Peter Holsapple & Chris Stamey

dB’s classics reimagined by the band’s Peter Holsapple and Chris Stame.

11-track vinyl (Record Store Day First Release) and 13-track CD/Digital Originally released in 2020, Our Back Pages was previously a digital-only release of dB’s music re-imagined by the band’s Peter Holsapple and Chris Stamey, was issued to benefit the Recording Academy’s MusiCares COVID-19 Relief Fund. Now, in 2021, Our Back Pages returns as an 11-track LP (as a Record Store Day First Release) and an expanded 13-track CD and Digital release. Stamey explains, “Over the years, Peter and I have evolved acoustic versions of a number of our songs from our days together in The dB’s. While working on a duo project in my studio a decade ago, we took some time to lay down some of these arrangements, which are often quite different from the normal electric presentations. We are both always more concerned with making new music than with looking back, so it stayed in the archives. But it seemed like the time was right, so we finally completed and mixed it all over the last two weeks, just for this. We’d like to offer it now as a small contribution, a little bit of light in these dark days.” Signature dB’s songs, including “Black and White,” “Big Brown Eyes,” and “Happenstance,” are ably propelled here by lyric and guitar energy alone, and the hooks remain — it’s easy to find one’s self singing along. Tunes such as “Dynamite” and “From a Window to a Screen” are revealed as precursors to the music the two made together later, as they feature “dual lead,” close-harmony vocals as essential elements. Others, such as Peter’s “Today Could Be the Day” and “Molly Says,” were originally recorded by the band after Stamey’s departure, so this marks the first time he’s gone on record with them. When going through the material in preparation for mastering, they even discovered a forgotten track, “Depth of Field,” and completed it for this release; although a version had appeared on a Stamey solo record, it fits in here because it was originally written and rehearsed contemporaneously with the rest for The dB’s’ second album, Repercussion. Another song, “Picture Sleeve,” is both old and new. A song by this title was in the band’s sets circa 1978, but all that anyone could remember, years later, were the first few lines, some chords, and the subject matter. Using those elements as a jumping-off point, it was rewritten for a Record Store Day single release three decades later, and a duo version is part of this release. Peter’s classic ballad “Nothing Is Wrong,” a staple of their live duo sets, was overlooked during the original sessions and sadly missed. Fortunately, it’s included on this new collection in a version The dB’s themselves recorded during a rehearsal in New York City in 2008.