George Harrison - Somewhere In England (1981)

George Harrison began recording 'Somewhere In England' in March 1980 and continued sporadically, finally delivering the album to Warner Bros. Records, the distributor of his Dark Horse record label, in late September that year. However, the executives at Warner Bros. rejected the album, feeling it was "too laid back" and not sufficiently commercial, and so Harrison agreed to rework the album, and to record new material. The original cover art, featuring his profile against a map of Great Britain, was also vetoed by Warner Bros., and so he also agreed to commission a new design for that as well. Returning to the project in November 1980, Harrison was joined in his FPSHOT studio in Henley-on-Thames by Ringo Starr, who arrived specifically to have Harrison produce some songs for him. They recorded two Harrison originals – 'Wrack My Brain' and 'All Those Years Ago' – plus a cover version of Paul Weston's 'You Belong to Me', for Starr's eighth studio album 'Can't Fight Lightning', which was later released as 'Stop And Smell The Roses'. The two other songs were completed, but 'All Those Years Ago' was left unfinished, with Starr later admitting that the key was too high for him to sing. On 8 December 1980, John Lennon was shot dead outside his apartment building, the Dakota, and after the shock and devastation of Lennon's murder, Harrison decided to utilise the unfinished recording of 'All Those Years Ago' as a tribute to him, and so he changed the lyrics of the song to reflect the Lennon tragedy. With Starr's pre-recorded drum track in place, Harrison invited Paul and Linda McCartney, and their Wings bandmate Denny Laine, to record backing vocals in early 1981. Along with 'All Those Years Ago', three more songs were added to the album: 'Blood From A Clone" (a criticism of the WB executives who had rejected his original album), 'Teardrops' and 'That Which I Have Lost'. To make room for the new songs, Harrison elected to drop four tracks from the original line-up: 'Tears Of The World', 'Sat Singing', 'Lay His Head' and 'Flying Hour'. 

A new cover was then shot in the Tate Gallery in London, and 'Somewhere In England' was resubmitted and accepted. 'All Those Years Ago' was released as the lead single in May 1981 to a strong response, reaching number 13 in the United Kingdom and number 2 in the United States. It was Harrison's biggest hit since 'Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth)' in 1973, and the sales of 'Somewhere In England' benefited from the song's popularity. The album was released on 1 June in the US and 5 June in the UK, and it peaked at number 11 in the US, and at number 13 in the UK, giving Harrison his highest-charting album there since 1973. The record's chart run was relatively brief in America, however, and it became Harrison's first album since the Beatles' break-up not to reach gold status there, while the second single, 'Teardrops', peaked at only number 102 on Billboard's singles listings. Reviewing the album favourably in 1981, People magazine called it one of Harrison's best and highlighted the "moving" tribute to Lennon. Fans tend to agree that it is some of his best work, but those who have heard the rejected version have commented that this was the better record, with generally superior songs, and with the whole thing having a better flow. This was emphasised by the fact that in 2006, a survey was conducted on the GeorgeHarrison.com message boards to find the artist's 50 most popular songs. The results featured only one track from 'Somewhere In England', which was 'Life Itself', at number 29, whereas three of the four rejected songs made an appearance, with 'Flying Hour' at number 14, 'Lay His Head' at number 27, and 'Sat Singing' at number 41. If you want to hear the original album that Harrison submitted to his label, then here it is, including the original mixes of 'Unconsciousness Rules' and 'Lay His Head', an alternative mix of 'Tears Of The World', and housed in an updated version of the original sleeve design.

