Great Britain's venerable BGO imprint is one of the big daddies of contemporary reissues. They've been known to do entire retrospectives two albums at a time in either double- or single-CD packages. They've begun their David Johansen set with his wonderful self-titled debut album and his concert recording Live It Up, which was issued fourth. This might initially seem very strange because BGO usually issues in chronological sequence, but this was a best-of-both-worlds pairing: first, because these two recordings are well suited to one another with their rock & roll looseness; and second, the middle two albums, In Style and Here Comes the Night, are excellent as well, but they are slicker and focus on a more period-based rock & roll sound. ~ Thom Jurek