Gone Digital: The Electric Prunes, The Masked Marauders, Doug Sahm, Meic Stevens, and GAY PURR-EE

If it’s Tuesday, then it must be time for Gone Digital, our weekly look at five albums which may not even realize are part of Rhino’s digital catalog. As ever, the types of music we’ll be covering will be all over the place, but that’s Rhino for you: we’re all about variety!

• The Electric Prunes, THE COMPLETE ELEKTRA SINGLES (2012): One of the great psychedelic bands of the ‘60s, these guys found a few hits over the course of the ‘60s, but they never got as much acclaim as they deserved. Give this a spin and you’ll see why we feel that way.

• The Masked Marauders, THE COMPLETE DEITY RECORDINGS (2006): Back in ’69, Rolling Stone ran a parody review for an album that supposedly contained sessions from a super-group consisting of Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger, George Harrison, John Lennon, and Paul McCartney. It didn’t. Once people started demanding to hear this album, however, this album emerged. It wasn’t any of those individuals, but it still managed to sell more than 100K copies. Go figure.

• Doug Sahm, THE GENUINE TEXAS GROOVER (2003): This compilation is both an introduction to the work of Sahm, who came to fame as frontman for The Sir Douglas Quintet, as well as maybe all the Sahm you’ll ever need. Seriously, it’s a great collection.

• Meic Stevens, OUTLANDER (1970): Often called “the Welsh Dylan,” this singer-songwriter gets lumped into the same niche as Syd Barrett on a regular basis, and it’s not an inappropriate point of comparison. This was his debut album, and it was his only album for Warner Brothers, but he’s still around and playing in Wales and Brittany, France. (He’s very popular there, apparently.)

• GAY PURR-EE: ORIGINAL MOTION PICTURE SOUNDTRACK (1962): An oft-forgotten animated film from the early ‘60s, this UPA / Warner Bros. flick featured the voices of Judy Garland, Robert Goulet, Red Buttons, Hermione Gingold, Paul Frees and Mel Blanc. Despite that cast, the film was a bomb, but Rhino Handmade released the soundtrack in 2003, adding a handful of bonus tracks for the diehard fans.