Track listing

01 Hong Kong Blues
02 Writing's On The Wall
03 Flying Hour
04 Lay His Head
05 Unconsciousness Rules
06 Sat Singing
07 Life Itself
08 Tears Of The World
09 Baltimore Oriole
10 Save The World

Patsy Cline - Faded Love (1963)

Patsy Cline was born Virginia Patterson Hensley om 8 September 1932 in Winchester, Virginia, and her first professional performances began in 1948 at local radio station WINC when she was 15. In the early 1950s', she began appearing in a local band led by performer Bill Peer, and various local appearances led to featured performances on Connie B. Gay's 'Town And Country' television broadcasts. She signed her first recording contract with the 4 Star label in 1954, and had minor success with her earliest 4 Star singles, including 'A Church, A Courtroom, Then Goodbye' in 1955 and 'I've Loved And Lost Again' the following year. In 1957, she made her first national television appearance on 'Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts', and after performing 'Walkin' After Midnight', the single became her first major hit on both the country and pop charts. Cline's further singles with 4 Star Records were unsuccessful, although she continued performing and recording, and in 1958 she relocated to Nashville, Tennessee, to further her career. Working with new manager Randy Hughes, she became a member of the Grand Ole Opry, and then moved to Decca Records in 1960, where under the direction of producer Owen Bradley, her musical sound shifted, and she achieved consistent success. The 1961 single 'I Fall to Pieces' became her first to top the Billboard country chart, but she was then severely injured in an automobile accident, which caused her to spend a month in the hospital. After she recovered, her next single, 'Crazy', also became a major hit, and more successes followed, with 'She's Got You', 'When I Get Through With You', and 'So Wrong' all charting. She also toured and headlined shows with more frequency, and was on the cusp of major stardom when, during a flight from Kansas City back to Nashville, she was killed in the 1963 Camden PA-24 airplane crash, along with country musicians Cowboy Copas and Hawkshaw Hawkins, and the pilot Randy Hughes. 

Cline's next Decca album, 'Faded Love', was slated for release in late March 1963, but it was cancelled due to her untimely death on 5th March. The photo shoot for the cover had already been completed, and it was later used for 'The Patsy Cline Story', the well-known double album that became her first posthumous LP release on 10 June 1963. The selections recorded at her final sessions are generally thought to have taken up the bulk of the material for 'Faded Love', although interestingly, hardly any of the selections from these sessions were included on 'The Patsy Cline Story'. Instead they were released scattershot on later Decca & MCA compilations, and as posthumous 45 singles. There's speculation that the (then) half-penned Roger Miller tune 'Lock, Stock And Teardrops' was also to have been recorded upon Cline's return to Nashvhille for inclusion on the album, but obviously that never happened, and Miller later recorded the tune himself. Don Hecht, who was the co-writer of 'Walkin' After Midnight', had just bought a plane ticket to Nashville, at Cline's own request, to collaborate on original material together for another new album, possibly her follow-up to 'Faded Love'. During their final visit together, in a Las Vegas hotel room in December 1962, she expressed fondness for her 1957 recording of Hecht's 'Cry Not For Me', a song which actually made #59 on Cashbox. To this day the song has never seen inclusion on any of her chart compilations, likely because it sounds too "pop", and so she wanted to re-record it, alongside other Hecht compositions. There was also talk of her and her producer, Owen Bradley, having made plans to record an album of showtunes and jazz standards, and so 1963 would surely have been the most prolific and successful year for Cline yet, had she lived. As most of the sessions for the album had been completed before she left for Nashville, then we have a rough idea of what would have been included on the record, and with the addition of a few contemporary recordings, we can have a reasonable guess at what the album would have sounded like. 

Track listing

01 Love Letters In The Sand
02 That's How A Heartache Begins
03 Does Your Heart Beat For Me
04 Crazy Arms
05 Blue Moon Of Kentucky
06 Faded Love
07 Someday (You'll Want Me To Want You)
08 Your Kinda Love
09 Back In Baby's Arms
10 Always
11 Leavin' On Your Mind
12 Sweet Dreams (Of You)

13 You Took Him Off My Hands

Thanks to keoki82 from the Steve Hoffman Music Forums for the background, and for the suggested track listing for this album. 

