material intimately, but when I first threaded up their 1966 tape from the Avalon Ballroom on the tape machine in 1996, I was enthralled by the sheer power and precision of the performance. Like The Oxford Circle - a vinyl release of which is forthcoming on High Moon - the recording was one of those rare instances where the empirical evidence more than matched the legend, and by contrast, both bands blew away the somewhat inconsistent Avalon sets from the likes of Big Brother, The Doors et al.

“The Sons' guitarist Randy Holden was unfailingly polite but quite proprietary controlling his bands legacy. Over the year we kept in touch but it was not until I heard from young Mr. Wallace that a fulsome Sons anthology started looking like a reality. The intercession of the band's former manager Howard Wolf helped seal the deal, and so finally we had a package. Much as I would have liked it to have come out back in the late 1990s, I am thankful that the long wait and the enthusiasm of High Moon for the set meant I could deliver the best package possible, given what we had to work with. Randy was very pleased, which after a quarter century of discussion and deferment, meant a lot to me. While he saw and heard the collection, vocalist Jac Ttanna sadly passed just on the cusp of its release.”

Steve Stanley is the founder of Now Sounds, a reissue label distributed by Cherry Red Records. In addition to his work with Now Sounds, and High Moon Records, Steve is a graphic designer who has art directed and/or designed releases for Rhino Records, Sony, Warner Bros., ABKCO, and many other labels.

In 2019 he assembled High Moon’s absorbing compilation, Curt Boettcher & Friends: Looking For The Sun. It houses a remarkable liner note essay from Dawn Eden Goldstein, who last century first chronicled and spearheaded the awareness of Boettcher’s legacy. Shindig! magazine hailed the various artist collection as “the best of 2019.”    

Best known for his groundbreaking hit productions for The Association (“Cherish,” “Along Comes Mary”), Boettcher formed the pioneering rock bands The Ballroom and The Millennium, and add heavily to classic pop-psych album Sagittarius created and crafted by producer Gary Usher (Beach Boys, Byrds). Boettcher was innovative in utilizing the studio as an instrument—an approach that made a lasting impression on a young Brian Wilson.

Looking For The Sun is the first release to focus on Boettcher as a producer and arranger rather than a performer, highlighting cuts that were released only as singles. Most of the tracks have remained out of print since their initial release. Collected here are 21 tracks (18 on LP)—all sourced from the original master tapes—which Boettcher wrote, produced, arranged, or sang on. 

Stanley combed the vaults and file cabinets of Sony Music and the musty archives of obscure L.A. recording studios. Thanks to Stanley’s meticulous research of Musician’s Union Contracts, and interviews with the musicians and artists, a clearer portrait of Curt Boettcher’s prodigious and radical work as a producer emerges.

Over the course of Looking For The Sun, the listener can hear Boettcher as an in-house producer for Our Productions, discovering the methods and sounds as a bandleader and sonic guru of The Millennium.

Artists include: Cindy Malone, Sandy Salisbury, Gordon Alexander, Keith Colley, Summer’s Children, Jonathan Moore, Ray Whitley, Eddie Hodges, The Bootiques, Action Unlimited, and Sagittarius. The musical contributions of Glen Campbell, David Gates, Gary Usher and Keith Olsen are showcased.

The 36-page booklet that accompanies the release, beautifully designed by Stanley, features fascinating and deeply researched notes on each of the songs, rarely-seen archival photos, that match the words penned by Boettcher scholar Dawn Eden Goldstein. 

  “I am very attached to Curt’s legacy,” enthused Goldstein in a 2025 interview. “There is a need to educate people and teach the present generation beyond what they read on the internet. Steve had actually tracked down the artists himself. And so, it was the most pleasant collaboration. “The whole design of the booklet was done in such a way that the designers knew how to let the visuals compliment the text, and everything is beautifully integrated. It’s the closest thing that I’ve come to my original dream of writing Curt’s biography.”  

In her extensive and inspiring scripture, Goldstein illustrated the excursions producer Boettcher forged, and underscored his participation in his profound work with the Association, The Millennium, The Ballroom, and Sagittarius.

“I've been a huge fan of Curt's since about 1995 when my ex-girlfriend's best friend's mother was throwing out her ex-husband's modest record collection,” Steve Stanley told me in a communication.  

“Anyway, in the stash there was a bunch of typical '70s arena rock: Boston, Eagles, TOTO, stuff like that. But there was also this odd-looking album I'd never seen before that immediately intrigued me: Begin by The Millennium. That was the only record I recall taking home that day. I was immediately hooked by the 1968 LP—a collection of sunshine-drenched psych pop that also was way ahead of its time in terms of ambition and production.

“After hearing this record, I embarked upon an odyssey of seeking out every morsel of Curt's catalog: his own works, productions, side projects, as well as his colleagues' efforts. Many of these efforts are featured on Looking For The Sun, a compilation of Curt's outside productions for various labels now owned by Sony Music. I was fully aware of Curt's impact on other artists and we mention Brian Wilson and many others in the liner notes.”  

