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I should start by saying that I'm a relatively new fan. However, back in January I went and bought everything released prior to Coconut Telegraph as well as the box set. I went onto Amazon this afternoon to buy his first five albums of the eighties and noticed that they were only available used. This appeared to be the case for the seventies albums as well.

Has anyone heard about a reissue campaign? They're all great music, but not the best sound quality on these old CD's. I'd love to re-buy a few of these if they sounded better.

Thanks!

Did you check on ebay?

I did end up buying the five I wanted on ebay, but I was quite intrigued by the fact that the albums I wanted weren't available new from Amazon. I'm really hoping for reissues, but assume that we could have heard by now.

I found new copies of all but Somewhere Over China on Amazon and new copies of every one on ebay...

1981: Coconut Telegraph
1982: Somewhere Over China
1983: One Particular Harbour
1984: Riddles In The Sand
1985: Last Mango In Paris
1986: Floridays
1988: Hot Water
1989: Off To See The Lizard

The #1 problem with reissues is that Jimmy does not have the distribution rights to large part of his catalog, the rights are held by MCA records.

To better understand this you need to know about Jimmy's recording history starting with his first two albums "Down to Earth" and "High Cumberland Jubilee" both of which were released by Barnaby Records. Barnaby Records was the first record label Jimmy recorded for from 1969-1971. Neither of his first two albums sold well and Jimmy moved on.

In 1973 Jimmy was signed by ABC Records and his music career was kick started with his first ABC Album "A White Sport Coat and A Pink Crustacean" Jimmy recorded all but one of his 1970's albums for ABC Records until ABC Records was absorbed by MCA Records in 1979. Starting with Jimmy's 1979 album "Volcano" all of Jimmy's albums were released by MCA until the release of "Far Side of the World" in 2002. This is when Jimmy established his own label Mailboat Records which has released all of Jimmy's new albums through 2013's "Songs from St Somewhere".

While Jimmy is no longer an MCA recording artist MCA Record retains the distribution rights to Jimmy's albums from 1973's "A White Sport Coat and A Pink Crustacean" through 1999's "Beach House on the Moon" As long as MCA holds the distribution right they are the only ones that can release reissues.

MCA Records has released 2 vinyl reissues of the albums "A1A" and "Songs You Know by Heart"

I believe MCA's stuff is owned by Universal, and has been for a little while now. The chances of remasters may be slim to none, but it'd be nice!