Frank Zappa - Hunchentoot! (1972)

December 1971 is still remembered as the bleakest month in Zappa history. On 4 December a crazed fan fired a flare gun during the band's performance at the Montreux Casino in Geneva, Switzerland, causing the venue's heating system to explode, and starting a fire that left several fans injured, the band's equipment destroyed, and the venue itself burned to the ground. The fire inspired Deep Purple's classic 'Smoke On The Water'. Six days later, on 10 December, Zappa and his band were playing a concert at the Rainbow Theatre in London, when disgruntled fan Trevor Charles Howell pushed Zappa off the stage, inflicting multiple injuries and ultimately leaving him in a wheelchair. The "Rainbow Theatre Incident" took place during the band's encore, as Zappa (in a nod to his British surroundings) launched into a cover of the Beatles' 'I Want to Hold Your Hand'. That slightly sarcastic performance seemed to spark the rage of Howell, a 24-year-old manual worker, who raced to the stage, pushing Zappa into the venue's concrete orchestra pit, much to the horror of the band and audience. "The band thought I was dead," Zappa later recalled in his 1989 autobiography 'The Real Frank Zappa Book'. "My head was over on my shoulder, and my neck was bent like it was broken. I had a gash in my chin, a hole in the back of my head, a broken rib, and a fractured leg. One arm was paralyzed." As Howell attempted to flee, he was caught by enraged audience members, who passed him off to Zappa's roadies, who may or may not have roughed him up a little, and meanwhile, rumours of Zappa's allegedly fatal accident spread like wildfire throughout the crowd. The vicious attack forced the band to cancel the remaining dates of their tour, leaving Zappa wheelchair-bound for nearly a year. While recovering from his injuries in the summer of 1972, Zappa wrote a musical science-fiction script for a two-act Broadway stage production. He designed the costumes, wrote stage instructions, and composed the musical score for 'Hunchentoot!', which would have required a 42-member cast. 

The main character in 'Hunchentoot!' is Drakma (Queen of Cosmic Greed), an alien that wants to invade Earth, and other characters were the title character, who was a giant spider, Durk (a shifty Earthling con-man of the future), six Forceling players, a 22-piece orchestra and a 10-voice chorus, and a narrator. Renowned author William Burroughs, of 'The Naked Lunch' fame, expressed interest in playing the narrator of the show should it reach Broadway, and Taj Mahal read for the giant spider. However, Zappa had no one in mind for the role of the evil space girl. "I've looked and looked and looked," he complained with a touch of mischievous irony, "And it's such a difficult part to sing - besides which it's a comedy role - that it's hard to find somebody with a voice that can actually do the notes and still do the comedy stuff too. Actually, the only person who could probably do it with ease would be Barbra Streisand, but she's busy and she's having her hair done and so forth." 'Hunchentoot!' was never staged, although near the end of his life Zappa did try to find a director to film it, and he approached Terry Gilliam and the crew of Mystery Science Theater 3000, but nothing came of it. Some of the music later appeared on his 1979 album 'Sleep Dirt' in instrumental form, although the tracks did originally have vocals provided by Thana Harris during preparations for the stage show. 'Overture' was re-titled as 'Regyptian Strut' on 'Sleep Dirt', and while the track 'The Human Mind Is The Ultimate Power' has not yet surfaced, 'The Ocean Is The Ultimate Solution' from 'Sleep Dirt' has such a similar title that they must be connected, and so I've used that track for this reconstructed version of the soundtrack of the abandoned stage show. 'Think It Over' would later become 'The Grand Wazoo', and I've used an alternate recording of that, which together with the Harris-sung songs, and a live take of 'Cheepnis' from when Zappa returned to touring, is as close as we'll get to hearing this mysterious production.   

