If there are some unreleased riches in the vaults as suggested, what a shame that Motown / Universal can't see beyond the ends of their noses and use some of these unreleased songs as bonus tracks on digitally remastered CDs. I quite enjoyed hearing Child of Fortune, Fun House, B what R Ya and What you gonna do if I give it to you which were featured on the Anthology Series "The Best of Rare Earth". Had it not been for these songs I may well have treated this 2CD set as another compilation and given it a wide berth.

The unreleased product that bugs me most is the "Live In Chicago" set from 1974. It is well documented that it was scheduled for release and was even given a catalogue number. Now rumour has it, the tapes were not good enough to use. Well, the revived Purple Records, the label affiliated to the rock band Deep Purple, are finding all sorts of unreleased material from their acts, much of it early 70s live footage by Deep Purple themselves. They've released a lot of material that was previously considered unusable. Technology has come a long way.

What's the real deal with Universal? If they consider its not worth their while financially, can't they consider licencing the material to a smaller operation that specialises in such re-issues.

I know I'm raking over old ground, maybe I'm even putting the cat among the pigeons, but I do feel that Rare Earth fans are getting a raw deal. After all, am I right in saying their first 6 albums all picked up awards ranging from gold to double platinum?