Harry Connick's two "Debut" releases - Dixieland Plus (1978) & Pure Dixieland (1979)

When Harry Connick was just a young boy he was part of two albums called Dixieland Plus (1978) and Pure Dixieland (1979). Both releases have Wiki pages with poor quality front covers that you can't fully decipher. SHS set them both up as Harry Connick solo releases with no videos and no visuals other than poor quality front covers (as this is all I can find as well, they had no choice). I have searched around and had zero luck locating either one of these LPs. Both front covers feature a young Connick and a whole bunch of other people and both album titles had Dixieland in them so my gut is these releases were credited to "Dixieland" or something when initially released, not as actual Harry Connick releases. The Pure Dixieland cover seems to have additional writing on the bottom of it but the image is so small it's not readible when zoomed. Apparently both were instrumental releases too so it would make even more sense they were "band" releases. I just have a feeling they were later called Harry Connick releases after he became famous and now some discography sites have categorized them as solo releases too so we followed suit. Now he very well may have been the featured artist on them and credited as the featured performer but tough to determine.

Anyway, it would be great to actually find better artwork to the LPs or something more concrete so we can ensure these two releases were set up properly. But again, my gut tells me these didn't initially say Harry Connick and the Dixieland Band or something, but maybe they did. I just don't think we had enough concrete info. to set them up as Harry Connick solo releases. I am hoping that someone on SHS will have better luck than I have so far tracking either one of the LPs down with visual evidence. The Pure Dixieland album was reissued in 1992 ("Eleven") as a Harry Connick release, but again that was just capitalizing on his newfound fame and it wasn't a vocal album.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dixieland_Plus

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pure_Dixieland_(album)

Dixieland Plus by Harry Connick, Jr.

Pure Dixieland by Harry Connick, Jr.

Thx Mark

This particular Discogs link has the liner notes artwork on the Eleven reissue. When you get to the discussion of the band members Connick is discussed third if that's even relevant. Obviously the reissue will be packed with Connick photos as that's the whole point of it to make it out to be a new Connick album

https://www.discogs.com/Harry-Connick-Jr-Eleven/release/4790792

Here's a video from one of the albums on the reissue. You can listen and hear it's a full dixie band performance. There's zero about it that would make me think it's a Harry Connick solo performance

For the Dixieland Plus album:

- quite nice cover art and rear cover - https://www.rootsvinylguide.com/ebay_items/dixieland-plus-self-titled-featuring-… (the urls of the pictures do give readable images)

labels - https://www.rootsvinylguide.com/ebay_items/dixieland-plus-self-titled-harry-conn…

Two tracks do have Connick vocals.

For Pure Dixieland (label seems to be Studio A, cat no 1001)

- https://www.rootsvinylguide.com/ebay_items/pure-dixieland-eleven-harry-connick-j… (the urls of the pictures do give readable images)

Neither of them seem to have an artist name as such.

Last edit: 2020-08-08 00:00:35 UTC by baggish

I figured you would find something Jon, you alway do!!!!! Well to me you just confirmed what I've said. There's a back cover to the Dixieland Plus album on the Popsike. No way in heck was this a Harry Connick release as I knew all along. And it takes listening to one of the videos for 10 seconds to confirm it. Harry Connick was just one member of the ensemble. The front and back covers make it very clear. So SHS has both of these set up improperly. No other way around it. I really don't care what the discography sites have. Clearly Sony tried to cash in reissuing one of those albums as a solo album called "Eleven" in 1992 and we bit. Luckily they did though as the videos that were made available from it make it 100% apparent there was no way this way a Harry Connick solo release. SHS got it wrong and it's time to correct it.

This stuff should probably be credited to "Dixieland". We have all the names of the band members so this is an easy fix. Plus SHS won't be a mimic of the other sites who didn't do their homework either.

Last edit: 2020-08-08 00:34:07 UTC by mduval32323

Frankly we did a poor job to begin with. I'm shocked we didn't challenge this a long time ago.

So I added the back covers to both releases and was able to add a label and catalog to the one without one. Thx again. Only thing pending is revising these from Harry Connick solo releases.

So I clipped this off the first album back cover. It clearly makes it known this was Connick's recording debut and was being backed by XX musicians. So that at least lends some credence to a Connick release but again, it's not a "solo" release anyway you frame it. I am not sure what to do here. I guess I could say Harry Connick and Dixieland or something. With the artwork I have all the players and they have bios on each.

I'm glad they're not "my" releases because I don't know what artist name I would use I agree, they are definitely not Harry Connick Jnr releases (although they are promoting him as a child prodigy), but I'm not too sure about "Dixieland" either, because only Freddie Kohlman and Jim Duggan are on both releases (as well as Connick of course). Well I suppose Dixieland is the only choice really unless you want to list them all individually.

Yes, the popsike rear cover is the same ebay auction as the first rootsvinylguide link I gave, but popsike cropped the bottom so you can't see the recording date so I changed the link. Popsike and rootsvinylguide are always good places to look for obscure releases, they are both basically archives of ebay sales. Popsike only has high value sales (not sure of the threshold, above maybe $20-$30). Rootsvinylguide is supposed to concentrate on reggae but seems to have most things, searching is a bit strange sometimes. Both of them have only recently started providing larger versions of images.

So what do you recommend I do with these 2 releases? He performed many of the same songs later as true Connick solos and I hate to not have them on SHS because we called these Connick solo releases. I just would never have added either of these 2 given what we had but then again we needed them on SHS. It's quite the quandry that we need to solve now.

For Pure Dixieland I think I would go with what it says on the front cover:

Pure Dixieland by Harry Connick, Jr with Jim Duggan, Freddie Kohlman, Teddy Riley, Walter Payton, Liston Johnson

Dixieland Plus doesn't really have an artist name written anywhere so I think would break the rules and use a similar format, Harry Connick, Jr with....

I think it's fair enough because both albums are promoting Connick above the other musicians, but not enough to be solo records.

So am I going to have to create all those other artists then? I will do it if need be.

Well it's just a suggestion, but I think it's how I would do it.

On the 2nd album only 2 of the 5 repeat. Duggan and Kohlman. So his would be a huge pain to do these both as all joint performers hence my wanting to name them Dixieland. I would have to set up 8 new Artists as no one else is going to do it. I fix other people's stuff non-stop every day but this one is going to set a new standard but I will do it as someone has to as it's unacceptable to call these Harry Connick releases.

Last edit: 2020-08-08 01:51:15 UTC by mduval32323

For me that's why I prefer the joint performance, there aren't enough common members to call it a band. Also maybe it's nice for these releases to be listed on the Harry Connick page. But I wouldn't object if you go for the Dixieland option, it's pretty much a matter of opinion.

Thx Jon for your input.

Okay I created every artist with visuals and DOB/DOD you name it....how many other Editors would have done all this...yeah right.

Now SHS is the only site in the universe that has the 1970's Harry Connick-related releases the way they should have been set up.

Thx for the input Jon I couldn't/wouldn't have done it without your help.