   
Track listing

01 Overture
02 Time Is Money
03 The Human Mind Is The Ultimate Power
04 Think It Over
05 Flambay
06 Spider Of Destiny
07 Think It Over (Reprise)
08 The Planet Of My Dreams
09 Cheepnis
10 Epilogue

King Sunny Ade & His African Beats - The Master Guitarist Vol. 7 (1972)

We're up to Volume 7 of the Master Guitarist series, and Sunny Ade has stuck with his new band The African Beats for this one. They will now remain with him for the majority of his career, and become synonymous with the guitarist, playing on all of his best known albums. There is just one more volume in this original series, before we're treated to a special Anniversary album the year following the release of Volume 8.  

Track listing

01  01 Afai Bawon Ja / Igba Tode / Won Sq Wipe A Kere / Asese Bere
02  02 Omo Wumi / Jarinatu Seriki / Memudu Alabi / Danfo

Neil Young - Ain't It The Truth (1988)

Following the recent post of Neil Young's possible rock album that could have been released between his Bluenotes phase and his return to form on 'Freedom', Mike S wondered if there could have been another record released around the same time, as Young was playing a lot of songs on the Bluenotes tour of 1987/1988 which he never recorded in the studio. One of these was the track 'Sixty To Zero', which did eventually appear on 'Freedom' in a rewritten form as 'Crime In The City (Sixty To Zero Part 1)', but even though that is a lengthy track, earlier versions of the song, when it was still called 'Sixty To Zero', were even longer, going on as long as 11 verses and 20 minutes. Young would play both acoustic and electric versions of the song in concert, though the final released version was heavily acoustic, and so the centrepiece of any album from 1988 would have to be a seventeen-minute, electric version of 'Sixty To Zero'. Also played on that tour were more of his old Squires tracks, including 'Ain't It The Truth', and 'High Heels', which I had to leave off 'Welcome To The Big Room' purely for reasons of space, as well as a call-back to his old Buffalo Springfield days with a rendition of 'On The Way Home'. 'Don't Take Your Love Away From Me' is a superb blues track, of the sort that Young doesn't do nearly enough of, and so in answer to Mike's question, yes there is enough good quality material for a follow-up to 'Welcome To The Big Room'. Here, therefore, is 'Ain't It The Truth', another "studio" rock album from 1988 in an alternate universe. 

Track listing

01 High Heels
02 Fool For Your Love
03 Don't Take Your Love Away From Me
04 Sixty To Zero
05 On The Way Home
06 Ain't It The Truth

The Pandoras - Come Inside (1987)

The Pandoras were formed when singer/guitarist Paula Pierce, a member of the mod/garage/pop Action Now, met singer/guitarist/bass player Deborah Mendoza (a.k.a. Menday), at Chaffey College in Rancho Cucamonga in 1982. Pierce brought in Gwynne Kahn (also known as Gwynne Kelly) on keyboards/rhythm guitar and Mendoza brought in drummer Casey Gomez. After a band meeting in December 1982, the Pandoras were born, though names such as the Keyholes, Hole, the wHolesome, and the Goodwylls were considered first. After recording the 'I'm Here I'm Gone' EP on Moxie Records in 1983, Mendoza left the group and was replaced by Bambi Conway, a childhood friend of Kahn. This line-up recorded the band's debut album in 1984, with 'It's About Time', being released on Greg Shaw's Bomp! Records. In 1984, the Pandoras split into two factions just as 'It's About Time' was being released, with Conway quitting the group, after which Pierce fired Kahn, and then when Gomez left these three now ex-members later reformed as the Original Pandoras' in 2025. Pierce decided to continue as the Pandoras, immediately recruiting three new members who embarked on tour for the 'It's About Time' release. The new line-up consisted of Melanie Vammen on keyboards, Julie Patchouli on bass, and Karen Blankfeld on drums, and momentum began picking up with the release of the 'Hot Generation' single on Bomp! Records in late 1984. Patchouli departed the Pandoras in the spring of 1985, and was replaced in July 1985 by bassist/backing vocalist Kim Shattuck, future founder of the Muffs. The band then signed to Rhino Records and began recording the basic tracks for the 'Stop Pretending' album during the winter of 1985 with producer Bill Inglot, and the record was released in 1986. The band continued to play live and record demos for what would be their next album, and in 1987 Elektra A&R man Steve Pross signed the band to Elektra Records. They group made numerous attempts to record an album to be titled 'Come Inside', but during this period, Blankfeld was forced from the band due to disagreements about band management, and was replaced with Kelly Dillard on drums. Dillard was only in the Pandoras for two months, but during that time she appeared in photoshoots intended for the Elektra cover of 'Come Inside', before she was replaced on drums in November 1987 by Sheri Kaplan. Before the release of the record, which had reached the test-pressing stage, Pross was let go by Elektra Records, and as a result, the label dropped both bands he had signed — Jetboy and The Pandoras — with their respective records being withdrawn from release. Many of the demo recordings the Pandoras made during the Elektra-era eventually surfaced on the 'Psychedelic Sluts' bootleg CD, but test pressings of 'Come Inside' did escape, and so we can now hear the finished album, although the artwork with Kelly Dillard has yet to surface.  

