In my article last week about The Vapors, I mentioned that their second and third albums were 39 years apart.
That’s a long time – and their Wikipedia page links to a list of the artists with the longest gaps between albums.
It turns out that, relatively speaking, 39 years isn’t all that long.
The Vapors aren’t even in the top 25.
I wasn’t familiar with some of these artists, and I looked into the 10 with the longest gaps. Their stories interested me, so here are some details about the artists with the longest time between albums.
We’ll start with the tenth longest through the sixth longest, and cover the top 5 next week.
#10: 46 Years:
The Kossoy Sisters:
Bowling Green (1956…)
Hop On Pretty Girls (2002)
Identical twins Irene and Ellen Kossoy were born on May 11, 1938.
At six years old, they started singing together, imitating their mother and aunt. Despite growing up in New York City, they sang Appalachian-style close harmonies, and that turned heads in the burgeoning Folk scene around Greenwich Village and Washington Square Park.
In 1956, at 17 years old, they recorded Bowling Green and Other Folk Songs From the Southern Mountains, a gentle, sparse album that became a Folk classic.
They stepped away from full-time music to go to college. They each married and took up ordinary careers. Ellen moved to St. Louis and Irene went to Boston. They sometimes played Folk festivals or small venues when one visited each other’s cities.
However, neither chased music careers like many of their peers did:
Though Irene and her husband, Tony Saletan, performed as a duo and formed the Boston Folk Trio with Jackie Landrón.
The sisters eventually divorced their husbands and moved in together again.
Bowling Green stayed in print and was reissued in the 1990s, which helped new listeners find them. Their version of Albert E. Brumley’s “I’ll Fly Away” was featured in the film O Brother, Where Art Thou?, though the soundtrack album had a version by Gillian Welch and Alison Krauss. Still, it renewed interest in the sisters and they began recording again.
They released their second album, Hop On Pretty Girls, in 2002 — 46 years after Bowling Green.
They continued to play festivals and small halls into the 2010s and are now retired and living together in Guatemala.
They never really stopped singing, but they lived full lives between albums.
Recommended Listening:
#9: 46 Years:
Harry Taussig:
Fate Is Only Once (1965…)
Fate Is Only Twice (2012)
Another folkie, Harry Taussig is an American fingerstyle guitarist — part guitar master, part curious scholar.
He first recorded a one-off, privately pressed LP called Fate Is Only Once in 1965. Amazingly, he recorded it in one 45-minute take.
It’s a spare, haunting set of instrumentals that later became a collectors’ favorite.
Taussig also recorded two songs for a compilation called Contemporary Guitar: Spring ’67 and wrote guitar and autoharp instruction books, but then he nearly disappeared from music.
He would play for friends at parties, but concentrated on dual careers.
He spent the next several decades as a physicist at Ford-Aeronutronics Corporation, earning masters and doctorate degrees in biochemistry, and studying photography at Orange Coast College. He taught photography and film at Orange Coast and his photos were displayed in prestigious museums around the world. He wasn’t gone from music so much as busy with other arts and sciences.
The comeback came in 2012 with Fate Is Only Twice — 47 years after the 1965 LP — followed by a string of new releases and projects that explored and expanded his sound.
His musical rebirth also brought public shows:
— including a much-noted SXSW appearance — and collaborations that introduced Taussig to a new crowd.
He’s proof that a late-career second act can be simple, sincere, and surprisingly rich.
Recommended Listening:
- “Baby Let Me Lay It On You/That’ll Never Happen No More” (1965)
- “In The Corner Of The Circle “(2012)
#8: 48 Years:
The Sonics:
Introducing The Sonics (1967…)
This Is The Sonics (2015)
The Sonics are a rowdy Garage Rock band from Tacoma, Washington, famous for Gerry Roslie’s screams and a loud, raw sound that, in retrospect, we can see helped inspire 1970s Punk. Later bands like Nirvana and The White Stripes also count them as influences.
Their early run produced three gritty albums: Here Are the Sonics (1965), Boom (1966) and Introducing the Sonics (1967).
The original group splintered in 1967.
Members left for school, other bands, or military service (sax player Rob Lind became a fighter pilot), and the band drifted apart. Roslie continued with new members as The Sonics and recorded an album in 1980, and reissues and new releases of old live recordings kept their music alive, but the original Sonics were mostly out of the picture for decades.
In 2015, the initial lineup regrouped for This Is The Sonics, their first full-length record of new material in roughly 48 years.
The album led to shows and renewed interest from a younger crowd.
They left a short, explosive legacy in the 1960s, lived through quiet decades of other lives and reissues, then returned older but still loud. Their raw energy survived a very long pause.