 High Moon in 2018 released the self-titled debut studio album by The Ace of Cups, the pioneering all-female rock band from the 1960s San Francisco scene. Produced by Dan Shea (Santana, Jennifer Lopez, Mariah Carey), and recorded at Marin’s Laughing Tiger Studios, the record’s twenty-one tracks span fifty years of songwriting.

Special guests include legendary players (and longtime Ace of Cups friends) Jorma Kaukonen, Jack Casady, and Charlie Musselwhite as well as lead vocal turns by Bob Weir on ‘The Well,’ Taj Mahal on ‘Life In Your Hands,’ Peter Coyote on ‘As The Rain,’ and Buffy Sainte-Marie on ‘Pepper In The Pot.’”

“The Renaissance faire that was the crossroads of Haight and Ashbury found its female voice in Ace of Cups, though it’s a disservice to view their musicality and dedication to craft through the prism of gender,” wrote pop music historian and author Lenny Kaye, guitarist in the Patti Smith band.

“Their knowing lyrics, instrumental excursions, and divine harmonies resonate beyond their time, and it is a beautiful and bountiful remembrance that they are they getting the long-awaited respect they so genuinely deserve.” 

“The interesting observation about High Moon Records is that even if they had been around at the height of the physical back catalog boom in the 1990s, their brand would have still firmly stood out,” Alec Palao reinforced.

 “Very few reissue labels have paid so much attention to detail to their product. From my own experience, Ace Records in the UK are the only others who have operated with the same sort of standards. This does not necessarily apply to the “sizzle” packaging, artist or genre visibility, hype etc. but to accessing difficult or outlier content, and providing the thorough presentation that such under-appreciated projects deserve. To be honest, most other labels will always be concerned with numbers and the bottom line.

“Speaking as not just an independent producer but essentially a conceptualist that handles most aspects of the packages I am involved with. I am grateful that High Moon can allow me the sort of autonomy to brainstorm and then deliver projects that would be a head-scratcher for most others nowadays.

“Perhaps the Sons of Adam was an obvious gambit (and in truth, over the years other labels tried to get at the material), but Laurie Styvers, Jeannie Piersol, and the Final Solution are all outliers in the general marketplace that would not get the opportunity to otherwise get properly heard, appreciated and treated with respect. When enthused, George Wallace has been likened to a youthful Jann Wenner, but he is no counter-culture cut-throat on the make, but someone who genuinely cares about the subject matter, and will do whatever is required to make it happen.

“Such passion from a label chief is astonishing in this day and age. Even with other HM releases that I was not involved with, such as the upcoming reissue of the Lotti Golden album, I can immediately sense the incredible depth of effort and erudition required to create such an enjoyable release.”

High Moon in 2023 and 2024 also reminded us about singer/songwriter Laurie Styvers. 

 Let Me Comfort You: The Hush Rarities follows High Moon’s 2023 release of Gemini Girl: The Complete Hush Recordings, the first-ever comprehensive anthology of Styvers’ body of work, including her two deeply moving solo albums, Spilt Milk (1971) and The Colorado Kid (1973).

Akin to a lost third album, the new collection gathers 11 alternate takes, demos, and previously unissued songs from the original album sessions, further displaying the enigmatic Texas singer-songwriter’s honey-voiced intimacy and intangible magic, its lovelorn presents like 'Let Me Comfort You' and 'Crazy Rainy Spring' equal of anything on either now-rightfully acclaimed albums with Hush Productions, founded by noted producers Shel Talmy (The Kinks, The Who, Small Faces) and Hugh Murphy (Gerry Rafferty).   

Styvers recorded a small number of tracks in addition to Spilt Milk and The Colorado Kid. Drawn from the original session reels, Let Me Comfort You: The Hush Rarities compiles those completed masters that remained in the can, along with a smattering of alternate versions and early demos, all appearing on vinyl for the first time. 

Pitchfork applauded Styvers’ heretofore obscure music as “a piano-driven wonderland that invoked the buoyant pop side of Laurel Canyon vogue to frame a complicated internal portrait.”

 Grammy-nominated producer Palao also states: “Sound quality and mastering are paramount for High Moon Records. Speaking for the HMR releases I have personally brainstormed, I generally do my own tape research, transfers, and if necessary, vinyl sources, and also spend considerable time thereafter getting things up to snuff. Most recently, the Laurie Styvers material was taken from master reels and/or remixed by myself from original session tapes, while Jeannie Piersol is a mixture of masters, verite live recordings and a couple of carefully-restored disc dubs. As an example of the production chain, the forthcoming Sly & The Family Stone release (The First Family: Live At Winchester Cathedral 1967, due on Record Store Day in April) was restored and edited by myself from a weirdly-formatted source tape and then received a final mastering ‘kiss’ from Dan Hersch at D2, with the subsequent lacquer cut by Kevin Gray at Cohearent.”  

  “I have a serious soft spot for the small, independent re-issue label,” writer and author Daniel Weizmann emphasized in a 2025 phone conversation

“These are the heroes and heroines I tried to immortalize in Cinnamon Girl, my second mystery...often working with old acetates and faded tapes, with aging Letraset cover art on art boards with printer's instructions and mucilage smears. These people are more than historians, more than nostalgia nuts. They connect the dots for us and bond us to the legacy. They're keepers of the flame.”   