Track listing

01 Run Down Love Battery
02 Take The Lead
03 Just A Picture
04 Hard On Me
05 Again And Again
06 Hungry For You
07 What I Need & What I Don't
08 I Walk Away
09 Wear My Ring
10 Craving For Your Love

Raye - All In (2014)

Time for another collection of songs from that most prolific of years for Raye of 2014, during which she wrote and recorded around 50 or so songs, which her stupid record company refused to allow her to release on an album, and so they've remained hidden away for nearly a decade. Once again, this is a fine collection from the singer, and had it been released in 2014 then it would surely have enhanced the reputation of the burgeoning artist. 

Track listing

01 In The Morning
02 Maria
03 Up In Here (feat. MNEK)
04 All The Way Down
05 Love Sick
06 More_Less
07 We Don't Make Love Anymore
08 Flex
09 I Won't
10 All In
11 It's Cool
12 Keep Going
13 I Don't Know You
14 Scared

Jermaine Stewart - Set Me Free (1992)

William Jermaine Stewart was born in Columbus, Ohio, and in 1972 his family moved to Chicago, Illinois, where Stewart took his first steps toward a career in entertainment. Eventually, he gained recognition as a dancer on the locally produced television show 'Soul Train', and while working there he befriended two other 'Soul Train' dancers, fellow Chicagoan Jody Watley and Jeffrey Daniel. After the show relocated to Los Angeles, the three friends auditioned to become members of the group Shalamar, which was put together by 'Soul Train' creator Don Cornelius and booking agent Dick Griffey. Watley and Daniel were selected for the group as backup/semi-lead vocalists, but Stewart lost out to Gary Mumford during his audition for lead vocalist, although Stewart toured with the new group as a dancer for several years. While in London for a show, he met Mikey Craig of Culture Club, and realizing that Stewart was a talented singer, Craig helped him put together a demo tape, and Stewart was given the opportunity to sing background vocals on Culture Club's song 'Miss Me Blind'. As a result of the combination of a strong demo and his ties with Culture Club, he landed a recording contract with Arista Records. Stewart saw some success in 1984 with the single 'The Word Is Out' from the album of the same name, which peaked at number 90 on the US Billboard 200 albums chart, and number 30 on the US R&B Albums chart. 