Recommended Listening:
#7: 48 Years:
Rainbow Ffolly:
Sallies Fforth (1968…)
Ffollow Up! (2016)
Rainbow Ffolly were a whimsical bit of late-60s British Psychedelic Pop.
They were four art-school friends who put out one charmingly twee LP, Sallies Fforth, on Parlophone in 1968 and then quietly folded. The record mixed bright melodies, odd sound effects and playful arrangements. Critics loved it, and BBC’s Saturday Club made it Record of the Week, but it didn’t sell well at the time. By the end of 1968, the band decided to take normal jobs and the members drifted apart.
Interest never fully died though, and the album earned cult status among collectors.
Reissues and music fans digging through used records bins in the 1990s and 2000s kept their name alive and gradually turned Sallies Fforth into a sought-after minor classic.
That renewed attention helped bring them back. In 2016, three of the four original members regrouped and released FFollow Up!, their first proper album of new material in 48 years. The new record nods to their old lighthearted sound and it’s a joyful return.
Recommended Listening:
#6: 48 Years:
Space Waltz
Space Waltz by Alastair Riddell (1975…)
Victory (2023)
Space Waltz started as a covers band called Stewart And The Belmonts based in Auckland, New Zealand.
In 1974, they used the name Space Waltz to enter a televised talent contest playing originals written by singer/guitarist Alastair Riddell. They didn’t win the competition but their single “Out on the Street” hit No. 1 in New Zealand. Their full-length debut, Space Waltz by Alastair Riddell, arrived in 1975 and mixed Glam Rock with Pop hooks. It’s pretty Bowie-esque.
The band didn’t last long and the members went on to other music careers.
Keyboardist Eddie Rayner joined Split Enz, while guitarist Greg Clark and drummer Brent Eccles helped form Citizen Band.
Eccles later played with Australian hard-rockers The Angels. Space Waltz lived on mostly through that one album, reissues, and a steady cult following in New Zealand.
During the pandemic, Riddell started writing new songs that seemed right for Space Waltz. At the same time, Rayner and original bassist Peter Cuddihy became available for touring and recording. Those two things, and continued interest in the band, led to the return of Space Waltz.
In 2023, they reunited and released Victory, a record that blends seven new songs with new versions of five songs from the first album.
I guess that counts, and it’s a gap of 48 years.
Recommended Listening:
That’s the first half of the top 10.
Next week, we’ll get to #5 through #1. Not only will we break the 50 year mark, there will be at least one name you recognize. Probably two.
No peeking.
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The 8 year wait for Boston’s third album seemed like an eternity at the time. Not so much, after seeing these massive gaps between releases. The only names I recognized here were the Kossoy Sisters from the O Brother soundtrack and The Sonics, who I became familiar with about a decade ago when I did some exploring of 60s garage rock.
I listened to a couple of tracks off of the Rainbow Ffolly debut. “Sun Sing” owes quite a bit to the Beatles but eventually forges its own identity. I liked it.
I’m checking out Space Waltz’s first album, and it’s decent, but the Bowie aping on the first song is a lot to get past. I like the second track enough to keep going. More Bowie aping on third track. I’m going to move on.
The Harry Taussig debut is an intriguing listen out of the gate. Some really cool solo acoustic guitar happening here.
Darn, I was going to make that same Boston reference, but it’s hard to beat rollerboogie!
Insomnia has few perks. This is one of them.
Agreed on all counts. The Sonics were the only one I’ve heard of before. I’ve loved them since my Punk band covered “Psycho” in the 80s.
Rainbow Ffolly is fun, though I’m not sure how often I’ll listen to them, and Space Waltz is, as you say, a little derivative.
I’m not a huge fan of Folk but the talents of The Kossoy Sisters and Harry Taussig are undeniable. There’s nothing like sibling harmonies, and Taussig’s technique is remarkable.
This is an incredible compilation. Thanks for sharing this, Bill!
Turns out Axl Rose is pretty prolific and the great wait for Chinese Democracy was just a blink of the eye.
Though at least these five all went off and did other things with their lives in the interim.
There was 11 years between the 2nd and 3rd Portishead albums. Its now 17 years and counting. They haven’t officially split up. They play occasional shows. Perhaps one day album four will arrive.
Looking forward to seeing whose up next week. Thanks Bill.
I know the Kossoy Sisters from a couple of different Spotify playlists called “Appalachian Murder Ballads.” I did not know any of their story, but the Bowling Green album definitely leaned into the murder ballad motif. They have several songs on this playlist if anyone is interested in hearing more in this genre.
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/33vtGmpnxlS1jKB3GdrOm3