“We’re all constantly searching for new sounds or sounds from the past that truly deserve to be heard,” underlined George Wallace.  

“Almost an elusive journey that can yield results we never planned on. Especially when you are running a label and searching for recordings that need to be discovered and heard. It’s a real pleasure to receive wonderful comments from fans and collectors. Some fans in England raved about Arthur Lee’s Black Beauty, others tout the Ace of Cups album, while some are just happy to hear more music from Gene Clark.”

I’m really excited about an upcoming April Record Store Day due from High Moon Records, Sly and the Family Stone Live at the Winchester Cathedral 1967. Alec Palao has assembled an audio artifact that showcases Sly Stone’s band just prior to their signing to Epic Records in 1967.

Around his late 1964 and 1965 era recording studio endeavors with the Beau Brummels, Bobby Freeman and the Great Society, with vocalist Grace Slick for Autumn Records, Slyvester Stewart had a popular radio shift in the Bay Area. He went to radio school and then created a program format of soul and rock sounds influencing future hitmakers.  

“Sly Stone was the most popular DJ among all my friends when he was on KSOL radio,” Emilio Castillo, bandleader for Tower of Power told me in a email correspondence.

“He played the best soul music and had a really great radio personality. We loved him!!! He started playing at a nightclub called Frenchy’s in Hayward near me and we would sneak in every weekend cuz we were underage. They played before and after hours so there were many sets to listen to and they always put on an exciting show. We stood to the side and watched closely in absolute awe!!!”

“The Winchester Cathedral tapes first came to light over two decades ago,” Palo emailed me in late February 2025.

“Rich Romanello, the owner of the club and the Family Stone’s erstwhile manager, had made the recordings hoping to capture some lightning in a bottle, as the band's cathartic after-hours performances had quickly become the talk of the San Francisco Peninsula in early 1967, just a few short weeks after the band was formed. Romanello had essentially forgotten about them until Sly researchers Edwin & Arno Konings contacted him in the early 2000s. The reels located, Rich brought them over to my home studio to see if the sound could be resuscitated for a potential release. The recorded performance was dynamic and undeniably exciting, but there was an essential flaw in that the vocals seemed to be absent. Disappointed, we left it at that, but sometime later I went back to the tapes and, using a different machine to transfer them as well as the careful application of audio restoration software, I was able to recover enough of the vocals and create an acceptable presentation.

“Sadly, Rich had passed away in the interim, but he always advocated for a release of this historic material upcoming al, which forms a tangible memento of his stewardship of the band at the very start of their career. The Winchester recordings are a significant discovery in that they showcase a one-of-kind outfit that was already at the peak of its powers, long before it became internationally famous. Even though the set is comprised of contemporaneous soul covers, Sly is fully in command, while the unique arrangements and tighter-than-tight ensemble playing point clearly to the road ahead, and the enduring influence of Sly and The Family Stone’s music (indeed, the recordings are featured extensively within the new Questlove-helmed documentary, Sly Lives!). The deluxe RSD version will be supplanted by a regular vinyl release and a CD with extra material, in early summer 2025.”

High Moon Records has scheduled for 2025 an unprecedented upcoming collection of Arthur Lee recordings called Just To Remind You. Recorded during the last fifteen years of his life, and sourced from Arthur’s trove of tapes, most of these songs are being heard here for the first time ever.

The album will be comprised of the songs Arthur asked his wife Diane Lee to retail release after his death. Having been hospitalized for several months, Arthur Lee realized he was losing his fight with Leukemia, and asked Diane to oversee the release of a final record of his unreleased songs. Although many of the tracks were in various stages of completion, Lee left some specific musical notes to execute his vision.

(Harvey Kubernik is the author of 20 books, including 2009’s Canyon Of Dreams: The Magic And The Music Of Laurel Canyon, 2014’s Turn Up The Radio! Rock, Pop and Roll In Los Angeles 1956-1972, 2015's Every Body Knows: Leonard Cohen, 2016's Heart of Gold Neil Young and 2017's 1967: A Complete Rock Music History of the Summer of Love. Sterling/Barnes and Noble in 2018 published Harvey and Kenneth Kubernik’s The Story Of The Band: From Big Pink To The Last Waltz. In 2021 the duo wrote Jimi Hendrix: Voodoo Child for Sterling/Barnes and Noble. Otherworld Cottage Industries in 2020 published Harvey’s Docs That Rock, Music That Matters. His book Screen Gems: (Pop Music Documentaries and Rock ‘n’ Roll Television Moments) is scheduled for 2025 publication. Harvey wrote the liner notes to CD re-releases of Carole King’s Tapestry, The Essential Carole King, Allen Ginsberg’s Kaddish, Elvis Presley The ’68 Comeback Special, The Ramones’ End of the Century and Big Brother & the Holding Company Captured Live at The Monterey International Pop Festival.  During 2006 Kubernik spoke at the special hearings by The Library of Congress in Hollywood, California, discussing archiving practices and audiotape preservation. In 2017 he appeared at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, in their Distinguished Speakers Series).