Stewart's next album was 1986's 'Frantic Romantic', which included the Billboard Hot 100 top ten song 'We Don't Have to Take Our Clothes Off', which was a global hit, peaking within the top ten of the charts in Canada, the Republic of Ireland, and the United Kingdom. A second single, 'Jody', was released, the inspiration being his friend Jody Watley, and this reached the US R&B top twenty. Stewart's third album was entitled 'Say It Again', with production handled largely by André Cymone, and supported by international live dates with his band The Party, the title track became Stewart's second US Top 40 Billboard hit, and also reached the US R&B Top 10. Stewart's fourth and final album under contract with Arista Records was 'What Becomes A Legend Most', but the album sold poorly in America, while the lead single 'Tren de Amor' only just reached the top 100 in the UK. In 1991, Stewart teamed up with Chicago producer Jesse Saunders for his last recorded work, an album for Reprise Records called 'Set Me Free'. The title track was released as a single in the US, but sold poorly, and so the 1992 release date was cancelled, and the album remains unreleased. Stewart would later return to his R&B roots and begin work on a follow-up project, but sadly he would pass away from complications of liver cancer aged just 39, before the album was completed. Here is that 1992 album, so that we can hear Stewart's last recorded work before his untimely death in 1997. 

Track listing

01 Intro (The Riot)
02 Set Me Free
03 Conclusion
04 Happiness
05 Dippin'
06 Special
07 Never In A Million Years
08 Shell-Shock
09 Don't Sit Down
10 Friends Like You
11 Good Times
12 I Just Want To
13 Ask No Questions
14 I'm in XTC
15 XTC
16 Set Me Free (Reprise)
17 Money
18 Basement Boy
19 Lifestyle

Linda Ronstadt - Keeping Out Of Mischief (1982)

With her album 'Mad Love', which was released in 1980, Linda Ronstadt's career took a turn away from the country-rock style she'd succeeded with for more than a decade. The album reflected the advent in the later 1970's of punk rock and new wave music, and many veteran acts, including Fleetwood Mac, Carly Simon, Heart, Queen, Joni Mitchell and James Taylor, made sincere (and often successful) efforts to revitalize their sound by adopting aspects of the stripped-down, unpretentious D.I.Y. punk and new wave aesthetic. 'Mad Love' was Ronstadt's response to this trend, and the record-buying public proved to be more adventurous than anticipated, making Ronstadt's risk pay off richly. Following that success she performed on Broadway in 1980/81, receiving a Tony nomination for her performance in 'The Pirates of Penzance', and during production of the play in New York she expressed a desire to record an album of standards. In 1981, she went into the studio with producer Jerry Wexler and a small jazz combo for a planned album titled 'Keeping Out Of Mischief', but she was dissatisfied with the results and cancelled its release. Although she would later revisit the concept (and most of the songs she'd attempted with Wexler) for a trilogy of albums with Nelson Riddle, her next album, 1982's 'Get Closer', was recorded to satisfy her label obligations, with Ronstadt working again with producer Peter Asher and returning to the genres that had resulted in her commercial and critical success throughout the 1970's. If you're curious to hear what an album of jazz standards as sung by Linda Ronstadt would sound like, then here's your chance. 

Track listing

01 Falling In Love Again 
02 Crazy He Calls Me 
03 Keeping Out Of Mischief
04 Lover Man 
05 Never Will I Marry 
06 I Don't Stand A Ghost Of A Chance With You 
07 Someone To Watch Over Me 
08 I've Got A Crush On You 
09 What'll I Do 
10 Goodbye 

Palladium - The Way It's Not (2008)

Palladium was formed by four session players bored of session work with famous, but apparently deeply untalented musicians, although they are coy over who they mean. They've draped themselves in pseudonyms, but singer/bassist Peter Pepper did work with Amy Winehouse, and they played their first gig together under the moniker The Peppernotes, at a Caribbean Restaurant while dressed as Peter Pan in drag. Since then they changed their name to Palladium and played alongside Alphabeat, Mika, The Thrills and The Kooks. They played a ludicrous brand of full-throttle yacht rock which found itself a cult following in London, and their live gigs were hilarious, theatrical and stirring. With their odd names (Peter Pepper, Rocky Morris, Rufio Sandilands, The Fez), peculiar dress sense (golf visors and waistcoats) and a sound that incorporated Prince, Steely Dan, Todd Rundgren, Go West, Chaka Khan, and the Police, Palladium were always going to be a difficult sell. Music makes most sense to people when pigeonholed, but here was a band caught between rock and a pop place – too silly for earnest indie rockers to admit to enjoying them, too individualistic for the mainstream pop world to understand. Then again, as might be gathered from a band fronted by a guy in PVC trousers and hippy beads, fitting in wasn't really Palladium's thing. Their anthemic choruses and stadium-sized riffs might have mined the guilty pleasures trove, but their love of their influences was refreshingly genuine. 

