A Skip Heller Discography
And to think this began as a record review...
It all started innocently enough. Skip Heller and his most recent project, Voodoo 5 is releasing Mojave After Dark and I was planning to review it. I have been covering Heller since the late 1990s and for this review, I wanted to include a discography of his work. So, I sent him an email asking if he ever had compiled one. His response was typical of the restless artist, “Unfortunately, no. I've always been terrible about that.” I suspect that is the only thing.
Fred Steven "Skip" Heller is a son of Philadelphia, PA transplanted to Los Angeles, where he has operated just under the radar of mass recognition for the past 30 years. For all of his lack of keeping a personal discography, he has been very consistent in re-evaluating his career as it progressed. Heller began his documentation quest with The Essential Skip Heller: Career Suicide 1994 to 2001 (Dionysus Records, 2002), followed by It's Like That: The Organ Trio Anthology 1998 to 2004 (Jewbilee, 2004). Heller's 2004 to 2008 period, where his organ combo bayoneted lesser expressions of Americana, remains uncollected while his most fruitful period is drawn together on That was Then: Collected Recordings 2008-2017 (Self Produced, 2017).
Documenting his output for 2017 to 2020, Heller releases Beyond These Hills: The Skip Heller Anthology 2017-20. This anthology picks up with Heller's stint with Birdie Jones and the Carnival of Soul and the release Let's Start Tonight (Carnival of Soul Music, 2018), reprising the title cut, "Together Too Long," "The Other Shoe," and "Who Needs Love." Heller once said he liked the anthologies because they enabled him to remove the "dead wood" in his catalog. It also offers him the opportunity to release previously unreleased recordings as well as reconsidering past projects. An example of the latter is his re-scoring "Let's Stay Home," originally released on Foolish Me (Weatherbird, 2012). In many ways this is the perfect Heller song. It captures a languid summer sprint where the protagonist is convincing a significant other that they need to slow down and just stay in. The music is like a salve, gentle and soft.
Since 2020, Heller has focused on more specialized fare. His Reckless Flight Ensemble’s ¡Pan-Americanos! The Songs of Raymond Scott & Lalo Guerrero (Panamerican Records, 2020) is a beutiful doumentation of two unkowns who, during their career, hid in plain sight. Then came Voodoo 5 and Exotica, which Heller describes as, “tropical ersatz, the non-native, pseudo-experience of insular Oceania, Southeast Asia, Hawaii, the Amazon basin, the Andes, the Caribbean and tribal Africa.” Exotica was a musical subform popular during the 1950s and 1960s. The subform was opular among those growing up during World War II. Si Waronker, Liberty Records co-founder and board chairman, invented the term Exotica after the Martin Denny album Exotica (Liberty Records, 1957).
This is not a perfect discography, but it is better than one can find in any one place. It also gives the artist something to continue building on. This discography reflects the fertile and restless mind of an autodidact polymath how deserves much more exposure.
Oh, and reviews of The Exotic Sounds of Skip Heller and Mojave After Dark are forth coming.
(Selected—this can’t be all of them) Discography
Skip Heller—Fallen Hand Of Love (Gladman, 1992)
Skip Heller—Moon Country (Gladman, 1993)
D. J. Bonebrake / Skip Heller Quartet—One More Midnight (Dionysus Records, 1996)
The Skip Heller Generation—Lonely Town (Ultramodern Records, 1997)
Skip Heller—St. Christopher’s Arms (Mouthpiece Records, 1998)
Skip Heller His Orchestra and Chorus—Couch, Los Angeles (Mouthpiece Records, 1999)
Skip Heller Quartet—Homegoing (Innova Recordings, 2002)
Skip Heller—Career Suicide: The Skip Heller Anthology 1994-2001 (Dionysus, 2002)
Skip Heller with Dose—The Battle in Seattle, 3.13.03 (Jewbilee, 2003)
Skip Heller—It’s Like That: The Organ Combo Anthology (1998-2004)
Skip Heller—Fake Book (Hyena Records, 2004)
Skip Heller—Glamour Profession: The Ongoing Skip Heller (Self Produced, 2005)
Skip Heller—Bear Flag (Dreambox Media, 2005)
Skip Heller Trio—Out Of Time: Live In Phlly (Dreambox Media, 2005)
Skip Heller—Til Things Are Brighter (Self Produced, 2005)
Skip Heller—Record Geekus Maximus: The Best of Skip Heller (Skyeways, 2006)
David Andersen & Skip Heller—Guitars In Stereo (Skyeways, 2006)
Skip Heller—Ortlieb's Jazzhaus, Phila., Sept 9, 2006 (Skyeways, 2006)
Skip Heller Trio—Liberal Dose: Live At The Flying Monkey, Huntsville Alabama (Skyeways, 2006)
Skip Heller Trio—Mean Things Happening In This Land (CD Baby, 2006)
Skip Heller—Along The Anchorline (Self Produced, 2007)
Skip Heller—Long Way Home (Ropadope, 2009)
Skip Heller—Lua-O-Milo (Dionysus, 2009)
Skip Heller—Foolish Me (Weatherbird, 2012)
Skip Heller—Fakebook II: That’s Entertainment (Weatherbird, 2012)
Skip Heller And Friends—Play The Music Of Floyd Tillman (Weatherbird, 2013)
Skip Heller & The Hollywood Blues Destroyers—Singles Drinking Doubles (Self Produced, 2015)
Skip Heller—San Fernando Valley Blues (2008-2012) (Self Produced, 2015)
Skip Heller & The Hollywood Blues Destroyers—Here In California (Weatherbird Records, 2015)
Skip Heller—For EP Fans Only (Weatherbird, 2016)
Skip Heller—That Was Then: Collected Recordings 2008-2017 (Self Produced, 2017)
Skip Heller & The Reckless Flight Ensemble—Radio Music of the Future (Reckless Night Music, 2018)
Skip Heller & Carnival of the Soul—Let’s Start Tonight! (Carnival of Soul Music, 2018)
Skip Heller—Beyond These Hills: The Skip Heller Anthology (2017-2020) (Self Produced, 2020)
Skip Heller & The Reckless Flight Ensemble—¡Pan-Americanos! The Songs of Raymond Scott & Lalo Guerrero (Panamerican Records, 2020)
Skip Heller & Voodoo 5—The Exotic Sounds of Skip Heller (Black Fex Records, 2024)
Skip Heller & Voodoo 5—Mojave After Dark (Black Fex Records, 2025)
Shades of Harpdog Brown.