They signed a deal with Virgin Records, and released their debut single, 'Happy Hour' in July 2007, and they recorded their debut album later that year, with everything on 'The Way It's Not' being pushed to the max, and performed with unabashed glee. The band members' previous jobs as young session musicians meant they could really play, and you can hear it on the album. 'Midnight Service' gallops along atop a riff as muscular as the one on Pink Floyd's 'Money', while 'Miracles' features tumbling drums and a fist-pumpingly optimistic chorus, and 'Get It Right' is based around one of the giddiest keyboard riffs you'll ever hear. Despite this ringing endorsement from the Guardian music critic, problems with Virgin led to the release date of the album in 2008 being cancelled, and it remains unreleased to this day. One criticism Palladium faced was that they were some kind of ironic in-joke, and it was hard to argue convincingly against this, because part of the appeal was that they were funny and entertaining to watch. They did pull ridiculous rock poses on stage, but that wasn't the main appeal, and the strength of the song-writing and the sheer joy with which they play blows those doubts away. If you like any of the bands named as influences, then it would certainly be worth your while giving this album a listen. 

Track listing

01 Happy Hour
02 High 5
03 White Lady
04 The Way It's Not
05 Somebody, Somewhere, Somehow (feat. Michael McDonald)
06 Midnight Service
07 Miracles
08 Greatest Dancer
09 Get It Right
10 Little Boy Blue
11 Swings And Roundabouts
12 Anna Marie

Edie Brickell And The Slip - Give 'Em The Slip (1996)

Edie Arlisa Brickell was born on 10 March 1966 in Oak Cliff, a neighbourhood of Dallas, Texas, where she was raised with her older sister, Laura Strain. She attended Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts[3] in Dallas, and later studied at Southern Methodist University, until she joined a band and decided to focus on song-writing. In 1985, Brickell was invited to sing one night with friends from her high school in a local folk rock group, New Bohemians, and she later joined the band as lead singer. After they were signed to a recording contract with Geffen Records, the label changed the group's name to Edie Brickell & New Bohemians, and their 1988 debut album, 'Shooting Rubberbands At The Stars', became a critical and commercial success, including the Top Ten single 'What I Am'. The band's follow-up album, 'Ghost Of A Dog' appeared in 1990, and was a deliberate effort to highlight the band's eclectic personality, and move away from the pop sound of their first record. The band sporadically played gigs after the 'Ghost Of A Dog' album, but it would be sixteen years before the next New Bohemians album, with 'Stranger Things' being released in 2006. Following the release of the second New Bohemians album, Geffen Records pressured Brickell to record a solo album in 1994, and with help from her new husband Paul Simon and producer Roy Halee, she delivered 'Picture Perfect Morning'. While critically praised, it did not achieve massive commercial heights, and so she later recorded material with bandmates under the name The Slip, but despite completing the 'Give 'Em The Slip' album, Geffen refused to release it and then terminated her contract. She did get picked up by Universal Records, who released her second solo album 'Volcano' in 2003, but it was Fantasy Records who got the New Bohemians back together to record their 'Stranger Things' album in 2006. The Slip album, however, remains unreleased, so if you are a fan then you can now hear this previously undocumented period in the career of Edie Brickell.  

Track listing

01 Girl In A Magazine
02 Invisible Man
03 Farmgirl
04 Cannonball
05 Shy
06 Boy Shot Down
07 1873 (Buffalo Diary)
08 8 Foot Tall Man
09 Shenandoah
10 Thank You
11 I Am The Woman You Are Looking For
12 She Never Saw Him
13 You Were A Friend To Me

The Chambers Brothers - O My God (1972)

The Chambers Brothers are an American psychedelic soul band, best known for their eleven-minute 1968 psychedelic soul hit 'Time Has Come Today'. The four bothers were originally from Carthage, Mississippi, and started playing together in 1954, after eldest brother George relocated to Los Angeles after his discharge from the Army. His brothers soon joined him, and they played gospel and folk music throughout the Southern California region, but remained little known until 1965 when they began performing in New York City. By then the group consisted of George on washtub bass, Lester on harmonica, and Willie and Joe on guitar, and after being spotted by Barbara Dane, they secured a spot on the bill of the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. Their first single was 'Call Me', which was written by Joe and Willie, and which came out on the Vault label in the US and on Vocalion in the UK. Shortly after appearing at Newport, the group released its debut album, 'People Get Ready', in 1966, and it had a positive review in the 23 April issue of Cash Box. for the recording sessions, the group was too busy playing different instruments to do hand claps, so they had to get a drummer, and after trying out a few they met Brian Keenan and offered him the job. In 1966, the group recorded 'The Time Has Come Today', which was a wild hard driving funky outing, but it was rejected by Columbia, and so the group recorded 'All Strung Out Over You', which was composed by Rudy Clark, and which was released in December 1966. The band scored its only major hit in late 1967 with 'Time Has Come Today', an 11-minute opus written by Joe and Willie Chambers, and highlighted by echoing vocal effects and Keenan's drumming, which gave the song a psychedelic feel. The song was edited for release as a single and spent five consecutive weeks at No. 11 on the Billboard Hot 100. 

Their 'A New Time - A New Day' album was released in October 1968, and was well-received, including positive reviews from Record World and Beat Instrumental. Their next long-player also appeared in 1968, with 'Groovin' Time' coming out on Folkways Records, but for 1969's 'Love, Peace and Happiness' they were back with Columbia, who released this half studio and half live double album, containing what was described at the time as "sizzling music". By January 1971, the group's single 'Funky' from their forthcoming 'New Generation' album had been released, debuting at no. 58 in the Record World R&B Singles Chart. Following the release of the album, the brothers found they were having issues with producers who weren't willing to listen to their ideas, and so they started producing their own material. In 1972, the band's last album for Columbia was to be a gospel album, entitled 'O My God', possibly inspired by the recording of the song 'Did You Stop To Pray This Morning' on the flip of their 1971 Christmas single. Despite '(By The Hair On) My Chinny Chin Chin'/'Heaven' being released as a single, and one of the other tracks appearing on the 'Music People' compilation  in 1972, the album remained unreleased until it sneaked out as a digital-only release in 2022. However, a missed opportunity for Sony was that they didn't include the track that started the whole thing, which was that Christmas b-side, so for two reasons, firstly that people could easily have missed this online only release, and secondly because 'Did You Stop To Pray This Morning' really needs to be on the album, I'm posting it here. 

Track listing

01 Mean Old World
02 What Side Of The Fence
03 Everybody Wants To Go To Heaven
04 (By The Hair On My) Chinny Chin Chin
05 Man Did It

06 Did You Stop To Pray This Morning
07 That Old Doggone Devil
08 This Little Piece Of Land
09 Celebration Of Life
10 Any Old Time

The final cover art upgrades

I've now gone through the whole site and picked out the covers that I felt needed a bit of an upgrade, and some of them weren't actually that bad, and so with a bit of colour adjustment and some tweaks to the brightness and contrast they've come out better than before without needing to run them through the online programmes. So here are those final improvements, and in some cases you might see much difference, but they just look a bit fresher.  

If you see any on the site that I've missed, and you think need looking at then let me know.